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Russian Fairy Tales.
A CHOICE COLLECTION
--OF--
MUSCOVITE FOLK-LORE.
--BY--
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," "KRILOF AND HIS FABLES," ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
HURST & CO., PUBLISHERS,
122 NASSAU STREET.
[Illustration: The King got on the Eagle's back. Away they went
flying.--Page 131.]
To the Memory of
ALEXANDER AFANASIEF
I Dedicate this Book,
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 complete 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
_lub_, diminutive _lubok_, meaning the soft bark of the lime 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.[1]
The stories which have thus been preserved have no small interest of
their own, but they cannot be considered 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 "creations 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,[2] and has been translated into English.[3] Somewhat later,
also, appeared a German version of twelve more of these tales.[4]
Of late years several articles have appeared in some of the German
periodicals,[5] giving accounts or translations 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
described 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 instances 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 own reading. Professor de Gubernatis has discussed at
length, and with much learning, the esoteric meaning of the skazkas,
and their bearing upon the questions 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 fascinating enquiries. My
chief aim has been to familiarize English readers with the Russian
folk-tale; the historical 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.[6]
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 (except in the case of such additions as "he 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[7]
[Russian Popular Tales]. 8 pts. Moscow, 1863-60-63.
Narodnuiya Russkiya Legendui[8] [Russian Popular
Legends]. Moscow, 1859. Poeticheskiya Vozzryeniya
Slavyan na Prirodu [Poetic Views of the Slavonians
about Nature].[9] 3 vols. Moscow, 1865-69.
KHUDYAKOF (I.A.). Velikorusskiya Skazki [Great-Russian
Tales]. Moscow, 1860.
CHUDINSKY (E.A.). Russkiya Narodnuiya Skazki, etc.
[Russian Popular Tales, etc.]. Moscow, 1864.
ERLENVEIN (A.A.). Narodnuiya Skazki, etc. [Popular
Tales, collected by village schoolmasters in the
Government of Tula]. Moscow, 1863.
RUDCHENKO (I.). Narodnuiya Yuzhnorusskiya Skazki
[South-Russian Popular Tales].[10] 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
Hausmaerchen," 9th ed. Berlin, 1870. Those to Asbjoernsen and Moe are to
the "Norske Folke-Eventyr," 3d ed. Christiania, 1866; those to
Asbjoernsen 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 "Karajich" refers to the "Srpske Narodne
Pripovijetke," published at Vienna in 1853 by Vuk Stefanovich
Karajich, and translated by his daughter under the title of
"Volksmaerchen der Serben," Berlin, 1854. By "Schott" is meant the
"Walachische Maehrchen," Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1845, by "Schleicher"
the "Litauische Maerchen," Weimar, 1857, by "Hahn" the "Griechische und
albanesische Maerchen," Leipzig, 1864, by "Haltrich" the "Deutsche
Volksmaerchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbuergen," Berlin, 1856, and
by "Campbell" the "Popular Tales 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So our word "book," the German _Buch_, is derived from the _Buche_
or beech tree, of which the old Runic staves were formed. Cf. _liber_
and +biblos+.
[2] "Russische Volksmaerchen in den Urschriften gesammelt und ins
Deutsche uebersetzt von A. Dietrich." Leipzig, 1831.
[3] "Russian Popular Tales," Chapman and Hall, London, 1857.
[4] "Die aeltesten Volksmaerchen der Russen. Von J. N. Vogl." Wien,
1841.
[5] Such as the "Orient und Occident," "Ausland," &c.
[6] Professor Reinhold Koehler, who is said to be preparing a work on
the Skazkas, in co-operation with Professor Juelg, the well-known
editor and translator of the "Siddhi Kuer" and "Ardshi Bordschi Khan."
[7] In my copy, pt. 1 and 2 are of the 3d, and pt. 3 and 4 are of the
2d edition. By such a note as "Afanasief, i. No. 2," I mean to refer
to the second story of the first part of this work.
[8] This book is now out of print, and copies fetch a very high price.
I refer to it in my notes as "Afanasief, _Legendui_."
[9] This work is always referred to in my notes as "Afanasief,
_P.V.S._"
[10] There is one other recent collection of skazkas--that published
last year at Geneva under the title of "Russkiya Zavyetnuiya Skazki."
But upon its contents I have not found it necessary to draw.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE.
The Folk-tale in general, and the Skazka in particular--Relation
of Russian Popular Tales to Russian Life--Stories about
Courtship, 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. Norka the 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
Heart in his Body"--Excursus on Bluebeard's Chamber; 4. The Water
King or Subaqueous Demon--Female Embodiments of Evil: 1. The Baba
Yaga or Hag, and 2. The Witch, feminine counterparts of the
Snake 75
CHAPTER III.
MYTHOLOGICAL.
_Miscellaneous Impersonations._
One-eyed Likho, a story of the Polyphemus Cycle--Woe, the Poor
Man's Companion--Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday personified
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
CHAPTER IV.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT.
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 Princess--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 of Ghosts to their Shrouds and
Coffin-Lids--Murderous Ghosts--Stories about Vampires--on the
name Vampire, and the belief in Vampirism 295
CHAPTER VI.
LEGENDS.
1. _Saints, &c._
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 demoniacal
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.
PAGE.
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. THE NORKA 86
XVI. MARYA MOREVNA 97
XVII. KOSHCHEI THE DEATHLESS 111
XVIII. THE WATER SNAKE 126
XIX. THE WATER 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
XXIV. ONE-EYED LIKHO 186
XXV. WOE 193
XXVI. FRIDAY 207
XXVII. WEDNESDAY 208
XXVIII. THE LESHY 213
XXIX. VAZUZA AND VOLGA 215
XXX. SOZH AND DNIEPER 216
XXXI. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE DNIEPER, THE
VOLGA, AND THE DVINA 217
XXXII. FROST 221
XXXIII. 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 309
XLIV. THE SHROUD 311
XLV. THE COFFIN-LID 314
XLVI. THE TWO CORPSES 316
XLVII. THE DOG AND THE CORPSE 317
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 Fairy-land 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 condescending scholar
had invested it with such a garb as was supposed 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
peasant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the
unbecoming garments by which it had been disfigured, 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
mediaeval 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 prehistoric 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 submitted 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
supposing 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:"[11] 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 of 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 _Maehrchen_, 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,"[12] 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 inhabitants as were the stories and
fables which, by a circuitous route, were transmitted from India to
Boccaccio or La Fontaine.
On the questions to which these two conflicting hypotheses give rise
we will not now dwell. For the present, we will deal with the Russian
folk-tale as we find it, attempting 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 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 collecting 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 inhabitants of modern Europe since the termination of those
internecine struggles between aboriginals and invaders, which some
commentators see typified in the combats between the heroes of our
popular tales and the whole race of giants, trolls, ogres, snakes,
dragons, and other monsters. The air we 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 different 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
unintelligible 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 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.[13] 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-teller 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 interest to a foreigner they never
touch. There is very little information to be gleaned from them, for
instance, with regard 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 fairy-land and the narratives of heroic
adventure--from the realistic vignettes which are sometimes inserted
between the idealized portraits of invincible princes and irresistible
princesses--some idea may be obtained of the usual aspect of a Russian
village, and of the ordinary behavior of its inhabitants. Turning from
one to another of these accidental 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 interminable
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,[14] so different from the ideal English cottage with its windows
set deep in ivy and its porch smiling with roses. We see the land
around a Slough of Despond 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 massive pall. 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 acquainted with its
arrangements, with the cellar beneath its wooden 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 repose 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 affection, 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 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 are, may be
raised at times by lofty thoughts and noble aspirations 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 may be regarded as specially
illustrative of Russian sentiment and humor those which the present
chapter contains have been selected. 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 developed.
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."[15] 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" he puts them into boiling water by way of cleansing them,
and so washes them to death.[16]
There is a good deal of social life in the Russian villages 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
_vechernitsa_, or village _soiree_,[17] 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.[18]
In a certain country there lived an old couple who had a daughter
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 _pampushki_,[19]
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.
"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 besides.
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 noose in it, and,
when you are going to see him off, throw it over one of his buttons,
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
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 led 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 prevented
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[20] 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?"
"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.
"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 out of
countenance!"[21] say the girls.
"How am I likely to be cheerful? Yesterday my father
died, and to-day my mother."
"Poor thing! Poor unhappy girl!" they all exclaim sympathizingly.
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 evening 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 grandmother'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 promise
to do everything according to her grandmother's instructions.
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
mother, and then Marusia herself. Her body was passed underneath
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 by 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."
"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 handsomer
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
moment 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
time forward they knew neither sorrow nor separation, but they
all lived together long and happily.[22]
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."[23]
The tale is one of magic and enchantment, 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
propitious 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 stories,
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.[24]
In a certain village there lived a husband and wife--lived happily,
lovingly, peaceably. All their neighbors envied them; the
sight of them gave pleasure to honest folks. Well, the mistress
bore a son, but directly after it was born she died.
The poor moujik moaned and wept. Above all he was in despair
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 silently
and peacefully did it sleep.
"What's the meaning of this?" thinks the old woman; "suppose
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 determined
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.[25]
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--
THE DEAD WITCH.[26]
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, begging
them to come and help her to wash the old woman, and
meantime the little granddaughter was left all alone in the cottage.
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
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!"[27]
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_,[28] or laments, which are uttered
on such occasions--frequently by hired wailers, who closely resemble
the Corsican "vociferators," the modern Greek "myrologists"--allusions
are sometimes made in the Skazkas. In the "Fox-wailer,"[29] 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 beanstalk 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 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 appealed 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!"[30]
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.[31]
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,[32] (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.
"If you 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
graveyard, 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 graveyard.
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 delighted,
and cried, "Glory be to Thee, O 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 back 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,"[33] 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,
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 separated
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 anyone.
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 do
the job properly."
Late 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 window,
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![34]" 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 misfortune,
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:
"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 respect 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.[35]
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 Russian
merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as a
rat.[36] So he went to his friend the Tartar, and besought him to
lend him some money.
"Get me a surety," says the Tartar.
"But whom can I get for you, seeing that I haven't a soul
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 roubles 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, the
money will be certain to reach him."
The barrel straightway sank to the bottom; everyone supposed
the money was lost. But what happened? In the Tartar'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
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 power
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 peacefully.[37]
There is one marked feature in the Russian peasant's character to
which the Skazkas frequently refer--his passion for drink. To him
strong liquor is a friend, a comforter, 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 services 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,[38] for instance, of a widespread and well known story--that
of the three princesses who are rescued from 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, I'll toss off half the
bickerful. They may hang me then without my knowing anything about
it."[39]
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
pot-house) 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.[40]
Sometimes even greater people than the peasants get drunk. The story
of "Semiletka"[41]--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[42] as his 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
intoxicated. He drank his fill and went to sleep. While he was
sleeping she had him placed in a carriage, and then she drove 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 agreement 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, couched in terms of the utmost severity, in the _stikhi_ (or
poems of a religious character, sung 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-religious) nature. No better specimen of the stories of this
class referring to drunkenness can be offered than the history of--
THE AWFUL DRUNKARD.[43]
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.[44] 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 him
and said:
"Thanks, Petrusha, for your good word!"
"Who are you, and why do you thank me?" asks Petrusha.
"I am the Devil.[45] 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 homewards,
"Come," said the Devil, "I will provide you with
money and with a capital horse, so that you will speedily get
home."
"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 water."
"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:
"Have 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 cottage;
and for three days the old man remained without speaking,
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.[46]
The Russian peasant is by no means deficient in humor, a fact of
which the Skazkas offer abundant evidence. 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 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 inhabitants 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 alteration it may undergo. Take, for instance, the skits
against women which are so universally 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 by her knife-advocating husband; but not before she
has, in her very death agony, testified to her belief in the scissors
hypothesis by a movement of her fingers above the surface of the
stream.[47] 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."[48] The
story has even settled into a proverb. 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 astonished companions, "She always did everything contrary-wise,
so now, no doubt, she's gone against the stream."[49] 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.[49] The final paragraph of one of
the variants of this time-honored jest is quaint, concluding as it
does, by way of sting, with a highly popular Russian saw. The wife has
gone to the seigneur of the village and accused her husband of having
found a treasure and kept it for his own use. The charge is true, but
the wife is induced to talk such nonsense, and the husband complains
so bitterly of her, that "the seigneur pitied the moujik 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 immediately 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."[50]
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 capricious 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_.[51] Thereupon
her husband determined to remedy the short-comings of her early
education, and "whenever she showed herself capricious, or took to
squalling, he immediately 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.
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,[52] tracing it from its original Indian home, and its
subsequent abode in Persia, into almost every European land.
THE BAD WIFE.[53]
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 middle
of that bush he saw a bottomless pit. He looked at it for
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
wits, he was going to throw the imp back again into the pit,
but it shrieked aloud, and earnestly entreated him, saying:
"Don't send me back again, O peasant! let me go out into
the 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
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 physician.
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, Russian?
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 guerdon
on the peasant, giving him his daughter to wife, and presenting
him with half his property.
But the Bad Wife sits to this day in the pit--in Tartarus.[54]
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 [_Golova_ =
head] of a _Volost_, or association of village communities; but here
it is used for a "female _Golova_," a species of "mayoress."
THE GOLOVIKHA.[55]
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
there where the corn-sacks are."
Now there were five sacks of seed-corn outside, so her husband
tied up the Golova, and set her in the midst of them. Up
came the Cossack and said:
"Ho! so the Golova's in hiding."
Then he took to slashing at the sacks one after another with
his whip, and the woman to howling at the pitch of her voice:
"Oh, my father! I won't be a Golova, I won't be a Golova."
At last the Cossack left off beating the sacks, and rode away.
But the woman had had enough of Golova-ing; from that time
forward she took to obeying her husband.
Before passing on to another subject, it may be advisable to quote one
of the stories in which the value of a good and wise wife is fully
acknowledged. I have chosen for that purpose one of the variants of a
tale from which, in all probability, our own story of "Whittington and
his Cat" has been derived. With respect to its origin, there can be
very little doubt, such a feature as that of the incense-burning
pointing directly to a Buddhist source. It is called--
THE THREE COPECKS.[56]
There once was a poor little orphan-lad who had nothing at all
to live on; so he went to a rich moujik and hired himself out to
him, agreeing to work for one copeck a year. And when he had
worked for a whole year, and had received his copeck, he went to
a well and threw it into the water, saying, "If it don't sink, I'll
keep it. It will be plain enough I've served my master faithfully."
But the copeck sank. Well, he remained in service a second
year, and received a second copeck. Again he flung it into the
well, and again it sank to the bottom. He remained a third year;
worked and worked, till the time came for payment. Then his
master gave him a rouble. "No," says the orphan, "I don't
want your money; give me my copeck." He got his copeck and
flung it into the well. Lo and behold! there were all three copecks
floating on the surface of the water. So he took them and
went into the town.
Now as he went along the street, it happened that some small
boys had got hold of a kitten and were tormenting it. And he
felt sorry for it, and said:
"Let me have that kitten, my boys?"
"Yes, we'll sell it you."
"What do you want for it?"
"Three copecks."
Well the orphan bought the kitten, and afterwards hired
himself to a merchant, to sit in his shop.
That merchant's business began to prosper wonderfully. He
couldn't supply goods fast enough; purchasers carried off everything
in a twinkling. The merchant got ready to go to sea,
freighted a ship, and said to the orphan:
"Give me your cat; maybe it will catch mice on board, and
amuse me."
"Pray take it, master! only if you lose it, I shan't let you off
cheap."
The merchant arrived in a far off land, and put up at an inn.
The landlord saw that he had a great deal of money, so he gave
him a bedroom which was infested by countless swarms of rats
and mice, saying to himself, "If they should happen to eat him
up, his money will belong to me." For in that country they knew
nothing about cats, and the rats and mice had completely got the
upper hand. Well the merchant took the cat with him to his
room and went to bed. Next morning the landlord came into
the room. There was the merchant alive and well, holding the
cat in his arms, and stroking its fur; the cat was purring away,
singing its song, and on the floor lay a perfect heap of dead rats
and mice!
"Master merchant, sell me that beastie," says the landlord.
"Certainly."
"What do you want for it?"
"A mere trifle. I'll make the beastie stand on his hind legs
while I hold him up by his forelegs, and you shall pile gold
pieces around him, so as just to hide him--I shall be content
with that!"
The landlord agreed to the bargain. The merchant gave him
the cat, received a sackful of gold, and as soon as he had settled
his affairs, started on his way back. As he sailed across the
seas, he thought:
"Why should I give the gold to that orphan? Such a lot of
money in return for a mere cat! that would be too much of a
good thing. No, much better keep it myself."
The moment he had made up his mind to the sin, all of a sudden
there arose a storm--such a tremendous one! the ship was
on the point of sinking.
"Ah, accursed one that I am! I've been longing for what
doesn't belong to me; O Lord, forgive me a sinner! I won't
keep back a single copeck."
The moment the merchant began praying the winds were
stilled, the sea became calm, and the ship went sailing on prosperously
to the quay.
"Hail, master!" says the orphan. "But where's my cat?"
"I've sold it," answers the merchant; "There's your money,
take it in full."
The orphan received the sack of gold, took leave of the
merchant, and went to the strand, where the shipmen were.
From them he obtained a shipload of incense in exchange for
his gold, and he strewed the incense along the strand, and burnt
it in honor of God. The sweet savor spread through all that
land, and suddenly an old man appeared, and he said to the
orphan:
"Which desirest thou--riches, or a good wife?"
"I know not, old man."
"Well then, go afield. Three brothers are ploughing over
there. Ask them to tell thee."
The orphan went afield. He looked, and saw peasants tilling
the soil.
"God lend you aid!" says he.
"Thanks, good man!" say they. "What dost thou want?"
"An old man has sent me here, and told me to ask you which
of the two I shall wish for--riches or a good wife?"
"Ask our elder brother; he's sitting in that cart there."
The orphan went to the cart and saw a little boy--one that
seemed about three years old.
"Can this be their elder brother?" thought he--however he
asked him:
"Which dost thou tell me to choose--riches, or a good wife?"
"Choose the good wife."
So the orphan returned to the old man.
"I'm told to ask for the wife," says he.
"That's all right!" said the old man, and disappeared from
sight. The orphan looked round; by his side stood a beautiful
woman.
"Hail, good youth!" says she. "I am thy wife; let us go
and seek a place where we may live."[57]
One of the sins to which the Popular Tale shows itself most hostile is
that of avarice. The folk-tales of all lands delight to gird at misers
and skinflints, to place them in unpleasant positions, and to gloat
over the sufferings which attend their death and embitter their
ghostly existence. As a specimen of the manner in which the humor of
the Russian peasant has manipulated the stories of this class, most of
which probably reached him from the East, we may take the following
tale of--
THE MISER.[58]
There once was a rich merchant named Marko--a stingier fellow
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 asking
for alms--"Please to give, O 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 courtyard 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
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;[59] he's
only just dead."
"The kingdom of heaven be his! If you'll allow me, mistress,
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, his
brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold out.[60]
"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 taken 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
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 stories of village life its signification is generally
that of a "ninny;" in the "fairy stories" it is frequently applied to
the youngest of the well-known "Three Brothers," the "Boots" of the
family as Dr. Dasent has called him. In the latter case, of course,
the hero's _durachestvo_, or foolishness, is purely subjective. It
exists only in the false conceptions of his character which his family
or his neighbors have formed.[61] 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 because they rhyme.
THE FOOL AND THE BIRCH-TREE.[62]
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
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 Simpleton
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."
The wind blew, the Birch creaked, and the Simpleton cried:
"What a liar you are! Yesterday you kept saying, 'I'll pay
you to-morrow,' 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,[63]
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 carried
it home.
"Now mind, Simpleton," say the sensible brothers, "don't
tell anyone that we've such a lot of gold."
"Never fear, I won't tell a soul!"
All of a sudden they run up against a Diachok,[64] and says
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 Diachok,
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."
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 to
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 conjuring 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 window 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, thinking 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, 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 surpassing
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. The 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 difficulties. After which he
returns home.[65]
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 _Luegenmaehrchen_, on which was founded
the narrative of Baron Munchausen's surprising 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.[66]
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[67] appeared, the hero bold, who, with waving
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."
Well, the Spider released her. Away she flew, and everywhere
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 weaving
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.
"O Cricket!" he cried, "upon this mound sit and take
snuff! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, O
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 Beetle
smote upon the drum. The Bug crawled in among the ash-tree's
roots, and cried:--
"Why have ye fallen? Wherefore as in death do ye lie
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!"[68]
This story is specially interesting in the original, inasmuch 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 "motive," but a certain
freshness is lent to it by its simple style, its unstrained humor, and
its genial tone.
THE SMITH AND THE DEMON.[69]
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.
"O 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
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 hammer
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 apprentice?
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.
Presently he saw an old lady[70] driving along the street in her
carriage, whereupon he popped his head out of doors and began
shouting:--
"Heigh, sirs! Be 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 coachman
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; nothing
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 beautiful!
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!"
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 coachman
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.
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 her
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 gallows.
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 straightway
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.[71]
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse," p. xl.
[12] Max Mueller, "Chips," vol. ii. p. 226.
[13] Take as an illustration of these remarks the close of the story
of "Helena the Fair" (No. 34, Chap. IV.). See how light and bright it
is (or at least was, before it was translated).
[14] I speak only of what I have seen. In some districts of Russia, if
one may judge from pictures, the peasants occupy ornamented and
ornamental dwellings.
[15] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 65.
[16] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 115.
[17] For a description of such social gatherings see the "Songs of the
Russian People," pp. 32-38.
[18] Afanasief, vi. No. 66.
[19] Cakes of unleavened flour flavored with garlic.
[20] The _Nechistol_, or unclean. (_Chisty_ = clean, pure, &c.)
[21] Literally, "on thee no face is to be seen."
[22] 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 translation, 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.) For 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 "Water of
Death," viewed in its negative aspect.
[23] Chudinsky, No. 3.
[24] Afanasief, vi. p. 325. Wolfs "Niederlandische Sagen," No. 326,
quoted in Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 292. Note 4.
[25] 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 widower who believed he was haunted by his dead
wife. On one occasion the ghost, to prove her identity, gave suck to
her surviving infant.
[26] Afanasief, viii. p. 165.
[27] 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.
[28] 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 Syevernago Kraya," Moscow, 1872.
[29] Afanasief, iv. No. 9.
[30] Professor de Gubernatis justly remarks that this "howling" is
more in keeping with the nature of the eastern jackal than with that
of its western counterpart, the fox. "Zoological Mythology," ii. 130.
[31] Afanasief, vii. No. 45.
[32] _Pope_ is the ordinary but disrespectful term for a priest
(_Svyashchennik_), as _popovich_ is for a priest's son.
[33] "Father dear," or "reverend father."
[34] A phrase often used by the peasants, when frightened by anything
of supernatural appearance.
[35] Afanasief, Skazki, vii. No. 49.
[36] The Russian expression is _gol kak sokol_, "bare as a hawk."
[37] In another story St. Nicolas's picture is the surety.
[38] Another variant of this story, under the title of "Norka," will
be quoted in full in the next chapter.
[39] Afanasief, vii. p. 107.
[40] Afanasief, vii. p. 146.
[41] Or "The Seven-year-old." Khudyakof, No. 6. See Grimm, No. 94,
"Die kluge Bauerntochter," and iii. 170-2.
[42] _Voevoda_, now a general, formerly meant a civil governor, etc.
[43] Afanasief. "Legendui," No. 29.
[44] Diminutive of Peter.
[45] The word employed here is not _chort_, but _diavol_.
[46] 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.
[47] In the sixty-fourth story of Asbjoernsen's "Norske Folke-Eventyr,"
(Ny Samling, 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 making 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 his
wife, to prevent her from repeating that his meadow has been clipped,
whereupon 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 "Pentamerone," ii. 264, and of
Dunlop's "History of Literature," p. 516.
[48] Afanasief, v. p. 16.
[49] Ibid., iii. p. 87.
[50] Chudinsky, No. 8. The proverb is dear to the Tartars also.
[51] 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.
[52] "Panchatantra," 1859, vol. i. Sec. 212, pp. 519-524. I gladly avail
myself of this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my obligations
to Dr. Benfey's invaluable work.
[53] Afanasief, i. No. 9. Written down in the Novgorod Government. Its
dialect renders it somewhat difficult to read.
[54] This story is known to the Finns, but with them the Russian
Demon, (_chortenok_ = a little _chort_ or devil), has become the
Plague. In the original Indian story the demon 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
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.
[55] Afanasief, ii. No. 12. Written down by a "Crown Serf," in the
government of Perm.
[56] Afanasief, viii. No. 20. A copeck is worth about a third of a
penny.
[57] The story is continued very little further by Afanasief, its
conclusion being the same as that of "The Wise Wife," in Book vii. No.
22, a tale of magic. For a Servian version of the tale see Vuk
Karajich, No. 7.
[58] Afanasief, v. No. 3. From the Novgorod Government.
[59] Literally, "has bid to live long," a conventional euphemism for
"has died." "Remember what his name was," is sometimes added.
[60] It will be observed that the miser holds out against the pain
which the scalded demon was unable to bear. See above, p. 21.
[61] Professor de Gubernatis remarks that he may sometimes be called
"the first Brutus of popular tradition." "Zoological Mythology," vol.
i. p. 199.
[62] Afanasief, v. No. 53.
[63] _Zavtrakami podchivat_ = to dupe; _zavtra_ = to-morrow; _zavtrak_
= breakfast.
[64] One of the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though
not of the clergy. But in 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, perhaps on account
of their long beards.
[65] Afanasief, ii. No. 8, v. No. 5. See also Khudyakof, No. 76. Cf.
Grimm, No. 34, "Die kluge Else." Haltrich, No. 66. Asbjoernsen and Moe,
No. 10. (Dasent No. 24, "Not a Pin to choose between them.")
[66] Afanasief, ii. No. 5. Written down by a crown-peasant in the
government of Perm.
[67] _Mizgir_, a venomous spider, like the Tarantula, found in the
Kirghiz Steppes.
[68] In another story bearing the same title (v. 39) the spider lies
on its back awaiting its prey. Up comes "the 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."
[69] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 31. Taken from Dahl's collection. Some
remarks on the Russian "legends" are given in Chap. VI.
[70] _Baruinya_, the wife of a _barin_ or seigneur.
[71] The _chort_ of this legend is evidently akin to the devil
himself, whom traditions frequently connect with blacksmiths; but his
prototype, in the original form of this story, was doubtless a demigod
or demon. His part is played by St. Nicholas in the legend of "The
Priest with the Greedy Eyes," for which, and for further comment on
the story, see Chap. VI.