THE RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER'S WONDER TALES
BY
Louise Seymour Houghton
ILLUSTRATED BY
W. T. BENDA
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK
TO
THE FIVE GRANDCHILDREN
PHILLIPS, SHERRILL, MARGARET,
RUSSELL, AND CAROLINE
PREFACE
The stories which the Russian grandmother told will be found, with
many others, in a German collection of "Tales and Legends of South
Slavonia," put forth in Vienna some twenty years ago by Dr. Friedrich
Kraus, an ardent student of folk-lore. I have sketched in a slight
background of peasant village life as it still exists in some parts of
Southern Russia, because this is the proper setting of these stories;
and I have been careful to clothe them as nearly as I might in the
simple language in which they are told to-day by many a village
fireside in South Slavonia.
I frankly confess to having received from Mr. Joel Chandler Harris
the suggestion which I have thus carried out. It was an unerring
literary instinct which impelled him to put upon the lips of Uncle
Remus and in the environment of a Southern country home of half
a century ago the stories which he had found among the colored
people of the South. Folk-tales, of whatever character, speak the
more directly home to the hearts of children, whatever their own
intellectual environment, in proportion as their setting is most
nearly that which naturally belongs to them. Just as the highest
value of the Homeric poems is their revelation of the heart of man,
showing that in all ages and under all conditions heart answers to
heart as face answers to face in water, so the folk-tales of all
peoples in their native form have a higher function than simply to
amuse, a higher than mere literary value; they are the child's best
introduction to the study of human nature.
The children will not be the less interested in the stories which
the Russian grandmother told to the little peasant boy if they
discover in her wonder-tales some analogies with stories that they
already know. The adventures of Master Reinecke and Mrs. Petz, of
Isegrim and Lampe, will surely remind them of the Uncle Remus tales;
they will find some suggestion of Kamer-es-zaman and the Princess
Budoor in the story of "The Beg and the Fox," a hint of the "City
of Brass," in that of "The Vila in Muhlenberg," a faint reflection
of the "Arabian Nights" story of the Fisherman in the tale of the
"Three Eels," and they will be especially pleased to recognize
their old friend--and Sindbad the Sailor's--the roc, in the bird
Kumrikusha. The transformations which are so enchanting a feature of
the "Arabian Nights" are here suggested in the story of "Steelpacha,"
while the dress of feathers, most universal of folk-fancies, found
among every people in the world, and most perfectly developed in the
Arabian "Story of Hassan of Bassora," here appears in the tale of
"The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Pea-hens."
That these stories originated in that fountain-head of wonder-tales,
the East, is very evident. They give more than a few suggestions of
biblical story: the servant sent to announce the readiness of the
feast (a courtesy of which I was myself the recipient in Syria last
winter), the Delilah-like importunities by which the youngest sister
lures from Steelpacha the secret of his strength, are perhaps the
most striking instances.
Although this preface is not written for the children, yet as there are
children who occasionally dip into prefaces, let me call the attention
of such to the difference, both in style and point of view, between
these stories and those which they have received from the brothers
Grimm, from Hans Andersen, and from a host of later writers. All of
these drew their material from the same sources as those of the Russian
grandmother; but their cultivated minds have worked this material into
exquisite literary forms. Not so your own nurses, or even your mothers,
who told you wonder-tales before you were old enough to read. Not so
the village story-tellers in far-away parts of the world, who, like
the Russian grandmother, still hand down to the children the stories
they received from parents and grandparents. These sometimes lose the
connection; they add little local touches--sweet wine from Zagorjé,
going home to Varazdin, and the like--they give to certain incidents
the setting with which they are themselves familiar; most artlessly
they interweave such results of modern invention and discovery as are
familiar to them, with such blank ignorance of physical facts as is
shown by bringing in the sun, the moon, the winds, as persons. Many of
you know how beautifully George Macdonald did this sort of thing in his
story "At the Back of the North Wind," and you perfectly well perceive
the difference between that story and such a tale as, for instance,
"So Born, So Die," in this book. When you are older you will recognize
that it is precisely the difference between literature and folk-lore.
That many of these wonder-tales passed through Mohammedan minds on
their way to the Russian grandmother, or her great-grandmother, is
evident. "The Beg and the Fox" is a striking case in point; it almost
seems as if the story ought, like the stories of the "Arabian Nights,"
to close with the exclamation, "There is no God but God, the High,
the Great!"
The humor of these stories, however, is unmistakably Slavonic. There
is a fine pungency--not Oriental, though Oriental humor is very
pungent--in certain of the endings, "I have heard a lie, I have told
a lie, and God give you joy!" or after a peculiarly impossible story,
"Whoever believes it will be blessed!" The underlying pathos of the
story of the Basil-plant suggests the exquisite sentiment of Hans
Andersen's "Steadfast Tin Soldier"; but its excessive simplicity,
its dropped threads of thought, forbid the idea that it has been
worked over by any more sophisticated mind than that of the Russian
grandmother.
In this simple-hearted story-teller I have tried to reproduce some
lineaments of the peasant mother to whom, he tells us, Dr. Kraus owes
his first impulse to folk-lore research. She was one of nine children
of a poor pedler, brought up in a village of charcoal burners,
deep in a Slavonian forest. She was illiterate, like our Russian
grandmother, but like her intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore
of her people. Her son pays her a lovely tribute in the preface to
the first volume of his collection:
She grew up like a flower in the hedge-row, among the simple peasant
folk whose manners and spirit she made entirely her own. The villagers,
who had a little education, therefore called her, contemptuously,
baba vracana (the little old sorceress), but the illiterate peasants
lovingly named her nasá baba Eva (our little mother Eve). But for once
the villagers were right, my mother is a sorceress; else, how comes it
that I so constantly fall under the spell of her enchantments ... I
solemnly declare that if there is a true word in metempsychosis, and
it is left to our choice to return to the present state of existence,
nothing would so sorely tempt me back, no crown, not even that of
learning--as the simple assurance of the All-Father that he would
give me again the same dear mother, though I were to go begging with
her through the world.
L. S. H.
New York, September 1, 1906.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Little Boy and the Grandmother
The Wolf as a Roman
II. The Mother's Fête-Day
The Sick Lion
III. Saturday Afternoon
Whiteling's War with Isegrim
IV. The Fire of Shavings
The Bear, the Boar, and the Fox
V. Frost-Bitten Toes
The Man, the Hare, the Fox, and the Bear
VI. After Supper
Reinecke's Revenge on Isegrim
VII. The Snowy Day
The Bird, the Fox, and the Dog
The Fox and the Dove
VIII. The Election Meeting
The Fox and the Hedgehog
Master Reinecke and Gockeling, the Cock
The Disappointed Bear
IX. Cat and Dog
Why the Dog Cannot Endure the Cat, nor the Cat the Mouse
X. A Pleasant Surprise
The Fox and the Badger
The Stag and the Hedgehog
XI. The Patient Little Boy
The Cock and the Hen
XII. The Sheep-Play
The Beg and the Fox
XIII. Getting Ready
The Seven Stars
XIV. Mother's-Mother
The Vila of Muhlenberg
XV. The Little Boy Homesick
A Short Story
The Golden Apple-Tree and the Nine Peahens
The Wonderful Story
The Youth and the Vila
XVI. The Little Boy Sleepless
The Vila in the Golden Castle
XVII. Home Again
Prince Hedgehog
XVIII. The Betrothal
The Deserter
XIX. In the Fields
The Hunter
The Watch-Tower between Earth and Heaven
The Bridge
XX. Trinity-Monday
So Born, So Die
The Enchanted Lambs
The Knot-Grass
XXI. Threshing-Time
"The Three Eels"
XXII. The Korowai
Morning-Dew
XXIII. The Wedding
"Young Neverfull"
The Basil-Plant
XXIV. After the Wedding
Steelpacha
THE RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER'S WONDER-TALES
CHAPTER I
THE LITTLE BOY AND THE GRANDMOTHER
The little boy's father was starosta, that is, Elder of the village,
and the house the little boy lived in was grander than any other,
on whichever side of the long street you might look. For it had
two rooms opening into the court, and all the other houses, even
that of the pop, who said Mass in the church on Sunday, had only
one. And this grand house was not crowded like the other houses,
where the grandparents and the parents and all the married sons and
their wives and children lived in the one room. The starosta was not
a bolshak, or head of a family, of the old-fashioned sort. He did
not consider that he had a right to rule his children like a despot
and make them work for him, however old they might be, as many of the
fathers in the village did. He even approved of young people setting
up housekeeping by themselves. Therefore, though some of the older
bolshaks shook their heads and said harm would come of it, when the
little boy's elder brother married he permitted him to have a house
of his own. It was at the far end of the village.
Thus, in the little boy's house there were only the grandmother, the
father and mother, the three daughters, the half-grown son, and the
little boy. They were not at all crowded, you see, for they had two
rooms. The cowherd woman and the two moujiks who helped the starosta
on the land, slept, of course, in the stalls with the cattle under the
shed that went around three sides of the court. In their warm sheepskin
coats, made with the wool outside, they would not have been at all
cold, even if the cows beside which they slept had not kept them warm.
The family always slept warm, too, for father, mother, and all the
children slept on the great tile stove which occupied the centre of the
larger room, and in this stove the fire never went entirely out. The
grandmother did not sleep on this stove, however. The starosta greatly
honored his old mother, and to her he gave the second room in the
house for herself alone. She had a stove all to herself, and slept
on it all alone, except when the little boy ran away from the great
room and cuddled down beside his grandmother for the night.
She did not tell him stories then, for night is the time for sleeping,
and grandmother was tired after a long day in the fields. But on rainy
days, when the starosta would not permit his old mother to do field
work, grandmother would sit at home and spin, and then for happy times!
It was growing cold weather; the harvests were all in, the rains had
begun, and grandmother was sitting by the stove, with her distaff
and spindle and a basket of wool by her side. In came the little
boy, settled himself in a snug place on the stove-top, and said,
very coaxingly:
"Tell me a story, little grandmamma!"
The grandmother ceased the song she had been singing, and answered:
"Shall I tell you about the Wolf that wanted to be a Roman?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" exclaimed the little boy. "Tell me about the wolf!"
So the grandmother began.
THE WOLF AS A ROMAN
Once upon a time, Isegrim, the Wolf, sat in the forest and thought
to himself, "Why should I be a wolf and go around devouring the other
beasts? It would be much better for me to go out into the world. What
if I should go to Rome? Yes, that's it, I will be a Roman!"
Off he set in the best of spirits, and on the way he met a Sow. The Sow
bristled up in terror, but Isegrim cried out, "Don't be frightened,
Gruntelind! I am done with Gruntelinds forever. I am going to be
a Roman."
Not long after he met a He-goat. The He-goat was greatly frightened
when he saw Isegrim, but the Wolf cried out, "Don't be frightened,
Longbeard! I'm not bothering myself with Longbeards. I am going to
be a Roman."
Next he met an old Mare. She was horribly frightened, but he quieted
her, saying, "Don't be frightened, Skinny-bones! I don't waste my
time with old jades like you. I am going to be a Roman."
On went the Wolf for two whole days, when he began to feel a mighty
hunger. So he turned back, and presently he came to the pasture where
he had met the old Mare. Now was the Mare terrified. She quaked with
fear, and well she might, for the Wolf said to her, "Mare, I am going
to devour you!"
"How dare you say so!" exclaimed the Mare. "You told me you were
a Roman."
"Roman here or Roman there," snarled Isegrim, "I am going to gnaw
your bones."
"Very well," returned the Mare; "if there is no help for it, come
again by and by, when I am plumper and juicier."
So the Wolf went on his way. Presently he met the He-goat. "Ho,
Longbeard," cried he, "your time has come!"
"I dare you to touch me!" replied the He-goat. "You are not a Wolf;
you are a Roman."
"Roman here or Roman there," retorted the Wolf, "I shall dine on
you to-day."
"What must be, must," replied the He-goat; "but since you are bound
to eat me, just grant me life till the woods are green again."
The Wolf was beguiled, and on he went till he met the Sow. "Listen to
me, Gruntelind," said he; "I am going to make short work with you now."
"You daren't do it," replied the Sow. "You are no Wolf; you are a
noble Roman."
"Roman here or Roman there," said the Wolf, "I am bound to eat you."
"Very well," replied the Sow; "since you insist, come another day,
when I am fatter."
The Wolf consented, and away he went to look for that Mare again.
"Listen now, Skinny-bones," said he; "you are to die on the spot."
"If your mind is really made up," replied the Mare, "I have nothing to
say; but first look at my left hind hoof, for my master had me shod
the other day, and the smith marked my age upon the horseshoe. Read
how old I am, and then you will be able to boast what an old Mare
you have eaten."
The Wolf thought this a fine plan, and he drew near. Then the Mare
raised her hoof and dealt Isegrim so smart a blow on the head that
he ran off with a cracked crown, as fast as his heels could carry him.
On the way he met the Sow. "See here, Gruntelind," he said to her,
"there is no escape this time."
"Very well," replied the Sow; "since there is no help for it, just
lead me around by the ear until I say good-by to all my kith and kin."
Isegrim seized her by the ear, when she set up so shrill and piteous
a squealing that the Swine all rushed to the spot from far and near,
and falling upon Cousin Isegrim they almost tore him in pieces. Mangled
and bleeding, he made his escape, and meeting the He-goat, he said,
"Your time has come."
"If that is the case," replied the He-goat, "just stand in the middle
of the field, with your mouth wide open, and my brothers and I will
jump down your throat, one after the other. Then you won't be hungry
again for many a long day."
This plan greatly pleased Isegrim, and he took his place in the middle
of the field, with his mouth wide open. Then all the He-goats ran
against him, butting at him, before and behind, till he could neither
hear nor see, and it was all he could do to escape to the nearest wood.
There he spied a Cock, and said to him, "Now, see here, Gockeling,
I am not to be fooled by you, at any rate."
The Cock replied, "Just look at me once, how thin I am and what big
feathers I have. Why should you bother to pluck me? It would save
you a world of trouble if I got up into this tree and just flew down
your throat."
Isegrim thought this a fine idea. So Gockeling flew up into the
tree. He hopped from branch to branch until he was in perfect safety,
and then crowed loud and lustily to proclaim his escape.
At this the Wolf sank into deep thought. "My father lived comfortably,"
he said to himself, "and was never a Roman; neither should I have
been one--it has served me right. My father was no expert in Mares'
paces, yet he lived in peace and happiness; neither should I have
been one--it has served me right. My father was no Swine musician,
but he lived well for all that; neither should I have been one--it
has served me right. My father never measured a field with He-goats,
but he grew gray honorably for all that; only one thing rankles--that
this scoundrel up in the tree crows over me so. It would be none too
good for me if some one should jump from behind the tree and knock
me over the head."
As luck would have it, a moujik was standing behind the tree, and he
fetched the Wolf a blow on the head with his axe. Then Isegrim cried
out with his last breath, "Well, I vow, on this blessed day one can't
even talk to himself without being made sorry for it!"
The little boy was thoughtful for a few minutes. "Did you know that
Wolf, little grandma?" he asked at length.
"No, not I," replied the grandmother; "it was my
great-great-grandmother who knew him."