The Rat Boy

: MORAL TALES.
: Aino Folktales

In a certain village there lived a very rich couple; but they were

childless. They were very anxious for a child. But one day, as the wife

went to the mountains to fetch wood, she found a little boy crying

beside a tree. Rejoiced at this, she took him down with her to the

village. Thenceforth they kept the boy with them. It was a place where

there was plenty of deer and also of fish; it was a place provided with

all th things which people like to eat. But though they hunted the

deer, they could not catch them; though they angled for the fish, they

could not catch them. They were very hungry. Hearing that great

quantities both of fish and of deer were killed in the village next to

theirs, towards the mountains, the wife went off to buy food there,

taking the child with her. She went to the village next to theirs,

towards the mountains. She went to the house of the chief.



The woman looked and saw fish hanging on poles, and flesh hanging on

poles. With tears she longed for some. She went in, she went in to the

chief's house. Then she stayed there. She was feasted on the best bits

of the fish and on the best bits of the flesh. After that, as she lay

down with her little boy, he rose quietly in the middle of the night.

Then there was the sound of a rat nibbling at the fish and flesh on the

poles. The woman thought it very strange. So at dawn the boy came

quietly back, lay down by the woman's side, and slept there till the day

was bright. The people of the house rose, and the chief went out and

mumbled thus to himself: "Never were there such rats as this. There have

been rats nibbling my good fish and my good flesh."



So the woman bought a quantity of fish and flesh and went off with it.

She wanted the little boy to walk in front of her; but he disliked to do

so. He would only walk after her. Then there was the sound of a rat

nibbling at her load. When she looked back, the little boy was grinning.

So they went on; they went home. Then she put both the fish and the

flesh into the store-house. Then she whispered to her husband. Then her

husband went into the next room, and made a trap. Then the trap was set

in the store-house. Then they went to bed. The little boy lay between

the woman and her husband; but after awhile he quietly rose and went

out. He stayed away, without coming back. Daylight came. On the man of

the house going into the store-house, there was a large rat in the trap.

So he brought it down, beat it to death, and swept it on to the

dust-heap. That night he had a dream. A person of divine aspect spoke to

him thus; "You were childless, and wanting to have a child. The most

wicked of the rats, seeing this, took the shape of a little boy, and

dwelt in your house. For this reason, your village has been polluted.

But as you have now killed the rat, all will now be right. I am sorry

for you, so you shall have a child." Thus did he dream that the god

spoke to him. As it was true, they got a child, though they had been

childless.



For this reason, whether it be on the shore or in the mountains or

anywhere else that one finds either a child or a puppy, one should not

let it dwell in one's house without knowing its origin.--(Translated

literally. Told by Penri, 20th July 1886.)