MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT.
Most of the magical "properties" of the "skazka-drama," closely
resemble those which have already been rendered familiar to us by
well-known folk-tales. Of such as these--of "caps of darkness," of
"seven-leagued boots," of "magic cudgels," of "Fortunatus's purses,"
and the like[296]--it is unnecessary, for the present, to say more
than that they are of as common occurrence in Slavonic as in other
stories. But there are some among them which materially differ from
their counterparts in more western lands, and are therefore worthy of
special notice. To the latter class belong the Dolls of which mention
has already been made, and the Waters of Life and Death of which I am
now about to speak.
A Water of Life plays an important part in the folk-tales of every
land.[297] When the hero of a "fairy story" has been done to death by
evil hands, his resuscitation by means of a healing and vivifying
lotion or ointment[298] follows almost as a matter of course. And by
common consent the Raven (or some sort of crow) is supposed to know
where this invaluable specific is to be found,[299] a knowledge which
it shares with various supernatural beings as well as with some human
adepts in magic, and sometimes with the Snake. In all these matters
the Russian and the Western tales agree, but the Skazka differs from
most stories of its kind in this respect, that it almost invariably
speaks of _two_ kinds of magic waters as being employed for the
restoration of life. We have already seen in the story of "Marya
Morevna," that one of these, sometimes called the _mertvaya voda_--the
"dead water," or "Water of Death"--when sprinkled over a mutilated
corpse, heals all its wounds; while the other, which bears the name of
the _zhivaya voda_,--the "living water," or "Water of Life"--endows it
once more with vitality.
[In a Norse tale in Asbjoernsen's new series, No. 72,
mention is made of a Water of Death, as opposed to a
Water of Life. The Death Water (_Doasens Vana_) throws
all whom it touches into a magic sleep, from which
only Life Water (_Livsens Vand_) can rouse them (p.
57). In the Ramayana, Hanuman fetches four different
kinds of herbs in order to resuscitate his dead
monkeys: "the first restore the dead to life, the
second drive away all pain, the third join broken
parts, the fourth cure all wounds, &c." Talboys
Wheeler, "History of India," ii. 368. In the Egyptian
story already mentioned (at p. 113), Satou's corpse
quivers and opens its eyes when his heart has become
saturated with a healing liquid. But he does not
actually come to life till the remainder of the liquid
has been poured down his throat.
In a Kirghiz story, quoted by Bronevsky,[300] a
golden-haired hero finds, after long search, the
maiden to whom he had in very early life been
betrothed. Her father has him murdered. She persuades
the murderer to show her the body of her dead love,
and weeps over it bitterly. A spirit appears and tells
her to sprinkle it with water from a neighboring well.
The well is very deep, but she induces the murderer to
allow her to lower him into it by means of her
remarkably long hair. He descends and hands up to her
a cup of water. Having received it, she cuts off her
hair, and lets the murderer drop and be drowned. Then
she sprinkles her lover's corpse with the water, and
he revives. But he lives only three days. She refuses
to survive him, and is buried by his side. From the
graves of the lovers spring two willows, which mingle
their boughs as if in an embrace. And the neighbors
set up near the spot three statues, his and hers and
her nurse's.
Such is the story, says Bronevsky, which the Kirghiz
tell with respect to some statues of unknown origin
which stand (or used to stand) near the Ayaguza, a
river falling into Lake Balkhash. A somewhat similar
Armenian story is quoted by Haxthausen in his
Transcaucasia (p. 350 of the English translation).
In the Kalevala, when Lemmenkaeinen has been torn to
pieces, his mother collects his scattered remains, and
by a dexterous synthetical operation restores him to
physical unity. But the silence of death still
possesses him. Then she entreats the Bee to bring
vivifying honey. After two fruitless journeys, the Bee
succeeds in bringing back honey "from the cellar of
the Creator." When this has been applied, the dead man
returns to life, sits up, and says in the words of the
Russian heroes--"How long I have slept!"[301]
Here is another instance of a life-giving operation
of a double nature. There is a well-known Indian story
about four suitors for the hand of one girl. She dies,
but is restored to life by one of her lovers, who
happens one day to see a dead child resuscitated, and
learns how to perform similar miracles. In two
Sanskrit versions of the "Vetalapanchavinsati,"[302]
as well as in the Hindi version,[303] the life-giving
charm consists in a spell taken from a book of magic.
But in the Tamil version, the process is described as
being of a different and double nature. According to
it, the mother of the murdered child "by the charm
called _sisupabam_ re-created the body, and, by the
incantation called _sanjivi_, restored it to life."
The suitor, having learnt the charm and the
incantation, "took the bones and the ashes (of the
dead girl), and having created out of them the body,
by virtue of the charm _sisupabam_ gave life to that
body by the _sanjivi_ incantation." According to Mr.
Babington, "Sanjivi is defined by the Tamuls to be a
medicine which restores to life by dissipating a
mortal swoon.... In the text the word is used for the
art of using this medicine."[304]]
As a general rule, the two waters of which mention is made in the
Skazkas possess the virtues, and are employed in the manner, mentioned
above; but there are cases in which their powers are of a different
nature. Sometimes we meet with two magic fluids, one of which heals
all wounds, and restores sight to the blind and vigor to the cripple,
while the other destroys all that it touches. Sometimes, also,
recourse is had to magic draughts of two kinds, the one of which
strengthens him who quaffs it, while the other produces the opposite
effect. Such liquors as these are known as the "Waters of Strength and
Weakness," and are usually described as being stowed away in the
cellar of some many-headed Snake. For the Snake is often mentioned as
the possessor, or at least the guardian, of magic fluids. Thus one of
the Skazkas[305] speaks of a wondrous garden, in which are two springs
of healing and vivifying water, and around that garden is coiled like
a ring a mighty serpent. Another tells how a flying Snake brought two
heroes to a lake, into which they flung a green bough, and immediately
the bough broke into flame and was consumed. Then it took them to
another lake, into which they cast a mouldy log. And the log
straightway began to put forth buds and blossoms.[306]
In some cases the magic waters are the property, not of a Snake, but
of one of the mighty heroines who so often occur in these stories, and
who bear so great a resemblance to Brynhild, as well in other respects
as in that of her enchanted sleep. Thus in one of the Skazkas[307] an
aged king dreams that "beyond thrice nine lands, in the thirtieth
country, there is a fair maiden from whose hands and feet water is
flowing, of which water he who drinks will become thirty years
younger." His sons go forth in search of this youth-giving liquid, and,
after many adventures, the youngest is directed to the golden castle in
which lives the "fair maiden," whom his father has seen in his vision.
He has been told that when she is awake her custom is to divert herself
in the green fields with her Amazon host--"for nine days she rambles
about, and then for nine days she sleeps a heroic slumber." The Prince
hides himself among the bushes near the castle, and sees a fair maiden
come out of it surrounded by an armed band, "and all the band consists
of maidens, each one more beautiful than the other. And the most
beautiful, the most never-enough-to-be-gazed-upon, is the Queen
herself." For nine days he watches the fair band of Amazons as they
ramble about. On the tenth day all is still, and he enters the castle.
In the midst of her slumbering guards sleeps the Queen on a couch of
down, the healing water flowing from her hands and feet. With it he
fills two flasks, and then he retires. When the Queen awakes, she
becomes conscious of the theft and pursues the Prince. Coming up with
him, she slays him with a single blow, but then takes compassion on
him, and restores him to life.
In another version of the story, the precious fluid is contained in a
flask which is hidden under the pillow of the slumbering "Tsar
Maiden." The Prince steals it and flees, but he bears on him the
weight of sin, and so, when he tries to clear the fence which girds
the enchanted castle, his horse strikes one of the cords attached to
it, and the spell is broken which maintains the magic sleep in which
the realm is locked. The Tsar Maiden pursues the thief, but does not
succeed in catching him. He is killed, however, by his elder brothers,
who "cut him into small pieces," and then take the flask of magic
water to their father. The murdered prince is resuscitated by the
mythical bird known by the name of the _Zhar-Ptitsa_, which collects
his scattered fragments, puts them together, and sprinkles them first
with "dead water" and then with "live-water,"--conveyed for that
purpose in its beak--after which the prince gets up, thanks his
reviver, and goes his way.[308]
In one of the numerous variants of the story in which a prince is
exposed to various dangers by his sister--who is induced to plot
against his life by her demon lover, the Snake--the hero is sent in
search of "a healing and a vivifying water," preserved between two
lofty mountains which cleave closely together, except during "two or
three minutes" of each day. He follows his instructions, rides to a
certain spot, and there awaits the hour at which the mountains fly
apart. "Suddenly a terrible hurricane arose, a mighty thunder smote,
and the two mountains were torn asunder. Prince Ivan spurred his
heroic steed, flew like a dart between the mountains, dipped two
flasks in the waters, and instantly turned back." He himself escapes
safe and sound, but the hind legs of his horse are caught between the
closing cliffs, and smashed to pieces. The magic waters, of course,
soon remedy this temporary inconvenience.[309]
In a Slovak version of this story, a murderous mother sends her son
to two mountains, each of which is cleft open once in every
twenty-four hours--the one opening at midday and the other at
midnight; the former disclosing the Water of Life, the latter the
Water of Death.[310] In a similar story from the Ukraine, mention is
made of two springs of healing and life-giving water, which are
guarded by iron-beaked ravens, and the way to which lies between
grinding hills. The Fox and the Hare are sent in quest of the magic
fluid. The Fox goes and returns in safety, but the Hare, on her way
back, is not in time quite to clear the meeting cliffs, and her tail
is jammed in between them. Since that time, hares have had no
tails.[311]
On the Waters of Strength and Weakness much stress is laid in many of
the tales about the many-headed Snakes which carry off men's wives and
daughters to their metallic castles. In one of these, for instance,
the golden-haired Queen Anastasia has been torn away by a whirlwind
from her husband "Tsar Byel Byelyanin" [the White King]. As in the
variant of the story already quoted,[312] her sons go in search of
her, and the youngest of them, after finding three palaces--the first
of copper, the second of silver, the third of gold, each containing a
princess held captive by Vikhor, the whirlwind--comes to a fourth
palace gleaming with diamonds and other precious stones. In it he
discovers his long-lost mother, who gladly greets him, and at once
takes him into Vikhor's cellar. Here is the account of what ensued.
Well, they entered the cellar; there stood two tubs of water,
the one on the right hand, the other on the left. Says the
Queen--
"Take a draught of the water that stands on the right
hand." Prince Ivan drank of it.
"Now then, how strong do you feel?" said she.
"So strong that I could upset the whole palace with one
hand," he replied.
"Come now, drink again."
The Prince drank once more.
"How strong do you feel now?" she asked.
"Why now, if I wanted, I could give the whole world a
jolt."
"Oh that's plenty then! Now make these tubs change
places--that which stands on the right, set on the left: and
that which is on the left, change to the right."
Prince Ivan took the tubs and made them change places.
Says the Queen--
"See now, my dear son; in one of these tubs is the 'Water
of Strength,' in the other is the 'Water of Weakness.'[313] He
who drinks of the former becomes a mighty hero, but he who
drinks of the second loses all his vigor. Vikhor always quaffs
the Strong Water, and places it on the right-hand side; therefore
you must deceive him, or you will never be able to hold
out against him."
The Queen proceeds to tell her son that, when Vikhor comes home, he
must hide beneath her purple cloak, and watch for an opportunity of
seizing her gaoler's magic mace.[314] Vikhor will fly about till he is
tired, and will then have recourse to what he supposes is the "Strong
Water;" this will render him so feeble that the Prince will be able to
kill him. Having received these instructions, and having been warned
not to strike Vikhor after he is dead, the Prince conceals himself.
Suddenly the day becomes darkened, the palace quivers, and Vikhor
arrives; stamping on the ground, he becomes a noble gallant, who
enters the palace, "holding in his hands a battle mace." This Prince
Ivan seizes, and a long struggle takes place between him and Vikhor,
who flies away with him over seas and into the clouds. At last, Vikhor
becomes exhausted and seeks the place where he expects to find the
invigorating draught on which he is accustomed to rely. The result is
as follows:
Dropping right into his cellar, Vikhor ran to the tub which
stood on the right, and began drinking the Water of Weakness.
But Prince Ivan rushed to the left, quaffed a deep draught of
the Water of Strength, and became the mightiest hero in the
whole world. Then seeing that Vikhor was perfectly enfeebled,
he snatched from him his keen faulchion, and with a single
blow struck off his head. Behind him voices began to cry:
"Strike again! strike again! or he will come to life!"
"No," replied the Prince, "a hero's hand does not strike
twice, but finishes its work with a single blow." And straightway
he lighted a fire, burnt the head and the trunk, and scattered
the ashes to the winds.[315]
The part played by the Water of Strength in this story may be
compared with "the important share which the exhilarating juice of the
Soma-plant assumes in bracing Indra for his conflict with the hostile
powers in the atmosphere," and Vikhor's sudden debility with that of
Indra when the Asura Namuchi "drank up Indra's strength along with a
draught of wine and soma."[316]
Sometimes, as has already been remarked, one of the two magic waters
is even more injurious than the Water of Weakness.[317] The following
may be taken as a specimen of the stories in which there is introduced
a true Water of Death--one of those deadly springs which bear the same
relation to the healing and vivifying founts that the enfeebling bears
to the strengthening water. The Baba Yaga who figures in it is, as is
so often the case, replaced by a Snake in the variant to which
allusion has already been made.
THE BLIND MAN AND THE CRIPPLE.[318]
In a certain kingdom there lived a king and queen; they had a
son, Prince Ivan, and to look after that son was appointed a
tutor named Katoma.[319] The king and queen lived to a great
age, but then they fell ill, and despaired of ever recovering. So
they sent for Prince Ivan and strictly enjoined him:
"When we are dead, do you in everything respect and obey
Katoma. If you obey him, you will prosper; but if you choose
to be disobedient, you will perish like a fly."
The next day the king and queen died. Prince Ivan buried
his parents, and took to living according to their instructions.
Whatever he had to do, he always consulted his tutor about it.
Some time passed by. The Prince attained to man's estate,
and began to think about getting married. So one day he went
to his tutor and said:
"Katoma, I'm tired of living alone, I want to marry."
"Well, Prince! what's to prevent you? you're of an age at
which it's time to think about a bride. Go into the great hall.
There's a collection there of the portraits of all the princesses in
the world; look at them and choose for yourself; whichever
pleases you, to her send a proposal of marriage."
Prince Ivan went into the great hall, and began examining
the portraits. And the one that pleased him best was that of the
Princess Anna the Fair--such a beauty! the like of her wasn't
to be found in the whole world! Underneath her portrait were
written these words:
"If any one asks her a riddle, and she does not guess it, him
shall she marry; but he whose riddle she guesses shall have his
head chopped off."
Prince Ivan read this inscription, became greatly afflicted, and
went off to his tutor.
"I've been in the great hall," says he, "and I picked out for
my bride Anna the Fair; only I don't know whether it's possible
to win her."
"Yes, Prince; she's hard to get. If you go alone, you
won't win her anyhow. But if you will take me with you, and
if you will do what I tell you, perhaps the affair can be managed."
Prince Ivan begged Katoma to go with him, and gave his
word of honor to obey him whether in joy or grief.
Well, they got ready for the journey and set off to sue for the
hand of the Princess Anna the Fair. They travelled for one
year, two years, three years, and traversed many countries.
Says Prince Ivan--
"We've been travelling all this time, uncle, and now we're
approaching the country of Princess Anna the Fair; and yet we
don't know what riddle to propound."
"We shall manage to think of one in good time," replied
Katoma. They went a little farther. Katoma was looking down
on the road, and on it lay a purse full of money. He lifted it up
directly, poured all the money out of it into his own purse, and
said--
"Here's a riddle for you, Prince Ivan! When you come
into the presence of the Princess, propound a riddle to her in
these words: 'As we were coming along, we saw Good lying on
the road, and we took up the Good with Good, and placed it in
our own Good!' That riddle she won't guess in a lifetime; but
any other one she would find out directly. She would only have
to look into her magic-book, and as soon as she had guessed it,
she'd order your head to be cut off."
Well, at last Prince Ivan and his tutor arrived at the lofty
palace in which lived the fair Princess. At that moment she
happened to be out on the balcony, and when she saw the newcomers,
she sent out to know whence they came and what they
wanted. Prince Ivan replied--
"I have come from such-and-such a kingdom, and I wish to
sue for the hand of the Princess Anna the Fair."
When she was informed of this, the Princess gave orders that
the Prince should enter the palace, and there in the presence of
all the princes and boyars of her council should propound his
riddle.
"I've made this compact," she said. "Anyone whose riddle
I cannot guess, him I must marry. But anyone whose riddle I
can guess, him I may put to death."
"Listen to my riddle, fair princess!" said Prince Ivan. "As
we came along, we saw Good lying on the road, and we took up
the Good with Good, and placed it in our own Good."
Princess Anna the Fair took her magic-book, and began
turning over its leaves and examining the answers of riddles.
She went right through the book, but she didn't get at the meaning
she wanted. Thereupon the princes and boyars of her
council decided that the Princess must marry Prince Ivan. She
wasn't at all pleased, but there was no help for it, and so she
began to get ready for the wedding. Meanwhile she considered
within herself how she could spin out the time and do away with
the bridegroom, and she thought the best way would be to overwhelm
him with tremendous tasks.
So she called Prince Ivan and said to him--
"My dear Prince Ivan, my destined husband! It is meet
that we should prepare for the wedding; pray do me this small
service. On such and such a spot of my kingdom there stands
a lofty iron pillar. Carry it into the palace kitchen, and chop it
into small chunks by way of fuel for the cook."
"Excuse me, Princess," replied the prince. "Was it to chop
fuel that I came here? Is that the proper sort of employment
for me? I have a servant for that kind of thing, Katoma _dyadka_,
of the oaken _shapka_."
The Prince straightway called for his tutor, and ordered
him to drag the iron pillar into the kitchen, and to chop it into
small chunks by way of fuel for the cook. Katoma went to the
spot indicated by the Princess, seized the pillar in his arms,
brought it into the palace kitchen, and broke it into little pieces;
but four of the iron chips he put into his pocket, saying--
"They'll prove useful by-and-by!"
Next day the princess says to Prince Ivan--
"My dear Prince, my destined husband! to-morrow we have
to go to the wedding. I will drive in a carriage, but you should
ride on a heroic steed, and it is necessary that you should
break him in beforehand."
"I break a horse in myself! I keep a servant for that."
Prince Ivan called Katoma, and said--
"Go into the stable and tell the grooms to bring forth the
heroic steed; sit upon him and break him in; to-morrow I've
got to ride him to the wedding."
Katoma fathomed the subtle device of the Princess, but, without
stopping long to talk, he went into the stable and told the
grooms to bring forth the heroic steed. Twelve grooms were
mustered, they unlocked twelve locks, opened twelve doors, and
brought forth a magic horse bound in twelve chains of iron.
Katoma went up to him. No sooner had he managed to seat
himself than the magic horse leaped up from the ground and
soared higher than the forest--higher than the standing forest,
lower than the flitting cloud. Firm sat Katoma, with one hand
grasping the mane; with the other he took from his pocket an
iron chunk, and began taming the horse with it between the ears.
When he had used up one chunk, he betook himself to another;
when two were used up, he took to a third; when three were
used up, the fourth came into play. And so grievously did he
punish the heroic steed that it could not hold out any longer,
but cried aloud with a human voice--
"Batyushka Katoma! don't utterly deprive me of life in the
white world! Whatever you wish, that do you order: all shall
be done according to your will!"
"Listen, O meat for dogs!" answered Katoma; "to-morrow
Prince Ivan will ride you to the wedding. Now mind! when the
grooms bring you out into the wide courtyard, and the Prince
goes up to you and lays his hand on you, do you stand quietly,
not moving so much as an ear. And when he is seated on your
back, do you sink into the earth right up to your fetlocks, and
then move under him with a heavy step, just as if an immeasurable
weight had been laid upon your back."
The heroic steed listened to the order and sank to earth
scarcely alive. Katoma seized him by the tail, and flung him
close to the stable, crying--
"Ho there! coachmen and grooms; carry off this dog's-meat
to its stall!"
The next day arrived; the time drew near for going to the
wedding. The carriage was brought round for the Princess, and
the heroic steed for Prince Ivan. The people were gathered
together from all sides--a countless number. The bride and
bridegroom came out from the white stone halls. The Princess
got into the carriage and waited to see what would become of
Prince Ivan; whether the magic horse would fling his curls to
the wind, and scatter his bones across the open plain. Prince
Ivan approached the horse, laid his hand upon its back, placed
his foot in the stirrup--the horse stood just as if petrified, didn't
so much as wag an ear! The Prince got on its back, the magic
horse sank into the earth up to its fetlocks. The twelve chains
were taken off the horse, it began to move with an even heavy
pace, while the sweat poured off it just like hail.
"What a hero! What immeasurable strength!" cried the
people as they gazed upon the Prince.
So the bride and bridegroom were married, and then they
began to move out of the church, holding each other by the hand.
The Princess took it into her head to make one more trial of
Prince Ivan, so she squeezed his hand so hard that he could not
bear the pain. His face became suffused with blood, his eyes
disappeared beneath his brows.
"A fine sort of hero you are!" thought the Princess.
"Your tutor has tricked me splendidly; but you sha'n't get off
for nothing!"
Princess Anna the Fair lived for some time with Prince Ivan
as a wife ought to live with a god-given[320] husband, flattered him
in every way in words, but in reality never thought of anything
except by what means she might get rid of Katoma. With the
Prince, without the tutor, there'd be no difficulty in settling
matters! she said to herself. But whatever slanders she might
invent, Prince Ivan never would allow himself to be influenced
by what she said, but always felt sorry for his tutor. At the end
of a year he said to his wife one day--
"Beauteous Princess, my beloved spouse! I should like
to go with you to my own kingdom."
"By all means," replied she, "let us go. I myself have
long been wishing to see your kingdom."
Well they got ready and went off; Katoma was allotted the
post of coachman. They drove and drove, and as they drove
along Prince Ivan went to sleep. Suddenly the Princess Anna
the Fair awoke him, uttering loud complaints--
"Listen, Prince, you're always sleeping, you hear nothing!
But your tutor doesn't obey me a bit, drives the horses on purpose
over hill and dale, just as if he wanted to put an end to us
both. I tried speaking him fair, but he jeered at me. I won't go
on living any longer if you don't punish him!"
Prince Ivan, 'twixt sleeping and waking, waxed very wroth
with his tutor, and handed him over entirely to the Princess,
saying--
"Deal with him as you please!"
The Princess ordered his feet to be cut off. Katoma submitted
patiently to the outrage.
"Very good," he thinks; "I shall suffer, it's true; but the
Prince also will know what to lead a wretched life is like!"
When both of Katoma's feet had been cut off, the Princess
glanced around, and saw that a tall tree-stump stood on one side;
so she called her servants and ordered them to set him on that
stump. But as for Prince Ivan, she tied him to the carriage by
a cord, turned the horses round, and drove back to her own
kingdom. Katoma was left sitting on the stump, weeping bitter
tears.
"Farewell, Prince Ivan!" he cries; "you won't forget me!"
Meanwhile Prince Ivan was running and bounding behind
the carriage. He knew well enough by this time what a blunder
he had made, but there was no turning back for him. When
the Princess Anna the Fair arrived in her kingdom, she set
Prince Ivan to take care of the cows. Every day he went afield
with the herd at early morn, and in the evening he drove them
back to the royal yard. At that hour the Princess was always
sitting on the balcony, and looking out to see that the number
of the cows were all right.[321]
Katoma remained sitting on the stump one day, two days,
three days, without anything to eat or drink. To get down was
utterly impossible, it seemed as if he must die of starvation.
But not far away from that place there was a dense forest. In
that forest was living a mighty hero who was quite blind. The
only way by which he could get himself food was this: whenever
he perceived by the sense of smell that any animal was running
past him, whether a hare, or a fox, or a bear, he immediately started
in chase of it, caught it--and dinner was ready for him. The
hero was exceedingly swift-footed, and there was not a single
wild beast which could run away from him. Well, one day it
fell out thus. A fox slunk past; the hero heard it, and was
after it directly. It ran up to the tall stump, and turned sharp
off on one-side; but the blind hero hurried on, took a spring,
and thumped his forehead against the stump so hard that he
knocked the stump out by the roots. Katoma fell to the ground,
and asked:
"Who are you?"
"I'm a blind hero. I've been living in the forest for thirty
years. The only way I can get my food is this: to catch some
game or other, and cook it at a wood fire. If it had not been
for that, I should have been starved to death long ago!"
"You haven't been blind all your life?"
"No, not all my life; but Princess Anna the Fair put my
eyes out!"
"There now, brother!" says Katoma; "and it's thanks to
her, too, that I'm left here without any feet. She cut them both
off, the accursed one!"
The two heroes had a talk, and agreed to live together, and
join in getting their food. The blind man says to the lame:
"Sit on my back and show me the way; I will serve you
with my feet, and you me with your eyes."
So he took the cripple and carried him home, and Katoma
sat on his back, kept a look out all round, and cried out from
time to time: "Right! Left! Straight on!" and so forth.
Well, they lived some time in the forest in that way, and
caught hares, foxes, and bears for their dinner. One day the
cripple says--
"Surely we can never go on living all our lives without a
soul [to speak to]. I have heard that in such and such a town
lives a rich merchant who has a daughter; and that merchant's
daughter is exceedingly kind to the poor and crippled. She
gives alms to everyone. Suppose we carry her off, brother, and
let her live here and keep house for us."
The blind man took a cart, seated the cripple in it, and rattled
it into the town, straight into the rich merchant's courtyard.
The merchant's daughter saw them out of window, and immediately
ran out, and came to give them alms. Approaching the
cripple, she said:
"Take this, in Christ's name, poor fellow!"
He [seemed to be going] to take the gift, but he seized her
by the hand, pulled her into the cart, and called to the blind
man, who ran off with it at such a pace that no one could catch
him, even on horseback. The merchant sent people in pursuit--but
no, they could not come up with him.
The heroes brought the merchant's daughter into their forest
hut, and said to her:
"Be in the place of a sister to us, live here and keep house
for us; otherwise we poor sufferers will have no one to cook
our meals or wash our shirts. God won't desert you if you do
that!"
The merchant's daughter remained with them. The heroes
respected her, loved her, acknowledged her as a sister. They
used to be out hunting all day, but their adopted sister was
always at home. She looked after all the housekeeping, prepared
the meals, washed the linen.
But after a time a Baba Yaga took to haunting their hut and
sucking the breasts of the merchant's daughter. No sooner
have the heroes gone off to the chase, than the Baba Yaga is there
in a moment. Before long the fair maiden's face began to fall
away, and she grew weak and thin. The blind man could see
nothing, but Katoma remarked that things weren't going well.
He spoke about it to the blind man, and they went together to
their adopted sister, and began questioning her. But the Baba
Yaga had strictly forbidden her to tell the truth. For a long
time she was afraid to acquaint them with her trouble, for a
long time she held out, but at last her brothers talked her over
and she told them everything without reserve.
"Every time you go away to the chase," says she, "there
immediately appears in the cottage a very old woman with a
most evil face, and long grey hair. And she sets me to dress
her head, and meanwhile she sucks my breasts."
"Ah!" says the blind man, "that's a Baba Yaga. Wait a
bit; we must treat her after her own fashion. To-morrow we
won't go to the chase, but we'll try to entice her and lay hands
upon her!"
So next morning the heroes didn't go out hunting.
"Now then, Uncle Footless!" says the blind man, "you
get under the bench, and lie there ever so still, and I'll go into
the yard and stand under the window. And as for you, sister,
when the Baba Yaga comes, sit down just here, close by the
window; and as you dress her hair, quietly separate the locks
and throw them outside through the window. Just let me lay
hold of her by those grey hairs of hers!"
What was said was done. The blind man laid hold of the
Baba Yaga by her grey hair, and cried--
"Ho there, Uncle Katoma! Come out from under the
bench, and lay hold of this viper of a woman, while I go into
the hut!"
The Baba Yaga hears the bad news and tries to jump up to
get her head free. (_Where are you off to? That's no go, sure
enough!_[322]) She tugs and tugs, but cannot do herself any good!
Just then from under the bench crawled Uncle Katoma, fell
upon her like a mountain of stone, took to strangling her until
the heaven seemed to her to disappear.[323] Then into the cottage
bounded the blind man, crying to the cripple--
"Now we must heap up a great pile of wood, and consume
this accursed one with fire, and fling her ashes to the wind!"
The Baba Yaga began imploring them:
"My fathers! my darlings! forgive me. I will do all that is
right."
"Very good, old witch! Then show us the fountain of healing
and life-giving water!" said the heroes.
"Only don't kill me, and I'll show it you directly!"
Well, Katoma sat on the blind man's back. The blind man
took the Baba Yaga by her back hair, and she led them into the
depths of the forest, brought them to a well,[324] and said--
"That is the water that cures and gives life."
"Look out, Uncle Katoma!" cried the blind man; "don't
make a blunder. If she tricks us now we shan't get right all
our lives!"
Katoma cut a green branch off a tree, and flung it into the
well. The bough hadn't so much as reached the water before
it all burst into a flame!
"Ha! so you're still up to your tricks," said the heroes, and
began to strangle the Baba Yaga, with the intention of flinging
her, the accursed one, into the fiery fount. More than ever
did the Baba Yaga implore for mercy, swearing a great oath
that she would not deceive them this time.
"On my troth I will bring you to good water," says she.
The heroes consented to give her one more trial, and she
took them to another fount.
Uncle Katoma cut a dry spray from a tree, and flung it into
the fount. The spray had not yet reached the water when it
already turned green, budded, and put forth blossoms.
"Come now, that's good water!" said Katoma.
The blind man wetted his eyes with it, and saw directly.
He lowered the cripple into the water, and the lame man's
feet grew again. Then they both rejoiced greatly, and said to
one another, "Now the time has come for us to get all right!
We'll get everything back again we used to have! Only first
we must make an end of the Baba Yaga. If we were to pardon
her now, we should always be unlucky; she'd be scheming
mischief all her life."
Accordingly they went back to the fiery fount, and flung the
Baba Yaga into it; didn't it soon make an end of her!
After this Katoma married the merchant's daughter, and the
three companions went to the kingdom of Anna the Fair in order
to rescue Prince Ivan. When they drew near to the capital,
what should they see but Prince Ivan driving a herd of cows!
"Stop, herdsman!" says Katoma; "where are you driving
these cows?"
"I'm driving them to the Princess's courtyard," replied the
Prince. "The Princess always sees for herself whether all
the cows are there."
"Here, herdsman; take my clothes and put them on, and I
will put on yours and drive the cows."
"No, brother! that cannot be done. If the Princess found
it out, I should suffer harm!"
"Never fear, nothing will happen! Katoma will guarantee
you that."
Prince Ivan sighed, and said--
"Ah, good man! If Katoma had been alive, I should not
have been feeding these cows afield!"
Then Katoma disclosed to him who he was. Prince Ivan
warmly embraced him and burst into tears.
"I never hoped even to see you again," said he.
So they exchanged clothes. The tutor drove the cows to
the Princess's courtyard. Anna the Fair went into the balcony,
looked to see if all the cows were there, and ordered them to be
driven into the sheds. All the cows went into the sheds except
the last one, which remained at the gate. Katoma sprang at it,
exclaiming--
"What are you waiting for, dog's-meat?"
Then he seized it by the tail, and pulled it so hard that he
pulled the cow's hide right off! The Princess saw this, and
cried with a loud voice:
"What is that brute of a cowherd doing? Seize him and
bring him to me!"
Then the servants seized Katoma and dragged him to the
palace. He went with them, making no excuses, relying on
himself. They brought him to the Princess. She looked at
him and asked--
"Who are you? Where do you come from?"
"I am he whose feet you cut off and whom you set on a
stump. My name is Katoma _dyadka_, oaken _shapka_."
"Well," thinks the Princess, "now that he's got his feet
back again, I must act straight-forwardly with him for the
future."
And she began to beseech him and the Prince to pardon
her. She confessed all her sins, and swore an oath always to
love Prince Ivan, and to obey him in all things. Prince Ivan
forgave her, and began to live with her in peace and concord.
The hero who had been blind remained with them, but Katoma
and his wife went to the house of [her father] the rich merchant,
and took up their abode under his roof.
[There is a story in the "Panchatantra" (v. 12) which,
in default of other parallels, may be worth comparing
with that part of this Skazka which refers to the
blind man and the cripple in the forest. Here is an
outline of it:--
To a certain king a daughter is born who has three
breasts. Deeming her presence unfortunate, he offers a
hundred thousand purses of gold to anyone who will
marry her and take her away. For a long time no man
takes advantage of the offer, but at last a blind man,
who goes about led by a hunchback named Mantharaka or
Cripple, marries her, receives the gold, and is sent
far away with his wife and his friend. All three live
together in the same house. After a time the wife
falls in love with the hunchback and conspires with
him to kill her husband. For this purpose she boils a
snake, intending to poison her husband with it. But he
stirs the snake-broth as it is cooking, and the steam
which rises from it cures his blindness. Seeing the
snake in the pot, he guesses what has occurred, so he
pretends to be still blind, and watches his wife and
his friend. They, not knowing he can see, embrace in
his presence, whereupon he catches up the "cripple" by
the legs, and dashes him against his wife. So violent
is the blow that her third breast is driven out of
sight and the hunchback is beaten straight. Benfey
(whose version of the story differs at the end from
that given by Wilson, "Essays," ii. 74) in his remarks
on this story (i. p. 510-15), which he connects with
Buddhist legends, observes that it occurs also in the
"Tuti-Nameh" (Rosen, ii. 228), but there the hunchback
is replaced by a comely youth, and the similarity with
the Russian story disappears. For a solar explanation
of the Indian story see A. de Gubernatis, "Zool.
Mythology," i. 85.]
Of this story there are many variants. In one of them[325] a king
promises to reward with vast wealth anyone who will find him "a bride
fairer than the sun, brighter than the moon, and whiter than snow." A
certain moujik, named Nikita Koltoma, offers to show him where a
princess lives who answers to this description, and goes forth with
him in search of her. On the way, Nikita enters several forges,
desiring to have a war mace cast for him, and in one of them he finds
fifty smiths tormenting an old man. Ten of them are holding him by the
beard with pincers, the others are thundering away at his ribs with
their hammers. Finding that the cause of this punishment is an unpaid
debt of fifty roubles, Nikita ransoms the greybeard, who straightway
disappears. Nikita obtains the mace he wants, which weighs fifty
poods, or nearly a ton, and leaves the forge. Presently the old man
whom he has ransomed comes running up to him, thanks him for having
rescued him from a punishment which had already lasted thirty years,
and bestows on him, as a token of gratitude, a Cap of Invisibility.
Soon after this Nikita, attended by the king and his followers,
reaches the palace of the royal heroine, Helena the Fair. She at first
sends her warriors to capture or slay the unwelcome visitors, but
Nikita attacks them with his mace, and leaves scarce one alive. Then
she invites the king and his suite to the palace, having prepared in
the mean time a gigantic bow fitted with a fiery arrow, wherewith to
annihilate her guests. Guessing this, Nikita puts on his Cap of
Invisibility, bends the bow, and shoots the arrow into the queen's
_terema_ [the women's chambers], and in a moment the whole upper story
is in a blaze. After that the queen submits, and is married to the
king.
But Nikita warns him that for three nights running his bride will
make trial of his strength by laying her hand on his breast and
pressing it hard--so hard that he will not be able to bear the
pressure. When that happens, he must slip out of the room, and let
Nikita take his place. All this comes to pass; the bride lays her hand
on the bridegroom's breast, and says--
"Is my hand heavy?"
"As a feather on water!" replies the king, who can scarcely draw his
breath beneath the crushing weight of the hand he has won. Then he
leaves the room, under the pretext of giving an order, and Nikita
takes his place. The queen renews the experiment, presses with one
hand, presses with both, and with all her might. Nikita catches her
up, and then flings her down on the floor. The room shakes beneath the
blow, the bride "arises, lies down quietly, and goes to sleep," and
Nikita is replaced by the king. By the end of the third night the
queen gives up all hope of squeezing her husband to death, and makes
up her mind to conjugal submission.[326]
But before long, she, like Brynhild, finds out that she has been
tricked, and resolves on revenge. Throwing Nikita into a slumber which
lasts for twenty-four hours, she has his feet cut off, and sets him
adrift in a boat; then she degrades her husband, turning him into a
swineherd, and she puts out the eyes of Nikita's brother Timofei. In
the course of time the brothers obtain from a Baba Yaga the healing
and vivifying waters, and so recover the eyes and feet they had lost.
The Witch-Queen is put to death, and Nikita lives happily as the
King's Prime Minister. The specific actions of the two waters are
described with great precision in this story. When the lame man
sprinkles his legs with the Healing Water, they become whole at once;
"his legs are quite sound, only they don't move." Then he applies the
Vivifying Water, and the use of his legs returns to him. Similarly
when the blind man applies the Healing Water to his empty orbits, he
obtains new eyes--"perfectly faultless eyes, only he cannot see with
them;" he applies the Vivifying Water, "and begins to see even better
than before."
In a Ryazan variant of the story,[327] Ivan Dearly-Bought, after his
legs have been cut off at the knees, and he has been left in a forest,
is found by a giant who has no arms, but who is so fleet that "no post
could catch him up." The two maimed heroes form an alliance. After a
time, they carry off a princess who is suffering from some mysterious
disease, and take her to their forest home. She tells them that her
illness is due to a Snake, which comes to her every night, entering by
the chimney, and sucks away her strength. The heroes seizes the Snake,
which takes them to the healing lake, and they are cured. Then they
restore the princess, also cured, to her father. Ivan returns to the
palace of the Enchantress Queen who had maimed him, and beats her with
red-hot iron bars until he has driven out of her all her magic
strength, "leaving her only one woman's strength, and that a very poor
one."
In a Tula variant[328] the wicked wife, who has set her confiding
husband to tend her pigs, is killed by the hero. She had put out his
eyes, and had cut off the feet of another companion of her husband; in
this variant also the Healing Waters are found by the aid of a snake.
The supernatural steed which Katoma tamed belongs to an equine race
which often figures in the Skazkas. A good account of one of these
horses is given in the following story of--
PRINCESS HELENA THE FAIR.[329]
_We say that we are wise folks, but our old people dispute
the fact, saying: "No, no, we were wiser than you are." But
skazkas tell that, before our grandfathers had learnt anything,
before their grandfathers[330] were born_--[331]
There lived in a certain land an old man of this kind who instructed
his three sons in reading and writing[332] and all book
learning. Then said he to them:
"Now, my children! When I die, mind you come and read
prayers over my grave."
"Very good, father, very good," they replied.
The two elder brothers were such fine strapping fellows! so
tall and stout! But as for the youngest one, Ivan, he was like
a half-grown lad or a half-fledged duckling, terribly inferior to
the others. Well, their old father died. At that very time
there came tidings from the King, that his daughter, the Princess
Helena the Fair, had ordered a shrine to be built for her
with twelve columns, with twelve rows of beams. In that shrine
she was sitting upon a high throne, and awaiting her bridegroom,
the bold youth who, with a single bound of his swift steed,
should reach high enough to kiss her on the lips. A stir ran
through the whole youth of the nation. They took to licking
their lips, and scratching their heads, and wondering to whose
share so great an honor would fall.
"Brothers!" said Vanyusha,[333] "our father is dead; which
of us is to read prayers over his grave?"
"Whoever feels inclined, let him go!" answered the
brothers.
So Vanya went. But as for his elder brothers they did
nothing but exercise their horses, and curl their hair, and dye
their mustaches.
The second night came.
"Brothers!" said Vanya, "I've done my share of reading.
It's your turn now; which of you will go?"
"Whoever likes can go and read. We've business to look
after; don't you meddle."
And they cocked their caps, and shouted, and whooped, and
flew this way, and shot that way, and roved about the open
country.
So Vanyusha read prayers this time also--and on the third
night, too.
Well, his brothers got ready their horses, combed out their
mustaches, and prepared to go next morning to test their
mettle before the eyes of Helena the Fair.
"Shall we take the youngster?" they thought. "No, no.
What would be the good of him? He'd make folks laugh and
put us to confusion; let's go by ourselves."
So away they went. But Vanyusha wanted very much to
have a look at the Princess Helena the Fair. He cried, cried
bitterly; and went out to his father's grave. And his father
heard him in his coffin, and came out to him, shook the damp
earth off his body, and said:
"Don't grieve, Vanya. I'll help you in your trouble."
And immediately the old man drew himself up and straightened
himself, and called aloud and whistled with a ringing
voice, with a shrill[334] whistle.
From goodness knows whence appeared a horse, the earth
quaking beneath it, a flame rushing from its ears and nostrils.
To and fro it flew, and then stood still before the old man, as if
rooted in the ground, and cried,
"What are thy commands?"
Vanya crept into one of the horse's ears and out of the
other, and turned into such a hero as no skazka can tell of, no
pen describe! He mounted the horse, set his arms akimbo,
and flew, just like a falcon, straight to the home of the Princess
Helena. With a wave of his hand, with a bound aloft, he only
failed by the breadth of two rows of beams. Back again he
turned, galloped up, leapt aloft, and got within one beam-row's
breadth. Once more he turned, once more he wheeled, then
shot past the eye like a streak of fire, took an accurate aim, and
kissed[335] the fair Helena right on the lips!
"Who is he? Who is he? Stop him! Stop him!" was
the cry. Not a trace of him was to be found!
Away he galloped to his father's grave, let the horse go free,
prostrated himself on the earth, and besought his father's counsel.
And the old man held counsel with him.
When he got home he behaved as if he hadn't been anywhere.
His brothers talked away, describing where they had
been, what they had seen, and he listened to them as of old.
The next day there was a gathering again. In the princely
halls there were more boyars and nobles than a single glance
could take in. The elder brothers rode there. Their younger
brother went there too, but on foot, meekly and modestly, just
as if he hadn't kissed the Princess, and seated himself in a
distant corner. The Princess Helena asked for her bridegroom,
wanted to show him to the world at large, wanted to give him
half her kingdom; but the bridegroom did not put in an appearance!
Search was made for him among the boyars, among
the generals; everyone was examined in his turn--but with no
result! Meanwhile, Vanya looked on, smiling and chuckling,
and waiting till the bride should come to him herself.
"I pleased her then," says he, "when I appeared as a gay
gallant; now let her fall in love with me in my plain caftan."
Then up she rose, looked around with bright eyes that shed
a radiance on all who stood there, and saw and knew her bridegroom,
and made him take his seat by her side, and speedily was
wedded to him. And he--good heavens! how clever he turned
out, and how brave, and what a handsome fellow! Only see
him mount his flying steed, give his cap a cock, and stick his
elbows akimbo! why, you'd say he was a king, a born king!
you'd never suspect he once was only Vanyusha.
The incident of the midnight watch by a father's grave, kept by a son
to whom the dead man appears and gives a magic horse, often occurs in
the Skazkas. It is thoroughly in accordance with Slavonic ideas about
the residence of the dead in their tombs, and their ability to assist
their descendants in time of trouble. Appeals for aid to a dead parent
are of frequent occurrence in the songs still sung by the Russian
peasantry at funerals or over graves; especially in those in which
orphans express their grief, calling upon the grave to open, and the
dead to appear and listen and help.[336] So in the Indian story of
Punchkin, the seven hungry stepmother-persecuted princesses go out
every day and sit by their dead mother's tomb, and cry, and say, "Oh,
mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children, how unhappy we
are," etc., until a tree grows up out of the grave laden with fruits
for their relief.[337] So in the German tale,[338] Cinderella is aided
by the white bird, which dwells in the hazel tree growing out of her
mother's grave.
In one of the Skazkas[339] a stepdaughter is assisted by her cow. The
girl, following its instructions, gets in at one ear and out of the
other, and finds all her tasks performed, all her difficulties
removed. When it is killed, there springs from its bones a tree which
befriends the girl, and gains her a lordly husband. In a Servian
variant of the story, it is distinctly stated that the protecting cow
had been the girl's mother--manifestly in a previous state of
existence, a purely Buddhistic idea.[340]
In several of the Skazkas we find an account of a princess who is won
in a similar manner to that described in the story of Helena the Fair.
In one case,[341] a king promises to give his daughter to anyone "who
can pluck her portrait from the house, from the other side of ever so
many beams." The youngest brother, Ivan the Simpleton, carries away
the portrait and its cover at the third trial. In another, a king
offers his daughter and half his kingdom to him "who can kiss the
princess through twelve sheets of glass."[342] The usual youngest
brother is carried towards her so forcibly by his magic steed that, at
the first trial, he breaks through six of the sheets of glass; at the
second, says the story, "he smashed all twelve of the sheets of glass,
and he kissed the Princess Priceless-Beauty, and she immediately
stamped a mark upon his forehead." By this mark, after he has
disappeared for some time, he is eventually recognized, and the
princess is obliged to marry him.[343] In a third story,[344] the
conditions of winning the princely bride are easier, for "he who takes
a leap on horseback, and kisses the king's daughter on the balcony, to
him will they give her to wife." In a fourth, the princess is to marry
the man "who, on horseback, bounds up to her on the third floor." At
the first trial, the _Durak_, or Fool, reaches the first floor, at the
next, the second; and the third time, "he bounds right up to the
princess, and carries off from her a ring."[345]
In the Norse story of "Dapplegrim,"[346] a younger brother saves a
princess who had been stolen by a Troll, and hidden in a cave above a
steep wall of rock as smooth as glass. Twice his magic horse tries in
vain to surmount it, but the third time it succeeds, and the youth
carries off the princess, who ultimately becomes his wife. Another
Norse story still more closely resembles the Russian tales. In "The
Princess on the Glass Hill"[347] the hero gains a Princess as his wife
by riding up a hill of glass, on the top of which she sits with three
golden apples in her lap, and by carrying off these precious fruits.
He is enabled to perform this feat by a magic horse, which he obtains
by watching his father's crops on three successive St. John's Nights.
In a Celtic story,[348] a king promises his daughter, and two-thirds
of his kingdom, to anyone who can get her out of a turret which "was
aloft, on the top of four carraghan towers." The hero Conall kicks
"one of the posts that was keeping the turret aloft," the post breaks,
and the turret falls, but Conall catches it in his hands before it
reaches the ground, a door opens, and out comes the Princess Sunbeam,
and throws her arms about Conall's neck.
In most of these stories the wife-gaining leap is so vaguely described
that it is allowable to suppose that the original idea has been
greatly obscured in the course of travel. In some Eastern stories it
is set in a much plainer light; in one modern collection for
instance,[349] it occurs four times. A princess is so fond of her
marble bath, which is "like a little sea," with high spiked walls all
around it, that she vows she will marry no one who cannot jump across
it on horseback. Another princess determines to marry him only who can
leap into the glass palace in which she dwells, surrounded by a wide
river; and many kings and princes perish miserably in attempting to
perform the feat. A third king's daughter lives in a garden "hedged
round with seven hedges made of bayonets," by which her suitors are
generally transfixed. A fourth "has vowed to marry no man who cannot
jump on foot over the seven hedges made of spears, and across the
seven great ditches that surround her house;" and "hundreds of
thousands of Rajahs have tried to do it, and died in the attempt."
The secluded princess of these stories may have been primarily akin
to the heroine of the "Sleeping Beauty" tales, but no special
significance appears now to be attributable to her isolation. The
original idea seems to have been best preserved in the two legends of
the wooing of Brynhild by Sigurd, in the first of which he awakens her
from her magic sleep, while in the second he gains her hand (for
Gunnar) by a daring and difficult ride--for "him only would she have
who should ride through the flaming fire that was drawn about her
hall." Gunnar fails to do so, but Sigurd succeeds; his horse leaps
into the fire, "and a mighty roar arose as the fire burned ever
madder, and the earth trembled, and the flames went up even unto the
heavens, nor had any dared to ride as he rode, even as it were through
the deep murk."[350]
We will take next a story which is a great favorite in Russia, and
which will serve as another illustration of the use made of magical
"properties" in the Skazkas.
EMILIAN THE FOOL.[351]
There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted,
but the third was a fool. The elder brothers set off to
sell their goods in the towns down the river,[352] and said to the
fool:
"Now mind, fool! obey our wives, and pay them respect as
if they were your own mothers. We'll buy you red boots, and
a red caftan, and a red shirt."
The fool said to them:
"Very good; I will pay them respect."
They gave the fool their orders and went away to the downstream
towns; but the fool stretched himself on top of the stove
and remained lying there. His brothers' wives say to him--
"What are you about, fool! your brothers ordered you to
pay us respect, and in return for that each of them was going to
bring you a present, but there you lie on the stove and don't do
a bit of work. Go and fetch some water, at all events."
The fool took a couple of pails and went to fetch the water.
As he scooped it up, a pike happened to get into his pail. Says
the fool:
"Glory to God! now I will cook this pike, and will eat it all
myself; I won't give a bit of it to my sisters-in-law. I'm savage
with them!"
The pike says to him with a human voice:
"Don't eat me, fool! if you'll put me back again into the
water you shall have good luck!"
Says the fool, "What sort of good luck shall I get from
you?"
"Why, this sort of good luck: whatever you say, that shall
be done. Say, for instance, 'By the Pike's command, at my
request, go home, ye pails, and be set in your places.'"
As soon as the fool had said this, the pails immediately
went home of their own accord and became set in their places.
The sisters-in-law looked and wondered.
"What sort of a fool is this!" they say. "Why, he's so
knowing, you see, that his pails have come home and gone to
their places of their own accord!"
The fool came back and lay down on the stove. Again did
his brothers' wives begin saying to him--
"What are you lying on the stove for, fool? there's no wood
for the fire; go and fetch some."
The fool took two axes and got into a sledge, but without
harnessing a horse to it.
"By the Pike's command," he says, "at my request, drive,
into the forest, O sledge!"
Away went the sledge at a rattling pace, as if urged on by
some one. The fool had to pass by a town, and the people he
met were jammed into corners by his horseless sledge in a way
that was perfectly awful. They all began crying out:
"Stop him! Catch him!"
But they couldn't lay hands on him. The fool drove into
the forest, got out of the sledge, sat down on a log, and said--
"One of you axes fell the trees, while the other cuts them
up into billets."
Well, the firewood was cut up and piled on the sledge. Then
says the fool:
"Now then, one of you axes! go and cut me a cudgel,[353] as
heavy a one as I can lift."
The axe went and cut him a cudgel, and the cudgel came
and lay on top of the load.
The fool took his seat and drove off. He drove by the
town, but the townspeople had met together and had been looking
out for him for ever so long. So they stopped the fool, laid
hands upon him, and began pulling him about. Says the fool--
"By the Pike's command, at my request, go, O cudgel, and
bestir thyself."
Out jumped the cudgel, and took to thumping and smashing,
and knocked over ever such a lot of people. There they lay on
the ground, strewed about like so many sheaves of corn. The
fool got clear of them and drove home, heaped up the wood,
and then lay down on the stove.
Meanwhile, the townspeople got up a petition against him,
and denounced him to the King, saying:
"Folks say there's no getting hold of him the way we tried;[354]
we must entice him by cunning, and the best way of all will be
to promise him a red shirt, and a red caftan, and red boots."
So the King's runners came for the fool.
"Go to the King," they say, "he will give you red boots, a
red caftan, and a red shirt."
Well, the fool said:
"By the Pike's command, at my request, do thou, O stove,
go to the King!"
He was seated on the stove at the time. The stove went;
the fool arrived at the King's.
The King was going to put him to death, but he had a
daughter, and she took a tremendous liking to the fool. So
she began begging her father to give her in marriage to the fool.
Her father flew into a passion. He had them married, and
then ordered them both to be placed in a tub, and the tub to be
tarred over and thrown into the water; all which was done.
Long did the tub float about on the sea. His wife began to
beseech the fool:
"Do something to get us cast on shore!"
"By the Pike's command, at my request," said the fool,
"cast this tub ashore and tear it open!"
He and his wife stepped out of the tub. Then she again
began imploring him to build some sort of a house. The fool
said:
"By the Pike's command, at my request, let a marble palace
be built, and let it stand immediately opposite the King's
palace!"
This was all done in an instant. In the morning the King
saw the new palace, and sent to enquire who it was that lived
in it. As soon as he learnt that his daughter lived there, that
very minute he summoned her and her husband. They came.
The King pardoned them, and they all began living together
and flourishing.[355]
"The Pike," observes Afanasief, "is a fish of great repute in
northern mythology." One of the old Russian songs still sung at
Christmas, tells how a Pike comes from Novgorod, its scales of silver
and gold, its back woven with pearls, a costly diamond gleaming in its
head instead of eyes. And this song is one which promises wealth, a
fact connecting the Russian fish with that Scandinavian pike which was
a shape assumed by Andvari--the dwarf-guardian of the famous treasure,
from which sprang the woes recounted in the _Voelsunga Saga_ and the
_Nibelungenlied_. According to a Lithuanian tradition,[356] there is a
certain lake which is ruled by the monstrous pike Strukis. It sleeps
only once a year, and then only for a single hour. It used always to
sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its
slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects. Strukis awoke in
time to upset the fisherman's boat; but fearing a repetition of the
attempt, it now changes each year the hour of its annual sleep. A
gigantic pike figures also in the _Kalevala_.
It would be easy to fill with similar stories, not only a section of
a chapter, but a whole volume; but instead of quoting any more of
them, I will take a few specimens from a different, though a somewhat
kindred group of tales--those which relate to the magic powers
supposed to be wielded in modern times by dealers in the Black Art.
Such narratives as these are to be found in every land, but Russia is
specially rich in them, the faith of the peasantry in the existence of
Witches and Wizards, Turnskins and Vampires, not having been as yet
seriously shaken. Some of the stories relating to the supernatural
Witch, who evidently belongs to the demon world, have already been
given. In those which I am about to quote, the wizard or witch who is
mentioned is a human being, but one who has made a compact with evil
spirits, and has thereby become endowed with strange powers. Such
monsters as these are, throughout their lives, a terror to the
district they inhabit; nor does their evil influence die with them,
for after they have been laid in the earth, they assume their direst
aspect, and as Vampires bent on blood, night after night, they go
forth from their graves to destroy. As I have elsewhere given some
account of Slavonic beliefs in witchcraft,[357] I will do little more
at present than allow the stories to speak for themselves. They will
be recognized as being akin to the tales about sorcery current farther
west, but they are of a more savage nature. The rustic warlocks and
witches of whom we are accustomed to hear have little, if any, of that
thirst for blood which so unfavorably characterizes their Slavonic
counterparts. Here is a story, by way of example, of a most gloomy
nature.
THE WITCH GIRL.[358]
Late one evening, a Cossack rode into a village, pulled up at
its last cottage, and cried--
"Heigh, master! will you let me spend the night here?"
"Come in, if you don't fear death!"
"What sort of a reply is that?" thought the Cossack, as he
put his horse up in the stable. After he had given it its food
he went into the cottage. There he saw its inmates, men and
women and little children, all sobbing and crying and praying to
God; and when they had done praying, they began putting on
clean shirts.
"What are you crying about?" asked the Cossack.
"Why you see," replied the master of the house, "in our
village Death goes about at night. Into whatsoever cottage she
looks, there, next morning, one has to put all the people who
lived in it into coffins, and carry them off to the graveyard. To-night
it's our turn."
"Never fear, master! 'Without God's will, no pig gets its
fill!'"
The people of the house lay down to sleep; but the Cossack
was on the look-out and never closed an eye. Exactly at midnight
the window opened. At the window appeared a witch all
in white. She took a sprinkler, passed her arm into the cottage,
and was just on the point of sprinkling--when the Cossack
suddenly gave his sabre a sweep, and cut her arm off close to
the shoulder. The witch howled, squealed, yelped like a dog,
and fled away. But the Cossack picked up the severed arm,
hid it under his cloak, washed away the stains of blood, and lay
down to sleep.
Next morning the master and mistress awoke, and saw that
everyone, without a single exception, was alive and well, and
they were delighted beyond expression.
"If you like," says the Cossack, "I'll show you Death!
Call together all the Sotniks and Desyatniks[359] as quickly as
possible, and let's go through the village and look for her."
Straightway all the Sotniks and Desyatniks came together
and went from house to house. In this one there's nothing, in
that one there's nothing, until at last they come to the Ponomar's[360]
cottage.
"Is all your family present?" asks the Cossack.
"No, my own! one of my daughters is ill. She's lying on
the stove there."
The Cossack looked towards the stove--one of the girl's arms
had evidently been cut off. Thereupon he told the whole story
of what had taken place, and he brought out and showed the
arm which had been cut off. The commune rewarded the
Cossack with a sum of money, and ordered that witch to be
drowned.
Stories of this kind are common in all lands, but the witches about
whom they are told generally assume the forms of beasts of prey,
especially of wolves, or of cats. A long string of similar tales will
be found in Dr. Wilhelm Hertz's excellent and exhaustive monograph on
werwolves.[361] Very important also is the Polish story told by
Wojcicki[362] of the village which is attacked by the Plague, embodied
in the form of a woman, who roams from house to house in search of
victims. One night, as she goes her rounds, all doors and windows have
been barred against her except one casement. This has been left open
by a nobleman who is ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of
others. The Pest Maiden arrives, and thrusts her arm in at his window.
The nobleman cuts it off, and so rids the village of its fatal
visitor. In an Indian story,[363] a hero undertakes to watch beside
the couch of a haunted princess. When all is still a Rakshasa appears
on the threshold, opens the door, and thrusts into the room an
arm--which the hero cuts off. The fiend disappears howling, and leaves
his arm behind.
The horror of the next story is somewhat mitigated by a slight
infusion of the grotesque--but this may arise from a mere accident,
and be due to the exceptional cheerfulness of some link in the chain
of its narrators.
THE HEADLESS PRINCESS.[364]
In a certain country there lived a King; and this King had a
daughter who was an enchantress. Near the royal palace there
dwelt a priest, and the priest had a boy of ten years old, who
went every day to an old woman to learn reading and writing.
Now it happened one day that he came away from his lessons
late in the evening, and as he passed by the palace he looked
in at one of the windows. At that window the Princess happened
to be sitting and dressing herself. She took off her head,
lathered it with soap, washed it with clean water, combed its
hair, plaited its long back braid, and then put it back again in
its proper place. The boy was lost in wonder.
"What a clever creature!" thinks he. "A downright
witch!"
And when he got home he began telling every one how he
had seen the Princess without her head.
All of a sudden the King's daughter fell grievously ill, and
she sent for her father, and strictly enjoined him, saying--
"If I die, make the priest's son read the psalter over me
three nights running."
The Princess died; they placed her in a coffin, and carried
it to church. Then the king summoned the priest, and said--
"Have you got a son?"
"I have, your majesty."
"Well then," said the King, "let him read the psalter over
my daughter three nights running."
The priest returned home, and told his son to get ready. In
the morning the priest's son went to his lessons, and sat over
his book looking ever so gloomy.
"What are you unhappy about?" asked the old woman.
"How can I help being unhappy, when I'm utterly done
for?"
"Why what's the matter? Speak out plainly."
"Well then, granny, I've got to read psalms over the princess,
and, do you know, she's a witch!"
"I knew that before you did! But don't be frightened,
there's a knife for you. When you go into the church, trace a
circle round you; then read away from your psalter and don't
look behind you. Whatever happens there, whatever horrors
may appear, mind your own business and go on reading, reading.
But if you look behind you, it will be all over with you!"
In the evening the boy went to the church, traced a circle
round him with the knife, and betook himself to the psalter.
Twelve o'clock struck. The lid of the coffin flew up; the Princess
arose, leapt out, and cried--
"Now I'll teach you to go peeping through my windows, and
telling people what you saw!"
She began rushing at the priest's son, but she couldn't anyhow
break into the circle. Then she began to conjure up all
sorts of horrors. But in spite of all that she did, he went on
reading and reading, and never gave a look round. And at daybreak
the Princess rushed at her coffin, and tumbled into it at
full length, all of a heap.
The next night everything went on just the same. The
priest's son wasn't a bit afraid, went on reading without a stop
right up to daybreak, and in the morning went to the old woman.
She asked him--
"Well! have you seen horrors?"
"Yes, granny!"
"It will be still more horrible this time. Here's a hammer
for you and four nails. Knock them into the four corners of the
coffin, and when you begin reading the psalter, stick up the
hammer in front of you."
In the evening the priest's son went to the church, and did
everything just as the old woman had told him. Twelve o'clock
struck, the coffin lid fell to the ground, the Princess jumped up
and began tearing from side to side, and threatening the youth.
Then she conjured up horrors, this time worse than before. It
seemed to him as if a fire had broken out in the church; all
the walls were wrapped in flames! But he held his ground
and went on reading, never once looking behind him. Just before
daybreak the Princess rushed to her coffin--then the fire
seemed to go out immediately, and all the deviltry vanished!
In the morning the King came to the church, and saw that
the coffin was open, and in the coffin lay the princess, face downwards.
"What's the meaning of all this?" says he.
The lad told him everything that had taken place. Then the
king gave orders that an aspen stake should be driven into his
daughter's breast, and that her body should be thrust into a hole
in the ground. But he rewarded the priest's son with a heap of
money and various lands.
Perhaps the most remarkable among the stories of this class is the
following, which comes from Little Russia. Those readers who are
acquainted with the works of Gogol, the great Russian novelist, who
was a native of that part of the country, will observe how closely he
has kept to popular traditions in his thrilling story of the _Vy_,
which has been translated into English, from the French, under the
title of "The King of the Gnomes."[365]
THE SOLDIER'S MIDNIGHT WATCH.[366]
Once upon a time there was a Soldier who served God and the
great Gosudar for fifteen years, without ever setting eyes on his
parents. At the end of that time there came an order from the
Tsar to grant leave to the soldiers--to twenty-five of each company
at a time--to go and see their families. Together with
the rest our Soldier, too, got leave to go, and set off to pay a
visit to his home in the government of Kief. After a time he
reached Kief, visited the _Lavra_, prayed to God, bowed down
before the holy relics, and then started again for his birthplace,
a provincial town not far off. Well, he walked and walked.
Suddenly there happens to meet him a fair maiden who was the
daughter of a merchant in that same town; a most remarkable
beauty. Now everyone knows that if a soldier catches sight of
a pretty girl, nothing will make him pass her by quietly, but he
hooks on to her somehow or other. And so this Soldier gets
alongside of the merchant's daughter, and says to her jokingly--
"How now, fair damsel! not broken in to harness yet?"
"God knows, soldier, who breaks in whom," replies the girl.
"I may do it to you, or you to me."
So saying she laughed and went her way. Well, the Soldier
arrived at home, greeted his family, and rejoiced greatly at finding
they were all in good health.
Now he had an old grandfather, as white as a _lun_, who had
lived a hundred years and a bit. The Soldier was gossiping
with him, and said:
"As I was coming home, grandfather, I happened to meet
an uncommonly fine girl, and, sinner that I am, I chaffed her,
and she said to me:
"'God knows, soldier, whether you'll break me in to harness,
or I'll break you.'"
"Eh, sirs! whatever have you done? Why that's the
daughter of our merchant here, an awful witch! She's sent
more than one fine young fellow out of the white world."
"Well, well! I'm not one of the timid ones, either! You
won't frighten me in a hurry. We'll wait and see what God will
send."
"No, no, grandson!" says the grandfather. "If you don't
listen to me, you won't be alive to-morrow!"
"Here's a nice fix!" says the Soldier.
"Yes, such a fix that you've never known anything half so
awful, even when soldiering."
"What must I do then, grandfather?"
"Why this. Provide yourself with a bridle, and take a thick
aspen cudgel, and sit quietly in the izba--don't stir a step anywhere.
During the night she will come running in, and if she
manages to say before you can 'Stand still, my steed!' you
will straightway turn into a horse. Then she will jump upon
your back, and will make you gallop about until she has ridden
you to death. But if you manage to say before she speaks,
'Tprru! stand still, jade!' she will be turned into a mare.
Then you must bridle her and jump on her back. She will run
away with you over hill and dale, but do you hold your own; hit
her over the head with the aspen cudgel, and go on hitting her
until you beat her to death."
The Soldier hadn't expected such a job as this, but there
was no help for it. So he followed his grandfather's advice,
provided himself with a bridle and an aspen cudgel, took his
seat in a corner, and waited to see what would happen. At the
midnight hour the passage door creaked and the sound of steps
was heard; the witch was coming! The moment the door of
the room opened, the Soldier immediately cried out--
"Tprru! stand still, jade!"
The witch turned into a mare, and he bridled her, led her
into the yard, and jumped on her back. The mare carried him
off over hills and dales and ravines, and did all she could to try
and throw her rider. But no! the Soldier stuck on tight, and
thumped her over the head like anything with the aspen cudgel,
and went on treating her with a taste of the cudgel until he
knocked her off her feet, and then pitched into her as she lay on
the ground, gave her another half-dozen blows or so, and at last
beat her to death.
By daybreak he got home.
"Well, my friend! how have you got on?" asks his grandfather.
"Glory be to God, grandfather! I've beaten her to death!"
"All right! now lie down and go to sleep."
The Soldier lay down and fell into a deep slumber. Towards
evening the old man awoke him--
"Get up, grandson."
He got up.
"What's to be done now? As the merchant's daughter is
dead, you see, her father will come after you, and will bid you
to his house to read psalms over the dead body."
"Well, grandfather, am I to go, or not?"
"If you go, there'll be an end of you; and if you don't go,
there'll be an end of you! Still, it's best to go."
"But if anything happens, how shall I get out of it?"
"Listen, grandson! When you go to the merchant's he will
offer you brandy; don't you drink much--drink only a moderate
allowance. Afterwards the merchant will take you into the room
in which his daughter is lying in her coffin, and will lock you in
there. You will read out from the psalter all the evening, and
up to midnight. Exactly at midnight a strong wind will suddenly
begin to blow, the coffin will begin to shake, its lid will
fall off. Well, as soon as these horrors begin, jump on to the
stove as quick as you can, squeeze yourself into a corner, and
silently offer up prayers. She won't find you there."
Half an hour later came the merchant, and besought the
Soldier, crying:
"Ah, Soldier! there's a daughter of mine dead; come and
read the psalter over her."
The Soldier took a psalter and went off to the merchant's
house. The merchant was greatly pleased, seated him at his
table, and began offering him brandy to drink. The Soldier
drank, but only moderately, and declined to drink any more.
The merchant took him by the hand and led him to the room in
which the corpse lay.
"Now then," he says, "read away at your psalter."
Then he went out and locked the door. There was no help
for it, so the Soldier took to his psalter and read and read.
Exactly at midnight there was a great blast of wind, the coffin
began to rock, its lid flew off. The Soldier jumped quickly on
to the stove, hid himself in a corner, guarded himself by a sign
of the cross, and began whispering prayers. Meanwhile the
witch had leapt out of the coffin, and was rushing about from
side to side--now here, now there. Then there came running
up to her countless swarms of evil spirits; the room was full of
them!
"What are you looking for?" say they.
"A soldier. He was reading here a moment ago, and now
he's vanished!"
The devils eagerly set to work to hunt him up. They
searched and searched, they rummaged in all the corners. At
last they cast their eyes on the stove; at that moment, luckily
for the Soldier, the cocks began to crow. In the twinkling of
an eye all the devils had vanished, and the witch lay all of a
heap on the floor. The Soldier got down from the stove, laid
her body in the coffin, covered it up all right with the lid, and
betook himself again to his psalter. At daybreak came the
master of the house, opened the door, and said--
"Hail, Soldier!"
"I wish you good health, master merchant."
"Have you spent the night comfortably?"
"Glory be to God! yes."
"There are fifty roubles for you, but come again, friend, and
read another night."
"Very good, I'll come."
The Soldier returned home, lay down on the bench, and
slept till evening. Then he awoke and said--
"Grandfather, the merchant bid me go and read the psalter
another night. Should I go or not?"
"If you go, you won't remain alive, and if you don't go, just
the same! But you'd better go. Don't drink much brandy,
drink just what is right; and when the wind blows, and the
coffin begins to rock, slip straight into the stove. There no one
will find you."
The Soldier got ready and went to the merchant's, who
seated him at table, and began plying him with brandy. Afterwards
he took him to where the corpse was, and locked him into
the room.
The Soldier went on reading, reading. Midnight came, the
wind blew, the coffin began to rock, the coffin lid fell afar off on
the ground. He was into the stove in a moment. Out jumped
the witch and began rushing about; round her swarmed devils,
the room was full of them!
"What are you looking for?" they cry.
"Why, there he was reading a moment ago, and now he's
vanished out of sight. I can't find him."
The devils flung themselves on the stove.
"Here's the place," they cried, "where he was last night!"
There was the place, but he wasn't there! This way and
that they rushed. Suddenly the cocks began to crow, the devils
vanished, the witch lay stretched on the floor.
The Soldier stayed awhile to recover his breath, crept out
of the stove, put the merchant's daughter back in her coffin, and
took to reading the psalter again. Presently he looks round,
the day has already dawned. His host arrives:
"Hail, Soldier!" says he.
"I wish you good health, master merchant."
"Has the night passed comfortably?"
"Glory be to God! yes."
"Come along here, then."
The merchant led him out of the room, gave him a hundred
roubles, and said--
"Come, please, and read here a third night; I sha'n't treat
you badly."
"Good, I'll come."
The Soldier returned home.
"Well, grandson, what has God sent you?" says his grandfather.
"Nothing much, grandfather! The merchant told me to
come again. Should I go or not?"
"If you go, you won't remain alive, and if you don't go, you
won't remain alive! But you'd better go."
"But if anything happens where must I hide?"
"I'll tell you, grandson. Buy yourself a frying-pan, and hide
it so that the merchant sha'n't see it. When you go to his house
he'll try to force a lot of brandy on you. You look out, don't
drink much, drink just what you can stand. At midnight, as
soon as the wind begins to roar, and the coffin to rock, do you
that very moment climb on to the stove-pipe, and cover yourself
over with the frying-pan. There no one will find you out."
The Soldier had a good sleep, bought himself a frying-pan,[367]
hid it under his cloak, and towards evening went to the merchant's
house. The merchant seated him at table and took to plying
him with liquor--tried every possible kind of invitation and
cajolery on him.
"No," says the Soldier, "that will do. I've had my whack.
I won't have any more."
"Well, then, if you won't drink, come along and read your
psalter."
The merchant took him to his dead daughter, left him alone
with her, and locked the door.
The Soldier read and read. Midnight came, the wind blew,
the coffin began to rock, the cover flew afar off. The Soldier
jumped up on the stove-pipe, covered himself with the frying-pan,
protected himself with a sign of the cross, and awaited what was
going to happen. Out jumped the witch and began rushing
about. Round her came swarming countless devils, the izba
was full of them! They rushed about in search of the Soldier;
they looked into the stove--
"Here's the place," they cried, "where he was last night."
"There's the place, but he's not there."
This way and that they rush,--cannot see him anywhere.
Presently there stepped across the threshold a very old devil.
"What are you looking for?"
"The Soldier. He was reading here a moment ago, and now
he's disappeared."
"Ah! no eyes! And who's that sitting on the stove-pipe
there?"
The Soldier's heart thumped like anything; he all but tumbled
down on the ground!
"There he is, sure enough!" cried the devils, "but how are
we to settle him. Surely it's impossible to reach him there?"
"Impossible, forsooth! Run and lay your hands on a candle-end
which has been lighted without a blessing having been
uttered over it."
In an instant the devils brought the candle-end, piled up a
lot of wood right under the stove-pipe, and set it alight. The
flame leapt high into the air, the Soldier began to roast: first one
foot, then the other, he drew up under him.
"Now," thinks he, "my death has come!"
All of a sudden, luckily for him, the cocks began to crow,
the devils vanished, the witch fell flat on the floor. The soldier
jumped down from the stove-pipe, and began putting out the
fire. When he had put it out he set every thing to rights, placed
the merchant's daughter in her coffin, covered it up with the
lid, and betook himself to reading the psalter. At daybreak
came the merchant, and listened at the door to find out whether
the Soldier was alive or not. When he heard his voice he
opened the door and said--
"Hail, Soldier!"
"I wish you good health, master merchant."
"Have you passed the night comfortably?"
"Glory be to God, I've seen nothing bad."
The merchant gave him a hundred and fifty roubles, and
said--
"You've done a deal of work, Soldier! do a little more.
Come here to-night and carry my daughter to the graveyard."
"Good, I'll come."
"Well, friend, what has God given?"
"Glory be to God, grandfather, I've got off safe! The merchant
has asked me to be at his house to-night, to carry his
daughter to the graveyard. Should I go or not?"
"If you go, you won't be alive, and if you don't go, you won't
be alive. But you must go; it will be better so."
"But what must I do? tell me."
"Well this. When you get to the merchant's, everything will
be ready there. At ten o'clock the relations of the deceased will
begin taking leave of her; and afterwards they will fasten three
iron hoops round the coffin, and place it on the funeral car; and
at eleven o'clock they will tell you to take it to the graveyard.
Do you drive off with the coffin, but keep a sharp look-out. One
of the hoops will snap. Never fear, keep your seat bravely; a
second will snap, keep your seat all the same; but when the
third hoop snaps, instantly jump on to the horse's back and
through the _duga_ (the wooden arch above its neck), and run
away backwards. Do that, and no harm will come to you."
The Soldier lay down to sleep, slept till the evening, and then
went to the merchant's. At ten o'clock the relations began
taking leave of the deceased; then they set to work to fasten
iron hoops round the coffin. They fastened the hoops, set the
coffin on the funeral car, and cried--
"Now then, Soldier! drive off, and God speed you!"
The Soldier got into the car and set off: at first he drove
slowly, but as soon as he was out of sight he let the horse go
full split. Away he galloped, but all the while he kept an eye on
the coffin. Snap went one hoop--and then another. The witch
began gnashing her teeth.
"Stop!" she cried, "you sha'n't escape! I shall eat you up
in another moment."
"No, dovey! Soldiers are crown property; no one is allowed
to eat them."
Here the last hoop snapped: on to the horse jumped the
Soldier, and through the _duga_, and then set off running backwards.
The witch leapt out of the coffin and tore away in pursuit.
Lighting on the Soldier's footsteps she followed them back
to the horse, ran right round it, saw the soldier wasn't there, and
set off again in pursuit of him. She ran and ran, lighted again
on his footsteps, and again came back to the horse. Utterly at
her wit's end, she did the same thing some ten times over. Suddenly
the cocks began crowing. There lay the witch stretched
out flat on the road! The Soldier picked her up, put her in the
coffin, slammed the lid down, and drove her to the graveyard.
When he got there he lowered the coffin into the grave, shovelled
the earth on top of it, and returned to the merchant's house.
"I've done it all," says he; "catch hold of your horse."
When the merchant saw the Soldier he stared at him with
wide-open eyes.
"Well, Soldier!" said he, "I know a good deal! and as to
my daughter, we needn't speak of her. She was awfully sharp,
she was! But, really, you know more than we do!"
"Come now, master merchant! pay me for my work."
So the merchant handed him over two hundred roubles. The
soldier took them, thanked him, and then went home, and gave
his family a feast.
[The next chapter will contain a number of vampire
stories which, in some respects, resemble these tales
of homicidal corpses. But most of them belong, I
think, to a separate group, due to a different myth or
superstition from that which has given rise to such
tales as those quoted above. The vampire is actuated
by a thirst which can be quenched only by blood, and
which impels it to go forth from the grave and
destroy. But the enchanted corpses which rise at
midnight, and attempt to rend their watchers, appear
to owe their ferocity to demoniacal possession. After
the death of a witch her body is liable, says popular
tradition, to be tenanted by a devil (as may be seen
from No. iii.), and to corpses thus possessed have
been attributed by the storytellers the terrible deeds
which Indian tales relate of Rakshasas and other evil
spirits. Thus in the story of Nischayadatta, in the
seventh book of the "Kathasaritsagara," the hero and
the four pilgrims, his companions, have to pass a
night in a deserted temple of Siva. It is haunted by a
_Yakshini_, a female demon, who turns men by spells
into brutes, and then eats them; so they sit watching
and praying beside a fire round which they have traced
a circle of ashes. At midnight the demon-enchantress
arrives, dancing and "blowing on a flute made of a
dead man's bone." Fixing her eyes on one of the
pilgrims, she mutters a spell, accompanied by a wild
dance. Out of the head of the doomed man grows a horn;
he loses all command over himself, leaps up, and
dances into the flames. The _Yakshini_ seizes his
half-burnt corpse and devours it. Then she treats the
second and the third pilgrim in the same way. But just
as she is turning to the fourth, she lays her flute on
the ground. In an instant the hero seizes it, and
begins to blow it and to dance wildly around the
_Yakshini_, fixing his eyes upon her and applying to
her the words of her own spell. Deprived by it of all
power, she submits, and from that time forward renders
the hero good service.[368]]
In one of the skazkas a malignant witch is destroyed by a benignant
female power. It had been predicted that a certain baby princess would
begin flying about the world as soon as she was fifteen. So her
parents shut her up in a building in which she never saw the light of
day, nor the face of a man. For it was illuminated by artificial
means, and none but women had access to it. But one day, when her
nurses and _Mamzeli_ had gone to a feast at the palace, she found a
door unlocked, and made her way into the sunlight. After this her
attendants were obliged to allow her to go where she wished, when her
parents were away. As she went roaming about the palace she came to a
cage "in which a _Zhar-Ptitsa_,[369] lay [as if] dead." This bird, her
guardians told her, slept soundly all day, but at night her papa flew
about on it. Farther on she came to a veiled portrait. When the veil
was lifted, she cried in astonishment "Can such beauty be?" and
determined to fly on the _Zhar-Ptitsa_ to the original of the picture.
So at night she sought the _Zhar-Ptitsa_, which was sitting up and
flapping its wings, and asked whether she might fly abroad on its
back. The bird consented and bore her far away. Three times it carried
her to the room of the prince whose portrait she had so much admired.
On the first and second occasion he remained asleep during her visit,
having been plunged into a magic slumber by the _Zhar-Ptitsa_. But
during her third visit he awoke, "and he and she wept and wept, and
exchanged betrothal rings." So long did they remain talking that,
before the _Zhar-Ptitsa_ and his rider could get back, "the day began
to dawn--the bird sank lower and lower and fell to the ground." Then
the princess, thinking it was really dead, buried it in the
earth--having first cut off its wings, and "attached them to herself
so as to walk more lightly."
After various adventures she comes to a land of mourning. "Why are
you so mournful?" she asks. "Because our king's son has gone out of
his mind," is the reply. "He eats a man every night." Thereupon she
goes to the king and obtains leave to watch the prince by night. As
the clock strikes twelve the prince, who is laden with chains, makes a
rush at her; but the wings of the _Zhar-Ptitsa_ rustle around her, and
he sits down again. This takes place three times, after which the
light goes out. She leaves the room in search of the means of
rekindling it, sees a glimmer in the distance, and sets off with a
lantern in search of it. Presently she finds an old witch who is
sitting before a fire, above which seethes a cauldron. "What have you
got there?" she asks. "When this cauldron seethes," replies the witch,
"within it does the heart of Prince Ivan rage madly."
Pretending to be merely getting a light, the Princess contrives to
splash the seething liquid over the witch, who immediately falls dead.
Then she looks into the cauldron, and there, in truth, she sees the
Prince's heart. When she returns to his room he has recovered his
senses. "Thank you for bringing a light," he says. "Why am I in
chains?" "Thus and thus," says she. "You went out of your mind and ate
people." Whereat he wonders greatly.[370]
The _Zhar-Ptitsa_, or Fire-Bird, which plays so important a part in
this story, is worthy of special notice. Its name is sufficient to
show its close connection with flame or light,[371] and its appearance
corresponds with its designation. Its feathers blaze with silvery or
golden sheen, its eyes shine like crystal, it dwells in a golden cage.
In the depth of the night it flies into a garden, and lights it up as
brightly as could a thousand burning fires. A single feather from its
tail illuminates a dark room. It feeds upon golden apples which have
the power of bestowing youth and beauty, or according to a Croatian
version, on magic-grasses. Its song, according to Bohemian legends,
heals the sick and restores sight to the blind. We have already seen
that, as the Phoenix, of which it seems to be a Slavonic counterpart,
dies in the flame from which it springs again into life, so the
_Zhar-Ptitsa_ sinks into a death-like slumber when the day dawns, to
awake to fresh life after the sunset.
One of the skazkas[372] about the _Zhar-Ptitsa_ closely resembles the
well-known German tale of the Golden Bird.[373] But it is a
"Chap-book" story, and therefore of doubtful origin. King Vuislaf has
an apple-tree which bears golden fruits. These are stolen by a
_Zhar-Ptitsa_ which flies every night into the garden, so he orders
his sons to keep watch there by turns. The elder brothers cannot keep
awake, and see nothing; but the youngest of the three, Prince Ivan,
though he fails to capture the bird, secures one of its tail-feathers.
After a time he leaves his home and goes forth in search of the bird.
Aided by a wolf, he reaches the garden in which the _Zhar-Ptitsa_
lives, and succeeds in taking it out of its golden cage. But trying,
in spite of the wolf's warning, to carry off the cage itself, an alarm
is sounded, and he is taken prisoner. After various other adventures
he is killed by his envious brothers, but of course all comes right in
the end. In a version of the story which comes from the Bukovina, one
of the incidents is detailed at greater length than in either the
German or the Russian tale. When the hero has been killed by his
brothers, and they have carried off the _Zhar-Ptitsa_, and their
victim's golden steed, and his betrothed princess--as long as he lies
dead, the princess remains mute and mournful, the horse refuses to
eat, the bird is silent, and its cage is lustreless. But as soon as he
comes back to life, the princess regains her spirits, and the horse
its appetite. The _Zhar-Ptitsa_ recommences its magic song, and its
cage flashes anew like fire.
In another skazka[374] a sportsman finds in a forest "a golden feather
of the _Zhar-Ptitsa_; like fire does the feather shine!" Against the
advice of his "heroic steed," he picks up the feather and takes it to
the king, who sends him in search of the bird itself. Then he has
wheat scattered on the ground, and at dawn he hides behind a tree near
it. "Presently the forest begins to roar, the sea rises in waves, and
the _Zhar-Ptitsa_ flies up, lights upon the ground and begins to peck
the wheat." Then the "heroic steed" gallops up, sets its hoof upon the
bird's wing, and presses it to the ground, so that the shooter is able
to bind it with cords, and take it to the king. In a variant of the
story the bird is captured by means of a trap--a cage in which "pearls
large and small" have been strewed.
* * * * *
I had intended to say something about the various golden haired or
golden-horned animals which figure in the Skazkas, but it will be
sufficient for the present to refer to the notices of them which occur
in Prof. de Gubernatis's "Zoological Mythology." And now I will bring
this chapter to a close with the following weird story of
THE WARLOCK.[375]
There was once a Moujik, and he had three married sons.
He lived a long while, and was looked upon by the village as a
_Koldun_ [or wizard]. When he was about to die, he gave orders
that his sons' wives should keep watch over him [after his death]
for three nights, taking one night apiece; that his body should
be placed in the outer chamber,[376] and that his sons' wives
should spin wool to make him a caftan. He ordered, moreover,
that no cross should be placed upon him, and that none should
be worn by his daughters-in-law.
Well, that same night the eldest daughter-in-law took her
seat beside him with some grey wool, and began spinning.
Midnight arrives. Says the father-in-law from his coffin:
"Daughter-in-law, art thou there?"
She was terribly frightened, but answered, "I am." "Art
thou sitting?" "I sit." "Dost thou spin?" "I spin." "Grey
wool?" "Grey." "For a caftan?" "For a caftan."
He made a movement towards her. Then a second time he
asked again--
"Daughter-in-law, art thou there?"
"I am." "Art thou sitting?" "I sit." "Dost thou spin?"
"I spin." "Grey wool?" "Grey." "For a caftan?" "For a
caftan."
She shrank into the corner. He moved again, came a couple
of yards nearer her.
A third time he made a movement. She offered up no
prayer. He strangled her, and then lay down again in his coffin.
His sons removed her body, and next evening, in obedience
to his paternal behest, they sent another of his daughters-in-law
to keep watch. To her just the same thing happened: he
strangled her as he had done the first one.
But the third was sharper than the other two. She declared
she had taken off her cross, but in reality she kept it on. She
took her seat and spun, but said prayers to herself all the while.
Midnight arrives. Says her father-in-law from his coffin--
"Daughter-in-law, art thou there?"
"I am," she replies. "Art thou sitting?" "I sit." "Dost
thou spin?" "I spin." "Grey wool?" "Grey." "For a
caftan?" "For a caftan."
Just the same took place a second time. The third time, just
as he was going to rush at her, she laid the cross upon him. He
fell down and died. She looked into the coffin; there lay ever
so much money. The father-in-law wanted to take it away with
him, or, at all events, that only some one who could outdo him in
cunning should get it.[377]
In one of the least intelligible of the West Highland tales, there is
a scene which somewhat resembles the "lykewake" in this skazka. It is
called "The Girl and the Dead Man," and relates, among other strange
things, how a youngest sister took service in a house where a corpse
lay. "She sat to watch the dead man, and she was sewing; in the middle
of night he rose up, and screwed up a grin. 'If thou dost not lie down
properly, I will give thee the one leathering with a stick.' He lay
down. At the end of a while, he rose on one elbow, and screwed up a
grin; and the third time he rose and screwed up a grin. When he rose
the third time, she struck him a lounder of the stick; the stick stuck
to the dead man, and the hand stuck to the stick, and out they were."
Eventually "she got a peck of gold and a peck of silver, and the
vessel of cordial" and returned home.[378]
The obscurity of the Celtic tale forms a striking contrast to the
lucidity of the Slavonic. The Russian peasant likes a clear statement
of facts; the Highlander seems, like Coleridge's Scotch admirer, to
find a pleasure in seeing "an idea looming out of the mist."
FOOTNOTES:
[296] About which, see Professor Wilson's note on Somadeva's story of
the "Origin of Pataliputra," "Essays," i. p. 168-9, with Dr. Rost's
reference to L. Deslongchamps, "Essai sur les Fables Indiennes,"
Paris, 1838, p. 35 and Graesse, "Sagenkreise des Mittelalters,"
Leipsig, 1842, p. 191. See also the numerous references given by
Grimm, _KM._ iii. pp. 168-9.
[297] As well as in all the mythologies. For the magic draught of the
fairy-story appears to be closely connected with the Greek _ambrosia_,
the Vedic _soma_ or _amrita_, the Zend _haoma_.
[298] A water, "Das Wasser des Lebens," in two German stories (Grimm,
Nos. 92 and 97, and iii. p. 178), and in many Greek tales (Hahn, Nos.
32, 37, &c.). An oil or ointment in the Norse tale (Asbjoernsen and
Moe, No. 35, Dasent, No. 3). A balsam in Gaelic tales, in which a
"Vessel of Balsam" often occurs. According to Mr. Campbell ("West
Highland Tales," i. p. 218), "Ballan Iocshlaint, teat, of ichor, of
health, seems to be the meaning of the words." The juice squeezed from
the leaves of a tree in a modern Indian tale ("Old Deccan Days," p.
139).
[299] The mythical bird Garuda, the Indian original of the Roc of the
Arabian Nights, was similarly connected with the Amrita. See the story
of Garuda and the Nagas in Brockhaus's translation of the
"Kathasaritsagara," ii. pp. 98-105. On the Vedic falcon which brings
the Soma down to earth, see Kuhn's "Herabkunft des Feuers," pp.
138-142.
[300] In the Russian periodical, "Otechestvennuiya Zapiski," vol. 43
(for 1830) pp. 252-6.
[301] Schiefners's translation, 1852, pp. 80, 81.
[302] In that attributed to Sivadasa, tale 2 (Lassen's "Anthologia
Sanscritica," pp. 16-19), and in the "Kathasaritsagara," chap. lxxvi.
See Brockhaus's summary in the "Berichte der phil. hist. Classe der
Koen. Saechs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," December 3, 1853, pp.
194-5.
[303] The "Baital-Pachisi," translated by Ghulam Mohammad Munshi,
Bombay 1868, pp. 23-24.
[304] B. G. Babington's translation of "The Vedala Cadai," p. 32.
contained in the "Miscellaneous Translations" of the Oriental
Translation Fund, 1831, vol. i. pt. iv pp. 32 and 67.
[305] Afanasief, _P.V.S._ ii. 551.
[306] Afanasief, viii. p. 205.
[307] Afanasief, vii. No. 5 _b_.
[308] Afanasief, vii. No. 5 _a_. For the _Zhar-Ptitsa_, see infra, p.
285.
[309] Afanasief, vi. p. 249. For a number of interesting legends,
collected from the most distant parts of the world, about grinding
mountains and crashing cliffs, &c., see Tylor's "Primitive Culture,"
pp. 313-16. After quoting three mythic descriptions found among the
Karens, the Algonquins, and the Aztecs, Mr. Tylor remarks, "On the
suggestion of this group of solar conceptions and that of Maui's
death, we may perhaps explain as derived from a broken-down fancy of
solar-myth, that famous episode of Greek legend, where the good ship
Argo passed between the Symplegades, those two huge cliffs that opened
and closed again with swift and violent collision."
Several of the Modern Greek stories are very like the skazka mentioned
above. In one of these (Hahn, ii. p. 234), a Lamia guards the water of
life (+abanato nero+) which flows within a rock; in another (ii. p.
280) a mountain opens at midday, and several springs are disclosed,
each of which cries "Draw from me!" but the only one which is
life-giving is that to which a bee flies.
[310] Wenzig, p. 148.
[311] Afanasief, _P.V.S._ ii. 353.
[312] See above, p. 233.
[313] _Silnaya voda_ or potent water, and _bezsilnaya voda_, or
impotent water (_sila_ = strength).
[314] _Palitsa_ = a cudgel, etc. In the variant of the story quoted in
the preceding section the prince seized Vikhor by the right little
finger, _mizinets_. _Palets_ meant a finger. The similarity of the two
words may have led to a confusion of ideas.
[315] Afanasief, vii. pp. 97-103.
[316] Muir's "Sanskrit Texts," v. p. 258 and p. 94. See, also
Mannhardt's "Germ. Mythen," pp. 96-97.
[317] Being as destructive as the poison which was created during the
churning of the Amrita.
[318] Afanasief, v. No. 35.
[319] In the original he is generally designated as _Katoma--dyad'ka,
dubovaya shapka_, "Katoma-governor, oaken-hat." Not being able to
preserve the assonance, I have dropped the greater part of his title.
[320] _Bogodanny_ (_bog_ = God; _dat'_, _davat'_ = to give). One of
the Russian equivalents for our hideous "father-in-law" is "god-given
father" (_bogodanny otets_), and for "mother-in-law," _bogodanny mat'_
or "God-given mother." (Dahl.)
[321] Four lines are omitted here. See A. de Gubernatis, "Zool.
Mythology," i. 181, where a solar explanation of the whole story will
be found.
[322] These ejaculations belong to the story-teller.
[323] Literally, "Seemed to her as small as a lamb."
[324] _Kolodez_, a word connected with _koloda_ a log, trough, &c.
[325] Afanasief, viii. No. 23 _a_.
[326] To this episode a striking parallel is offered by that of
Gunther's wedding night in the "Nibelungenlied," in which Brynhild
flings her husband Gunther across the room, kneels on his chest, and
finally binds him hand and foot, and suspends him from a nail till
daybreak. The next night Siegfried takes his place, and wrestles with
the mighty maiden. After a long struggle he flings her on the floor
and forces her to submit. Then he leaves the room and Gunther returns.
A summary of the story will be found in the "Tales of the Teutonic
Lands," by G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones, pp. 94-5.
[327] Khudyakof, i. No. 19. pp. 73-7.
[328] Erlenvein, No. 19, pp. 95-7. For a Little-Russian version see
Kulish, ii. pp. 59-82.
[329] Afanasief, vi. No. 26. From the Kursk Government.
[330] _Prashchurui._
[331] The sentence in italics is a good specimen of the _priskazka_,
or preface.
[332] _Gramota_ = +grammata+ whence comes _gramotey_, able to read and
write = +grammatikos+.
[333] Vanya and Vanyusha are diminutives of Ivan (John), answering to
our Johnny; Vanka is another, more like our Jack.
[334] Literally "with a Solovei-like whistle." The word _solovei_
generally means a nightingale, but it was also the name of a mythical
hero, a robber whose voice or whistle had the power of killing those
who heard it.
[335] _Chmoknuel_, smacked.
[336] See Barsof's rich collection of North-Russian funeral poetry,
entitled "Prichitaniya Syevernago Kraya," Moscow, 1872. Also the
"Songs of the Russian People," pp. 334-345.
[337] Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days," pp. 3, 4.
[338] Grimm, _KM._ No. 21.
[339] Afanasief, vi. No. 54.
[340] _Ona krava shto yoy ye bila mati_, Vuk Karajich, p. 158. In the
German translation (p. 188) _Wie dies nun die Kuh sah, die einst seine
Mutter gewesen war_.
[341] Afanasief, ii. p. 254.
[342] _Cherez dvyenadtsat' stekol._ _Steklo_ means a glass, or a pane
of glass.
[343] Afanasief, ii. p. 269.
[344] Khudyakof, No. 50.
[345] Afanasief, iii. p. 25.
[346] Dasent's "Norse Tales," No. 40. Asbjoernsen and Moe, No. 37.
"Grimsborken."
[347] Dasent, No. 13. Asbjoernsen and Moe, No. 51. "Jomfruen paa
Glasberget."
[348] Campbell's "West-Highland Tales," iii. pp. 265, 266.
[349] Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days," pp. 31, 73, 95, 135.
[350] "Voelsunga Saga," translated by E. Magnusson and W. Morris, pp.
95-6.
[351] Afanasief, vi. No. 32. From the Novgorod Government. A
"chap-book" version of this story will be found in Dietrich's
collection (pp. 152-68 of the English translation); also in
Keightley's "Tales and Popular Fictions."
[352] _Nijnie_, lower. Thus Nijny Novgorod is the lower (down the
Volga) Novgorod. (Dahl.)
[353] _Kukova_, a stick or cudgel, one end of which is bent and
rounded like a ball.
[354] _Tak de ego ne vzat'._
[355] There are numerous variants of this story among the Skazkas. In
one of these (Afanasief, vii. No. 31) the man on whom the pike has
bestowed supernatural power uses it to turn a Maiden princess into a
mother. This renders the story wholly in accordance with (1) the
Modern Greek tale of "The Half Man," (Hahn, No. 8) in which the magic
formula runs, "according to the first word of God and the second of
the fish shall such and such a thing be done!" (2) The Neapolitan
story of "Pervonto" (Basile's "Pentamerone," No. 3) who obtains his
magic power from three youths whom he screens from the sun as they lie
asleep one hot day, and who turn out to be sons of a fairy. Afanasief
compares the story also with the German tale of "The Little Grey
Mannikin," in the "Zeitschrift fuer Deutsche Mythologie," &c., i. pp.
38-40. The incident of wishes being fulfilled by a fish occurs in many
stories, as in that of "The Fisherman," in the "Arabian Nights," "The
Fisherman and his Wife," in Grimm (_KM._, No. 19). A number of stories
about the Pike are referred to by A. de Gubernatis ("Zoolog.
Mythology," ii. 337-9).
[356] Quoted by Afanasief from Siemienski's "Podania," Posen, 1845, p.
42.
[357] "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 387-427.
[358] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 _a_. This story has no special title in
the original.
[359] The rural police. _Sotnick_ = centurion, from _sto_ = 100.
_Desyatnik_ is a word of the same kind from _desyat_ = 10.
[360] A Ponomar is a kind of sacristan.
[361] "Der Werwolf, Beitrag zur Sagengeschichte," Stuttgart, 1862. For
Russian ideas on the subject see "Songs of the Russian people," pp.
403-9.
[362] "Polnische Volkssagen" (translated by Lewestam), p. 61.
[363] Brockhaus's "Maehrchensammlung des Somadeva Bhatta," ii. p. 24.
[364] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 _b_. This story, also, is without special
title.
[365] In Mr. Hain Friswell's collection of "Ghost Stories," 1858.
[366] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 _c_. Also without special title.
[367] The Russian _skovoroda_ is a sort of stew-pan, of great size,
without a handle.
[368] From Professor Brockhaus's summary in the "Berichte der phil.
hist. Classe der Koenigl. Saechs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften,"
1861, pp. 215, 16.
[369] For an account of this mythological bird, see the note on next
page. Ornithologically, the _Zhar-ptitsa_ is the Cassowary.
[370] Khudyakof, No. 110. From the Nijegorod Government.
[371] _Zhar_ = glowing heat, as of a furnace; _zhar-ptitsa_ = the
glow-bird. Its name among the Czekhs and Slovaks is _Ptak Ohnivak_.
The heathens Slavonians are said to have worshipped Ogon or Agon,
Fire, the counterpart of the Vedic Agni. _Agon_ is still the ordinary
Russian word for fire, the equivalent of the Latin _ignis_.
[372] Afanasief, vii. No. 11. See also the notes in viii. p. 620, etc.
[373] Grimm's _KM._, No. 57. See the notes in Bd. iii. p. 98.
[374] Afanasief, vii. No. 12.
[375] Khudyakof, No. 104. From the Orel Government.
[376] The _kholodnaya izba_--the "cold izba," as opposed to the "warm
izba" or living room.
[377] The etymology of the word _koldun_ is still, I believe, a moot
point. The discovery of the money in the warlock's coffin seems an
improbable incident. In the original version of the story the wizard
may, perhaps, have turned into a heap of gold (see above, p. 231, on
"Gold-men").
[378] Campbell, No. 13, vol. i. p. 215.