Mighty Mikko: A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. Fillmore Parker
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– wait a minute!” he cried.
The brogues stopped walking and Wetehinen said:
“Well, do you promise to give her to me?”
“No!” the farmer began. “She’s my last daughter and – ”
Before he could say more, the brogues walked on and the water rose to his nose. In desperation he threw up his hands and shouted:
“I promise! I promise!”
So when he got home that day he said to his youngest daughter whose name was Lisa:
“Lisa, my dear, I forgot my brogues at the lake. Like a good girl won’t you run and get them for me?”
So Lisa went to the lake and Wetehinen of course caught her and carried her down to his house as he had her two sisters.
Then the same old story was repeated. Wetehinen made Lisa mistress of the house and gave her keys to all the doors and closets with the same prohibition against opening the door of the forbidden room.
“If I am mistress of the house,” Lisa said to herself, “why should I not unlock every door?”
She waited until one day when Wetehinen was away from home, then went boldly to the forbidden room, fitted the key in the lock, and flung open the door.
There lay her two poor sisters with their heads cut off. There in the pool of blood sparkled the lovely ring, but Lisa paid no heed to it.
“Wicked old Wetehinen!” Lisa cried. “I suppose he thinks that ring will tempt me but nothing will tempt me to touch that awful blood!”
Then she rummaged about, opening boxes and chests, and turning things over. In a dark corner she found two pitchers, one marked Water of Life, the other Water of Death.
“Ha! This is what I want!” she cried, taking the pitcher of the Water of Life.
She set the severed heads of her sisters in place and then with the magic water brought them back to life. She used up all the Water of Life, so she filled the pitcher marked Water of Life with the water from the other pitcher, the Water of Death. She hid her sisters each in a big wooden chest, she shut and locked the door of the forbidden room, and Wetehinen when he came home found her working at her spinning wheel as though nothing unusual had happened.
After supper Wetehinen said:
“Now scratch my head and make me drowsy for bed.”
So Lisa scratched his wicked old head and she did it so well that he grunted with satisfaction.
“Uh! Uh!” he said. “That’s good! Now just behind my right ear! That’s it! That’s it! You’re a good girl, you are! You’re not like some of them who do what they’re told not to do! Now behind the other ear! Oh, that’s fine! Yes, you’re a good girl and if there’s anything you want me to do just tell me what it is.”
“I want to send a chest of things to my poor old father,” Lisa said. “Just a lot of little nothings – odds and ends that I’ve picked up about the house. I’d be ashamed to have you open the chest and see them. I do wish you’d carry the chest ashore to-morrow and leave it where my father will find it.”
“All right, I will,” Wetehinen promised.
He was true to his word. The next morning he hoisted one of the chests on his shoulder, the one that had in it the eldest sister, he trudged off with it, and tossed it up on shore at a place where he was sure the farmer would find it.
Lisa then wheedled him into carrying up the second chest that had in it the second sister. This time Wetehinen wasn’t so good-natured.
“I don’t know what she can always be sending her father!” he grumbled. “If she sends another chest I’ll have to look inside and see.”
Now Lisa, when the second sister was safely delivered, began to plan her own escape. She pulled out another empty chest and then one evening after she had succeeded in making old Wetehinen comfortable and drowsy she begged him to carry this also to her father. He grumbled and protested but finally promised.
“And you won’t look inside, will you? Promise me you won’t!” Lisa begged.
Wetehinen said he wouldn’t, but he intended to just the same.
Well, the next morning as soon as Wetehinen went out, Lisa took the churn and dressed it up in some of her own clothes. She carried it to the top of the house and perched it on the ridge of the roof before a spinning wheel. Then she herself crept inside the third chest and waited.
When Wetehinen came home he looked up and saw what he thought was Lisa spinning on the roof.
“Hullo!” he shouted. “What are you doing up there?”
Lisa, in the chest, answered in a voice that sounded as if it came from the roof:
“I’m spinning. And you, Wetehinen, my dear, don’t forget the chest that you promised to carry to my poor old father. It’s standing in the kitchen.”
Wetehinen grumbled but because of his promise he hoisted the chest on his shoulder and started off. When he had gone a little way he thought to put it down and take a peep inside. Instantly Lisa’s voice, sounding as if it came from the roof, cried out:
“No! No! You promised not to look inside!”
“I’m not looking inside!” Wetehinen called back. “I’m only resting a minute!”
Then he thought to himself:
“I suppose she’s sitting up there so she can watch me!”
When he had gone some distance farther, he thought again to set down the chest and open the lid but instantly Lisa’s voice, as from a long way off, called out:
“No! No! You promised not to look inside!”
“Who’s looking inside?” he called back, pretending again he was only resting.
Every time he thought it would be safe to put down the chest and open the lid, Lisa’s voice cried out:
“No! No! You promised not to!”
“Mercy on us!” old Wetehinen fumed to himself, “who would have thought she could see so far!”
On the shore of the lake when he threw down the chest in disgust he tried one last time to raise the lid. Instantly Lisa’s voice cried out:
“No! No! You promised not to!”
“I’m not looking inside!” Wetehinen roared, and in a fury he left the chest and started back into the water.
All the way home he grumbled and growled:
“A nice way to treat a man, always making him carry chests! I won’t carry another one no matter how much she begs me!”
When he came near home he saw the spinning wheel still on the roof and the figure still seated before it.
“Why haven’t you got my dinner ready?” he called out angrily.
The figure at the spinning wheel made no answer.
“What’s the matter with you?” Wetehinen cried. “Why are you sitting there like a wooden image instead of cooking my dinner?”
Still the figure made no answer and in a rage Wetehinen began climbing up the roof. He reached out blindly and clutched at Lisa’s skirt and jerked it so hard that the churn came clattering down on his head. It knocked him off the roof and he fell all the way to the ground and cracked his wicked old head wide open.
“Ouch! Ouch!” he roared in pain. “Just wait till I get hold of that Lisa!”
He crawled to the forbidden room and poured over himself the water that was in the pitcher marked Water of Life. But it wasn’t the Water of Life at all, it was the Water of Death, and so it didn’t help his wicked old cracked head at all. In fact it just made it worse and worse and worse.
Lisa and her sisters were never