Part 47

“Very well,” said the ogre, “you can go home.” And after filling the pot she returned, and told her husband of the dreadful danger she had been in.

Now, though his mother did not know it, the baby was a magician and he had heard all that his mother had promised the ogre; and he laughed to himself as he planned how to outwit her.

The next morning she shaved his head on both sides, and hung the white beads round his neck, and said to him: “I am going to the fields to work, but you must stay at home. Be sure you do not go outside, or some wild beast may eat you.”

“Very well,” answered he.

As soon as his mother was out of sight, the baby took out some magic bones, and placed them in a row before him. “You are my father,” he told one bone, “and you are my mother. You are the biggest,” he said to the third, “so you shall be the ogre who wants to eat me; and you,” to another, “are very little, therefore you shall be me. Now, then, tell me what I am to do.”

“Collect all the babies in the village the same size as yourself,” answered the bones; “shave the sides of their heads, and hang white beads round their necks, and tell them that when anybody calls ‘Motikatika,’ they are to answer to it. And be quick for you have no time to lose.”

Motikatika went out directly, and brought back quite a crowd of babies, and shaved their heads and hung white beads round their little black necks, and just as he had finished, the ground began to shake, and the huge ogre came striding along, crying: “Motikatika! Motikatika!”

“Here we are! here we are!” answered the babies, all running to meet him.

“It is Motikatika I want,” said the ogre.

“We are all Motikatika,” they replied. And the ogre sat down in bewilderment, for he dared not eat the children of people who had done him no wrong, or a heavy punishment would befall him. The children waited for a little, wondering, and then they went away.

The ogre remained where he was, till the evening, when the woman returned from the fields.

“I have not seen Motikatika,” said he.

“But why did you not call him by his name, as I told you?” she asked.

“I did, but all the babies in the village seemed to be named Motikatika,” answered the ogre; “you cannot think the number who came running to me.”

The woman did not know what to make of it, so, to keep him in a good temper, she entered the hut and prepared a bowl of maize, which she brought him.

“I do not want maize, I want the baby,” grumbled he “and I will have him.”

“Have patience,” answered she; “I will call him, and you can eat him at once.” And she went into the hut and cried, “Motikatika!”

“I am coming, mother,” replied he; but first he took out his bones, and, crouching down on the ground behind the hut, asked them how he should escape the ogre.

“Change yourself into a mouse,” said the bones; and so he did, and the ogre grew tired of waiting, and told the woman she must invent some other plan.

“To-morrow I will send him into the field to pick some beans for me, and you will find him there, and can eat him.”

“Very well,” replied the ogre, “and this time I will take care to have him,” and he went back to his lake.

Next morning Motikatika was sent out with a basket, and told to pick some beans for dinner. On the way to the field he took out his bones and asked them what he was to do to escape from the ogre. “Change yourself into a bird and snap off the beans,” said the bones. And the ogre chased away the bird, not knowing that it was Motikatika.

The ogre went back to the hut and told the woman that she had deceived him again, and that he would not be put off any longer.

“Return here this evening,” answered she, “and you will find him in bed under this white coverlet. Then you can carry him away, and eat him at once.”

But the boy heard, and consulted his bones, which said: “Take the red coverlet from your father’s bed, and put yours on his,” and so he did. And when the ogre came, he seized Motikatika’s father and carried him outside the hut and ate him. When his wife found out the mistake, she cried bitterly; but Motikatika said: “It is only just that he should be eaten, and not I; for it was he, and not I, who sent you to fetch the water.”

Niels And The Giants

On one of the great moors over in Jutland, where trees won’t grow because the soil is so sandy and the wind so strong, there once lived a man and his wife, who had a little house and some sheep, and two sons who helped them to herd them. The elder of the two was called Rasmus, and the younger Niels. Rasmus was quite content to look after sheep, as his father had done before him, but Niels had a fancy to be a hunter, and was not happy till he got hold of a gun and learned to shoot. It was only an old muzzle-loading flint-lock after all, but Niels thought it a great prize, and went about shooting at everything he could see. So much did he practice that in the long run he became a wonderful shot, and was heard of even where he had never been seen. Some people said there was very little in him beyond this, but that was an idea they found reason to change in the course of time.

The parents of Rasmus and Niels were good Catholics, and when they were getting old the mother took it into her head that she would like to go to Rome and see the Pope. The others didn’t see much use in this, but she had her way in the end: they sold all the sheep, shut up the house, and set out for Rome on foot. Niels took his gun with him.