After this the behaviour of the mermaid towards mankind entirely changed. She sometimes appears to children only, most often in another form, but she does not permit grown-up people to approach her, but shuns them like fire. Other stories relative to the Water-Mother, mer[Pg 70]maids, and other beings of the water will be found in a later section. HOW THE SEA BECAME SALT. (Jannsen.) This is an interesting variant of a story known from Iceland to Finland. There were two brothers, one rich and one poor. One Christmas the rich brother gave the other a ham, on condition that he should go to Põrgu. On his way, he met an old man who told him that ham was a rarity there, but he must not sell it for money, but only for what was behind the door, which proved to be a wishing-mill. The rich brother bought it for a high price, and set it to grind herrings and milk-soup; but he was soon forced to give his brother another great sum to induce him to take it back, and to save him and his wife, and indeed the whole village, from being overwhelmed by the torrents of herrings and soup. Afterwards it was sold to a sea-captain, who set it to grind salt, and it ground on till the ship sank, and it now lies at the bottom of the sea, grinding salt for ever.[32][Pg 71] The next story, which belongs to the same class as Grimm's "Devil with the Three Golden Hairs," introduces us to the personified Frost, who is here a much less malevolent being than in the _Kalevala_, Runo xxx. It also combines two familiar classes of tales: those in which a man receives gifts which are stolen from him, and which he afterwards recovers by means of another, often a magic cudgel; and those in which a man visiting the house of a giant or devil in his absence is concealed by the old mother in order to listen to the secrets revealed by her son when he comes home. THE TWO BROTHERS AND THE FROST. (Jannsen.)