THE VISITING ANIMALS

106. THE VISITING ANIMALS.—An old man, while staying in a firth to fish for salmon, lost his son, who died at some distance up the country. In his grief he could not persuade himself to leave his son's grave, and he therefore put up his winter-house on the spot. In this lonely abode they were once surprised by seeing three men entering the house, one of them tall and long-nosed, the other smaller and with a flat nose, and the last of very small stature and white as snow. After passing the evening talking with the host, the short-nosed man, before starting, asked for a piece of sole-leather, and the white one wanted a piece of walrus-tooth. The old man saw the departing visitors out, but when they left him, stood dumfoundered at seeing them bounding off in the shape of a reindeer, a fox, and a hare. It is said that the hare had need of something for a new tooth.