And they drove on again and came to other people; these had all one leg shorter than the other, and had been so from birth. They lay on the ground all day playing ajangat.[1] And they had a fine ajangat made of copper.
Atungait stayed there some time, and when the time came for him to set out once more, he stole their plaything and took it away with him, having first destroyed all their sledges.
But the lame ones, being unable to pursue, dealt magically with some rocky ridges, which then rushed over the ice towards the travellers.
Atungait heard something like the rushing of a river, and turning round, perceived those rocks rolling towards him.
"Have you a piece of sole-leather?" he asked his wife. And she had such a piece.
She tied it to a string and let it drag behind the sledge. When the stones reached it, they stopped suddenly, and sank down through the ice. And the two drove on, hearing the cries of the lame ones behind them:
"Bring back our plaything, and give us our copper thing again."
But now Atungait began to long for his home, and not knowing in what part of the land they were, he told the woman with him to wait, while he himself flew off through the air. For he was a great wizard.
He soon found his house, and looked in through the window. And there sat his wife, rubbing noses with a strange man.
"Huh! You are not afraid of wearing away your nose, it seems."
So he cried.
On hearing this, the wife rushed out of the house, and there she met her husband.
"You have grown clever at kissing," he said.
"No, I have not kissed any one," she cried.
Then Atungait grasped her roughly and killed her, because she had lied.
The strange man also came out now, and Atungait went towards him at once.
- ↑ A game played with rings and a stick; the "ring and pin game."
91
