"No, your legs are too long," said the wifeless man. And the cranefly went in again, laughing.
Then out came a centipede.
"Take me."
"I will not take you," said the wifeless man, "for you have far too many legs. Your body clings to the ground with all those legs, and your eyes are simply nasty."
And the centipede laughed a cackling laugh and went in again.
They whispered together again in there, and out came a gnat.
"Take me," said the gnat.
"No thanks, you bite," said the wifeless man. And the gnat went in again, laughing.
And then at last his wife bade him come in to her, since he would have none of the others, and at last he just managed to squeeze his body in through the crack, and then he took her to wife again.
"Comb my hair," said the wifeless man, now very happy once more.
And his wife began, and said words above him thus:
"Do not wake until the fulmar begins to cry: sleep until we hear a sound of young birds."
And he fell asleep.
And when at last he awoke, he was all alone. The earth was blue with summer, and the fulmar cried noisily on the bird cliff. And it had been winter when he crawled in through the crack.
When he came down to his kayak, the skin was rotted through with age.
And then I suppose he reached home as usual, and now sits scratching himself at ease.
55
