whispering inside.

"Now you go out."

And out came a fly.

"You may have me," it said.

"Thanks," said the wifeless man, "but I do not care for you at all. You
lay your eggs about anyhow, and your eyes are quite abominably big."

At this the fly laughed, and went inside with the same message
as before.

Again there was a whispering inside.

"Take me," said the cranefly.

"No, your legs are too long," said the wifeless man. And the cranefly
went in again, laughing.

Then out came a centipede.

"Take me."

"I will not take you," said the wifeless man, "for you have far too
many legs. Your body clings to the ground with all those legs, and
your eyes are simply nasty."

And the centipede laughed a cackling laugh and went in again.

They whispered together again in there, and out came a gnat.

"Take me," said the gnat.

"No thanks, you bite," said the wifeless man. And the gnat went in
again, laughing.

And then at last his wife bade him come in to her, since he would
have none of the others, and at last he just managed to squeeze his
body in through the crack, and then he took her to wife again.

"Comb my hair," said the wifeless man, now very happy once more.

And his wife began, and said words above him thus:

"Do not wake until the fulmar begins to cry: sleep until we hear a
sound of young birds."

And he fell asleep.

And when at last he awoke, he was all alone. The earth was blue with
summer, and the fulmar cried noisily on the bird cliff. And it had
been winter when he crawled in through the crack.

When he came down to his kayak, the skin was rotted through with age.

And then I suppose he reached home as usual, and now sits scratching
himself at ease.

THE VERY OBSTINATE MAN

There was once an Obstinate Man--no one in the world could be as
obstinate as he. And no one dared come near him, so obstinate was he,
and he would always have his own way in everything.

Once it came about that his wife was in mourning. Her little child
had died, and therefore she was obliged to remain idle at home;
this is the custom of the ignorant, and this we also had to do when
we were as ignorant as they.

And while she sat thus idle and in mourning, her husband, that
Obstinate One, came in one day and said:

"You must sew the skin of my kayak."

"You know that I am not permitted to touch any kind of work," said
his wife.

"You must sew the skin of my kayak," he said again. "Bring