The Witch-Bride
Versions of this story are common in Finland as well as in Esthonia. One of the latter is “Rõugutaja’s Daughter” (Kreutzwald). Old Rõugutaja28 lived with his wife and daughter in a wood. The daughter had a beautiful face, but it was reported that her skin was of bark, and she could find no suitors. At last the mother contrived to inveigle a youth into marrying her daughter by means of a love-philtre, but on the first night he ran away, and shortly afterwards married another bride. On the birth of a child, the witch-mother transforms the young mother into a wolf, and substitutes her own daughter. The nurse is ordered to take the crying child for a walk; she meets the wolf; the deceit is discovered, and the husband inveigles the witch-mother and daughter into the bathhouse, and burns it down.
There is little in this story except the bark-skin of the witch-bride to distinguish it from the numerous variants among other peoples.
Another story belonging to the class of the witch-bride is