Don't Throw Useful Things Away

: MORAL TALES.
: Aino Folktales

A certain man had a little boy. A divine little boy and a divine little

girl used to come and play with him every day. But the little boy alone

could see them. His parents could not see them, but believed their child

to be alone.



Now one day he fell ill, and during his illness his two playmates did

not come to see him. Only at the very last did they come, when he seemed

to be on the point of death. Then t ey came, and the little girl said:

"We know the cause of your illness. Your grandfather possessed a

beautiful axe. I myself am a small tray which he fashioned with that

axe, and the little boy who comes with me is a pestle which was also

fashioned with it. So the axe was our chieftain, and we are its

children. But your father has been bad. He has thrown away the axe,

which is now rusting under the floor. For this are you ill, in order to

punish your father, because our chieftain the axe is angry. Therefore,

as we were your playmates, we have come to warn you that, if you wish to

live, you must tell your father to search for the axe, to polish it, to

make a new handle for it, and to set up the divine symbols in its

honour. Then may you be cured, and the axe too will pay you a visit in

human shape."



So the boy told his father of this. The father thought that his son had

been instructed in a dream. He searched under the floor of the house,

and found the axe, and polished it, and made a new handle for it, and

set up the divine symbols in its honour. Then his son was immediately

healed.



After that, the axe (who appeared as a very handsome man), the tray, and

the pestle all came, and became the little boy's brothers and sisters.

The axe, being a god, knew all that went on and the causes of

everything; and it and the tray and the pestle used always to tell the

boy everything. Thus, if any one was sick, he knew why the sickness had

come, and how it should be treated. He was looked upon as a great

soothsayer and wizard, who could turn death into life. This was because

other people only saw him. They did not see his divine informants, the

axe, the tray, and the pestle.



For this reason never throw away anything that has belonged to your

ancestors. You will be punished by the gods if you do so.



[In a variant of this tale, the death of child after child borne by a

certain woman was owing to the fact that the doll with which she herself

had played as a child (a piece of wood shaped like a bird) had been

thrown away in the grass, and had thus had its anger aroused. A

conversation on the subject between the spoon, the cup, and the iron

chain whereby the kettle is hung over the fire from a hook in the

ceiling, is overheard by a half-burnt piece of firewood, who warns the

woman's husband in a dream. The doll is then looked for; and, when

found, the divine symbols are set up in its honour. Thereupon the woman

bears again. This time the child survives, to the delight of both its

parents.]--(Written down from memory. Told by Ishanashte, 2nd December,

1886.)