but what could he
do? Nothing, but sit and cry.

So, one day, Kabo came and asked Pivi to sail in his canoe to a place
where he knew of a great big shell-fish, enough to feed on for a week.
Pivi went, and deep in the clear water they saw a monstrous
shell-fish, like an oyster, as big as a rock, with the shell wide
open.

'We shall catch it, and dry it, and kipper it,' said Pivi, 'and give a
dinner to all our friends!'

[Illustration: PIVI DIVES FOR THE SHELL-FISH]

'I shall dive for it, and break it off the rock,' said Kabo, 'and
then you must help me to drag it up into the canoe.'

There the shell-fish lay and gaped, but Kabo, though he dived in, kept
well out of the way of the beast.

Up he came, puffing and blowing: 'Oh, Pivi,' he cried, 'I cannot move
it. Jump in and try yourself!'

Pivi dived, with his spear, and the shell-fish opened its shell wider
yet, and sucked, and Pivi disappeared into its mouth, and the shell
shut up with a snap!

Kabo laughed like a fiend, and then went home.

'Where is Pivi?' asked the two pretty girls. Kabo pretended to cry,
and told how Pivi had been swallowed.

'But dry your tears, my darlings,' said Kabo, 'I will be your husband,
and my wives shall be your slaves. Everything is for the best, in the
best of all possible worlds.'

'No, no!' cried the girls, 'we love Pivi. We do not love anyone else.
We shall stay at home, and weep for Pivi!'

'Wretched idiots!' cried Kabo; 'Pivi was a scoundrel who broke my leg,
and knocked me into the river.'

Then a little cough was heard at the door, and Kabo trembled, for he
knew it was the cough of Pivi!

'Ah, dear Pivi!' cried Kabo, rushing to the door. 'What joy! I was
trying to console your dear wives.'

Pivi said not one word. He waved his hand, and five and twenty of his
friends came trooping down the hill. They cut up Kabo into little
pieces. Pivi turned round, and there was the good woman of the river.

'Pivi,' she said, 'how did you get out of the living tomb into which
Kabo sent you?'

'I had my spear with me,' said Pivi. 'It was quite dry inside the
shell, and I worked away at the fish with my spear, till he saw reason
to open his shell, and out I came.' Then the good woman laughed; and
Pivi and his two wives lived happy ever afterwards.

[_Moncelon. Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie._ Series iii.
vol. ix., pp. 613-365.]

_THE ELF MAIDEN_

Once upon a time two young men living in a small village