11. Story About Yaghishna

11. STORY ABOUT YAGHISHNA.

There was a young girl. She walked about, and saw two boys coming. She shouted to them, "Who are you?"--"We are your brothers."--"And where are you going?"--"We are going to your house." She sat down on the ground and sank through it. The brothers came to the house, and cried bitterly. Then they went down the road the girl had descended before them. They came to the girl, and cried again, "Why should the earth refuse to carry you? You are probably too clumsy to walk upon it." She felt very angry. Therefore, she jumped up to the earth's surface, and struck both boys on the face. Then she went home. Not a single piece of wood was left there. The two boys, while crying, had burnt up all the fuel, to dry their tears before the fire. She left the house and went away. After a while she met Yaghishna. The she-monster said, "I want to take you for my daughter. Would you like to be my daughter?" "I should like it on one condition."--"What is that? Speak!"--"On condition that you die very shortly." Yaghishna was very angry, and struck her face. "If I die shortly, I want no daughters." She first slapped her right cheek, and then the left,--and flew away snorting with anger. The girl fell

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down and was scattered about as gravel. After a while Yaghishna came back. She looked for the girl, but she was not to be found. Only some gravel lay scattered all around. "Is it you?" But the gravel was silent. "Who made you fall down?" The gravel was dumb. That is all.

Told by Annie Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir girl, aged fourteen, in the village of Pokhotsk, the Kolyma country, summer of 1895.