Chakhkli (chakhkling) are small, naked people who live underground and under stones, very fussy, very overbearing, they are kind, but sometimes they harm a person with their mischief.
They often frolic on sandy shores, dive underground, from underground to the surface, then underground again. Their fussiness has become a proverb among the Notozero Sami. A fussy person is sometimes asked an ironic question: “Why are you diving like wasted?”... The Sami once saw someone’s small human footprints in the sand. They thought: “What kind of people were running on the sand?” The Sami put a fishing net on the sand and left. They returned and saw that the chakli was entangled in the net. He was naked, handsome, good, just like a little child. They took him in. They left him to live in the house.
Chakhkli was very imitative, did everything that people did, but without benefit and even trouble, he caused a lot of trouble to people. When they leave home, the sickly man will be left alone - he will make a mess, make a mess. People will come and everything in the house will be in disarray.
People wanted to get rid of the chakli: they were tired of it, there was a lot of trouble with it. Before leaving the house, the owner took a knife and let the blunt side run across his throat, on purpose so that the sick man would see it. Then he left.
Chakhli was left alone. He took the owner’s knife and began to drag the blade across his throat. He drove and drove and killed himself.
This was recently.
Who knows what kind of wasting these are and whether there are such things in the world.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru