THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES GR202 .R33- 1687 .^'^RSITYOFN ^.^l CHAPEL HILL m This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/russianfairytaleOOrals jussian Fairy Tales. A CHOICE COLLECTION — OF — MUSCOVITE FOLK-LORE. W. R. S. RALSTON, M. A., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF RUSSIA, AUTHOR OF "THE SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE," "KRILOFANDHIS FABLES," ETC. New York: POLLARD & MOSS, 47 John Street, 1887. Eo tf)e JEemorg of ALEXANDER AFANASIEF TO HIM SO DEEPLY INDEBTED. PREFACE. THE STORIES contained in the following pages are taken from the collections published by Afanasief, Khudyakof, Erlenvein, and Chudinsky. The South-Russian collections of Kulish and Rudchenko I have been able to use but little, there being no com- plete dictionary available of the dialect, or rather the language, in which they are written. Of these works that of Afanasief is by far the most important, extending to nearly 3,000 pages, and containing 332 distinct stories — of many of which several variants are given, sometimes as many as five. Khudyakof's collection contains 122 skazkas — as the Russian folk-tales are called — Erlenvein's 41, and Chudinsky's 31. Afanasief has also published a separate volume, containing 33 "legends," and he has inserted a great number of stories of various kinds in his " Poetic views of the Old Slavonians about Nature," a work to which I have had constant recourse. From the stories contained in what may be called the " chap-book literature " of Russia, I have made but few extracts. It may, however, be as well to say a few words about them. There is a Russian word /ид, diminutive lubok, meaning the soft bark of the lime $ 6 PREFACE. tree, which at one time was used instead of paper The popular tales which were current in former days were at first printed on sheets or strips of this substance, whence the term lubochnuiya came to be given to all such productions of the cheap press, even after paper had .taken the place of bark.* The stories which have thus been preserved have no small interest of their own, but they cannot be consid- ered as fair illustrations of Russian folk-lore, for their compilers in many cases took them from any sources to which they had access, whether eastern or western, merely adapting what they borrowed to Russian forms of thought and speech. Through some such process, for instance, seem to have passed the very popular Russian stories of Eruslan Lazarevich and of Bova Korolevich. They have often been quoted as " crea- tions of the Slavonic mind," but there seems to be no reason for doubting that they are merely Russian adaptations, the first of the adventures of the Persian Rustem, the second of those of the Italian Buovo di Antona, our Sir Bevis of Hampton. The editors of these " chap-book skazkas " belonged to the pre- scientific period, and had a purely commercial object in view. Their stories were intended simply to sell. A German version of seventeen of these " chap-book tales," to which was prefixed an introduction by Jacob Grimm, was published some forty years ago,f and has * So our word "book," the German Buck, is derived from the Buche or beech tree, of which the old Runic staves were formed. Cf. liber and /}£/ЗЯв£. t " Russische Volksmarchen in den Urschriften gesammelt und ins I feutsche libersetzt von A. Dietrich." Leipzig, 1831. PREFACE. t been translated into English.* Somewhat later, also, appeared a German version of twelve more of these tales. f Of late years several articles have appeared in some of the German periodicals, % giving accounts or transla- tions of some of the Russian Popular Tales. But no thorough investigation of them appeared in print, out of Russia, until the publication last year of the erudite work on " Zoological Mythology " by Professor Angelo de Gubernatis. In it he has given a summary of the greater part of the stories contained in the collections of Afanasief and Erlenvein, and so fully has he de- scribed the part played in them by the members of the animal world that I have omitted, in the present volume, the chapter I had prepared on the Russian " Beast- Epos." Another chapter which I have, at least for a time, suppressed, is that in which I had attempted to say something about the origin and the meaning of the Russian folk-tales. The subject is so extensive that it requires for its proper treatment more space than a single chapter could grant ; and therefore, though not without reluctance, I have left the stories I have quoted to speak for themselves, except in those in- stances in which I have given the chief parallels to be found in the two collections of foreign folk-tales best known to the English reader, together with a few others which happened to fall within the range of my * " Russian Popular Tales," Chapman and Hall, London, 1857. t " Die altesten Volksmarchen der Russen. Von J. N. Vogl." Wien, 1841. % Such as the " Orient und Occident," " Ausland," &c. 8 PREFACE. own reading. Professor de Gubernatis has discussed at length, and with much learning, the esoteric mean- ing of the skazkas, and their bearing upon the ques- tions to which the " solar theory " of myth-explanation has given rise. To his volumes, and to those of Mr Cox, I refer all who are interested in those fascina- ting enquiries. My chief aim has been to familiarize English readers with the Russian folk-tale ; the his- torical and mythological problems involved in it can be discussed at a later period. Before long, in all probability, a copious flood of light will be poured upon the connexion of the Popular Tales of Russia with those of other lands by one of those scholars who are best qualified to deal with the subject.* Besides the stories about animals, I have left unnoticed two other groups of skazkas — those which relate to historical events, and those in which figure the heroes of the Russian "epic poems" or "metrical romances. " My next volume will be devoted to the Builinas, as those poems are called, and in it the skazkas which are connected with them will find their fitting place. In it, also, I hope to find space for the discussion of many questions which in the present volume I have been forced to leave unnoticed. The fifty-one stories which I have translated at length I have rendered as literally as possible. In the very rare instances in which I have found it necessary to insert any words by way of explanation, I have * Professor Reinhold Kbhler, who is said to be preparing a work on the Skazkas, in co-operation with Professor Jiilg, the well-known editor and translator of the " Siddhi Kiir," and " Ardshi Bordschi Khan." PREFACE. 9 (except in the case of such additions as '• ne said " or the like) enclosed them between brackets. In giving summaries, also, I have kept closely to the text, and always translated literally the passages marked as quotations. In the imitation of a finished work of art, elaboration and polish are meet and due, but in a transcript from nature what is most required is fidelity. An " untouched " photograph is in certain •cases infinitely preferable to one which has been carefully "worked upon." And it is, as it were, a photograph of the Russian story-teller that I have tried to produce, and not an ideal portrait. The following are the principal Russian books to which reference has been made : — Afanasief (A. N.). Narodnuiya Russkiya Skazki* [Russian Populai Tales]. 8 pts. Moscow, 1863-60-63. Narodnuiya Russkiya Legenduit [Russian Popular Legends]. Moscow, 1859. Poetic- heskiya Vozzryeniya Slavyanna Prirodu [Poetic Views of the Slavo nians about Nature]. J 3 vols. Moscow, 1865-69. Khudyayof (I. A.). Velikorusskiya Skazki [Great-Russian Tales]. Moscow, i860. Chudinsky (E. A.). Russkiya Narodnuiya Skazki, etc. [Russian Popular Tales, etc.]. Moscow, 1864. Erlenvein (A. A.). Narodnuiya Skazki, etc. [Popular Tales, col- lected by village schoolmasters in the Government of Tula]. Moscow, 1863 • In my copy, pt. 1 and 2 are of the 3d, and pt. 3 and 4 are of the 2d edition. By euch a note as " Afanasief," 1. No. 2," I mean to refer to the second story of the first part of this work. t This book is now out of print, and copies fetch a very high price. I refer to it in my notes as " Afanaseif, Legendui." X This work is always referred to in my notes as " Afanasief, P. V. S." 10 PREFACE. Rudchenko (I.). Narodnuiya Yuzhnorusskiya Skazki [South-Russian Popular Tales].* Kief, 1869. Most of the other works referred to are too well known to require a full setting out of their title. But it is necessary to explain that references to Grimm are as a general rule to the " Kinder-und Hausmarchen," 9th ed. Berlin, 1870. Those to Asbjornsen and Мое are to the " Norske Folke-Eventyr," 3d ed. Chris- tiania, 1 866 ; those to Asbjornsen only are to the " New Series " of those tales, Christiania, 1871 ; those to Dasent are to the "Popular Tales from the Norse," 2d ed., 1859. The name " Karadjich " refers to the " Srpske Narodne Pripovijetke," published at Vienna in 1853 by Vuk Stefanovich Karajich, and translated by his daughter under the title of "Volksmarcben dei Serben," Berlin, 1854. By "Schott" is meant the " Walachische Mahrchen," Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1845, by "Schleicher" the " Litauische Marchen," Weimar, 1857, by " Hahn " the " Griechische und albanesische Marchen," Leipzig, 1864, by " Haltrich " the " Deutsche Volksmarchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbiirgen," Berlin, 1856, and by " Campbell " the " Popular Tale of the West Highlands," 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1860-62. A few of the ghost stories contained in the following pages appeared in the " Cornhill Magazine " for August 1872, and an account of some of the " legends " was given in the " Fortnightly Review " for April 1, 1868. * There is one other recent collection of skazkas— that published last year at Genera under the title of " Russkiya Zavyetnuiya Skazki-" But upon its contents I have not found it necessary to draw. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. PAG*. The Folk-tale in general, and the Skazka in particular — Relation of Russian Popular Tales to Russian Eife — Stories about Court- ship, Death, Burial and Wailings for the Dead — Warnings against Drink, Jokes about Women, Tales of Simpletons — A rhymed Skazka and a Legend . 15 CHAPTER II. MYTHOLOGICAL. Principal Incarnations of Evil. On the " Mythical Skazkas " — Male embodiments of Evil : 1. The Snake as the Stealer of Daylight; 2. Norkathe Beast, Lord of the Lower World ; 3. Koshchei the Deathless, The Stealer of Fair Princesses — his connexion with Punchkin and " the Giant who had no?Ieart in his Body " — Excursus on Bluebeard's Cham- ber ; 4. The Water King or Subaqueous Demon — Female Em- bodiments of Evil : 1. The Baba Yaga or Hag, and 2. The Witch, feminine counterparts of the Snake . 75 CHAPTER HI. MYTHOLOGICAL. Mis с ell a necus Tinpersonifications . One-eyed Likho, a story of the Polyphemus Cycle — Woe, the Poor Man's Companion — Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday person- ified as Female Spirits — The Leshy or Wood-Demon — Legends about Rivers — Frost as a Wooer of Maidens — The Whirlwind personified as a species of Snake or Demon — Morfei and Oh, two supernatural beings 186 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. PAGE, The Waters of Life and Death, and of Strength and Weakness — Aid given to Children by Dead Parents — Magic Horses, Fish, &c. — Stories about Brides won by a Leap, &c. — Stories about Wizards and Witches — The Headless Piincess — Midnight Watchings over Corpses — The Fire Bird, its connexion with the Golden Bird and the Phoenix 237 CHAPTER V. GHOST STORIES. Slavonic Ideas about the Dead — On Heaven and Hell — On the Jack and the Beanstalk Story — Harmless Ghosts — The Rip van Winkle Story — the attachment #f Ghosts to their Shrouds and Coffin-Lids — Murderous Ghosts — Stories about Vampires — on the name Vampire, and the belief in Vampirism . . . 295 CHAPTER VI. I. Saints, dr\r. Legends connected with the Dog, the Izba, the Creation of Man, the Rye, the Snake, Ox, Sole, &c. ; with Birds, the Peewit, Sparrow, Swallow, &c. — Legends about SS. Nicholas, Andrew, George, Kasian, &c 329 2. Demons, &*c. Part played by Demons in the Skazkas — On " Hasty Words," and Parental Curses; their power to subject persons to demo- niacal possession — The dulness of Demons ; Stories about Tricks played upon them — Their Gratitude to those who treat them with Kindness and their General Behavior — Various Legends about Devils — Moral Tale of the Gossip's Bedstead . 361 STORY-LIST. PACE. I. The Fiend 24 II, The Dead Mother 32 III. The Dead Witch - 34 IV. The Treasure --.-... 36 V. The Cross-Surety 40 VI. The Awful Drunkard 46 VII. The Bad Wife 52 VIII. The Golovikha 55 IX. The Three Copecks 56 X. The Miser 60 XI. The Fool and the Birch-Tree- 62 XII. The Mizgir 68 XIII. The Smith and the Demon 70 XIV. Ivan Popyalof 79 XV. TheNorka 86 XVI. Marya Morevna 97 XVII. Koshchei the Deathless in XVIII. The Water Snake 126 XIX. The W.*ter King and Vasilissa the Wise - 130 XX. The Baba Yaga 148 XXI. Vasilissa the Fair 158 XXII. The Witch 171 XXIII. The Witch and the Sun's Sister - - - 178 14 STORY-LIST. ГДСВ. XXIV. One-Eyed Likho ■ 1S6 XXV. Woe • 193 XXVI. Friday • 207 XXVII. Wednesday 208 XXVIII. The Lsshy ■ 213 XXIX. Vazuza and Volga • 215 XXX. Sozh and Dnieper • 216 XXXI The Metamorphosis of the Dnieper, thi : Volga, and the Dvina ... ■ 217 XXXII. Frost .... ... ■ 221 XXXIIL The Blind Man and the Cripple 246 XXXIV. Princess Helena the Fair - • 262 XXXV. Emilian the Fool ■ 269 XXXVI. The Witch Girl 274 XXXVII. The Headless Princess • 276 XXXVIII. The Soldier's Midnight Watch 279 XXXIX. The Warlock 292 XL. The Fox-Physician ■ 296 XLI. The Fiddler in Hell ■ 303 XLII. The Ride on the Gravestone - 308 XLIII. The Two Friends 3°9 XLIV. The Shroud 3Si XLV. The Coffin-Lid 34 XLVI. The Two Corpses 316 XLVII. The Dog and the Corpse - 316 XLVIII. The Soldier and. the Vampire 318 XLIX. Elijah the Prophet and Nicholas - 344 L. The Priest with the Greedy Eyes - ■ 355 LI. The Hasty Word 370 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. There are but few among those inhabitants of Fairyland of whom " Popular Tales " tell, who are better known to the outer world than Cinderella — the despised and flouted younger sister, who long sits unnoticed beside the hearth, then furtively visits the glittering halls of the great and gay, and at last is transferred from her obscure nook to the place of honor justly due to her tardily acknowledged merits. Somewhat like the fortunes of Cinderella have been those of the popular tale itself. Long did it dwell beside the hearths of the common people, utterly ignored by their superiors in social rank. Then came a period during which the cultured world recognized its existence, but accorded to it no higher rank than that allotted to " nursery stories " and " old wives' tales " — except, indeed, on those rare occasions when the charity of a condescend- ing scholar had invested it with such a garb as was sup- posed to enable it to make a respectable appearance in polite society. At length there arrived the season of its final change, when, transferred from the dusk of the peas- ant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the unbecoming garments by which it had been dis- »5 16 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. figured, it was recognized as the scion of a family so truly royal that some of its members deduce their origin from the olden gods themselves. In our days the folk-tale, instead of being left to the careless guardianship of youth and ignorance, is sedulously tended and held in high honor by the ripest of scholars. Their views with regard to its origin may differ widely. But whether it be considered in one of its phases as a distorted " nature-myth," or in another as a demoralized apologue or parable — whether it be regarded at one time as a relic of primeval wisdom, or at another as a blurred transcript of a page of medieval history — its critics agree in declaring it to be no mere creation of the popular fancy, no chance expression of the uncultured thought of the rude tiller of this or that soil. Rather is it believed of most folk-tales that they, in their original forms, were framed centuries upon centuries ago ; while of some of them it is supposed that they may be traced back through successive ages to those myths in which, during a prehis- toric period, the oldest of philosophers expressed their ideas relative to the material or the spiritual world. But it is not every popular tale which can boast of so noble a lineage, and one of the great difficulties which beset the mythologist who attempts to discover the original meaning of folk-tales in general is to decide which of them are really antique, and worthy, therefore, of being sub- mitted to critical analysis. Nor is it less difficult, when dealing with the stories of any one country in particular, to settle which may be looked upon as its own property, and which ought to be considered as borrowed and adapted. Everyone knows that the existence of the greater part of the stories current among the various European peoples is accounted for on two different hypotheses — the one sup- INTRO D UCTOR V. 17 posing that most of them " were common in germ at least to the Aryan tribes before their migration," and that, therefore, " these traditions are as much a portion of the common inheritance of our ancestors as their language unquestionably is : " * the other regarding at least a great part of them as foreign importations, Oriental fancies which were originally introduced into Europe, through a series of translations, by the pilgrims and merchants who were always linking the East and the West together, or by the emissaries of some of the heretical sects, or in the train o( such warlike transferrers as the Crusaders, or the Arabs who ruled in Spain, or the Tartars who so long held the Russia of old times in their grasp. According to the former supposition, " these very stories, these Afahrchen, which nurses still tell, with almost the same words, in the Thuringian forest and in the Norwegian villages, and to which crowds of children listen under the pippal trees of India," t belong " to the common heirloom of the Indo- European race ; " according to the latter, the majority of European popular tales are merely naturalized aliens in Europe, being as little the inheritance of its present in- habitants as were the stories and fables which, by a. cir- cuitous route, were transmitted from India to Boccaccio or La Fontaine. On the questions to which these two conflicting hypo- theses give rise we will not now dwell. For the present, we will deal with the Russian folk-tale as we find it, attempt- ing to become acquainted with its principal characteristics to see in what respects it chiefly differs from the stories of the same class which are current among ourselves, or in those foreign lands with which we are more familiar than * Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse," p. xL t Max Muller, " Chips," vol. ii. p. 226. 2 18 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. we are with Russia, rather than to explore its birthplace or to divine its original meaning. We often hear it said, that from the songs and stories of a country we may learn much about the inner life of its people, inasmuch as popular utterances of this kind always bear the stamp of the national character, offer a reflex of the national mind. So far as folk-songs are concerned, this statement appears to be well founded, but it can be applied to the folk-tales of Europe only within very narrow limits. Each country possesses certain stories which have special reference to its own manners and customs, and by coMecting such tales as these, something approximating to a picture of its national life may be laboriously pieced together. But the stories of this class are often nothing more than comparatively modern adaptations of old and foreign themes ; nor are they sufficiently numerous, so far as we can judge from existing collections, to render by any means complete the national portrait for which they are expected to supply the materials. In order to fill up the gaps they leave, it is necessary to bring together a number of fragments taken from stories which evidently refer to another clime — fragments which may be looked upon as excrescences or developments due to the novel influences to which the foreign slip, or seedling, or even full-grown plant, has been subjected since its transportation. The great bulk of the Russian folk-tales, and, indeed, of those of all the Indo-European nations, is devoted to the adventures of such fairy princes and princesses, such snakes and giants and demons, as are quite out of keeping with ordinary men and women — at all events with the in- habitants of modern Europe since the termination of those internecine struggles between aboriginals and ir.vaders, rvhich some commentators see typified in the combats INTRODUCTORY. 19 between the heroes of our popular tales and the whole race of giants, trolls, ogres, snakes, dragons, and other monsters. The air wq breathe in them is that of Fairy- land ; the conditions of existence, the relations between the human race and the spiritual world on the one hand, the material world on the other, are totally inconsistent with those to which we are now restricted. There is boundless freedom of intercourse between mortals and immortals, between mankind and the brute creation, and, although there are certain conventional rules which must always be observed, they are not those which are enforced by any people known to anthropologists. The stories which are common to all Europe differ, no doubt, in differ- ent countries, but their variations, so far as their matter is concerned, seem to be due less to the moral character than to the geographical distribution of their reciters. The manner in which these tales are told, however, may often be taken as a test of the intellectual capacity of their tellers. For in style the folk-tale changes greatly as it travels. A story which we find narrated in one country with terseness and precision may be rendered almost unin- telligible in another by vagueness or verbiage ; by one race it may be elevated into poetic life, by another it may be degraded into the most prosaic dulness. Now, so far as style is concerned, the Skazkas or Russian folk-tales, may justly be said to be characteristic of the Russian people. There are numerous points on which the " lower classes " of all the Aryan peoples in Europe closely resemble each other, but the Russian peasant has — in common with all his Slavonic brethren — a genuine talent for narrative which distinguishes him from some of his more distant cousins. And the stories which are current among the Russian peasantry are for the most part exceedingly 20 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. well narrated. Their language is simple and pleasantly quaint, their humor is natural and unobtrusive, and their descriptions, whether of persons or of events, are often excellent.* A taste for acting is widely spread in Russia, and the Russian folk-tales are full of dramatic positions which offer a wide scope for a display of their reciter's mimetic talents. Every here and there, indeed, a tag of genuine comedy has evidently been attached by the story- «.eller to a narrative which in its original form was probably devoid of the comic element. And thus from the Russian tales may be derived some idea of the mental characteristics of the Russian peasantry — one which is very incomplete, but, within its narrow limits, sufficiently accurate. And a similar statement may be made with respect to the pictures of Russian peasant life contained in these tales. So far as they go they are true to nature, and the notion which they convey to a stranger of the manners and customs of Russian villagers is not likely to prove erroneous, but they do not go very far. On some of the questions which are likely to be of the greatest in- terest to a foreigner they never touch. There is very little information to be gleaned from them, for instance, with re- gard to the religious views of the people, none with respect to the relations which, during the times of serfdom, existed between the lord and the thrall. But from the casual references to actual scenes and ordinary occupations which every here and there occur in the descriptions of fairyland and the narratives of heroic adventure — from the realistic vignettes which are sometimes inserted between the ideal- ized portraits of invincible princes and irresistible prin- * Take as an illustration of these remarks the close of the story of " Helen the Fair " (No. 34, Chap. IV.). See how light and bright it is (or at least was, before h was translated). INTRODUCTORY. 21 cesses — some idea may be obtained of the usual aspect of a Russian village, and of the ordinary behavior of its in- habitants. Turning from one to another of these acciden- tal illustrations, we by degrees create a mental picture which is not without its peculiar charm. We see the wide sweep of the level corn-land, the gloom of the intermina- ble forest, the gleam of the slowly winding river. We pass along the single street of the village, and glance at its wooden barn-like huts,* so different from the ideal English cottage with its windows set deep in ivy and its porch smil- ing with roses. We see the land around a Slough of De- spond in the spring, an unbroken sea of green in the early summer, a blaze of gold at harvest-time, in the winter one vast sheet of all but untrodden snow. On Sundays and holidays we accompany the villagers to their white-walled, green-domed church, and afterwards listen to the songs which the girls sing in the summer choral dances, or take part in the merriment of the social gatherings, which enliven the long nights of winter. Sometimes the quaint lyric drama of a peasant wedding is performed before our eyes, sometimes we follow a funeral party to one of those dismal and desolate nooks in which the Russian villagers deposit their dead. On working days we see the peasants driving afield in the early morn with their long lines of carts, to till the soil, or ply the scythe or sickle or axe, till the day is done and their rude carts come creaking back. We hear the songs and laughter of the girls beside the stream or pool which ripples pleasantly against its banks in the summer time, but in the winter shows no sign of life, except at the spot, much frequented by the wives and daughters of the village, where an " ice-hole " has been cut in its * I speak only of what I have seen. In some districts of Russia, if one maj judge from pictures, the peasants occupy ornamented and ornamental dwellings. 22 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. massive pad. And at night we see the homely dwellings of the villagers assume a picturesque aspect to which they are strangers by the tell-tale light of day, their rough lines softened by the mellow splendor of a summer moon, or their unshapely forms looming forth mysteriously against the starlit snow of winter. Above all we become familiar with those cottage interiors to which the stories contain so many references. Sometimes we see the better class of homestead, surrounded by its fence through which we pass between the often-mentioned gates. After a glance at the barns and cattle-sheds, and at the garden which supplies the family with fruits and vegetables (on flowers, alas ! but little store is set in the northern provinces), we cross the threshold, a spot hallowed by many traditions, and pass, through what in more pretentious houses may be called the vestibule, into the " living room." We become well acquaint- ed with its arrangements, with the cellar beneath its wood- en floor, with the " corner of honor " in which are placed the " holy pictures," and with the stove which occupies so large a share of space, within which daily beats, as it were the heart of the house, above which is nightly taken the re- pose of the family. Sometimes we visit the hut of the poverty-stricken peasant, more like a shed for cattle than a human habitation, with a mud-floor and a tattered roof, through which the smoke makes its devious way. In these poorer dwellings we witness much suffering ; but we learn to respect the patience and resignation with which it is generally borne, and in the greater part of the humble homes we visit we become aware of the existence of many domestic virtues, we see numerous tokens of family affec- tion, of filial reverence, of parental love. And when, as we pass along the village street at night, we see gleaming through the utter darkness the faint rays which tell that INT ROD UCTOR Y. S& even in many a poverty-stricken home a lamp is burning before the "holy pictures," we feel that these poor tillers of the soil, ignorant and uncouth though they too often arej may be raised at times by lofty thoughts and noble aspira- tions far above the low level of the dull and hard lives which they are forced to lead. From among the stories which contain the most graphic descriptions of Russian village life, or which maybe regard- ed as specially illustrative of Russian sentiment and humoi those which the present chapter contains have been select- ed. Any information they may convey will necessarily be of a most fragmentary nature, but for all that it may be capable of producing a correct impression. A painter's rough notes and jottings are often more true to nature than the most finished picture into which they may be devel- oped. The word skazka, or folk-tale, does not very often occur in the Russian popular tales themselves. Still there are occasions on which it appears. The allusions to it are for the most part indirect, as when a princess is said to be more beautiful than anybody ever was, except in a skazka ; but sometimes it obtains direct notice. In a story, for instance, of a boy who had been carried off by a Baba Yaga (a species of witch), we are told that when his sister came to his rescue she found him " sitting in an arm-chair, while the cat Jeremiah told him skazkas and sang him songs." * In another story, a Durak, — a " ninny " or " gowk " — is sent to take care of the children of a village during the absence of their parents. " Go and get all the children together in one of the cottages and tell them skazkas," are his instructions. He collects the children, but as they are " all ever so dirty ' * Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 65. 24 /?l/SS/AA T FOLK-TALES. he puts them into boiling water by way of cleansing them, and so washes them to death.* There is a good deal of social life »n the Russian vil- lages during the long winter evenings, and at some of the gatherings which then take place skazkas are told, though at those in which only the young people participate, songs» games, and dances are more popular. The following skazka has been selected on account of the descriptions of a vechemitsa, or village soiree,^ and of a rustic courtship, which its opening scene contains. The rest of the story is not remarkable for its fidelity to modern life, but it will serve as a good illustration of the class to which it belongs — that of stories about evil spirits, traceable, for the most part, to Eastern sources. The Fiend 4 In a certain country there lived an old couple who had a daugh- ter called Marusia (Mary). In their village it was customary to celebrate the feast of St. Andrew the First-Called (November 30). The girls used to assemble in some cottage, bake pampush- ki,% and enjoy themselves for a whole week, or even longer. Well, the girls met together once when this festival arrived, and brewed and baked what was wanted. In the evening came the lads with the music, bringing liquor with them, and dancing and revelry commenced. All the girls danced well, but Marusia the best of all. After a while there came into the cottage such a fine fellow ! Marry, come up ! regular blood and milk, and smartly and richly dressed. " Hail, fair maidens ! " says he. " Hail, good youth ! " say they. * Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 115. t For a description of such social gatherings see the " Songs of the Russian People," pp. 32-38. % Afanasief, vi. No. 66. § Cakes of unleavened flour flavored with garlic. INTRODUCTORY. 25 " You're merry-making ? " " Be so good as to join us." Thereupon he pulled out of his pocket a purse full of gold, ordered liquor, nuts and gingerbread. All was ready in a trice, and he began treating the lads and lasses, giving each a share. Then he took to dancing. Why, it was a treat to look at him ! Marusia struck his fancy more than anyone else ; so he stuck close to her. The time came for going home. " Marusia," says he, " come and see me off. ' She went to see him off. " Marusia, sweetheart ! " says he, " would you like me to marry you ? " " If you like to marry me, I will gladly marry you. But where do you come from ? " " From such and such a place. I'm clerk at a merchant's." Then they bade each other farewell and separated. When Marusia got home, her mother asked her : " Well, daughter ! have you enjoyed yourself ? " " Yes, mother. But I've something pleasant to tell you be- sides. There was a lad there from the neighborhood, good- looking and with lots of money, and he promised to marry me." " Harkye Marusia ! When you go to where the girls are to- morrow, take a ball of thread with you, make a nuose in it, and, when you are going to see him off, throw it over one of his but- tons, and quietly unroll the ball ; then, by means of the thread you will be able to find out where he lives." Next day Marusia went to the gathering, and took a ball of thread with her. The youth came again. " Good evening, Marusia ! " said he. " Good evening ! " said she. Games began and dances. Even more than before did he stick to Marusia, not a step would he budge from her. The time came for going home. " Come and see me off, Marusia ! " says the stranger. She went out into the street, and while she was taking leave of him she quietly dropped the noose over one of his buttons. He went his way, but she remained where she was, unrolling the 26 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. ball. When she had unrolled the whole of it, she ran after the thread to find out where her betrothed lived. At first the thread followed the road, then it stretched across hedges and ditches, and Jed Marusia towards the church and right up to the porch. Marusia tried the door ; it was locked. She went round the church, found a ladder, set it against a window, and climbed up it to see what was going on inside. Having got into the church, she looked — and saw her betrothed standing beside a grave and devouring a dead body — for a corpse had been left for that night in the church. She wanted to get down the ladder quietly, but her fright pre- vented her from taking proper heed, and she made a little noise. Then she ran home — almost beside herself, fancying all the time she was being pursued. She was all but dead before she got in. Next morning her mother asked her : " Well, Marusia ! did you see the youth ? " " I saw him, mother," she replied. But what else she had seen she did not tell. In the morning Marusia was sitting, considering whether she would go to the gathering or not. "Go," said her mother. "Amuse yourself while you're young ! " So she went to the gathering; the Fiend * was there already. Games, fun, dancing, began anew ; the girls knew nothing of what had happened. When they began to separate and go homewards : "Come, Marusia!" says the Evil One, "see me off." She was afraid, and didn't stir. Then all the other girls opened out upon her. " What are you thinking about ? Have you grown so bashful, forsooth ? Go and see the good lad off." There was no help for it. Out she went, not knowing what would come of it. As soon as they got into the streets he began questioning her : " You were in the church last night ? " •The Ncchistol, or unclean. (Chisty = clean, pure, &c.) IXTRODUCTOR ) r . 1Й -No.' " And saw what I was doing there ? " " No." " Very well ! To-morrow your father will die ! ' Having said this, he disappeared. Marusia returned home grave and sad. When she woke up in the morning, her father lay dead ! They wept and wailed over him, and laid him in the coffin. In the evening her mother went off to the priest's, but Marusia remained at home At last she became afraid of being alone in the house. " Suppose I go to my friends," she thought. So she went, and found the Evil One there. " Good evening, Marusia ! why arn't you merry ? " " How can I be merry ? My father is dead ! " " Oh ! poor thing ! " They all grieved for her. Even the Accursed One himself grieved ; just as if it hadn't all been his own doing. By and by they began saying farewell and going home. "Marusia," says he, "see me off." She didn't want to. 4 ' What are you thinking of, child ? " insist the girls. " What are you afraid of ? Go and see him off." So she went to see him off. They passed out into the street. " Tell me, Marusia," says he, " were you in the church ? " " No." " Did you see what I was doing ? " "No." "Very well ! To-morrow your mother will die." He spoke and disappeared. Marusia returned home sadder than ever. The night went by; next morning, when she awoke, her mother lay dead ! She cried all day long ; but when the sun set, and it grew dark around, Marusia became afraid of being left alone ; so she went to her companions. " Why, whatever's the matter with you ? you're clean cut of countenance ! "* say the girls. • Literally, " on thee no face is to be seen." 28- RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. " How am I likely to be cheerful ? Yesterday my father died, and to-day my mother." "Poor thing! Poor unhappy girl !" they all exclaim sym- pathizingly. Well, the time came to say good-bye. " See me off, Marusia," says the Fiend. So she went out to see him off " Tell me ; were you in the church ? " " No." " And saw what I was doing ? " " No." " Very well ! To-morrow even.ng you will die yourself ! " Marusia spent the night with her friends ; in the morning she got up and considered what she should do. She bethought herself that she had a grandmother — an old, very old woman, who had become blind from length of years. " Suppose I go and ask her advice," she said, and then went off to her grand- mother's. " Good-day, granny ! " says she. " Good-day, granddaughter ! What news is there with you ? How are your father and mother ? " " They are dead, granny," replied the girl, and then told her all that had happened. The old woman listened, and said : — " Oh dear me ! my poor unhappy child ! Go quickly to the priest, and ask him this favor — that if you die, your body shall not be taken out of the house through the doorway, but that the ground shall be dug away from under the threshold, and that you shall be dragged out through that opening. And also beg that you may be buried at a crossway, at a spot where four roads meet." Marusia went to the priest, wept bitterly, and made him prom- ise to do everything according to her grandmother's instruc- tions. Then she returned home, bought a coffin, lay down in it, and straightway expired. Well, they told the priest, and he buried, first her father and IN TROD UCTOR Y. 29 mother, and then Marusia herself. Her body was passed under neath the threshold and buried at a crossway. Soon afterwards a seigneur's son happened to drive past Marusia's grave. On that grave he saw growing a wondrous flower, such a one as he had never seen. before. Said the young seigneur to his servant : — "Go and pluck up that flower L у the roots. We'll take it home and put it in a flower-pot. Perhaps it will blossom there." Well, they dug up the flower, took it home, put it in a glazed flower-pot, and set it in a window. The flower began to grow larger and more beautiful. One night the servant hadn't gone to sleep somehow, and he happened to be looking at the window, when he saw a wondrous thing take place. All of a sudden the flower began to tremble, then it fell from its stem to the ground, and turned into a lovely maiden. The flower was beautiful, but the maiden was more beautiful still. She wandered from room to room, got herself various things to eat and drink, ate and drank, then stamped upon the ground and became a flower as before, mounted to the window, and resumed her place upon the stem. Next day the servant told the young seigneur of the wonders which he had seen during the night. " Ah, brother ! " said the youth, " why didn't you wake me ? To-night we'll both keep watch together." The night came ; they slept not, but watched. Exactly at twelve o'clock the blossom began to shake, flew from place to place, and then fell to the ground, and the beautiful maiden appeared, got herself things to eat and drink, and sat down to supper. The young seigneur rushed forward and seized her by her white hands. Impossible was it for him sufficiently to look at her, to gaze on her beauty ! Next morning he said to his father and mother, " Please allow me to get married. I've found myself a bride." His parents gave their consent. As for Marusia, she said : "Only on this condition will I marry you — that for four years I need not go to church." 30 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. " Very good," said he. Well, they were married, and they lived together one year, two years, and had a son. But one day they had visitors at their house, who enjoyed themselves, and drank, and began bragging about their wives. This one's wife was handsome ; that one's was handsomer still. " You may say what you like," says the host, " but a hand- somer wife than mine does not exist in the whole world ! " " Handsome, yes ! " reply the guests, " but a heathen.' "How so? " " Why, she never goes to church." Her husband found these observations distasteful. He waited till Sunday, and then told his wife to get dressed for church. " I don't care what you may say," says he. " Go and get ready directly." Well, they got ready, and went to church. The husband went in — didn't see anything particular. But when she looked round — there was the Fiend sitting at a window. " Ha ! here you are, at last ! " he cried. " Remember old times. Were you in the church that night ? " " No." " And did you see what I was doing there ? " "No." " Very well ! To-morrow both your husband and your son will die." Marusia rushed straight out of the church and away to her grandmother. The old woman gave her two phials, the one full of holy water, the other of the water of life, and told her what she was to do. Next day both Marusia's husband and her son died. Then the Fiend came flying to her and asked : — " Tell me ; were you in the church ? " " I was." " And did you see what I was doing ? " " You were eating a corpse." She spoke, and splashed the holy water over him ; in a mo INTRODUCTORY. 31 msnt he turned into mere dust and ashes, which blew to the winds. Afterwards she sprinkled her husband and her boy with the water of life : straightway they revived. And from that lime forward they knew neither sorrow nor separation, but they all lived together long and happily.* Another lively sketch of a peasant's love-making is given in the introduction to the story of " Ivan the widow's son and Grisha." f The tale is one of magic and enchant- ment, of living clouds and seven-headed snakes ; but the opening is a little piece of still-life very quaintly portrayed. A certain villager, named Trofim, having been unable to find a wife, his Aunt Melania comes to his aid, promising to procure him an interview with a widow who has been left well provided for, and whose personal appearance is attractive — " real blood and milk ! When she's got on her holiday clothes, she's as fine as a peacock ! " Trofim grovels with gratitude at his aunt's feet. " My own dear auntie, Melania Prokhorovna, get me married for heaven's sake ! I'll buy you an embroidered kerchief in return, the very best in the whole market." The widow comes to pay Melania a visit, and is induced to believe, on the evidence of beans (frequently used for the purpose of divination), that her destined husband is close at hand. At this propi- * I do not propose to comment at any length upon the stories quoted in the present chapter. Some of them will be referred to farther on. Marusia's demon lover will be recognized as akin to Arabian Ghouls, or the Rakshasas of Indian mythology. (See the story of Sidi Norman in the " Thousand and One Nights," also Lane's transla- tion, vol. i., p. 32 ; and the story of Asokadatta and Vijayadatta in the fifth book of the " Kathasaritsagara," Brockhaus's translation, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 142-159.) Fc.t transformations of a maiden into a flower or tree, see Grimm, No. 76, " Die Nelke," and the notes to that story in vol. iii., p. 125 — Hahn, No. 21, " Das Lorbeerkind," etc. "The Water of Life," will meet with due consideration in the fourth chapter. The Holy Water which destroys the Fiend is merely a Christian form of the " Watei of Death," viewed in its negative aspect. t Chudinsky, No. 3. 3.2 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. tious moment Trofim appears. Melania makes a little speech to the young couple, ending her recommendation to get married with the words : — " I can see well enough by the bridegroom's eyes that the bride is to his taste, only I don't know what the bride thinks about taking him." " I don't mind ! " says the widow. " Well, then, glory be to God ! Now, stand up, we'll say a prayer before the Holy Pictures ; then give each other a kiss, and go in Heaven's name and get married at once ! " And so the question is settled. From a courtship and a marriage in peasant life we may turn to a death and a burial. There are frequent allusions in the Skazkas to these gloomy subjects, with reference to which we will quote two stones, the one pathetic, the other (unintentionally) grotesque. Neither of them bears any title in the original, but we may style the first — The Dead Mother* In a certain village there lived a husband and wife — lived hap- pily, lovingly, peaceably. All their neighbors envied them ; the sight of them gave pleasure to honest folks. Well, the mis- tress bare a son, but directly after it was born she died. The poor moujik moaned and wept. Above all he was in de- spair about the babe. How was he to nourish it now ? how to bring it up without its mother ? He did what was best, and hired an old woman to look after it. Only here was a wonder ! all day long the babe would take no food, and did nothing but cry, there was no soothing it anyhow. But during (a great part of) the night one could fancy it wasn't there at all, so silent- ly and peacefully did it sleep. * Afanasief, vi. p. 325. Wolf's " Niederlandische Sagen," No. 336, quoted ir Thorpe'? " Northern Mythology," i. 292. Note 4. INTRODUCTORY. 33 "What's the meaning of this ?" thinks the old woman; "sup- pose I keep awake to-night ; may be I shall find out." Well, just at midnight she heard some one quietly open the door and go up to the cradle. The babe became still, just as if it was being suckled. The next night the same thing took place, and the third night, too. Then she told the moujik about it. He called his kinsfolk together, and held counsel with them. They determin- ed on this ; to keep awake on a certain night, and to spy out who it was that came to suckle the babe. So at eventide they all lay down on the floor, and beside them they set a lighted taper hidden in an earthen pot. At midnight the cottage door opened. Some one stepped up to the cradle. The babe became still. At that moment one of the kinsfolk suddenly brought out the light. They looked, and saw the dead mother, in the very same clothes in which she had been buried, on her knees besides the cradle, over which she bent as she suckled the babe at her dead breast. The moment the light shone in the cottage she stood up, gazed sadly on her little one, and then went out of the room without a sound, not saying a word to anyone. All those who saw her stood for a time terror-struck ; and then they found the babe was dead.* The second story will serve as an illustration of one of the Russian customs with respect to the dead, and also of the ideas about witchcraft, still prevalent in Russia. We may create for it the title of — * A number of ghost stories, and some remarks about the ideas of the Russian peasants with respect to the dead, will be found in Chap. V. Scott mentions a story in " The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," vol. ii. p. 223, of a widcwer who believeo. he was haunted by his dead wife. On one occasion the ghost, to p ove Lei identity, gave suck to her surviving infant. 54 Л US SI А N FOLK- TALES. The Dead Witch.* There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter. The time came for the old crone to die, so she summoned her daughter and gave her these instructions : " Mind, daughter ! when I'm dead, don't you wash my body with lukewarm water ; but fill a cauldron, make it boil its very hottest, and then with that boiling water regularly scald me all over." After saying this, the witch lay ill two or three days, and then died. The daughter ran round to all her neighbors, beg- ging them to come and help her to wash the old woman, and meantime the little granddaughter was left all alone in the cot- tage. And this is what she saw there. All of a sudden there crept out from beneath the stove two demons — a big one and a tiny one — and they ran up to the dead witch. The old demon seized her by the feet, and tore away at her so that he stripped off all her skin at one pull. Then he said to the little demon : " Take the flesh for yourself, and lug it under the stove." So the little demon flung his arms round the carcase, and dragged it under the stove. Nothing was left of the old woman but her skin. Into it the old demon inserted himself, and then he lay down just where the witch had been lying. Presently the daughter came back, bringing a dozen other women with her, and they all set to work laying out the corpse. " Mammy," says the child, " they've pulled granny's skin off while you were away.' " What do you mean by telling such lies ? "It's quite true, Mammy! There was ever such a blackie came from under the stove, and he pulled the skin off, and got into it himself." " Hold your tongue, naughty child ! you're talking nonsense !" cried the old crone's daughter; then she fetched a big cauldron, filled it with cold water, put it on the stove, and heated it till it * Vfanasiaf, viii. p. 165. INTRODUCTORY. 35 boiled furiously. Then the women lifted up the old crone, laid her in a trough, took hold of the cauldron, and poured the whole of the boiling water over her at once. The demon couldn't stand it. He leaped out of the trough, dashed through the doorway, and disappeared, skin and all. The women stared : "What marvel is this ? ' they cried. " Here was the dead woman, and now she isn't here. There's nobody left to lay out or to bury. The demons have carried her off before our very eyes ! " * A Russian peasant funeral is preceded or accompanied by a considerable amount of wailing, which answers in some respect to the Irish "keening." To the zaplachki^ or laments, which are uttered on such occasions — fre- quently by hired wailers, who closely resemble the Corsican " vociferators," the modern Greek '" myrologists ' — allu- sions are sometimes made in the Skazkas. In the " Fox- wailer," % for example — one of the variants of the well- known " Jack and the Beanstalk " story — an old man puts his wife in a bag and attempts to carry her up the bean- stalk to heaven. Becoming tired on the way, he drops the bag, and the old woman is killed. After weeping over her dead body he sets out in search of a Wailer. Meeting a bear, he cries " Wail a bit, Bear, for my old woman ! I'll give you a pair of nice white fowls." The bear growls * In West-European stories the devil frequently carries off a witch's soul after death. Here the fiend enters the corpse, or rather its skin, probably intending to reappear as a vampire. Compare Bleek's " Reynard the Fox in South Africa," No. 24, in which a lion squeezes itself into the skin of a girl it has killed. I have generally rendered by " demon," instead of " devil," the word chort when it occurs in stories of this class, as the spirits to which they refer are manifestly akin to those of oriental demonology. t For an account of which, see the " Songs of the Russian People," pp. 333-334- The best Russian work on the subject is Barsof's " Prichitaniya Syevemago Kraya," Moscow, 1872- X Afanasief, iv. No- 9. 36 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. out <; Oh, dear granny of mine ! how I grieve for thee ! " " No, no ! " says the old man, " you can't wail." Going a little further he tries a wolf, but the wolf succeeds no better than the bear. At last a fox comes by, and on being ap- pealed to, begins to cry aloud " Turu-Turu, grandmother ! grandfather has killed thee ! " — a wail which pleases the widower so much that he hands over the fowls to the fox at once, and asks, enraptured, for " that strain again ! "* One of the most curious of the stories which relate to a village burial, — one in which also the feeling with which the Russian villagers sometimes regard their clergy finds expression — is that called — The Treasure.! In a certain kingdom there lived an old couple in great poverty. Sooner or later the old woman died. It was in winter, in severe and frosty weather. The old man went round to his friends and neighbors, begging them to help him to dig a grave for the old woman ; but his friends and neighbors, knowing his great poverty, all flatly refused, The old man went to the pope, % (but in that village they had an awfully grasping pope, one without any conscience), and says he : — " Lend a hand, reverend father, to get my old woman buried." " But have you got any money to pay for the funeral ? if so, friend, pay up beforehand ! " " It's no use hiding anything from you. Not a single copeck have I at home. But if you'll wait a little, I'll earn some, and then I'll pay you with interest — on my word I'll pay you ! " The pope wouldn't so much as listen to the old man. * Professor de Gubernatis justly remarks that this " howling " is more in keep- ing with the nature of the eastern jackal than with that of its western counterpart, the fox. "Zoological Mythology," ii. 130. t Afanasief, vii. No. 45. 1 /V,V is the ordinary but disrespectful term fcr a pnest {Svyashchtxnik), W f'pcri:h n t.iT a priest's son. INTROD L/C TOR V. 37 " If yet: haven't any money, don't you dare to come here," says he. " What's to be done ? " thinks the old man. " I'll go to the garveyard, dig a grave as I best can, and bury the old woman myself." So he took an axe and a shovel, and went to the grave- yard. When he got there he began to prepare a grave. He chopped away the frozen ground on the top with the axe, and then he took to the shovel. He dug and dug, and at last he dug out a metal pot. Looking into it he saw that it was stuffed full of ducats that shone like fire. The old man was immensely de- lighted, and cried, " Glory be to Thee, О Lord ! I shall have wherewithal both to bury my old woman, and to perform the rites of remembrance." He did not go on digging the grave any longer, but took the pot of gold and carried it home. Well, we all know what money will do — everything went as smooth as oil ! In a trice there were found good folks to dig the grave and fashion the coffin. The old man sent his daughter-in-law to purchase meat and drink and different kind of relishes — everything there ought to be at memorial feasts — and he himself took a ducat in his hand and hobbled pack again to the pope's. The moment he reached the door, out flew the pope at him. " You were distinctly told, you old lout, that you were not to come here without money ; and now you've slunk back again." " Don't be angry, batyushka," * said the old man imploringly. "Here's gold for you. If you'll only bury my old woman, I'll never forget your kindness." The pope took the money, and didn't know how best to receive the old man, where to seat him, with what words to smooth him down. " Well now, old friend ! Be of good cheer ; everything shall be done," said he. The old man made his bow, and went home, and the pope and his wife began talking about him. " There now, the old hunks ! " they say. " So poor, forsooth, • " Father dear," or " reverend father." 38 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. so poor! And yet he's paid a gold piece. Many a defunct person of quality have I buried in my time, but I never got so from anyone before." The pope got under weigh with all his retinue, and buried the old crone in proper style. After the funeral the old man invited him to his house, to take part in the feast in memory of the dead. Well, they entered the cottage, and sat down to table -'-and there appeared from somewhere or other meat and drink and all sorts of snacks, everything in profusion. The (reverend) guest sat down, ate for three people, looked greedily at what was not his. The (other) guests finished their meal, and sep- arated to go to their homes ; then the pope also rose from the table. The old man went to speed him on his way. As soon as they got into the farmyard, and the pope saw they were alone at last, he began questioning the old man : " Listen, friend ! confess to me, don't leave so much as a single sin on your soul — it's just the same before me as before God ! How have you managed to get on at such a pace ? You used to be a poor moujik, and now — marry ! where did it come from ? Confess, friend, whose breath have you stopped? whom have you pillaged ? " " What are you talking about, batyushka ? I will tell you the exact truth. I have not robbed, nor plundered, nor killed any- one. A treasure tumbled into my hands of its own accord." And he told him how it all happened. When the pope heard these words he actually shook all over with greediness. Going home, he did nothing by night and by day but think, " That such a wretched lout of a moujik should have come in for such a lump of money ! Is there any way of tricking him now, and getting this pot of money out of him ? " He told his wife about it, and he and she discussed the matter together, and held counsel over it. " Listen, mother," says he ; "we've a goat, haven't we ?" " Yes." " All right, then ; we'll wait until it's night, and then we'll из the job properly." INTROD UCTOR Y. 39 Lafe in the evening the pope dragged the goat indoors, killed it, and took off its skin — horns, beard, and all complete. Then he pulled the goat's skin over himself and said to his wife ; "Bring a needle and thread, mother, and fasten up the skin all round, so that it mayn't slip off." So she took a strong needle, and some tough thread, and sewed him up in the goatskin. Well, at the dead of night, the pope went straight to the old man's cottage, got under the win- dow, and began knocking and scratching. The old man hearing the noise, jumped up and asked : "Who's there? " "The Devil!" " Ours is a holy spot ! *" shrieked the moujik, and began crossing himself and uttering prayers. " Listen, old man," says the pope, " From me thou will not escape, although thou may'st pray, although thou may'st cross thyself; much better give me back my pot of money, otherwise I will make thee pay for it. See now, I pitied thee in thy misfor- tune, and I showed thee the treasure, thinking thou wouldst take a little of it to pay for the funeral, but thou hast pillaged it utterly." The old man looked out of window — the goat's horns and beard caught his eye — it was the Devil himself, no doubt of it. "Let's get rid of him, money and all." thinks the old man ; " I've lived before now without money, and now I'll go on living without it." So he took the pot of gold, carried it outside, flung it on the ground, and bolted indoors again as quickly as possible. The pope seized the pot of money, and hastened home. When he got back, " Come," says he, " the money is in our hands now. Here, mother, put it well out of sight, and take a sharp knife, cut the thread, and pull the goatskin off me before anyone sees it. She took a knife, and was beginning to cut the thread at the seam, when forth flowed blood, and the pope began to- howl : * A phrase often used by the peasants, when frightened by anything of supernatural appearance. 10 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. "Oh! it hurts, mother, it hurts! don't cut mother, ^don't cut ! " She began ripping the skin open in another place, but with just the same result. The goatskin had united with his body all round. And all that they tried, and all that they did, even to taking the money back to the old man, was of no avail. The goatskin remained clinging tight to the pope all the same. God evidently did it to punish him for his great greediness. A somewhat less heathenish story with regard to money is the following, which may be taken as a specimen of the Skazkas which bear the impress of the genuine reverence which the peasants feel for their religion, whatever may be the feelings they entertain towards its ministers. While alluding to this subject, by the way, it may be as well to remark that no great reliance can be placed upon the evidence contained in the folk-tales of any land, with re- spect to the relations between its clergy and their flocks. The local parson of folk-lore is, as a general rule, merely the innocent inheritor of the bad reputation acquired by some ecclesiastic of another age and clime The Cross-Surety.* Once upon a time two merchants lived in a certain town just on the verge of a stream. One of them was a Russian, the other a Tartar; both were rich. But the Russian got so utterly ruined by some business or other that he hadn't a single bit of property left. Everything he had was confiscated or stolen. The Rus- sian merchant had nothing to turn to — he was left as poor as a ra':.f So he went to his friend the Tartar, and besought him to le» 1 him seme money. " Get me a surety," says the Tartar. " But whpm can I get for you, seeing that I haven't a soul * Afanasief, Skazki, vii. No. 4g. t The Russian expression is gol kak sokbl, " bare as a hawk." LXTROD UCTOR V. 4 1 belonging to me ? Stay, though ! there's a surety for you, the life-giving cross on the church ! " " Very good, my friend ! " says the Tartar. " I'll trust your cross. Your faith or ours, it's all one to me." And he gave the Russian merchant fifty thousand roubles The Russian took the money, bade the Tartar farewell, and went back to trade in divers places. By the end of two years he had gained a hundred and fifty thousand rubles by the fifty thousand he had borrowed. Now he happened to be sailing one day along the Danube, going with wares from one place to another, when all of a sudden a storm arose, and was on the point of sinking the ship he was in. Then the merchant remembered how he had borrowed money, and given the life-giving cross as a surety, but had not paid his debt. That was doubtless the cause of the storm arising ! No sooner had he said this to himself than the storm began to subside. The merchant took a barrel, counted out fifty thousand roubles, wrote the Tartar a note, placed it, together with the money, in the barrel, and then flung the barrel into the water, saying to himself : " As I gave the cross as my surety to the Tartar, '.he money will be certain to reach him." The barrel straightway sank to the bottom ; everyone sup- posed the money was lost. But what happened ? In the Tar- tar's house there lived a Russian kitchen-maid. One day she happened to go to the river for water, and when she got there she saw a barrel floating along. So she went a little way into the water and began trying to get hold of it. But it wasn't to be done ! When she made at the barrel, it retreated from her : when she turned from the barrel to the shore, it floated after her. She went on trying and trying for some time, then she went home and told her master all that had happened. At first he wouldn't believe her, but at last he determined to go to the river and see for himself what sort of barrel it was that was floating there. When he got there — sure enough there was the barrel floating, and not far from the shore. The Tartar took off his clothes and went into the water ; before he had gone any 42 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. distance the barrel came floating up to him of its own accord He laid hold of it, carried it home, opened it, and looked inside. There he saw a quantity of money, and on top of the money a note. He took out the note and read it, and this is what was said in it : — " Dear friend ! I return to you the fifty thousand roubles for which, when I borrowed them from you, I gave the life-giving cross as a surety." The Tartar read these words and was astounded at the pow- er of the life-giving cross. He counted the money over to see whether the full sum was really there. It was there exactly. Meanwhile, the Russian merchant, after trading some five years, made a tolerable fortune. Well, he returned to his old home, and, thinking that his barrel had been lost, he considered it his first duty to settle with the Tartar. So he went to his house and offered him the money he had borrowed. Then the Tartar told him all that had happened and how he had found the barrel in the river, with the money and the note inside it. Then he showed him the note, saying: "Is that really your hand ? " " It certainly is," replied the other. Every one was astounded at this wondrous manifestation, and the Tartar said : "Then I've no more money to receive from you, brother; take that back again." The Russian merchant had a service performed as a thank- offering to God, and next day the Tartar was baptized with all his household. The Russian merchant was his godfather, and the kitchen-maid his godmother. After that they both lived long and happily, survived to a great age, and then died peace- fully* There is one marked feature in the Russian peasant's character to which the Skazkas frequently refer — his pas- sion for drink. To him strong liquor is a friend, a comfor- * In another story St. Nicola's picture is the surety. INTROD UCTOR Y. 43 ter, a solace amid the ills of life. Intoxication is not so much an evil to be dreaded or remembered with shame, as a joy to be fondly anticipated, or classed with the happy memories of the past. By him drunkenness is regarded, like sleep, as the friend of woe — and a friend whose ser- vices can be even more readily commanded. On certain occasions he almost believes that to get drunk is a duty he owes either to the Church, or to the memory of the Dead ; at times without the slightest apparent cause, he is seized by a sudden and irresistible craving for ardent spirits, and he commences a drinking-bout which lasts — with intervals of coma — for days, or even weeks, after which he resumes his everyday life and his usual sobriety as calmly as if no interruption had taken place. All these ideas and habits of his find expression in his popular tales, giving rise to incidents which are often singularly out of keeping with the rest of the narrative in which they occur. In one of the many variants,* for instance, of a wide-spread and well known story — that of the three princesses who are rescued frem captivity by a hero from whom they are afterwards carried away, and who refuse to get married until certain clothes or shoes or other things impossible for ordinary workmen to make are supplied to them — an unfortunate shoemaker is told that if he does not next day produce the necessary shoes (of perfect fit, although no measure has been taken, and all set thick with precious stones) he shall be hanged. Away he goes at once to a traktir, or tavern, and sets to work to drown his grief in drink. After awhile he begins to totter. " Now then," he says, " I'll take home a bicker of spirits with me, and go to bed. And to-morrow morning, as soon as they come to fetch me to be hanged, • Another variant of this story, under the title of " Norka," will be quoted in full in the next chapter. 44 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. I'll toss off half the bickerful. They may hang me then without my knowing anything about it." * In the story of the " Purchased Wife," the Princess Anastasia, the Beautiful, enables the youth Ivan, who ransoms her, to win a large sum of money in the following manner. Having worked a piece of embroidery, she tells him to take it to market. " But if any one purchases it," says she, " don't take any money from him, but ask him to give you liquor enough to make you drunk." Ivan obeys, and this is the result. He drank till he was intoxicated, and when he left the kabak (or pothouse) he tumbled into a muddy pool. A crowd collected and folks looked at him and said scoffingly, " Oh, the fair youth ! now'd be the time for him to go to church to get married ! " " Fair or foul ! " says he, " if I bid her, Anastasia the Beautiful will kiss the crown of my head." " Don't go bragging like that ! " says a rich merchant — "why she wouldn't even so much as look at you," and offers to stake all that he is worth on the truth of his assertion. Ivan accepts the wager. The Princess appears, takes him by the hand, kisses him on the crown of his head, wipes the dirt off him, and leads him home, still inebriated but no longer impecunious, f Sometimes even greater people than the peasants get drunk. The story of " Semiletka " % — a variant of the well known tale of how a woman's wit enables her to guess all riddles, to detect all deceits, and to conquer all difficulties — relates how the heroine was chosen by a Voyvode § as his * Afanasief, vii. p. 107. t Afanasief, vii. p. 146. X Or " The Seven-year-old." Khudyakof, No. 6. See Grimm, No. 94, *' Dei kluge Bauerntochter," and iii. 170-2. § Voevoda, now a general, formerly meant a civil governor, etc. INTRO D UCTOk V. 45 > wife, with the stipulation that if she meddled in the affairs of his Voyvodeship she was to be sent back to her father, but allowed to take with her whatever thing belonging to her she prized most. The marriage takes place, but one day the well known case comes before him for decision, of the foal of the borrowed mare — does it belong to the owner of the mare, or to the borrower in whose possession it was at the time of foaling? The Voyvode adjudges it to the borrower, and this is how the story ends : — "Semiletka heard of this and could not restrain herself, but said that he had decided unfairly. The Voyvode waxed wroth, and demanded a divorce. After dinner Semiletka was obliged to go back to her father's house. But during the dinner she made the Voyvode drink till he was intoxi- cated. He drank his fill and went to sleep. While he was sleeping she had him placed in a carriage, and then she drew* away with him to her father's. When they had arrived there the Voyvode awoke and said — " ' Who brought me here ? ' " ' I brought you,' said Semiletka ; ' there was an agree- ment between us that I might take away with me whatever I prized most. And so I have taken you ! ' " The Voyvode marvelled at her wisdom, and made peace with her. He and she then returned home and went on living prosperously." But although drunkenness is very tenderly treated in the Skazkas, as well as in the folk-songs, it forms the subject of many a moral lesson, crouched in terms of the utmost severity, in the stikhi (or poems of a religious character, bung by the blind beggars and other wandering minstrels who sing in front of churches), and also in the " Legends," which are tales of a semi-religious (or rather demi-semi- 46 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. religious) nature. No better specimen of the stones of this class referring to drunkenness can be offered than the history of — The Awful Drunkard.* Once there was an old man who was such an awful drunkard as passes all description. Well, one day he went to a kabak, intoxicated himself with liquor, and then went staggering home blind drunk. Now his way happened to lie across a river. When he came to the river, he didn't stop long to consider, but kicked off his boots, hung them round his neck, and walked into the water. Scarcely had he got half-way across when he tripped over a stone, tumbled into the water — and there was an end of him. Now, he left a son called Petrusha.f When Peter saw that his father had disappeared and left no trace behind, he took the matter greatly to heart for a time, he wept for awhile, he had a service performed for the repose of his father's soul, and he began to act as head of the family. One Sunday he went to church to pray to God. As he passed along the road a woman was pounding away in front of him. She walked and walked, stumbled over a stone, and began swearing at it, saying, " What devil shoved you under my feet ? " Hearing these words, Petrusha said : " Good day, aunt ! whither away ? " " To church, my dear, to pray to God." " But isn't this sinful conduct of yours ? You're going to church, to pray to God, and yet you think about the Evil One ; your foot stumbles and you throw the fault on the Devil ! " Well, he went to church and then returned home, He walked and walked, and suddenly, goodness knows whence, there appeared before him a fine- looking man, who saluted hin? and said : • AfaDasieL " Legendui," No. 29. t Diminutive of Peters. INTRO D UCTOR Y. 47 "Thanks, Petrusha, for your good word ! " " Who are you, and why do you thank me ? " asks Petrusha. " I am the Devil.* I thank you because, when that woman stumbled, and scolded me without a cause, you said a good word for me." Then he began to entreat him, saying, " Come and pay me a visit, Petrusha. How I will reward you to be sure ! With silver and with gold, with everything will I endow you." "Very good," says Petrusha, " I'll come." Having told him all about the road he was to take, the Devil straightway disappeared, and Petrusha returned home. Next day Petrusha set off on his visit to the Devil. He walked and walked, for three whole days did he walk, and then he reached a great forest, dark and dense — impossible even to see the sky from within it ! And in that forest there stood a rich palace. Well, he entered the palace, and a fair maiden caught sight of him. She had been stolen from a certain village by the evil spirit. And when she caught sight of him she cried : " Whatever have you come here for good youth ? here devils abide, they will tear you to pieces." Petrusha told her how and why he had made his appearance in that palace. " Well now, mind this," says the fair maiden ; "the Devil will begin giving you silver and gold. Don't take any of it, but ask him to give you the very wretched horse which the evil spirits use for fetching wood and water. That horse is your father. When he came out of the kabak drunk, and fell into the water, the devils immediately seized him and made him their hack, and now they use him for fetching wood and water." Presently there appeared the gallant who had invited Petrusha, and began to regale him with all kinds of meat and drink. And when the time came for Petrusha to be going home- wards, " Come," said the Devil, " I will provide you with money and with a capital horse, so that you will speedily get home." • The word employed here is not chart, but diavol. 48 R USSIA N FOLK- ТА LES. " I don't want anything," replied Petrusha. Only, if you wish to make me a present, give me that sorry jade which you use for carrying wood and wat.^r." " What good will that be to you ? If you ride it home quickly, I expect it will die ! " " No matter, let me have it. I won't take any other." So the Devil gave him that sorry jade. Petrusha took it by the bridle and led it away. As soon as he reached the gates there appeared the fair maiden, and asked : " Havt you got the horse ? " " I have." " Well then, good youth, when you get nigh to your village, take off your cross, trace a circle three times about this horse, and hang the cross round its neck." Petrusha took leave of her and went his way. When he came nigh to his village he did everything exactly as the maiden had instructed him. He took off his copper cross, traced a circle three times about the horse, and hung the cross round its neck. And immediately the horse was no longer there, but in its place there stood before Petrusha his own father. The son looked upon the father, burst into tears, and led him to his cot- tage ; and for three days the old man remained without speak- ing, unable to make use of his tongue. And after that they lived happily and in all prosperity. The old man entirely gave up drinking, and to his very last day never took so much as a single drop of spirits.* The Russian peasant is by no means deficient in humor, a fact of which the Skazkas offer abundant evi- dence. But it is not easy to find stories which can be quoted at full length as illustrations of that humor. The jokes which form the themes of the Russian facetious tales are for the most part common to all Europe. And a similar assertion may be made with regard to the stories of most * Some remarks on the stories of this class, will be found in Chap. VI. The Russian peasants still believe that all people who drink themselves to death are used as carriers of wood and water in the infernal regions. INTROD UCTOR V. 4 9 lands. An unfamiliar joke is but rarely to be discovered in the lower strata of fiction. He who has read the folk- tales of one country only, is apt to attribute to its inhab- itants a comic originality to which they can lay no claim. And so a Russian who knows the stories of his own land, but has not studied those of other countries, is very liable to credit the Skazkas with the undivided possession of a number of " merry jests " in which they can claim but a very small share — jests which in reality form the stock-in- trade of rustic wags among the vineyards of France or Germany, or on the hills of Greece, or beside the fiords of Norway, or along the coasts of Brittany or Argyleshire — which for centuries have set beards wagging in Cairo and Ispahan, and in the cool of the evening hour have cheered the heart of the villager weary with his day's toil under the burning sun of India. It is only when the joke hinges upon something which is peculiar to a people that it is likely to be found among that people only. But most of the Russian jests turn upon pivots which are familiar to all the world, and have for their themes such common-place topics as the incorrigible folly of man, the inflexible obstinacy of woman. And in their treatments of these subjects they offer very few novel features. It is strange how far a story of this kind may travel, and yet how little alternation it may undergo. Take, for instance, the skits against women which are so uni- versally popular. Far away in outlying districts of Russia we find the same time-honored quips which have so long figured in collections of English facetiae. There is the good old story, for instance, of the dispute between a husband and wife as to whether a certain rope has been cut with a knife or with scissors, resulting in the murder of the scissors-upholding wife, who is pitched into the river 4 50 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. by her knife-advocating husband ; but not before she has, in her very death agony, testified to her belief in the scis- sors hypothesis by a movement of her fingers above the surface of the stream.* In a Russian form of the story, told in the government of Astrakhan, the quarrel is about the husband's beard. He says he has shaved it, his wife declares he has only cut it off. He flings her into a deep pool, and calls to her to say " shaved." Utterance is impossible to her, but " she lifts one hand above the water and by means of two fingers makes signs to show that it was cut." f The story has even settled into a pro- verb. Of a contradictory woman the Russian peasants affirm that, " If you say ' shaved ' she'll say ' cut.' " In the same way another story shows us in Russian garb our old friend the widower who, when looking for his drowned wife — a woman of a very antagonistic disposition — went up the river instead of down, saying to his aston- ished companions, " She always did everything contrary- wise, so now, no doubt, she's gone against the stream." % A common story again is that of the husband who, having confided a secret to his wife which he justly fears she will reveal, throws discredit on her evidence about things in general by making her believe various absurd stories which she hastens to repeat. % The final paragraph of one of the * In the sixty-fourth story of Asbjornsen's " Norske Folke-Eventyr," (Ny Sara- ling, 1871) the dispute between the husband and wife is about a cornfield — as to whether it should be reaped or shorn — and she tumbles into a pool while she is mak- ing clipping gestures " under her husband's nose." In the old fabliau of " Le Pre Tondu" (Le Grand d' Aussy, Fabliaux, 1829, iii. 185), the husband cuts out the tongue of hia wife, to prevent her from repeating that his meadow has been clipped, where дроп she makes a clipping sign with her fingers. In Poggio's " Facetiae," the wife is doubly aggravating- For copious information with respect to the use made of this story by the romance-writers, see Liebrecht's translations of Basile's " Pear 1 tamerone," ii. 264, and of Dunbp's " His'ory of Literature," p- 516. t Afanasief, v. p. 16. J Ibid., iii. p. 87. INTR OD UCTOR Y. 51 variants of this time-honored jest is quaint, conj'uding as it does, by way of sting, with a highly popuLv Russian saw. The wife has gone to the seigneur of the v'.ilage and accused her husband of having found a treasure and kept it for his own use. The charge is true, but ХУл wife' is induced to talk such nonsense, and the husband с лпрЫпэ so bitterly of her, that " the seigneur pitied the TiOujik for being so unfortunate, so he set him at liberty ; and he had him divorced from his wife and married to another, a young and good-looking one. Then the moujik immedi- ately dug up his treasure and began living in the best manner possible." Sure enough the proverb doesn't say without reason : " Women have long hair and short wits."* There is another story of this class which is worthy of being mentioned, as it illustrates a custom in which the Russians differ from some other peoples. A certain man had married a wife who was so capri- cious that there was no living with her. After trying all sorts of devices her dejected husband at last asked her how she had been brought up, and learnt that she had received an education almost entirely German and French, with scarcely any Russian in it ; she had not even been wrapped in swaddling-clothes when a baby, nor swung in a liulka. | Thereupon her husband determined to remedy the short- comings of her early education, and " whenever she showed herself capricious, or took to squalling, he im- mediately had her swaddled and placed in a liulka, and began swinging her to and fro." By the end of a half year she became " quite silky " — all her caprices had been swung out of her. * Chud'isky, No. 8. The proverb is dear to the Tartars also. t Ibid. No. 23. The liulka, or Russian cradle, is suspended and swung, instead of being placed on the floor and rocked. Russian babies are usually swaddled tightly, like American papooses. 62 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. But instead of giving mere extracts from any more of the numerous stories to which the fruitful subject of woman's caprice has given rise, we will quote a couple of such tales at length. The first is the Russian variant of a story which has a long family tree, with ramifications extending over a great part of the world. Dr. Benfey has devoted to it no less than sixteen pages of his introduction to the Panchatantra,* tracing it from its original Indian home, and its subsequent abode in Persia, into almost every European land. The Bad Wife, f A bad wife lived on the worst of terms with her husband, and never paid any attention to what he said. If her husband told her to get up early, she would lie in bed three days at a stretch if he wanted her to go to sleep, she couldn't think of sleeping. When her husband asked her to make pancakes, she would say: " You thief, you don't deserve a pancake ! " If he said: " Don't make any pancakes wife, if I don't deserve them," she would cook a two-gallon pot full, and say, " Eat away, you thief, till they're all gone ! " " Now then, wife," perhaps he would say, " I feel quite sorry for you ; don't go toiling and moiling, and don't go out to the hay cutting." "No, no, you thief!" she would reply, "I shall go, and do you» follow after me ! " One day, after having had his trouble and bother with her he went into the forest to look for berries and distract his grief, and he came to where there was a currant bush, and in the mid- * " Panchatantra," 1S59, vol. i. § 212, pp. 5iq-=;24. I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my obligations to Dr. Bcnf^y's invaluable work. t " Afnnasief, i. No. g. Written down ip the Novgorod Government. Its dialect renders it somewhat difficult to read. INTRODUCTORY. ЬЗ die of that bush he saw a bottomless pit. He looked at it foi some time and considered, " Why should I live in torment with a bad wife ? can't I put her into that pit ? can't I teach her a good lesson ? " So when he came home, he said : "Wife, don't go into the woods for berries." " Yes, you bugbear, I shall go ! " " I've found a currant bush ; don't pick it." " Yes I will ; I shall go and pick it clean ; but I won't give you a single currant ! " The husband went out, his wife with him. He came to the currant bush, and his wife jumped into it, crying out at the top her voice : " Don't you come into the bush, you thief, or I'll kill you ! " And so she got into the middle of the bush, and went flop into the bottomless pit. The husband returned home joyfully, and remained there three days ; on the fourth day he went to see how things were going on. Taking a long cord, he let it down into the pit, and out from thence he pulled a little demon. Frightened out of his ■vits, he was going to throw the imp back again into the pit, Hut it shrieked aloud, and earnestly entreated him, saying : " Don't send me back again, О peasant ! let me go out into .he world ! A bad wife has come, and absolutely devoured us all, pinching us, and biting us — we're utterly worn out with it. I'll do you a good turn, if you will." So the peasant let him go free — at large in Holy Russia. Then the imp said : " Now then, peasant, come along with me to the town of Vologda. I'll take to tormenting people, and you shall cure them." Well, the imp went to where there were merchant's wives and merchant's daughters ; and when they were possessed by him, they fell ill and went crazy. Then the peasant would go to a house where there was illness of this kind, and, as soon as he 6i RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. entered, out would go the enemy ; then there would be blessing in the house, and everyone would suppose that the peasant was a doctor indeed, and would give him money, and treat him to pies. And so the peasant gained an incalculable sum of money. At last the demon said : " You've plenty now, peasant; arn't you content? I'm going now to enter into the Boyar's daughter. Mind you don't go curing her. If you do, I shall eat you." The Boyar's daughter fell ill, and went so crazy that she wanted to eat people. The Boyar ordered his people to find out the peasant— (that is to say) to look for such and such a physi- cian. The peasant came, entered the house, and told Boyar to make all the townspeople, and the carriages with coachmen, stand in the street outside. Moreover, he gave orders that all the coachmen should crack their whips and cry at the top of their voices : " The Bad Wife has come ! the Bad Wife has come ! " and then he went into the inner room. As soon as he entered it, the demon rushed at him crying, "What do you mean, Rus- sian ? what have you come here for ? I'll eat you ! " "What do you mean?" said the peasant, "why I didn't come here to turn you out. I came, out of pity to you, to say that the Bad Wife has come here." The Demon rushed to the window, stared with all his eyes, and heard everyone shouting at the top of his voice the words, "The Bad Wife!" . " Peasant," cries the Demon, " wherever can I take refuge ? " Run back into the pit. She won't go there any more." The Demon went back to the pit — and to the Bad Wife too. In return for his services, the Boyar conferred a rich guer- don on the peasant, giving him his daughter to wife, and present- ing him with half his property. But the Bad Wife sits to this day in the pit — in Tartarus,* * Tbis story is known to the Finns, but with them the Russian Demon, (chorievtwk «=a little chart or devil), has become the Plague. In the original Indian story the de- mon is one which had formerly lived in a Brahman's house, but had been frightened away by his cantankerous wife- In the Servian version (Karajich, No. 37), the INTRODUCTORY. 55 Our final illustration of the Skazkas which satirize women is the story of the Golovikha. It is all the more valuable, inasmuch as it is one of the few folk-tales which throw any light on the working of Russian communal institutions. The word Golovikha means, in its strict sense, the wife of a Golova, or elected chief [Go/ov/i = head] of a Volost, or association of village communities ; but here it is used for a " female Go/ova," a species of " mayoress." The Golovikha.* A certain woman was very bumptious. Her husband came from a village council one day, and she asked him : " What have you been deciding over there ? " "What have we been deciding ? why choosing a Golova." " Whom have you chosen ? " "No one as yet." " Choose me," says the woman. So as soon as her husband went back to the council (she was a bad sort ; he wanted to give her a lesson) he told the elders what she had said. They immediately chose her as Golova. Well the woman got along, settled all questions, took bribes, and drank spirits at the peasant's expense. But the time came to collect the poll-tax. The Golova couldn't do it, wasn't able to collect it in time. There came a Cossack, and asked for the Golova ; but the woman had hidden herself. As soon as she learnt that the Cossack had come, off she ran home. " Where, oh where can I hide myself ? " she cries to her husband. " Husband dear ! tie me up in a bag, and put me out tl)£re where the corn-sacks are." opening consists of the " Scissors-story," to which allusion has already been made. The vixen falls into a hole which she does not see, so bent is she on controverting her husband. * Afanasitf, ii. No. «2. Written down by a " Crown Serf," in the government low never lived ! One day he went out for a stroll. As he went along the road he saw a beggar — an old man, who sat there ask- ing for alms — " Please to give, О ye Orthodox, for Christ's sake ! " Marko the Rich passed by. Just at that time there came up behind him a poor moujik, who felt sorry for the beggar, and gave him a copeck. The rich man seemed to feel ashamed, for he stopped and said to the moujik : "Harkye, neighbor, lend me a copeck. I want to give that poor man something, but I've no small change." The moujik gave him one, and asked when he should come for his money. "Come to-morrow," was the reply. Well next day the poor man went to the rich man's to get his copeck. He entered his spacious court-yard and asked : " Is Marko the Rich at home ? " "Yes. What do you want ? " replied Marko. " I've come for my copeck." "Ah, brother! come again. Really I've no change just now." The poor man made his bow and went away. " I'll come to-morrow," said he. On the morrow he came again, but it was just the same story as before. "I haven't a single copper. If you like to change me a note for a hundred — No ? well then come again in a fortnight." At the end of the fortnight the poor man came again, but Marko the Rich saw him from the window, and said to his wife : " Harkye, wife ! I'll strip myself naked and lie down under the holy pictures. Cover me up with a cloth, and sit down and cry, just as you would over a corpse. When the moujik comes for his money, tell him I died this morning." Well the wife did everything exactly as her husband directed * Afannsief, v. No. 3. From the Novgorod Government. INTRO D UCTOR Y. 1 her. While she was sitting there drowned in bitter tears, the moujik came into the room. " What do you want ? " says she. " The money Marko the Rich owes me," answers the poor man. " Ah, moujik. Marko the Rich has wished us farewell ; * he's only just dead." "The kingdom of heaven be his ! If you'll allow me ; mis- tress, in return for my copeck I'll do him a last service — just give his mortal remains a wash." So saying he laid hold of a pot full of boiling water and began pouring its scalding contents over Marko the Rich. Marko, hia brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold out. f "Writhe away or not as you please," thought the poor man, "but pay me my copeck! " When he had washed the body, and laid it out properly, he said: " Now then, mistress, buy a coffin and have it taken into the church ; I'll go and read psalms over it." So Marko the Rich was put in a coffin and take a into the church, and the moujik began reading psalms over him. The darkness of night came on. All of a sudden a window opened, and a party of robbers crept through it into the church. The moujik hid himself behind the altar. As soon as the robbers had come in they began dividing their booty, and after everything else was shared there remained over and above a golden sabre — each one laid hold of it for himself, no one would give up his claim to it. Out jumped the poor man, crying : " What's the good of disputing that way ? Let the sabre belong to him who will cut this corpse's head off ! " Up jumped Marko the Rich like a madman. The robbers * Literally, " has bid to live long," a conventional euphemism for " has died." " Remember what his name was," is sometimes added. t It will be observed that the miser holds out against tire pain which the scalderf demon was unable to bear. See above, p. 21. 62 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. were frightened out of their wits, flung away their spoil and scampered off. " Here, Moujik," says Marko, "let's divide the money." They divided it equally between them : each of the shares was a large one. " But how about the copeck ? " asks the poor man. "Ah, brother!" replies Marko, "surely you can see I've got no change ! " And so Marko the Rich never paid the copeck after all. We may take next the large class of stories about simpletons, so dear to the public in all parts of the world. In the Skazkas a simpleton is known as a durak, a word which admits of a variety of explanations. Sometimes it means an idiot, sometimes a fool in the sense of a jester. In the stones of village life its signification is generally that of a " ninny ; " in the " fairy stones " it is frequently applied to the youngest of the well-known " Three Broth- ers," the " Boots " of the family as Dr. Dasent has called him. In the latter case, of course, the hero's durachesivc, or foolishness, is purely subjective. It exists only in the false conceptions of his character which his family or his neighbors have formed.* But the durak of the following tale is represented as being really " daft." The story begins with one of the conventional openings of the Skazka — " In a certain tsarstvo, in_a certain gosudarstvo" — ■ but the two synonyms for " kingdom " or " state " are used only becau зе they rhyme. The Fool and the Birch-Tree, f In a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons. Two of them had their wits about them, but the third was * Professor de Gubematis remarks that he may sometimes be called " the first Brutus of popular tradition." " Zoological Mythology," vol. i-, p. 199. t Afanasief, v. No. 52. INTROD UCTOR V. 63 a fool. The old man died and his sons divided his property among themselves by lot. The sharp-witted ones got plenty of all sorts of good things, but nothing fell to the share of the Sim- pleton but one ox — and that such a skinny one ! Well, fair-time came round, and the clever brothers got ready to go and transact business. The Simpleton saw this, and said : " I'll go, too, brothers, and take my ox for sale." So he fastened a cord to the horn of the ox and drove it to the town. On his way he happened to pass through a forest, and in the forest there stood an old withered Birch-tree. Whenever the wind blew the Birch-tree creaked. "What is the Birch creaking about?" thinks the Simpleton. " Surely it must be bargaining for my ox ? Well," says he, " If you want to buy it, why buy it. I'm not against selling it. The price of the ox is twenty roubles. I can't take less. Out with the money! " The Birch made no reply, only went on creaking. But the Simpleton fancied that it was asking for the ox on credit. " Very good," says he, " I'll wait till to-morrow ! " He tied the ox to the Birch, took leave of the tree, and went home. Presently in came the clever brothers, and began questioning him: "Well, Simpleton! sold your ox ? " "I've sold it." " For how much ? " " For twenty roubles." " Where's the money ? " " I haven't received the money yet. It was settled I should go for it to-morrow." " There's simplicity for you ! " say they. Early next morning the Simpleton got up, dressed himself, and went to the Birch-tree for his money. He reached the wood ; there stood the Birch, waving in the wind, but the ox was not to be seen. During the night the wolves had eaten it. " Now, then, neighbor! " he exclaimed, "pay me my money. You promised you'd pay me to-day." U R US SI А N FOLK- ТА LES. The wind blew, the Birch creaked, and the Simpleton cried: " What a liar you are ! Yesterday you kept saying, ' I'll pay you to-rr orrow,' and now you make just the same promise. Well, so be it, I'll wait one day more, but not a bit longer. I want the money myself." When he returned home, his brothers again questioned him closely : " Have you got your money ? " " No, brothers ; I've got to wait for my money again.' " Whom have you sold it to ? " "To the withered Birch-tree in the forest." "Oh, what an idiot!" On the third day the Simpleton took his hatchet and went to the forest. Arriving there, he demanded his money ; but the Birch-tree only creaked and creaked. "No, no, neighbor!" says he. " If you're always going to treat me to promises, * there'll be no getting anything out of you. I don't like such joking ; I'll pay you out well for it ! " With that he pitched into it with his hatchet, so that its chips flew about in all directions. Now, in that Birch-tree there was a hollow, and in that hollow some robbers had hidden a pot full of gold. The tree split asunder, and the Simpleton caught sight of the gold. He took as much of it as the skirts of his caftan would hold, and toiled home with it. There he showed his brothers what he had brought. " Where did you get such a lot, Simpleton ? " said they. " A neighbor gave it me for my ox. But this isn't anything like the whole of it ; a good half of it I didn't bring home with me ! Come along, brothers, let's get the rest ! " Well, they went into the forest, secured the money, and car- riedithome. " Now mind, Simpleton," say the sensible brothers, " don't tell anyone that we've such a lot of gold." * Zaz>trakami fedchivat = to dupe ; zavtra = to-morrow ; zavtrak ■■ breakfast. INTROD UCTOR Y. 65 " Never fear, I won't tell a soul ! " All of a sudden they run up against a Diachok,* and 6ays he :— " What's that, brothers, you're bringing from the forest ? " The sharp ones replied, " Mushrooms." But the Simpleton contradicted them, saying : " They're telling lies ! we're carrying money ; here, just take a look at it." The Diachok uttered such an " Oh ! " — then he flung himself on the gold, and began seizing handfuls of it and stuffing them into his pocket. The Simpleton grew angry, dealt him a blow with his hatchet, and struck him dead. "Heigh, Simpleton ! what have you been and done ! " cried his brothers. " You're a lost man, and you'll be the cause of our destruction, too ! Wherever shall we put the dead body ? " They thought and thought, and at last they dragged it to an empty cellar and flung it in there. But later on in the evening the eldest brother said to the second one : — " This piece of work is sure to turn out badly. When they begin looking for the Diachok, you'll see that Simpleton will tell them everything. Let's kill a goat and bury it in the cellar, and hide the body of the dead man in some other place." Well, they waited till the dead of night ; then they killed a goat and flung it into the cellar, but they carried the Diachok to another place and there hid him in the ground. Several days passed, and then people began looking everywhere for the Dia- chok, asking everyone about him. " What do you want him for ? " said the Simpleton, when he was asked. " I killed him some time ago with my hatchet, and my brothers carried him into the cellar." Straightway they laid hands on the Simpleton, crying, "Take us there and show him to us." * One of the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though not of the clergy. Butin one of the variants of the story it is a " pope " or priest, who appears, and he immediately claims a share in the spoil. Whereupon the Simpleton makes use of his hatchet. Priests are often nicknamed goats by the Russian peasantry, perhap» on account of their long beards. 5 66 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. The Simpleton went down into the cellar, got hold of the goat's head, and asked : — " Was your Diachok dark-haired ? " " He was." " And had he a beard ? " "Yes, he'd a beard." " And horns ? " " What horns are you talking about, Simpleton ? " "Well, see for yourselves," said he, tossing up the head tc them.- They looked, saw it was a goat's, spat in the Simpleton's face, and went their ways home. One of the most popular simpleton-tales in the world is that of the fond parents who harrow their feelings by con- juring up the misfortunes which may possibly await their as yet unborn grandchildren. In Scotland it is told, in a slightly different form, of two old maids who were once found bathed in tears, and who were obliged to confess that they had been day-dreaming and supposing — if they had been married, and one had had a boy and the other a girl ; and if the children, when they grew up, had married, and had had a little child ; and if it had tumbled out of the win- dow and been killed — what a dreadful thing it would have been. At which terrible idea they both gave way to not unnatural tears. In one of its Russian forms, it is told of the old parents of a boy named Lutonya, who weep over the hypothetical death of an imaginary grandchild, think- ing how sad it would have been if a log which the old woman has dropped had killed that as yet merely potential infant. The parent's grief appears to Lutonya so uncalled for that he leaves home, declaring that he will not return until he has found people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and witnesses several foolish doings, TNTROD UCTOR Y. 67 most of which are familiar to us. In one place, a cow is being hoisted on to a roof in order that it may eat the grass growing thereon ; in another a horse is being inserted into its collar by sheer force ; in a third, a woman is fetching milk from the cellar, a spoonful at a time. But the story comes to an end before its hero has discovered the surpass- ing stupidity of which he is in quest. In another Russian story of a similar nature Lutonya goes from home in search of some one more foolish than his mother, who has been tricked by a cunning sharper. First he finds carpenters attempting to stretch a beam which is not long enough, and earns their gratitude by showing them how to add a piece to it. Then he comes to a place where sickles are unknown, and harvesters are in the habit of biting off the ears of corn, so he makes a sickle for them, thrusts it into a sheaf and leaves it there. They take it for a monstrous worm, tie a cord to it, and drag it away to the bank of the river. There they fasten one of their number to a log and set him afloat, giving him the end of the cord, in order that he may drag the " worm " after him into the water. TJie log turns over, and the moujik with it, so that his head is under water while his legs appear above it. " Why, brother ! " they call to him from the bank, " why are you so particular about your leggings ? If they do get wet, you can dry them at the fire." But he makes no reply, only drowns. Finally Lutonya meets the counterpart of the well-known Irishman who, when counting the party to which he belongs, always forgets to count himself, and so gets into numerical difncul ties. After which he returns home.* * Afanasief, ii. No. 8, v. No. 5. See also Khudyakof, No. 76. Cf. Grimm, No. 34, " Die kluge Else." Haltrich, No. 66- Asbjbrnsen and Мое, No. 10. (Daseiit, No. 24, " Not a Pin to choose between them.") 68 R USSIA N FOLK- ТА L ES. It would be easy to multiply examples of this style of humor — to find in the folk-tales current all over Russia the equivalents of our own facetious narratives about the wise men of Gotham, the old woman whose petticoats were cut short by the pedlar whose name was Stout, and a number of other inhabitants of Fool-land, to whom the heart of childhood is still closely attached, and also of the exaggeration-stories, the German Liigenmakrchen, on which was founded the narrative of Baron Munchausen's sur- prising adventures. But instead of doing this, before passing on to the more important groups of the Skazkas, I will quote, as this chapter's final illustrations of the Russian story-teller's art; an " animal story " and a " legend." Here is the former : — The Mizgir.* In the olden years, long long ago, with the spring-tide fair and the summer's heat there came on the world distress and shame. For gnats and flies began to swarm, biting folks and letting their warm blood flow. Then the Spider \ appeared, the hero bold, who, with wav- ing arms, weaved webs around the highways and byways in which the gnats and flies were most to be found. A ghastly Gadfly, coming that way, stumbled straight into the Spider's snare. The Spider, tightly squeezing her throat, prepared to put her out of the world. From the Spider the Gadfly mercy sought. " Good father Spider ! please not to kill me. I've ever so many little ones. Without me they'll be orphans left, and from door to door have to beg their bread and squabble with dogs." * Afanasief, ii. No. 5. Written down by a crown-peasant in the government oJ Perm. t Mizgir, a venomous spider, like the Tarantula, found in the Kirghiz Steppes. INTRO D UCTOR V. 63 Well, the Spider released her. Away she flew, and every- where humming and buzzing about, told the flies and gnats of what had occurred. " Ho, ye gnats and flies ! Meet here beneath this ash-tree's roots. A spider has come, and, with waving of arms and weav- ing of nets, has set his snares in all the ways to which the flies and gnats resort. He'll catch them, every single one ! " They flew to the spot ; beneath the ash-tree's roots they hid, and lay there as though they were dead. The Spider came, and there he found a cricket, a beetle, and a bug. " О Cricket ! " he cried, " upon this mound sit and take snuff ! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, О Bug, the bun-like, beneath the ash, and spread abroad this news of me, the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold — that the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold, no longer in the world exists ; that they have sent him to Kazan ; that in Kazan, upon a block, they've chopped his head off, and the block destroyed." On the mound sat the Cricket and took snuff. The Beetk. smote upon the drum. The Bug crawled in among the ash-tree'w roots, and cried : — " Why have ye fallen ? Wherefore as in death do ye lit here ? Truly no longer lives the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold. They've sent him to Kazan and in Kazan they've chopped his head off on a block, and afterwards destroyed the block." The gnats and flies grew blithe and merry. Thrice they crossed themselves, then out they flew — and straight into the Spider's snares. Said he : — " But seldom do ye come ! I would that ye would far more often come to visit me ! to quaff my wine and beer, and pay me tribute ! " * * In another story bearing the same title (v. 39) the spider lies on its back await» ing its prey. Up comes " tlie honorable widow," the wasp, and falls straight into the trap. The spider beheads her. Then the gnats and flies assemble, perform a funeral service over her remains, and carry them off on their shoulders to the village of Komarovo (komar = gnat). For specimens of the Russian "Beast-Epos" the reader is referred (as I have stated in the preface) to Professor de Gubernatis's " Zoological Mythology." 70 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. This story is specially interesting in the original, in- asmuch as it is rhymed throughout, although printed as prose. A kind of lilt is perceptible in many of the Skazkas, and traces of rhyme are often to be detected in them, but " The Mizgir's " mould is different from theirs. Many stories also exist in an artificially versified form, but their movement differs entirely from that of the naturally cadenced periods of the ordinary Skazka, or of such rhymed prose as that of " The Mizgir." The following legend is not altogether new in " mo- tive," but a certain freshness is lent to it by its simple style, its unstrained humor, and its genial tone. The Smith and the Demon.* Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had one son, a sharp, smart, six-year-old boy. One day the old man went to church, and as he stood before a picture of the Last Judgment he saw a Demon painted there — such a terrible one ! — black, with horns and a tail. " О my ! " says he to himself. " Suppose I get just such another painted for the smithy. So he hired an artist, and ordered him to paint on the door of the smithy exactly such another demon as he had seen in the church. The artist painted it. Thenceforward the old man, every time he entered the smithy, always looked at the Demon and said, " Good morning, fellow-countryman ! " And then he would lay the fire in the furnace and begin his work. Well, the Smith lived in good accord with the Demon for some ten years. Then he fell ill and died. His son succeeded * Afanasief, " Legendui," No. 31. Taken from Dahl's co'lection. Some remarks on the Russian " legends" are given in Chap. VI. INTRODUCTORY. 71 to his place as head of the household, and took the smithy into his own hands. But he was not disposed to show attention to the Demon as the old man had done. When he went into the smithy in the morning, he never said " Good morrow " to him ; instead of offering him a kindly word, he took the biggest ham- mer he had handy, and thumped the Demon with it three times right on the forehead, and then he would go to his work. And when one of God's holy days came round, he would go to church and offer each saint a taper ; but he would go up to the Demon and spit in his face. Thus three years went by, he all the while favoring the Evil One every morning either with a spitting or with a hammering. The Demon endured it and endured it, and at last found it past all endurance. It was too much for him. " I've had quite enough of this insolence from him ! " thinks he. " Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him some sort of a trick ! " So the Demon took the form of a youth, and went to the smithy. " Good day, uncle ! " says he. " Good day ! " " What should you say, uncle, to taking me as an appren- tice ? At all events, I could carry fuel for you, and blow the bellows." The Smith liked the idea. "Why shouldn't I ? " he replied. " Two are better than one." The Demon began to learn his trade ; at the end of a month he knew more about smith's work than his master did himself, was able to do everything that his master couldn't do. It was a real pleasure to look at him ! There's no describing how satisfied his master was with him, how fond he got of him. Sometimes the master didn't go into the smithy at all himself, but trusted entirely to his journeyman, who had complete charge of everything. Well, it happened one day that the master was not at home, and the journeyman was left all by himself in the smithy. Pres- 72 Л USSIA N FOLK- ТА LES. ently he saw an old lady* dnving along the street in hei carriage, whereupon he popped his head out of doors and began shouting : — " Heigh, sirs ! Бе so good as to step in here ! We've opened a new business here ; we turn old folks into young ones." Out of her carriage jumped the lady in a trice, and ran into the smithy. " What's that you're bragging about ? Do you mean to say it's true ? Can you really do it? " she asked the youth. " We haven't got to learn our business ! " answered the Demon. " If I hadn't been able to do it, I wouldn't have invited people to try." " And how much does it cost ? " asked the lady. " Five hundred roubles altogether." " Well, then, there's your money ; make a young woman of me." The Demon took the money; then he sent the lady's coach- man into the village. " Go," says he, " and bring me here two buckets full of milk." After that he took a pair of tongs, caught hold of the lady by the feet, flung her into the furnace, and burnt her up ; noth- ing was left of her but her bare bones. When the buckets of milk were brought, he emptied them into a large tub, then he collected all the bones and flung them into the milk. Just fancy ! at the end of about three minutes the lady emerged from the milk — alive, and young, and beauti- ful! Well, she got into her carriage and drove home. There she went straight to her husband, and he stared hard at her, but didn't know she was his wife. "What are you staring at?" says the lady. " I'm young and elegant, you see, and I don't want to have an old husband ! Be off at once to the smithy, and get them to make you young ; if you don't, I won't so much as acknowledge you ! " * Baruinya, the wife of a barin or seigneur. INTRODUCTORY. 73 There was no help for it ; off set the seigneur. But by that time the Smith had returned home, and had gone into the smithy. He looked about ; the journeyman wasn't to be seen. He searched and searched, he enquired and enquired, never a thing came of it ; not even a trace of the youth could be found. He took to his work by himself, and was hammering away, when at that moment up drove the seigneur, and walked straight into the smithy. " Make a young man of me," says he. " Are you in your right mind, Barin ? How can one make a young man of you ? " " Come, now.! you know all about that." " I know nothing of the kind." "You lie, you scoundrel! Since you made my old woman young, make me young too ; otherwise, there will be no living with her for me." " Why I haven't so much as seen your good lady." " Your journeyman saw her, and that's just the same thing. If he knew how to do the job, surely you, an old hand, must have learnt how to do it long ago. Come, now, set to work at once. If you don't, it will be the worse for you. I'll have you rubbed down with a birch-tree towel." The Smith was compelled to try his hand at transforming the seigneur. He held a private conversation with the coach- man as to how his journeyman had set to work with the lady, and what he had done to her, and then he thought : — " So be it! I'll do the same. If I fall on my feet, good ; if I don't, well, I must suffer all the same ! " So he set to work at once, stripped the seigneur naked, laid hold of him by the legs with the tongs, popped him into the furnace, and began blowing the bellows. After he had burnt him to a cinder, he collected his remains, flung them into the milk, and then waited to see how soon a youthful seigneur would jump out of it. He waited one hour, two hours. But nothing came of it. He made a search in the tub. There was nothing in it but bones, and those charred ones. 74 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. Just then the lady sent messengers to the smithy, to ask whether the seigneur would soon be ready. The poor Smith had to reply that the seigneur was no more. When the lady heard that the Smith had only turned hei husband into a cinder, instead of making him young, she was tremendously angry, and she called together her trusty servants, and ordered them to drag him to the gallows. No sooner said than done. Her servants ran to the Smith's house, laid hold of him, tied his hands together, and dragged him off to the gal- lows. All of a sudden there came up with them the youngster who used to live with the Smith as his journeyman, who asked him : — " Where are they taking you, master ? " "They're going to hang me," replied the Smith, and straight- way related all that had happened to him. " Well, uncle ! " said the Demon, " swear that you will never strike me with your hammer, but that you will pay me the same respect your father always paid, and the seigneur shall be alive, and young, too, in a trice." The Smith began promising and swearing that he would never again lift his hammer against the Demon, but would always pay him every attention. Thereupon the journeyman hastened to the smithy, and shortly afterwards came back again, bringing the seigneur with him, and crying to the servants : " Hold ! hold ! Don't hang him ! Here's your master ! " Then they immediately untied the cords, and let the Smith go free. From that time forward the Smith gave up spitting at the Demon and striking him with his hammer. The journeyman disappeared, and was never seen again. But the seigneur and his lady entered upon a prosperous course of life, and if they haven't died, they're living still.* * The chort of this legend is evidently akin to the devil himself, whom traditions f'equently connect with blacksmiths ; but his prototype, in the original form of this story, was doubtless a demi-god or demon. His part is played by St. Nicholas in the legend of " The Priest with the Greedy Eyes," for whirh, and for further comment on the story, see Chap. VI INTRODUCTORY. 76 CHAPTER II. MYTHOLOGICAL. Principal Incarnations of Evil. The present chapter is devoted to specimens of those skazkas which most Russian critics assert to be distinctly mythical. The stones of this class are so numerous, that the task of selection has been by no means easy. But I have done my best to choose such examples as are most characteristic of that species of the "mythical" folk-tale which prevails in Russia, and to avoid, as far as possible, the repetition of narratives which have already been made familiar to the English reader by translations of German and Scandinavian stories. There is a more marked individuality in the Russian tales of this kind, as compared with those of Western Europe, than is to be traced in the stories (especially those of a humorous cast) which relate to the events that chequer an ordinary existence. The actors in the comediettas of European peasant-life vary but little, either in title or in character, wherever the scene may be laid ; just as in the European beast-epos the Fox, the Wolf, and the Bear pla^ parts which change but slightly with the regions they in- habit. But the supernatural beings which people the fairy-land peculiar to each race, though closely resembling each other in many respects, differ conspicuously in others. /в RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. They may, it is true, be nothing more than various developments of the same original type ; they may be traceable to germs common to the prehistoric ancestors of the now widely separated Aryan peoples ; their peculiari- ties may simply be due to the accidents to which travellers from distant lands are liable. But at all events each family now has features of its own, typical characteristics by which it may be readily distinguished from its neighbors. My chief aim at present is to give an idea of those char- acteristics which lend individuality to the " mythical beings " in the Skazkas ; in order to effect this, I shall attempt a delineation of those supernatural figures, to some extent peculiar to Slavonic fairy-land, which make their appearance in the Russian folk-tales. I have given a brief sketch of them elsewhere.* I now propose to deal with them more fully, quoting at length, instead of merely mentioning, some of the evidence on which the proof of their existence depends. For the sake of convenience, we may select from the great mass of the mythical skazkas those which are sup- posed most manifestly to typify the conflict of opposing elements — whether of Good and Evil, or of Light and Darkness, or of Heat and Cold, or of any other pair of antagonistic forces or phenomena. The typical hero of this class of stories, who represents the cause of right, and who is resolved by mythologists into so many different essences, presents almost identically the same appearance in most of the countries wherein he has become natural- ized. He is endowed with supernatural powers, but he remains a man, for all that. Whether as prince or peasant, he alters but very little in his wanderings among the Aryan races of Europe. * " Songs of the RussiaD People," pp. 160-185. I NT ROD UCTOR Y. 77 And a somewhat similar statement may be made about his feminine counterpart — for all the types of Fairy-land life are of an epicene nature, admitting of a feminine as well as a masculine development — the heroine who in the Skazkas, as well as in other folk- tales, braves the wrath of female demons in quest of means whereby to lighten the darkness of her home, or rescues her bewitched brothers from the thraldom of an enchantress, or liberates her captive husband from a dungeon's gloom. But their antagonists — the ' dark or evil beings whom the hero attacks and eventually destroys, or whom the heroine overcomes by her virtues, her subtlety, or her skill — vary to a considerable extent with the region they occupy, or rather with the people in whose memories they dwell. The Giants by killing whom our own Jack gained his renown, the Norse Trolls, the Ogres of southern romance, the Drakos and Lamia of modern Greece, the Lithuanian Laume — these and all the other groups of monstrous forms under which the imagination of each race has embodied its ideas about (according to one hypothesis) the Powers of Darkness it feared, or (according to another) the Aborigines it detested, differ from each other to a con- siderable and easily recognizable extent. An excellent illustration of this statement is offered by the contrast between the Slavonic group of supernatural beings of this class and their equivalents in lands tenanted by non- Slavonic members of the Indo-European family. A family likeness will, of course, be traced between all these con- ceptions of popular fancy, but the gloomy figures with which the folk-tales of the Slavonians render us familiar may be distinguished at a glance among their kindred monsters of Latin, Hellenic, Teutonic, or Celtic extrac- 78 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. tion. 0: those among the number to which the Russian skazkas relate I will now proceed to give a sketch, allow- ing the stories, so far as is possible, to speak for them- selves. If the powers of darkness in the " mythical " skazkas are divided into two groups — the one male, the other female — there stand out as the most prominent figures in the former set, the Snake (or some other illustration of " Zoological Mythology "), Koshchei the Deathless, and *he Morskoi Tsar or King of the Waters. In the latter group the principal characters are the Baba Yaga, or Hag, her close connection the Witch, апД the Female Snake, On the forms and natures of the /ess conspicuous charac- ters to be found in either class we will not at present dwell. An opportunity for comrnen'.ing on some of them will be afforded in another chapter. To begin with the Snake. His outline, like that of the cloud with which he is so frequently associated, and which he is often supposed to typify, is seldom well-defined. Now in one form and now in another, he glides a shift- ing shape, of which it is difficult to obtain a satisfactory view. Sometimes he retains throughout the story an exclusively reptilian character ; sometimes he is of a mixed nature, partly serpent and partly man. In one story we see him riding on horseback, with hawk on wrist (or raven on shoulder) and hound at heel ; in another he figures as a composite being with a human body and a serpent's head ; in a third he flies as a fiery snake into his mistress's bower, stamps with his foot on the ground, and becomes a youthful gallant. But in most cases he is a serpent which in outward appearance seems to differ from other ophidians only in being winged and MYTHOLOGICAL. 79 polycephalous — the number of his heads generally varying from three to twelve.* He is often known by the name of Zmei' [snake] Gorui- nuich [son of the gora or mountain], and sometimes he is supposed to dwell in the mountain caverns. To his abode, whether in the bowels of the earth, or in the open light of day— whether it be a sumptuous palace or "an izba on fowl's legs," a hut upheld by slender supports on which it turns as on a pivot — he carries off his prey. In one story he appears to have stolen, or in some way concealed, the day-light ; in another the bright moon and the many stars come forth from within him after his death. But as a general rule it is some queen or princess whom he tears away from her home, as Pluto carried off Proserpina, and who remains with him reluctantly, and hails as her rescuer the hero who comes to give him battle. Sometimes, how- ever, the snake is represented as having a wife of his own species, and daughters who share their parent's tastes and powers. Such is the case in the (South-Russian) story of Ivan Popyalof. f Once upon a time there was an old couple, and they had three sons. Two of these had their wits about them, but the third was a simpleton, Ivan by name, surnamed Popyalof. For twelve whole years Ivan lay among the ashes from the stove ; but then he arose, and shook himself, so that six poods of ashes % fell off from him. Now in the land in which Ivan lived there was never any day, but always night. That was a Snake's doing. Well, Ivan * In one story (Khudyakof, No. 117) there are snakes with twenty-eight and twenty-nine heads, but this is unusual. 1 Afanasief, ii. No. 30. From the Chemigof Government. The accent falls on the secoud syllable of Ivan, on the first of Popyalof. X Popyal, provincial word for pepcl = ashes, cinders, whence the surname Popyalof. A pood is about 4olbs. 80 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. undertook to kill that Snake, so he said to his father, " Fathef make me a mace five poods in weight." And when he had got the mace, he went out into the fields, and flung it straight up in the air, and then he went home. The next day he went out into the fields to the spot from which he had flung the mace on high, and stood there with his head thrown back. So when the mace fell down again it hit him on the forehead. And the mace broke in two. Ivan went home and said to his father, " Father, make me another mace, a ten pood one." And when he had got it he went out into the fields, and flung it aloft. And the mace went flying through the air for three days and three nights. On the fourth day Ivan went out to the same spot, and when the mace came tumbling down, he put his knee in the way, and the mace broke over it into three pieces. Ivan went home and told his father to make him a third mace, one of fifteen poods weight. And when he had got it, he went out into the fields and flung it aloft. And the mace was up in the air six days. On the seventh Ivan went to the same spot as before. Down fell the mace, and when it struck Ivan's forehead, the forehead bowed under it. Thereupon he said, " This mace will do for the Snake ! " So when he had got everything ready, he went forth with his brothers to fight the Snake. He rode and rode, and pres- ently there stood before him a hut on fowl's legs,* and in that hut lived the Snake. There all the party came to a standstill. Then Ivan hung up his gloves, and said to his brothers, " Should blood drop from my gloves, make haste to help me." When he had said this he went into the hut and sat down under the boarding, f Presently there rode up a Snake with three heads. His steed stumbled, his hound howled, his falcon clamored. $ Then cried the Snake : * On slender supports. t Pod mostom, i. е., says Afansief (vol. v. p. 243), under the raised floorinj; which, in an izba, serves as a sleeping place. % Zatvelyef, apparently a provincial word. MYTHOLOGICAL. 81 " Wherefore hast thou stumbled, О Steed ! hast thou howled, О Hound ! hast thou clamored, О Falcon ? " " How can I but stumble," replied the Steed, " when under the boarding sits Ivan Popyalof ? " Then said the Snake, " Come forth, Ivanushka ! Let us try our strength together." Ivan came forth, and they began to fight. And Ivan killed the Snake, and then sat down again oeneath the boarding. Presently there came another Snake, a six-headed one, and him, too, Ivan killed. And then there came a third, which had twelve heads. Well, Ivan began to fight with him, and lopped off nine of his heads. The Snake had no strength left in him. Just then a raven came flying by, and it croaked : "Krof? Krof!"* Then the Snake cried to the Raven, " Fly, and tell my wife to come and devour Ivan Popyalof." But Ivan cried : " Fly, and tell my brothers to come, and then we will kill this Snake, and give his flesh to thee." And the Raven gave ear to what Ivan said, and flew to his brothers and began to croak above their heads. The brothers awoke, and when they heard the cry of the Raven, they hastened to their brother's aid. And they killed the Snake, and then, having taken his heads, they went into his hut and destroyed them. And immediately there was bright light throughout the whole land. After killing the Snake, Ivan Popyalof and his brothers set off on their way home. But he had forgotten to take away his gloves, so he went back to fetch them, telling his brothers to wait for him meanwhile. Now when he had reached the hut and was going to take away his gloves, he heard the voices of the Snake's wife and daughters, who were talking with each other. So he turned himself into a cat, and began to mew outside the door. They let him in, and he listened to every- thing they said. Then he got his gloves and hastened'away. As soon as he came to where his brothers were, he mounted * The Russian word kro/sXso signifies blood. 6 S2 R (/SSI A N FOLK- ТА LES. his horse, and they all started afresh. They rode and rode ; presently they saw before them a green meadow, and on that meadow lay silken cushions. Then the elder brothers said, "Let's turn out our horses to graze here, while we rest our- selves a little." But Ivan said, "Wait a minute, brothers !" and he seized his mace, and struck the cushions with it. And out of those cushions there streamed blood. So they all went on further. They rode and rode ; presently there stood before them an apple-tree, and upon it were gold and silver apples. Then the elder brothers said, " Let's eat an apple apiece." But Ivan said, " Wait a minute, brothers ; I'll try them first," and he took his mace, and struck the apple-tree with it. And out of the tree streamed blood. So they went on further. They rode and rode, and by and by they saw a spring in front of them. And the elder brothers cried, "Let's have a drink of water." But Ivan Popyalof cried: " Stop, brothers ! " and he raised his mace and struck the spring, and its waters became blood. For the meadow, the silken cushions, the apple-tree, and the spring, were all of them daughters of the Snake. After killing the Snake's daughters, Ivan and his brothers went on homewards. Presently came the Snake's Wife flying after them, and she opened her jaws from the sky to the earth, and tried to swallow up Ivan. But Ivan and his brothers threw three poods of salt into her mouth. She swallowed the salt, thinking it was Ivan Popyalof, but afterwards — when she had tasted the salt, and found out it was not Ivan — she flew after him again. Then he perceived that danger was at hand, and so he let his horse go free, and hid himself behind twelve doors in the forge of Kuzma and Demian. The Snake's Wife came flying ap, and said to Kuzma and Demian, " Give me up Ivan Popya- lof." But they replied : " Send your tongue through the twelve doors and take him." So the Snake's Wife began licking the doors. But meanwhile they all heated iron pincers, and as soon as she had sent her MYTHOL OGICA L . 83 tongue through into the smithy, they caught tight hold of her by the tongue, and began thumping her with hammers. And when the Snake's Wife was dead they consumed her with fire, and scattered her ashes to the winds. And then they went home, and there they lived and enjoyed themselves, feasting and revelling, and drinking mead and wine. I was there, too, and had liquor to drink ; it didn't go into my mouth, but only ran down my beard.* The skazka of Ivan Buikovich (Bull's son) f contains a varient, of part of this story, but the dragon which the Slavonic St. George kills is called, not a snake, but a Chudo-Yudo.$ Ivan watches one night while his brothers sleep. Presently up rides " a six-headed Chudo-Yudo " which he easily kills. The next night he slays, but with more difficulty, a nine-headed specimen of the same family. On the third night appears " a twelve-headed Chudo-Yudo," mounted on a horse " with twelve wings, its coat of silver, its mane and tail of gold." Ivan lops off three of the monster's heads, but they, like those of the Lernaean Hydra, become re-attached to their necks at the touch of their owner's " fiery finger." Ivan, whom his foe has driven into the ground up to his knees, hurls one of his gloves at the hut in which his brothers' are sleeping. It smashes the windows, but the sleepers slumber on and take no heed. Presently Ivan smites off six of his antagonist's heads, but they grow again as before. § Half buried in the ground by * The last sentence of the story forms one of the conventional and meaningless " tags " frequently attached to the skazkas. In future I shall omit them. Kuzma and Demian (SS. Cosmas and Damian) figure in Russian folk-lore as saintly and supernatural smiths, frequently at war with snakes, which they maltreat in various ways. See A. de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," vol. ii. p. 397. t Afanasief, Skazki, vol. vii. p. 3. t Chudo = prodigy. Yudo may be a remembrance of Judas, or it may be used merely for the sake of the rhyme. § In an Indian story (" Kathasaritsagara," book vii. chap. 42), Indrasena comes to a place in which sits a Rakshasa on a throne between two fair ladies. He attacks the demon with a magic sword, and soon cuts off his head. But the head always grows 84 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. the monster's strength, Ivan hurls his other glove at the hut, piercing its roof this time. But still his brothers slumber on. At last, after fruitlessly shearing off nine of the Chudo-Yudo's heads, and finding himself embedded in the ground up to his armpits, Ivan flings his cap at the hut. The hut reels under the blow and its beams fall asunder 3 his brothers awake, and hasten to his aid, and the Chudo- Yudo is destroyed. The " Chudo-Yudo wives " as the widows of the three monsters are called, then proceed to play the parts attributed in " Ivan Popyalof " to the Snake's daughters. "Twill become an apple-tree with golden and silver apples," says the first ; " whoever plucks an apple will imme- diately burst." Says the second, " I will become a spring — on the water will float two cups, the one golden, the other of silver ; whoever touches one of the cups, him will I drown." And the third says, " I will become a golden bed ; whoever lies down upon that bed will be consumed with fire." Ivan, in a sparrow's form, overhears all this, and acts as in the preceding story. The three widows die, but their mother, " an old witch," determines on revenge. Under the form of a beggar woman she asks alms from the retreating brothers. Ivan tenders her a ducat. She seizes, not the ducat, but his outstretched hand, and in a moment whisks him off un- derground to her husband, an Aged One, whose appearance is that of the mythical being whom the Servians call the Vy. He " lies on an iron couch, and sees nothing ; his long eyelashes and thick eyebrows completely hide his eyes," again, until at last the younger of the ladies gives him a sign to split in half the head he has just chopped off. Thereupon the demon dies, and the two ladies greet the Conqueror rapturously. The younger is the demon's sister, the elder is a king's daughter whom the demon has carried off from her home, after eating her father and all his followers. See Professor Brockhaus's summary in the " Berichte der phil. hist. Classe ier K. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenchaften," 186i. pp. 241—2. MYTHOLOGICAL. 85 but he sends for " twelve mighty heroes," and orders them to take iron forks and lift up the hair about his eyes, and then he gazes at the destroyer of his family. The glance of the Servian Vy is supposed to be as deadly as that of a basilisk, but the patriarch of the Russian story does not injure his captive. He merely sends him on an errand which leads to a fresh set of adventures, of which we need not now take notice. In a third variant of the story,* they are snakes which are killed by the hero, Ivan Koshkin (Cat's son), and it is a Baba Yaga, or Hag, who undertakes to revenge their deaths, and those of their wives, her daughters. Accordingly she pursues the three brothers, and succeeds in swallowing two of them. The third, Ivan Koshkin, takes refuge in a smithy» and, as before, the monster's tongue is seized, and she is beaten with hammers until she disgorges her prey, none the worse for their temporary imprisonment. We have seen, in the story about the Chudo-Yudo, that the place usually occupied by the Snake is at times filled by some other magical being. This frequently occurs in that class of stories which relates how three brothers set out to apprehend a trespasser, or to seek a mother or sister who has been mysteriously spirited away. They usually come either to an opening which leads into the underground world, or to the base of an apparently inaccessible hill. The youngest brother descends or ascends as the case may be, and after a series of adventures which generally lead him through the kingdoms of copper, of silver, and of gold, returns in triumph to where his brothers are awaiting him. And he is almost invariably d ;serted by them, as soon as they have secured the beautiful princesses who accompany • Khudyakof, No. 46. 86 RUSSIAN FOLK-TAIES. him — as may be read in the following (South-Russian) history of — The Norka.* Once upon a time there lived a king and queen. They had three sons, two of them with their wits about them, but the third a simpleton. Now the King had a deer-parkin which were quan- tities of wild animals of different kinds. Into that park there used to come a huge beast — Norka was its name — and do fearful mischief, devouring some of the animals every night. The King did all he could, but he was unable to destroy it. So at last he called his sons together and said : " Whoever will destroy the Norka, to him will I give the half of my kingdom." Well, the eldest son undertook the task. As soon as it was night, he took his weapons and set out. But before he reached the park, he went into a traklir (or tavern), and there he spent the whole night in revelry. When he came to his senses it was too late ; the day had already dawned. He felt himself disgraced in the eyes of his father, but there was no help for it. The next day the second son went, and did just the same. Their father scolded them both soundly, and there was an end of it. Well, on the third day the youngest son undertook the task. They all laughed him to scorn, because he was so stupid, feeling sure he wouldn't do anything. But he took his arms, and went straight into the park, and sat down on the grass in such a posi- tion that, the moment he went asleep, his weapons would prick him, and he would awake. Presently the midnight hour sounded. The earth began to shake, and the Norka came rushing up, and burst right through the fence into the park, so huge was it. The Prince pulled him- self together, leapt to his feet, crossed himself, and went straight at the beast. It fled back, and the Prince ran after it. But he soon saw that he couldn't catch it on foot, so he hastened to the stable laid his hands on the best horse there, and set off in pur- * Afanasief, vol. i. No. 6. From the Chernij, of Government. The Norka-Zvyer (Norka-Beast) of this story is a fabulous creature, but zoologically the name of Norka (fro.n nora — a hole) belongs to the Otter. MYTHOLOGICAL. 8* suit. Presently he came up with the beast, and they began a fight. They fought and fought ; the Prince gave the beast three wounds. At last they were both utterly exhausted, so they lay down to take a short rest. But the moment the Prince closed his eyes, up jumped the Beast and took to flight. The Prince's horse awoke him ; up he jumped in a moment, and set off again in pursuit, caught up the Beast, and again began fighting with it. Again the Prince gave the Beast three wounds, and then he and the Beast lay down again to rest. Thereupon away fled the Beast as before. The Prince caught it up, and again gave it three wounds. But all of a sudden, just as the Prince began chasing it for the fourth time, the Beast fled to a great white stone, tilted it up, and escaped into the other world,* crying out to the Prince : " Then only will you overcome me, when you enter here." The Prince went home, told his father all that had happened, and asked him to have a leather rope plaited, long enough to reach to the other world. His father ordered this to be done. When the rope was made, the Prince called for his brothers, and he and they, having taken servants with them, and everything that was needed for a whole year, set out for the place where the Beast had disappeared under the stone. When they got there, they built a palace on the spot, and lived in it for some time. But when everything was ready, the youngest brother said to the others : " Now, brothers, who is going to lift this stone ?" Neither of them could so much as stir it, but as soon as he touched it, away it flew to a distance, though it was ever so big — big as a hill. And when he had flung the stone aside, he spoke a second time to his brothers, saying : " Who is going into the other world, to overcome the Norka ? " Neither of them offered to do so. Then he laughed at them for being such cowards, and said : "Well, brothers, farewell! Lower me into the other world, and don't go away from here, but as soon as the cord is jerked, pull it up." His brothers lowered him accordingly, and when he had * Literally " into tliat world " as opposed to this in which we live. 88 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. reached the other world, underneath the earth, he went on hia way. He walked and walked. Presently he espied a horse with rich trappings, and it said to him : " Hail, Prince Ivan ! Long have I awaited thee ! " He mounted the horse and rode on — rode and rode, until he saw standing before him, a palace made of copper. He entered the courtyard, tied up his horse, and went indoors. In one of the rooms a dinner was laid out. He sat down and dined, and then went into a bedroom. There he found a bed, on which he lay down to rest. Presently there came in a lady, more beau- tiful than can be imagined anywhere but in a skazka, who said : " Thou who art in my house, name thyself! If thou art an old man, thou shalt be my father ; if a middle-aged man, my brother ; but if a young man, thou shalt be my husband dear. And if thou art a woman, and an old one, thou shalt be my grand- mother ; if middle-aged, my mother ; and if a girl, thou shalt be ■jny own sister."* Thereupon he came forth. And when she saw him, she was delighted with him, and said : " Wherefore, О Prince Ivan — my husband dear shalt thou be ! — wherefore hast thou come hither ? " Then he told her all that had happened, and she said : " That beast which thou wishest to overcome is my brother. He is staying just now with my second sister, who lives not far from here in a silver palace. I bound up three of the wounds which thou didst give him." Well, after this they drank, and enjoyed themselves, and held sweet converse together, and then the prince took leave of her, and went on to the second sister, the one who lived in the silver palace, and with her also he stayed awhile. She told him that her brother Norka was then at her youngest sister's. So he went on to the youngest sister, who lived in a golden palace. She told him that her brother was at that time asleep on the blue sea, and she gave him a sword of steel and a draught of the Water of Strength, and she told him to cut off her brothers * This address is a formula, of frequent occurrence under similar circumstances- MYTHOLOGICAL. 89 head at a single stroke. And when he had heard these things, he went his way. And when the Prince came to the blue sea, he looked — there slept Norka on a stone in the middle of the sea ; and when it snored, the water was agitated for seven versts around. The Prince crossed himself, went up to it and smote it on the head with his sword. The head jumped off, saying the while, " Well, I'm done for now ! " and rolled far away into the sea. After killing the Beast, the Prince went back again, picking up all the three sisters by the way, with the intention of taking them out into the upper world : for they all loved him and would not be separated from him. Each of them turned her palace into an egg — for they were all enchantresses — and they taught him how to turn the eggs into palaces, and back again, and they handed over the eggs to him. And then they all went to the place from which they had to be hoisted into the upper world. And when they came to where the rope was, the Prince took hold of it and made the maidens fast to it.* Then he jerked away at the rope, and his brothers began to haul it up. And when they had hauled it up, and had set eyes on the wondrous maidens, they went aside and said : " Let's lower the rope, pull our brother part of the way up, and then cut the rope. Perhaps he'll be killed ; but then if he isn't, he'll never give us these beauties as wives." So when they had agreed on this, they lowered the rope. But their brother was no fool ; he guessed what they were at, so he fastened the rope to a stone, and then gave it a pull. His brothers hoisted the stone to a great height, and then cut the rope. Down fell the stone and broke in pieces ; the Prince poured forth tears and went away. Well, he walked and walked. Presently a storm arose ; the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, the rain fell in torrents. He went up to a tree in order to take shelter under it, and on that tree he saw some young birds which were being thoroughly drenched. So he took off his с )at and covered them over with it, and he himself sat down * Literally " seated the maidens and pulled the rope." 90 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. under the tree. Presently there came flying a bird — such a big one, that the light was blotted out by it. It had been dark there before, but now it became darker still. Now this was the mother of those small birds which the Prince had covered up. And when the bird had come flying up, she perceived that her little ones were covered over, and she said, " Who has wrapped up my nestlings ? " and presently, seeing the Prince, she added : u Didst thou do that ? Thanks ! In return, ask of me any thing thou desirest. I will do anything for thee." " Then carry me into the other world," he replied. "Make me a large zasyek\ with a partition in the middle," she said ; "catch all sorts of game, and put them into one half of it, and into the other half pour water ; so that there may be meat and drink for me." AH this the Prince did. Then the bird — having taken the zasyek on her back, with the Prince sitting in the middle of it — ■ began to fly. And after flying some distance she brought him to his journey's end, took leave of him, and flew away back. But he went to the house of a certain tailor, and engaged him- self as his servant. So much the worse for wear was he, so thoroughly had he altered in appearance, that nobody would have suspected him of being a Prince. Having entered into the service of this master, the Prince began to ask what was going on in that country. And his master replied : " Our two princes — for the third one has dis- appeared — have brought away brides from the other world, and want to marry them, but those brides refuse. For they insist on having all their wedding-clothes made for them first, exactly like those which they used to have in the other world, and that without being measured for them. The King has called all the workmen together, but not one of them will undertake to do it." The Prince, having heard all this, said, " Go to the King, master, and tell him that you will provide everything that's in your line." " However can I undertake to make clothes of that sort ; I work for quite common folks," says his master. t Some sort of safe or bin. MYTHOLOGICAL. 91 "Go along, master! I will answer for everything," says the Prince. So the tailor went. The King was delighted that at least one good workman had been found, and gave him as much money as ever he wanted. When the tailor had settled every- thing, he went home. And the Prince said to him : " Now then, pray to God, and lie down to sleep ; to-morrow all will be ready." And the tailor followed his lad's advice, and went to bed. Midnight sounded. The Prince arose, went out of the city into the fields, took out of his pocket the eggs which the maidens had given him, and, as they had taught him, turned them into three palaces. Into each of these he entered, took the maidens' robes, went out again, turned the palaces back into eggs, and went home. And when he got there he hung up the robes on the wall, and lay down to sleep. Early in the morning his master awoke, and behold ! there hung such robes as he had never seen before, all shining with gold and silver and precious stones. He was delighted, and he seized them and carried them off to the King. When the prin- cesses saw that the clothes were those which had been theirs in the other world, they guessed that Prince Ivan was in this world, so they exchanged glances with each other, but they held their peace. And the master, having handed over the clothes, went home, but he no longer found his dear journeyman there. For the Prince had gone to a shoemaker's, and him too' he sent to work for the King ; and in the same way he went the round of all the artificers, and they all proffered him thanks, inasmuch as through him they were enriched by the King. By the time the princely workman had gone the round of all the artificers, the princesses had received what they had asked for ; all their clothes were just like what they had been in the other world. Then they wept bitterly because the Prince had not come, and it was impossible for them to hold out any longer, it was necessary that they should be married. But when they were ready for the wedding, the youngest bride said to the King: 92 R LTSS ТА N FOLK- ТА LES. " Allow me, my father, to go and give alms to the beggars." He gave her leave, and she went and began bestowing alms upon them, and examining them closely. And when she haa come to one of them, and was going to give him some money, she caught sight of the ring which she had given to the Prince in the other world, and her sisters' rings too — for it really was he. So she seized him by the hand, and brought him into the hall, and said to the King: " Here is he who brought us out of the other world. His brothers forbade us to say that he was alive, threatening to slay us if we did." Then the King was wroth with those sons, and punished them as he thought best. And afterwards three weddings were celebrated. [The conclusion of this story is somewhat obscure. Most of the variants repre sent the Prince as forgiving his brothers, and allowing them to marry two of the three princesses, but the present version appears to keep closer to its original, in which the prince doubtless married all three. With this story may be compared : Grimm, No. 166, " Der starke Hans," and No. 91, "Dat Erdmanneken." See also vol. iii. p. 165, where a reference is given to the Hungarian story in Gaal, No. 5— Dasent, No. 55, " The Big Bird Dan," and No- 56, " Soria Moria Castle" (Asbjomsen and Мое, Nos. 3 and 2. A somewhat similar story, only the palaces are in the air, occurs in Asbjornsen's " Ny Samling," No 72)— Campbell's " Tales of the West Highlands," No. 58— Schleicher's " Litauische Mahrchen," No. 38 — The Polish story, Wojcicki, Book iii. No. 6, in which Norka is replaced by a witch who breaks the windows of a church, and is wounded, in falcon-shape, by the youngest brother — Hahn, No. 70, in which a Drakos, as a clout, steals golden apples, a story closely resembling the Rus- sian skazka. See also No. 26, very similar to which is the Servian Story in " Vuk Karajich," No 2 — and a very interesting Tuscan story printed for the first time by A. de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," vol. ii. p. 187. See also ibid. p. 391. But still more important than these are the parallels offered by Indian fiction. Take, for instance, the story of Sringabhuja, in chap, xxxix. of book vii. of the " Kathasaritsagara." In it the elder sons of a certain king wish to get rid of their younger half-brother. One day a Rakshasa appears in the form of a gigantic crane. The other princes shoot at it in vain, but the youngest wounds it, and then sets off in pursuit of it, and of the valuable arrow which is fixed in it. After long wandering he comes to a castle in a forest. There he finds a maiden who tells him she is the daughter of the Rakshasa whom, in the form of a crane, he has wounded. She at once takes his part against her demon father, and eventually flies with him to his own country. The perils which the fugitives have to encounter will be mentioned in the remarks on Skazka XIX. See Professor Brockhaus's summary of the story in the "Berichte derphil. hist. Classe der K. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," MYTHOLOGICAL. 93 The Adventures of a prince, the youngest of three brothers, who has been lowered into the underground world or who has ascended into an enchanted upper realm, form the theme of numerous skazkas, several of which are variants of the story of Norka. The prince's elder brothers almost always attempt to kill him, when he is about to ascend from the gulf or descend from the steeps which separate him from them. In one instance, the fol- lowing excuse is offered for their conduct. The hero has killed a Snake in the underground world, and is carrying its head on a lance, when his brothers begin to hoist him up. " His brothers were frightened at the sight of that head and thinking the Snake itself was coming, they let Ivan fall back into the pit." * But this apology for their behavior seems to be due to the story-teller's imagination. In some instances their unfraternal conduct may be explained in the following manner. In oriental tales the hero is often the son of a king's youngest wife, and he is not unnaturally hated by his half-brothers, the sons of an older queen, whom the hero's mother has supplanted in their royal i86i,pp. 223-6. Also Professor Wilson's version in his " Essays on Sanskrit Litera- ture." vol. ii. pp. 134-5. In two other stories m the same collection the hero gives chase to a boar of gigantic size. It takes refuge in a cavern into which he follows it. Presently he finds himself in a different world, wherein he meets a beauteous maiden who explains everything to him. In the first of these two stories the lady is the daughter of a Rakshasa, who is invulnerable except in the palm of the left hand, for which reason, our hero, Chandasena has been unable to wound him when in his boar disguise. She instructs Chandasena how to kill her father, who accordingly falls a victim to a well- aimed shaft. (Brockhaus's " M ahrchen-sammlung des Somadeva Bhatta," 1843, vol. i. pp. 1 10-13). In the other story, the lady turns out to be a princess whom "a demon with fiery eyes " had carried off and imprisoned. She tells the hero, Sak- tideva, that the demon has just died from a wound inflicted upon him, while trans- formed into a boar, by a bold archer. Saktideva informs her that he is that archer. Whereupon she immediately requests him to marry her (ibid. vol. ii. p. 175). In both stories the boar is described as committing great ravages in the upper world until th« hero attacks it. * Khudyakof, ii. p. 17. 94 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. father's affections. Accordingly they do their best to get rid of him. Thus, in one of the Indian stories which correspond to that of Norka, the hero's success at court " excited the envy and jealousy of his brothers [doubtless half-brothers], and they were not satisfied until they had devised a plan to effect his removal, and, as they hoped, accomplish his destruction." * We know also that "Israel loved Joseph more than all his children," because he was the son " of his old age," and the result was that " when his brethren [who were only his half-brothers] saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him."f When such tales as these came west in Christian times, their references to polygamy were constantly sup- pressed, and their distinctions between brothers and half- brothers disappeared. In the same way the elder and jealous wife, who had behaved with cruelty in the original stories to the offspring of her rival, often became turned, under Christian influences, into a stepmother who hated her husband's children by a previous marriage. There may, however, be a mythological explanation of the behavior of the two elder brothers. Professor de Guber- natis is of opinion that " in the Vedic hymns, Tritas, the third brother, and the ablest as well as best, is persecuted by his brothers," who, " in a fit of jealousy, on account of his wife, the aurora, and the riches she brings with her from the realm of darkness, the cistern or well [into which he has been lowered], detain their brother in the well," % and he compares this form of the myth with that which it assumes in the following Hindoo tradition. " Three brothers, Ekata (г. e. the first), Dtvita (i. e. the second) and Trita (/. e. the third) were travelling in a desert, and * Kathasaritsdgara," bk. vii. с xxxix. Wilson's translation. t Genesis, xxxvii. 3, 4. '• t Zoological Mythology," i. 35. MYTHOLOGICAL. 95 being distressed with thirst, came to a well, from which the youngest, Trita, drew water and gave it to his brothers ; in requital, they drew him into the well, in order to appropriate his property and having covered the top with a cart-wheel, left him in the well. In this extremity he prayed to the gods to extricate him, and by their favor he made his escape." * This myth may, perhaps, be the germ from which have sprung the numerous folk-tales about the desertion of a younger brother in some pit or chasm, into which his brothers have lowered him. f It may seem more difficult to account for the willingness of Norka's three sisters to aid in his destruction — unless, indeed, the whole story be considered to be mythological, as its Indian equivalents undoubtedly are. But in many versions of the same tale the difficulty does not arise. The princesses of the copper, silver, and golden realms, are usually represented as united by no ties of consanguinity with the snake or other monster whom the hero comes to kill. In the story of " Usuinya," X for instance, there appears to be no relationship between these fair maidens and the " Usuinya Bird," which steals the golden apples from a monarch's garden and is killed by his youngest son Ivan. That monster is not so much a bird as a flying dragon. " This Usuinya-bird is a twelve-headed snake," says one of the fair maidens. And presently it arrives — its wings stretching afar, while along the ground trail its moustaches \usui, whence its name]. In a variant of the same story in another collection, § the part of Norkais played by a white * " Quoted from the " Nitimanjari," by Wilson, in his translation of the " Rig- Veda-Sanhita," vol. i. p. 142. t See also Jfflg's " Kalmukische Marchen," p. 19, where Massang, the Calmuck Minotaur, is abandoned in the pit by his companions. J Khudyakof, No. 42. § Erlenvein, No. 41. A king's horses disappear. His youngest son keeps watch and discovers that the thief is a white wolf. It escapes into a hole. He lulls his horse, at its own request and makes from its hide a rope by which he is lowered into the hole, etc 96 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. wolf. In that of Ivan Suchenko * it is divided among three snakes who have stolen as many princesses. For the snake is much given to abduction, especially when he appears under the terrible form of " Koshchei, the Death- less." Koshchei is merely one of the many incarnations of the dark spirit which takes so many monstrous shapes in . the folk-tales of the class with which we are now dealing. Sometimes he is described as altogether serpent-like in form ; sometimes he seems to be of a mixed nature, partly human and partly ophidian, but in some of the stories he is apparently framed after the fashion of a man. His name is by some mythologists derived from kosf, a bone whence comes a verb signifying to become ossified, pet- rified, or frozen ; either because he is bony of limb, or because he produces an effect akin to freezing or petrifac- tion, f He is called " Immortal " or " The Deathless," f because of his superiority to the ordinary laws of existence. Some- times, like Baldur, he cannot be killed except by one sub- stance ; sometimes his "death" — that is, the object with which his life is indissolubly connected — does not exist within his body. Like the vital centre of " the giant who * Afaiiasief, v. 54. t The word koshc /гег, says Afanasief, may fairly be derived from kost ', a bone, for changes between si and shch are not uncommon — as in the cases of pustoi, waste, pushcha, a wild wood, or of gustoi, thick, gus/icka, sediment, etc. The verb okosten- yef , to grow numb, describes the state into which a skazka represents the realm 01 the " Sleeping Beauty," as being thrown by Koshchei. Buslaef remarks in his " In- Suence of Christianity on Slavonic Language, ' ; p. 103, that one of the Gothic words used by Ulfilas to express the Greek Sacu6viov is skoksl, which " is purely Slavonic, being preserved in the Czekh kauzlo, sorcery ; in the Lower-Lusatian-Wendish, kostla* means a sorcerer. (But see Grimm's " Deutsche Mythologie," pp. 454-81 where skbhsl is supposed to mean a forest-sprite, also p. 954.) Kosf changes into koshch whence our Koshchei." There is also a provincial word, kosiif, meaning to revile n» scold. X Bezsmertny {bez = without, stnerf = death). M YTHOL OGICAL. 97 bad no heart in his body" in the well-known Norse tale, it is something extraneous to the being whom it affects, and until it is destroyed he may set all ordinary means of annihilation at defiance. But this is not always the case, as may be learnt from one of the best of the skazkas in which he plays a leading part, the history of — Marya-Morevna.* In a certain kingdom there lived a Prince Ivan. He had three sisters. The first was the Princess Marya, the second the Prin- cess Olga, the third the Princess Anna. When their father and mother lay at the point of death, they had thus enjoined their son : — " Give your sisters in marriage to the very first suitors who come to woo them. Don't go keeping them by you ! " They died and the Prince buried them, and then, to solace his grief, he went with his sisters into the garden green to stroll. Suddenly the sky was covered by a black cloud ; a terrible storm arose. " Let us go home, sisters ! " he cried. Hardly had they got into the palace, when the thunder pealed, the ceiling split open, and into the room where they were, came flying a falcon bright. The Falcon smote upon the ground, became a brave youth, and said : " Hail, Prince Ivan ! Before I came as a guest, but now I have come as a wooer ! I wish to propose for your sister, the Princess Marya." " If you find favor in the eyes of my sister, I will not inter- fere with her wishes. Let her marry you in God's name ! " The Princess Marya gave her consent ; the Falcon married her and bore her awaj into his own realm. Days follow days, hours chase hours ; a whole year goes ty. One day Prince Ivan and his two sisters went out to stroll in the garden green. Again there arose a stormcloud with whirl- wind and lightning. * Afansief, viii. No 8. Л /erevua means daughter of More, (the Sea or any great water). j 98 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. " Let us go home, sisters ! " cried the Prince. Scarcely had they entered the palace, when the thunder crashed, the rooi burst into a blaze, the ceiling split in twain, and in flew an eagle. The Eagle smote upon the gronnd and became a brave youth. " Hail, Prince Ivan ! Before I came as a guest, but now I have come as a wooer ! " And he asked for the hand of the Princess Olga. Prince Ivan replied : " If you find favor in the eyes of the Princess Olga, then let her marry you. I will not interfere with her liberty of choice." The Princess Olga gave her consent and married the Eagle. The Eagle took her and carried her off to his own kingdom. Another year went by. Prince Ivan said to his youngest sister : " Let us go out and stroll in the garden green ! " They strolled about for a time. Again there arose a storm- cloud, with whirlwind and lightning. " Let us return home, sister ! " said he. They returned home, but they hadn't had time to sit down when the thunder * crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven. The Raven smote upon the floor and became a brave youth. The former youths had been handsome, but this one was handsomer still. "Well, Prince Ivan! Before I came as a guest, but now [ have come as a wooer. Give me the Princess Anna to wife." " I won't interfere with my sisters freedom. If you gain her affections, let her marry you." So the Princess Anna married the Raven, and he bore her away to his own realm. Prince Ivan was left alone. A whole year he lived without his sisters ; then he grew weary, and said : — " I will set out in search of my sisters." He got ready for the journey, he rode and rode, and one day he saw a whole army Lying dead on the plain. He cried aloud, * Grow. It is the thunder, rather than the lightning, which the Russian peasants look upon as the destructive agent in a storm. They let the flash pass unheeded, but they take the precaution of crossing themselves when the roar follows. MYTHOLOGICAL. »U " If there be a living man there, let him make answer ! who has slain this mighty host ? " There replied unto him a living man: " All this mighty host has been slain by the fair Princess Marya Morevna." Prince Ivan rode further on, and came to a white tent, and forth came to meet him the fair Princess Marya Morevna. " Hail Prince !" says she, "whither does God send you? and is it of your free will or against your will ? " Prince Ivan replied, " Not against their will do brave youths ride ! " "Well, if your business be not pressing, tarry awhile in my tent." Thereat was Prince Ivan glad. He spent two nights in the tent, and he found favor in the eyes of Marya Morevna, and she married him. The fair Princess, Marya Morevna, carried him off into her own realm. They spent some time together, and then the Princess took it into her head to go a warring. So she handed over all the i housekeeping affairs to Prince Ivan, and gave him these instruc- tions : " Go about everywhere, keep watch over everything , only do not venture to look into that closet there." He couldn't help doing so. The moment Marya Morevna had gone he rushed to the closet, pulled open the door, and looked in — there hung Koshchei the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains. Then Koshchei entreated Prince Ivan, say- ing— " Have pity upon me and give me to drink ! Ten years long have I been here in torment, neither eating or drinking; my throat is utterly dried up. The Prince gave him a bucketful of water ; he drank it up and asked for more, saying : " A single bucket of water will not quench my thirst ; give me more ! " The Prince gave him a second bucketful. Koshchei drank it up and asked for a third, and when he had swallowed the 100 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. third bucketful, he regained his former strength, gave his chains a shake, and broke all twelve at once. " Thanks, Prince Ivan ! " cried Koshchei the deathless, "now you will sooner see your own ears than Marya Morevna and out of the window he flew in the shape of a terrible whirl- wind. And he came up with the fair Princess Marya Morevna as she was going her way, laid hold of her, and carried her off home with him. But Prince Ivan wept full sore, and he arrayed himself and set out a wandering, saying to himself : " Whatever happens, I will go and look for Marya Morevna ! " One day passed, another day passed : at the dawn of the third day he saw a wondrous palace, and by the side of the pal- ace stood an oak, and on the oak sat a falcon bright. Down fiev» the Falcon from the oak, smote upon the ground, turned into a brave youth and cried aloud : " Ha, dear brother-in-law ! how deals the Lord with you ? " Out came running the Princess Marya, joyfully greeted her brother Ivan, and began enquiring after his health, and telling him all about herself. The Prince spent three days with them; then he said : " I cannot abide with you ; I must go in search of my wife, the fair Princess Marya Morevna." " Hard will it be for you to find her," answered the Falcon. "At all events leave with us your silver spoon. We will look at it and remember you." So Prince Ivan left his silver spoon at the Falcon's, and went on his way again. On he went one day, on he went another day, and by the dawn of the third day he saw a palace still grander than the for- mer one, and hard by the palace stood an oak, and on the oak sat an eagle. Down flew the eagle from the oak, smote upon the ground, turned into a brave youth, and cried aloud : " Rise up, Princess Olga! Hither comes our brother dear!" The Princess Olga immediately ran to meet him. and began kissing him and embracing him, asking after his health and tell- ing him all about herself. With them Prince Ivan stopped three days ; then he said : " I cannot stay here any longer. I am going to look for my wife, the fair Princess Marya Morevna. MYTHOLOGICAL. 101 " Наг i will it be for you to find her," replied the Eagle, " Leave with us a silver fork. We will look at it and remember you." He left a silver fork behind, and went his way. He travelled one day, he travelled two days ; at daybreak on the third day he saw a palace grander than the first two, and near the palace stood an oak, and on the oak sat a raven. Down flew the Raven from the oak, smote upon the ground, turned into a brave youth, and cried aloud : " Princess Anna, come forth quickly ! our brother is coming ! " Out ran the Princess Anna, greeted him joyfully, and began kissing and embracing him, asking after his health and telling him all about herself. Prince Ivan stayed with them three days ; then he said : " Farewell ! I am going to look for my wife, the fair Princess Marya Morevna." " Hard will it be for you to find her," replied the Raven, " Anyhow, leave your silver snuff-box with us. We will look at it and remember you." The Prince handed over his silver snuff-box, took his leave and went his way. One day he went, another day he went, and on the third day he came to where Marya Morevna was. She caught sight of her love, flung her arms around his neck, burst into tears, and exclaimed : "Oh, Prince Ivan ! why did you disobey me, and go looking into the closet and letting out Koshchei the Deathless ? " " Forgive me, Marya Morevna! Remember not the past; much better fly with me while Koshchei the Deathless is out of sight. Perhaps he won't catch us." So they got ready and fled. Now Koshchei was out hunting Towards evening he was returning home, when his good steed stumbled beneath him. " Why stumblest thou, sorry jade ? scentest thou some ill ? " The steed replied : " Prince Ivan has come and carried off Marya Morevna." " Is it possible to catch them? " " Is it possible to sow wheat, to wait till it grows up, to reap 102 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. it and thresh it, to grind it to flour, to make five pies of it, to eat those pies, and then to start in pursuit — and even then to be in time." Koshchei galloped off and caught up Prince Ivan. " Now," says he, " this time I will forgive you, in return for your kindness in giving me water to drink. And a second time I will forgive you ; but the third time beware ! I will cut you to bits." Then he took Marya Morevna from him, and carried her off. But Princt Ivan sat down on a stone and burst into tears. He wept and wept — and then returned back again to Marya Morev- na. Now Koshchei the Deathless happened not to be at home " Let us fly, Marya Morevna! " " Ah, Prince Ivan ! he will catch us." " Suppose he does catch us. At all events we shall have spent an hour or two together." So they got ready and fled. As Koshchei the Deathless was returning home, his good steed stumbled beneath him. " Why stumblest thou, sorry jade ? Scentest thou some ill ? " " Prince Ivan has come and carried off Marya Morevna." " Is it possible to catch them ? " " It is possible to sow barley, to wait till it grows up, to reap it and thresh it, to brew beer, to drink ourselves drunk on it, to sleep our fill, and then to set off in pursuit — and yet to be in time." Koshchei galloped off, caught up Prince Ivan : " Didn't I tell you that you should not see Marya Morev- na any more than your own ears ? " And he took her away and carried her off home with him. Prince Ivan was left there alone. He wept and wept ; then he went back again after Marya Morevna. Koshchei happened to be away from home at that moment. " Let us fly, Marya Morevna." " Ah, Prince Ivan ! He is sure to catch us and hew you in pieces." " Let him hew away ! I cannot live without you." MYTHOLOGICAL. 103 So they got ready and fled. Koshchei the Deathless was returning home when his good steed stumbled beneath him. " Why stumblest thou ? scentest thou any ill ? " " Prince Ivan has come and has carried off Marya Morevna." Koshchei galloped off, caught Prince Ivan, chopped him into ltttle pieces, put them in a barrel, smeared it with pitch and bound it with iron hoops, and flung it into the blue sea. But Marya Morevna he carried off home. At that very time, the silver turned black which Prince Ivan had left with his brothers-in-law. " Ah ! " said they, " the evil is accomplished sure enough ! " Then the Eagle hurried to the blue sea, caught hold of the barrel, and dragged it ashore ; the Falcon flew away for the Water of Life, and the Raven for the Water of Death. Afterwards they all three met, broke open the barrel, took out the remains of Prince Ivan, washed them, and put them together in fitting order. The Raven sprinkled them with the Water of Death — the pieces joined together, the body became whole. The Falcon sprinkled it with the Water of Life — Prince Ivan shud- dered, stood up, and said : " Ah ! what a time I've been sleeping ! " " You'd have gone on sleeping a good deal longer, if it hadn't been for us," replied his brothers-in-law. " Now come and pay us a visit." "Not so, brothers ; I shall go and look for Marya Morevna." And when he had found her, he said to her : " Find out from Koshchei the Deathless whence he got so good a steed." So Marya Morevna chose a favorable moment, and began asking Koshchei about it. Koshchei replied : " Beyond thrice nine lands, in the thirtieth kingdom, on the other side of the fiery river, there lives a Baba Yaga. She has so good a mare that she flies right round the world on it every day. And she has many other splendid mares. I watched her herds for three days without losing a single mare, and in return for that the Baba Yaga gave me a foal." 104 RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. " But how did you get across the fiery river ? " " Why, I've a handkerchief of this kind — when 1 wave it thrice on the right hand, there springs up a very lofty bridge and the fire cannot reach it." Marya Morevna listened to all this, and repeated it to Prince Ivan, and she carried off the handkerchief and gave it to him. So he managed to get across the fiery river, and then went on to the Baba Yaga's. Long went he on without getting anything either to eat or to drink. At last he came across an outlandish * bird and its young ones. Says Prince Ivan : " I'll eat one of these chickens." "Don't eat it, Prince Ivan!" begs the outlandish bird; " some time or other I'll do you a good turn." He went on farther and saw a hive of bees in the forest. " I'll get a bit of honeycomb," says he. " Don't disturb my honey, Prince Ivan ! " exclaims the queen bee ; " some time or other I'll do you a good turn." So he didn't disturb it, but went on. Presently there met him a lioness with her cub. "Anyhow I'll eat this lion cub," says he ; " I'm so hungry, I feel quite unwell ! " "Please let us alone, Prince Ivan " begs the lioness ; " some time or other I'll do you a good turn." " Very well ; have it your own way," says he. Hungry and faint he wandered on, walked farther and, farther