(This is Indian _poker_.--T. B.)
So the evening passed, and nothing was said of marriage; and at last
the guests went away, and for some time the young man made a jest of
his having gone courting. One day he was far and alone in the woods,
when he met an old woman of very strange appearance. She was wrinkled
and bent with extreme age, and her head was braided up with a very
great number of _sakalobeek_, or hair-strings, which hung down to
her heels. After greeting him civilly, she asked him if he was really
anxious to marry one of the beauties whom he had visited. "O
_Nugumee_" (grandmother), he replied, "I do not care about it."
"Only if you did," she replied, "I can give you the one you want, if
you will only say so."
Now the young man saw that the old woman was in earnest, and he replied
that in fact he would be very glad to get one of the girls, but that no
girl worth having would look at him. Then the old dame, taking one of
her hair-strings, said, "Roll this up, and carry it in your pouch for a
while; [Footnote: One of the infallible ancient methods to make
anything into a fetich, or amulet, is to carry it a long time about the
person. Familiarity, as Heine observes (_Reisebilder_), gives a
silent life, or apparent sympathy, to even old clothes. Thus domestic
well-known objects become fairies, and thus they talk to children.
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