SECTION XII

Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas   

p. 267

UNNATURAL BROTHERS

THE story of the wicked rich brother who oppresses the poor one is not unknown in Esthonia. There is a hideous story of such a pair, relating how when the poor brother died his widow begged grave-clothing from the wife of the rich one. When the rich brother returned, be scolded his wife, and rushed off, cursing and swearing, to strip the body of his dead brother, even in his coffin, crying, “That’s mine! that’s mine!” But when be would have laid the naked corpse back in the coffin, it clung round his neck, and be was compelled to carry it about with him for the rest of his life.