/> very beautiful indeed.



Now she began to talk about journeyings, and how greatly she desired

to see other people. And so they went off, and came to a place and

settled down there.



One of the men there had taken a little hare to wife. And now these

two men thought it would be a pleasant thing to change wives. And so

they did.



But the man who had borrowed the little vixen wife began to feel

scorn of her after he had lived with her a little while. She had a

foxy smell, and did not taste nice.



But when the little vixen noticed this she was very angry, for it was

her great desire to be well thought of by the men. So she knocked

out the lamp with her tail, dashed out of the house, and fled away

far up into the hills.



Up in the hills she met a worm, and stayed with him.



But her husband, who was very fond of her, went out in search of

her. And at last, after a long time, he found her living with the worm,

who had taken human form.



But now it was revealed that this worm was the man's old enemy. For

he had once, long before, burned a worm, and it was the soul of that

worm which had now taken human form. He could even see the marks of

burning in its face.



Now the worm challenged the man to pull arms, and they wrestled. But

the man found the worm very easy to master, and soon he won. After that

he went out, no longer caring for his wife at all. And he wandered far,

and came to the shore-dwellers. They had their houses on the shore,

just by high-water mark.



Their houses were quite small, and the people themselves were dwarfs,

who called the eider duck walrus. But they looked just like men,

and were not in the least dangerous. We never see such folk nowadays,

but our forefathers have told us about them, for they knew them.



And now when the man saw their house, which was roofed with stones,

he went inside. But first he had to make himself quite small, though

this of course was an easy matter for him, great wizard as he was.



As soon as he came in, they brought out meat to set before him. There

was the whole fore-flipper of a mighty walrus. That is to say, it was

really nothing more than the wing of an eider duck. And they fell to

upon this and ate. But they did not eat it all up.



After he had stayed with these people some time he went back to his

house. And I have no more to tell of him.