SECTION IV.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN SLAVONIC TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

The red cow and the black cow; what they prognosticate.--The red hue

of evening.--The bull that drinks.--The bull corrupts the

water.--The bull's hoofs.--The cow in the bartering of animals.--The

hero ascends into heaven.--The bull sold to the tree; the tree,

split open, yields gold.--The fool sells the bull.--Two bulls

conduct the poor brother to riches.--The bull carries the fugitive

home.--The bull is split in two, and is useful even after

death.--Ivan and Helen, followed by the bear, flee upon the bull

with their faces turned to the part whence the bear is likely to

come.--The dwarf comes out of the bull's bones; the dwarf dies amid

the flames.--The beasts of prey help the hero.--John and Mary, sun

and aurora of the Christians.--The saviour-bull again.--From the

dead bull an apple-tree springs up.--Ivan delivers Mary.--Mary, the

step-daughter, and persecuted.--The cow that spins, the good fairy,

the Madonna, the moon.--The maiden who combs the hair is the same as

the purifier.--The demoniacal cow obliges men to kiss her under her

tail.--The witch who sucks the beautiful girl's breast whilst the

latter combs her hair.--The hide of the demoniacal cow taken

off.--The eye which does not sleep and plays the spy.--From the cow,

the apple-tree; from the apple-tree, the branches which wound the

wicked sisters, and let the good one pluck their fruit; from the

apple, the husband.--The maiden bows to the right foot of the

beneficent cow; a tree springs up again from the killed cow.--The

red apples which cause horns to grow, and the white ones which give

beauty and youth.--Ivan, the sun, persecuted by the witch his

sister, is saved by the sister of the sun, the aurora.--The mythical

scales; the scales of St Michael.--The cows with golden horns and

tails.--The black demoniacal bull strikes the ground with his horns,

in order to prevent a wedding from taking place.--The hare and the

crow put obstacles in the way of nuptials.--The demon blinded whilst

drinking.--The third son of the peasant throws down the bull.--The

avaricious merchant.--The epidemic among the animals, and the bull

killed because he has stolen some hay from a priest.--The bull in

the forest.--The robber of cows and of oxen.--The black bull led

away by Ivan, by means of a cock.--The hero comes out of the

cow.--The intestines of the calf eaten by the fox.--Out of the calf

come birds.--The son of the cow, the strongest brother.--The three

brothers reduced to one with the qualities of the three.--The third

brother mounts into heaven by means of the cow's hide.--He who

ascends does not come down again.--Dreams.--The wife of the old man,

carried to heaven in a sack, is let fall to the ground and

dies.--The ascent into heaven by means of

vegetables.--Turn-little-Pea, the third brother, the killer of

monsters; Turn-little-Pea and Ivan identified.--Ivan followed by the

serpent-witches.--The female serpent tries to file the iron gate

with her tongue, which is caught by the pincers and burned.--The

three brothers, the evening one, the midnight one, and the

clearly-seeing one; the third is the victorious hero; he delivers

three princesses out of three castles of copper, of silver, and of

gold, and receives from them three eggs of copper, of silver, and of

gold, new forms corresponding to those of the three brothers; the

third brother, abandoned by his elders, after various vicissitudes,

finds his bride again; explanation of this beautiful myth.--Ivan

identified with Svetazór.--The mother of the birds, in gratitude,

delivers the hero.--The third brother, the cunning one, despoils his

two elder brothers of their precious objects.--Ivan of the dog is

equivalent to Svetazór; the story of the goldsmith.--Ivan the great

drinker.--Ivan the prince, Ivan the fool; Ivan and Emilius, foolish

and lazy, are one and the same person.--The red shoes in the

legend.--The sister kills her little brother to take his red shoes;

a magical flute discovers the crime.--The slippers attract the

bridegroom; corresponding nuptial usages.--The slipper tried on; the

toe cut off.--The change of wives.--The ugly one becomes

beautiful.--The grateful pike.--The barrel full of water, which

walks of its own accord.--The forest which is cut down and walks of

itself, the chariot which goes on by itself, the stove that moves

and carries Emilius where he wishes, the cask in which the hero and

heroine are shut up and thrown into the sea, all forms of the cloud

and of the gloom of night; the ugly becomes beautiful; the poor,

rich and pleasing.--The wine allowed to run out of the barrel,

_i.e._, the cloud which dissolves itself in rain.--Ivan, thought to

be stupid, makes his fortune out of having watched by his father's

grave.--Ivan, thought to be stupid, speculates upon his dead mother;

his brothers try to do the same by their wives, and are

punished.--The law of atavism in tradition.--The foolish mother and

the cunning son.--The funereal storks.--The thief cheats the

gentleman in several ways, and finally places him to guard his

hat.--Ivan without fear; a little fish terrifies him.--Various

heroical forms of Ivan in Russian tradition: Alessino, the son of

the priest, invokes the rain against the monster-serpent; Baldak

spits in the Sultan's face--the star under his heel; Basil and

Plavacek, who demand a gift from the monster; the fortunate

fictitious hero; the cunning little Thomas; the third brother, who

does not allow himself to be put to sleep; the thief Klimka, who

terrifies the other thieves in order to rob them; the Cossack who

delivers the maiden from the flames, and receives precious gifts;

Ilia Muromietz and his companions; the merchant's son educated by

the devil; the boy who understands the language of birds; the

virtuous workman, who prefers good advice to a large reward.--The

flying ship; the protector of the unfortunate rewarded; eating and

drinking.--The girl who solves the riddle of the prince, who comes

with the hare and the quail, and obtains her husband.--The dwarf

Allwis obtains the bride by answering the questions of his

father-in-law.--The wonderful puppet (the moon), that sews for the

priest's daughter (the aurora) the shirt destined for the

prince.--The girl-heroine, protectress of her brother, helper of the

young hero in dangers and trials of heroism.--The cow-herd's

daughter, who never says anything displeasing to her husband the

king, whatever the latter does.--By contact with the monster, the

heroine is perverted, and also becomes a persecutor of the hero, her

brother or husband; analogous types of the perfidious

woman.--Dangerous trials imposed on the hero.--The sister bound to

the tree.--The wife subdued, and the magical belt.--The tooth of a

dead man thrust into Ivan's head; the animals deliver him; the fox

knows better than the rest how to manage it.--The towel which causes

a bridge to spring up across the water; the hero's sister steals the

towel, and unites herself to the monster-serpent; she demands from

her brother Ivan wild beasts' milk, and the flour or powder of gold

which is under a mill guarded by twelve gates.--The monster burned,

and the hero's sister condemned to weep and to eat hay.--The

exchange of the hero.--The crow brings the water of death and of

life.--The stepmother who persecutes Ivan.--Ivan resuscitated by his

two sons.--Ivan chaunts his death-song; the liberating animals

appear to help him.--Ivan and his preceptor persecuted by his wife

Anna.--The blind man, the lame man, and the beautiful girl whose

breast is sucked by the witch.--The witch is forced to find the

fountain of life and of health; the blind man sees, the lame walks,

and the girl recovers her good health.--The maiden blinded; the wife

changed; the dew which gives eyesight; the girl finds her husband; a

Russian variety of the legend of Berta.

Having drawn so far the general outline of the Turanian boundaries of

Slavonian tradition, it is now time to begin to study the tradition of

the Slaves itself, as far as it concerns the myth and the legend of

the bull and the cow.

The Russian peasants and shepherds are accustomed to remark that the

weather will be fine when a red cow places herself at the head of the

herd, and that it will rain or be bad weather when, on the contrary,

the first of the cows to re-enter the stable at evening is a black

one. We already know what the black and the red cow signify in the

language of the Vedâs. The aurora of morning and evening, that is, the

red cows promise fine weather; the cloud (or black cow) announces wet

weather. In Piedmont, when a beautiful evening aurora is observed, it

is the custom to say--

"Rosso di sera,

Buon tempo si spera."

(Red at eve, we hope for fine weather.)

Let us now follow the Russian tradition relating to the cow and the bull

in two of the many invaluable collections of popular stories already

printed in Russia, as well as in the celebrated fables of Kriloff.[348]

We shall begin with those stories and fables in which the cow or the

bull is explicitly mentioned. They show us the bull who protects the

hero and the heroine, the bull who enriches the hero, the bull that is

sold, the grateful bull, the bull who sacrifices himself, the

persecuted bull, the demoniacal bull; the cow who spins, the

beneficent cow, the son of the cow, the birds that come out from the

cow, the cow's hide which becomes a rope to mount up to heaven, the

cow exchanged, the demoniacal cow, the cow's horns. Here, again,

therefore, we have the double aspect of the Vedic cow; the

dark-coloured one (cloud and darkness), generally monstrous, the

luminous one (moon and aurora), usually divine and beneficent.

One of the special characteristics of the bull and of the cow is their

capacity of drinking. We have already seen how much the bull Indras (the

sun in the cloud) drank. In the third story of the first book of

_Afanassieff_, when the good maiden, persecuted by the witch, stretches

out a towel, and thus causes a river to arise, in order that the witch

may not overtake her, the latter leads forward the bull to drink up the

river (a form of the Hindoo Agastyas, who, in the _Mahâbhâratam_,[349]

absorbs the sea). But the bull, who could dry up the river, refuses to

do so on account of a debt of gratitude he owes to the good maiden. The

water where this bull, or cow, belonging to the witch, drinks, has the

property of transforming into a calf the man who drinks of it;[350] nay,

to drink out of the hoof of the bull itself is enough to turn him into a

calf.[351] The water which comes out of the hoof of the demoniacal bull

is the opposite of the water of Hippokrene, which flows from the hoofs

of the divine horse of the Hellenes, the Pêgasos.

In the second book of _Afanassieff_, there is a story which speaks of

the exchange of animals in the very same order as in the

_Âitareya-brâhmanam_, _i.e._, the gold for a horse, the horse for a cow,

the cow for a goat or sheep. The Russian peasant goes on with his

unfortunate exchanges; he barters the sheep for a young pig, the young

pig for a goose, the goose for a duck, the duck for a little stick with

which he sees some children playing; he takes the stick home to his

wife, and she beats him with it. In the twelfth story of the fifth book

of _Afanassieff_, an old man also begins to barter the golden stockings

and silver garters received in heaven from God for a horse, the horse

for a bull, the bull for a lamb; his last exchange is for a little

needle, which he loses. In the second story of the sixth book, the same

foolish liberality is attributed to the third brother, the stupid one

(who, in another Russian variation of the same story, is the cunning

one), who, having learned that in heaven cows are cheap, gives his cow

for a fly, his ox for a horse-fly, and mounts up to heaven.

But, generally speaking, the bull and the cow are the beginning of

good luck for the heroes of popular tales.

In the fifty-second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the third

brother, the truthful and fortunate fool, has, for his inheritance from

his father, one bull alone; he goes to sell it, and passes a dry old

tree, which rattles; thinking that the tree wishes to buy his bull, he

gives it, promising to come back for the money. On his return the bull

is gone; he asks the tree for the money, and, receiving no answer,

proceeds to cut it down with his hatchet, when from the tree there drops

out a treasure which some robbers had hidden in it;[352] the young man

then takes it up and carries it home. In a variation of the same story,

in the collection of _Erlenwein_,[353] the third son of the miller,

before going to sell his bull, or ox, seeing the second son milking the

cow, endeavours to milk the bull too; finding that his efforts are in

vain, he resolves upon selling an animal which appears to him to be so

utterly useless.

In the thirty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, we meet

again the two brothers, one rich and miserly, the other poor; the poor

one borrows from a neighbour two bulls, and is conducted by Misery

(gory) to a stone, under which he finds a cavity full of gold. The

poor man fills his waggon, and, on coming out, tells Misery that there

is plenty more inside. Misery turns in to see; the ex-pauper thereupon

closes up the entrance with the stone, and returns home.[354]

But the bull and the cow do not only provide the hero with riches,

they help him in danger. In the eleventh story of _Erlenwein_,[355]

Ivan Tzarevic, or the Prince John,--the name of the favourite hero of

Slavonian popular tradition (he is the third brother, the strongest,

the most fortunate, the victorious, the most intelligent, after having

been the most foolish)--wishes to flee from the serpent, and, not

knowing how, sits down on the trunk of a tree and weeps. The hare

comes to carry him away, but is killed by the serpent; the wolf

comes, but is killed too. At last the ox or bull comes, and carries

him off. Ivan having arrived at his dwelling, the ox has himself

divided in two; one part must be placed under the sacred images, which

ornament a corner of every room in Russian houses, the other part

under the window; Ivan must then look out sharp till two dogs and two

bears appear, who will serve him in the chase, and be his strength.

In the twenty-seventh story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, Ivan

Tzarevic and the beautiful Helen are pursued by a monstrous bear with

iron bristles; they escape upon a bull (the moon), and Ivan, by the

bull's advice, rides him with his face turned towards the place whence

the pursuing bear is likely to come, in order that he may not take

them by surprise. When Ivan sees that the bear is coming, the bull

turns round and tears his eyes out; the blind bear follows them still,

but the fugitives pass a river on the bull's back, in which the bear

is drowned. Ivan and Helen feel hungry; the bull tells them to cut him

to pieces and eat him, but to preserve his bones, and to strike them

together; from the bones of the bull, when struck, a dwarf, the height

of a finger-nail, but with a beard a cubit long, comes out; he assists

Ivan in finding the milk of a wolf, a she-bear, and a lioness, until

he is swallowed by the burning bird, whose eggs he wished to steal.

(The bear is the night; the bull is the sun's steed in the night, the

moon; the bull-moon is sacrificed; then comes forth a little sun with

long rays, the dwarf with a long beard, an _alter ego_ of Ivan, who

ends his life in the burning furnace of the phoenix, or of the evening

aurora.) Ivan is threatened with death when the dwarf dies, but he is

at that moment helped by the wild beasts he had tamed and fed, who

save him from danger. These were, as we have seen before, given to him

after the death of the bull, his deliverer, being born of the bull

himself, cut in pieces (the wild animals of the forest of night are

born as soon as the evening sun is sacrificed).

The same subject occurs again, with some variations, in the

twenty-eighth story, which follows; only instead of John and Helen, we

have John and Mary, the sun and the aurora of the Christians. Near the

abode of Ivan and Mary a funeral pile arises, on which the bull

sacrifices himself. The bull's bones are sown in three furrows; from

the first furrow a horse comes forth, from the second a dog, and in

the third an apple-tree grows up. Ivan mounts upon the horse, followed

by the dog, and hunts wolves' whelps and young bears, which he

afterwards tames and uses to kill the serpent, who has shut up his dog

in a cavern, and carried off his sister; he forces the entrance of the

place where the dog is hidden, by striking the bolt of the door with

three small branches of the apple-tree; the bolt breaks into pieces,

the door bursts open, and the dog is delivered; dog, wolf, and young

bear then worry the serpent, and Ivan liberates the Princess Mary.

In the sixth book of _Afanassieff_,[356] the young Mary, being

persecuted, is miraculously assisted by a cow. An old woman has three

daughters of her own (of whom one has one eye, another two, and the

third three), and a step-daughter called Mary; her own three do

nothing, and eat much; the step-daughter must work hard and eat

little. Her step-mother gives her for one night alone, while she takes

the cow to pasture, to spin, make into skeins, weave, and bleach, the

weight of five pounds. The maiden goes to the pasture-ground, embraces

her variegated cow, leans on her neck and bewails her fate. The cow

says to her, "Beautiful girl, enter one of my ears, and come out by

the other, and all will be done."--In the Italian variety of this

story,[357] the cow spins with her horns for the good maiden, whilst

she combs the head of the old woman or the Madonna. I think I have

already said that I recognise in this good old woman, fairy, or

Madonna, the moon. The moon, like the sun, is considered as in

relation with the aurora, and especially the evening aurora, which she

accompanies; she is the hostess, the guide, and the protectress of the

hero and heroine of evening, lost and pursued in the night; after the

evening aurora, the white moon comes out, in the same way as after the

morning aurora the sun comes out in effulgence. We have seen that the

name of purifier, cleanser, is given to the Vedic aurora; from this

expression to the image of comber or cleanser of the head of the old

Madonna the transition is easy;[358] from, _i.e._, after, the aurora,

the moon comes out shining and clean, in a beautiful and serene sky;

and on this account pearls fall from the Madonna's head; but when, on

the other hand, the beautiful maiden, the aurora, does not come, when

the step-mother sends to the pasture-ground, near the old woman, one

of her own daughters, foul lice fall from the head of the old fairy or

Madonna, inasmuch as the moon cannot show herself in her splendour

amid the shadows of the cloudy and black night. The Russian story

shows us how the beneficent cow of the good maiden, who caresses her

and serves her well, and the Madonna or good old woman grateful for

the careful combing of her hair of Italian tradition, are one and the

same thing. In the thirty-fifth story of the fifth book of

_Afanassieff_, on the contrary, where the cow appears in a demoniacal

aspect, whom the hero Ivan, condemned from a prince to become a

cowherd, must kiss under her tail, which she lifts with this intent,

we meet with an old witch who sucks the white breasts of the beautiful

girl, while the latter is obliged to hunt the vermin in her head; in

the witch, as well as in the cow who insolently lifts up her tail, we

can recognise the gloomy night, an explanation which is justified by

the fact that the hero-shepherd Katoma, the adorned one, the

agile-footed, ends by flaying the shameless cow (the morning sun,

shepherd of the luminous cows, takes off the skin of the dark-coloured

cow of the gloomy night). But, to return to the fifty-fourth

story.--When the stepmother sees that the girl has done all the work

assigned her, she begins to suspect that there is some one who helps

her, and so sends next night her first daughter, who has but one eye,

to watch the daughter-in-law, who goes to the pasture-ground. The

young Mary then says to her, "Eye, sleep;" and immediately her

step-sister falls asleep, thus allowing the cow to assist her without

any one perceiving it. The second night, the second daughter, who has

two eyes, is sent; Mary says twice to her, "Eye, sleep," and obtains,

without being seen, the same favours from the cow. The third night,

the third sister, who has three eyes, is sent; Mary does not remember

the third eye, and only says twice, "Eye, sleep:" and so the third

sister sees with her remaining eye[359] what the cow does with Mary,

and in the morning tells everything to her mother, who gives orders

that the cow be killed. Mary warns the cow; and the cow recommends

her to eat none of her flesh, to keep the bones, sow them in the

garden, and water them. The maiden does so; every day, however hungry

she may be, she eats none of the meat, only collects the bones

together. From the bones sown in the garden arises a marvellous

apple-tree, with leaves of gold, and branches of silver, which prick

and wound the three daughters of the stepmother, whilst, on the other

hand, they offer apples to the beautiful maiden, in order that she may

present one to the young and rich lord who is to make her his wife. In

the following story, the fifty-fifth, which is a variation of the

preceding one, the girl is named Mary, and her husband Ivan Tzarevic;

when she goes to the pasture, and when she returns, she is accustomed

to make obeisance to the right foot of the cow. When the cow, being

killed, revives again in the shape of a tree, it swarms with birds,

which sing songs for kings and peasants alike, and make the sweet

fruits fall upon Mary's plate.

The apples that cause horns to grow, and those which beautify and make

young, mentioned in the thirty-sixth story of the fifth book, and

again in the last book of the collection of _Afanassieff_, as well as

in other European variations of the same subject, are connected, in my

opinion, with the myth of the evening sky, and of the lunar night, in

the shape of an apple-tree. In the fifteenth story of the collection

of _Erlenwein_, the third brother, the usual Ivan, comes to an

apple-tree which has red apples, and eats four of them, upon which

four horns grow on his head, to such a height that he cannot enter the

forest; he goes to an apple-tree that bears white fruit, eats four

apples, and the four horns disappear. (The solar hero at evening

approaches the tree with the red apples, the evening aurora, and

immediately becomes deformed; horns grow on his head; he loses

himself in the shades of night; in the moonlight and the alba, he

approaches the tree with the white apples, loses his horns, and

becomes young and beautiful again.)

In the fifty-seventh story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff's_

collection, Ivan Tzarevic is presented with the apples which restore

youth to him who eats them, by the sister of the sun, to whose abode he

is lifted in the following manner: Ivan (the sun) has for his sister (no

doubt half-sister) a serpent-witch (night), who has already devoured his

father and mother (the sun and the aurora of evening, which create the

night, and are destroyed by it); the witch persecutes her little brother

Ivan, and endeavours to eat him; he flees, and she overtakes him in the

vicinity of the dwelling of the sister of the sun (the aurora, the true

sister of Ivan). The witch makes a proposal to Ivan, that they be

weighed together in the scales. Ivan accepts this proposal, upon which

the one enters the one scale, and the other the other; no sooner does

the witch put her foot on the scale than, as she weighs so much more

than Ivan, he is lifted up to heaven, the dwelling of the sister of the

sun, where he is welcomed and admitted. (A beautiful myth, of which the

meaning is evident. Ivan is the sun, the aurora is his sister; at

morning, near the abode of the aurora, that is, in the east, the shades

of night go underground, and the sun arises to the heavens; this is the

mythical pair of scales. Thus, in the Christian belief, St Michael

weighs human souls: those who weigh much sink down into hell, and those

who are light arise to the heavenly paradise.)

By means of the sister of the sun, Ivan saves himself from the witch.

In another story in _Afanassieff_,[360] by means of the sister of the

hero Nikanore, the same Ivan, running after the cows, causes them to

have golden horns and tails, with sides formed of stars; and

afterwards, with the assistance of the hero Nikanore in person (of the

sun, that is, of himself), he kills the serpent.

We have already seen the cloudy and the gloomy sky represented in the

Vedic poems, now as a black cow, now as a stable which encloses the

bulls and cows. The black bull or cow of night is considered to be

demoniacal. In a story given in _Afanassieff_,[361] we find the devil

in the shape of a bull, which bellows, and throws up the earth with

its horns, arresting a nuptial procession. From a bull he turns into a

bear, then a hare, and then a crow, to put obstacles in the way of the

marriage, until, having presented himself in the form of a devil, a

soldier-hero blinds him while he is drinking. A variation of this

soldier is the third son of the peasant,[362] who is so strong that

with a snap of his fingers he makes the bull and the bear fall dead,

and then by a single pinch strips off their skins. The same hero hires

himself to a merchant, whom he engages to serve for two years, on

condition of receiving as his reward, at the end of them, the

permission to give him a snap with the fingers and a pinch. The

merchant thinks he is getting the man's service for nothing, but pays

for it with his life. The merchant seldom plays a good part in popular

stories. He and the miser are synonymous,--the miser is the monster

which keeps treasures hidden; and on this account, as we have already

seen in the Vedic hymns themselves, the enemies of the gods, the

monsters that ravish and conceal the treasures, are represented as

panayas or merchants, cheats, robbers, or misers. The currency of this

epithet as a term of infamy must have been owing in part to the

dislike with which the priestly sacrificers of the last Vedic period

regarded the merchants, in whom they saw only a pack of misers,

because, on account of their wandering life, they had neither cows nor

bulls to give them for sacrifice, but carried with them all their

fortune, and did not require the fertilising rain of the god Indras to

multiply their gold and their silver.

The celestial bull comes out of the night or the nocturnal stables

either, as we have seen, to help the hero, to be sacrificed, to flee

from persecution, or because he has been stolen by a skilful thief.

In one of Kriloff's fables, God sends a terrible plague among the

animals, of which they perish in great numbers. They are so terrified

by it that they forsake their habits, and begin to wander aimlessly

hither and thither. The wolf no longer eats the sheep; the fox leaves

the hens unmolested; the turtle-doves no longer make love to each

other. Then the lion holds a council of the animals, and exhorts them

all to confess their faults. The cunning fox essays to quiet the

lion-judge by assuring him that though he stole some sheep, he did not

thereby commit a fault; and so he justifies his own ravages; as also

do the bear, the tiger, the wolf, and all the most wicked of the

animals. Then the simple bull comes forward, and, in his turn,

confesses that he stole a little hay from the priest. This crime

appears so heinous that the council of animals sentences the bull to

be offered in sacrifice.[363]

Sometimes, on the contrary, the bull, either because he cannot bear the

bad treatment that he receives from his masters, or in order to avoid

the danger of being killed or sold by the stupid son, who is in need of

money that he may marry a wife, a danger of which he has a

presentiment, abandons the stable with other animals, constructs a hut

or isbà and shuts himself up in it.[364] He has with him the lamb, the

goose, the cock, or else some other tame animals. The fox passes by,

hears the crowing of the cock, and goes to call his friends the bear and

the wolf to help him. The bear opens the door, the fox enters, and the

bull by goring him with his horns, the lamb by butting against his

sides, and the cock by pecking his eyes out, put an end to the unwelcome

intruder. The wolf, who goes in, curious to see what is going on, has

the same fate, and the bear, who comes last, only succeeds with great

difficulty, and after having been severely maltreated, in effecting his

escape. In another variation of the same story, the bear dies of fear,

and the stupid son takes his skin, sells it and makes money; then, the

danger of being sold having passed by, the bull and his company return

home. The battle between the tame and the savage animals, won by the

former, is an expression in zoological form of the victory of the heroes

(the sun and the moon) over the monsters of darkness.

The story of the hero-thief is generally connected with the carrying

off of his master's horse; but not unfrequently the hero, like the

monster, becomes a robber of cows and oxen.

The thief Ivan[365] is required to steal from his master a black bull or

ox tied to the plough; if he succeeds, he is to have a hundred roubles

for his reward; but if he does not, he is to receive instead a hundred

bastinadoes. In order to steal it, Ivan adopts the following device: he

takes a cock, plucks it, and puts it alive under a clod of earth. The

ploughmen come with the oxen; while they are ploughing, the cock starts

up; they leave the plough to run after it, upon which Ivan, who was

hidden behind a bush, comes out. He cuts off one ox's tail and puts it

in another ox's mouth, and then leads away the black ox. The ploughmen,

not having been able to overtake the cock, come back, and when they see

only two animals instead of three, conclude that one ox has eaten the

black ox and is beginning to eat the tail of the other, the variegated

ox. In the twenty-first story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the

boy-dwarf steals an ox from the priest and eats its tripe.[366]

From the cow the hero is born; under a putrid cow thrown into a ditch

lies Ivan Tzarevic; a bird takes the water off and Ivan Tzarevic comes

forth.[367] In another story of _Afanassieff_, the fox-heroine,

companion of the wolf, whilst the wolf is absent, eats the intestines

of the calf, their common property (which they had received from

cowherds in exchange for a certain cake contaminated by their

excrement, the usual excrement which is the beginning of riches); she

then fills the calf or cow with straw and sparrows, and departs. The

wolf returns, is astonished that the calf should have eaten so much

straw that it comes out, and draws out the straw. The birds fly away,

the calf falls, and the wolf flees away terrified.[368] With these two

myths are connected two more, that of the son of the cow and that of

the ascent into heaven by means of the cow's hide.

The king has no sons; he catches a pike, which the cook washes, giving

thereafter the dirty water to the cow to drink; the fish they give to

the black girl to carry to the queen; the black girl eats a piece of

it on the way, and the queen eats what remains. At the expiration of

nine months, the cow, the maid, and the queen, give each birth to a

son. The three sons resemble each other completely; but the son of the

cow, the hero-tempest, is the strongest of the three brothers, and

accomplishes the most difficult enterprises. In another variation of

the same story, in _Afanassieff_,[369] instead of the cow we have the

bitch giving birth to the strongest of the three brothers.[370] In the

nineteenth story of _Erlenwein_, instead of the cow and the bitch, we

have the mare; the strongest brother is here the son of the black

girl, Burghraver or the hero-tempest (Burya-Bagatír). In the third

story of _Erlenwein_, Ivan Tzarevic appears as the son of the black

girl. As in numerous other Russian stories, Ivan Tzarevic, usually the

third brother, appears not only (as) the most skilful, but the

strongest of the brothers, we are driven to recognise in the three

brothers, the son of the black girl, the son of the cow, and the

queen's son, who alternately accomplish the same heroic undertakings,

the same solar personage, whose mother, Night, is represented now as a

queen, now as a cow (we have just seen Ivan Tzarevic come out of the

putrid cow), now as a black slave (the negro washerwoman, the Saracen

woman of Italian stories [Holda]; the cleaned fish which is carried by

the black girl may perhaps be a link connecting the imagery of Russian

tradition with that of Italian legend).

In the second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the third

brother, the cunning one, by means of the hides of his cows and oxen

converted into thongs, ascends into heaven; thus, in a variation of

the same story, the third brother thinks to let himself down by the

cow's hide, cut into pieces and made into thongs, being fastened to

the confines of heaven; but he perceives on the way that the thong is

not long enough. Some peasants are threshing corn, and the chaff rises

into the air; he tries to make a rope with this chaff, but the rope

breaks and he falls to the ground. This successful ascent into heaven,

followed by an unlucky descent, is often referred to, with curious

details, in Russian popular legend; to which a play of words in the

language must have not a little contributed. It is as follows, "He who

mounts does not descend,"[371] _i.e._, when one is doing one thing he

cannot be doing the contrary. This elementary truth was afterwards

altered by changing the tenses. "He who has been able to ascend will

not be able to come down again;" which is only partly true, and means

that while in dreams we require only a thin thread to mount up high,

when we wish to come down from the world of dreams to that of reality,

the fall is heavy; we come down with leaden wings, with that

difficulty in breathing which oppresses us in dreams when we seem to

fall from a height with painful slowness. And as at the end of the

dream, after the painful fall from the sky, we awaken alive, so the

story does not say of the hero who fell from heaven that he is dead,

only that his dreams are dead. He is only unlucky when, the second

time, he attempts the descent with a greater weight.

While reasonings such as these may have helped to diffuse the myths, I

believe that the myths, at their formation, pleased more as images of

nature than of reason, and as the images of mythology are almost all

celestial, so in the third brother, or old man of other varieties of

the story, who mounts up to heaven and comes down again by means of

the cow's hide, I always recognise the sun. The old man who ascends

into heaven, after the cow is dead, does so also by means of a

vegetable of funereal omen which grows up in a marvellous manner.

An old man and an old woman have one daughter; she eats some beans and

lets one fall to the ground; a plant (the moon) grows up till it

reaches the sky. The old man mounts up and then comes back again. He

tries to take his wife up in a sack, but unable to bear the weight, he

lets her fall to the ground, when she dies.[372]

A cabbage grows up near an old man's dwelling, till in like manner it

rises up to the sky. The old man climbs up, makes a hole in the sky,

and eats and drinks to satiety. He then returns and narrates

everything to his wife. She wishes to go up too; when they are half

way, the old man lets the sack drop, the old woman dies, and her

husband prepares her funeral, calling in the fox[373] as a mourner.

Other variations of the same story offer us, instead of the cow's

hide, the cabbage, and the beanstalk, the pea-plant, and even the

oak-tree, which grows up to heaven.[374]

From the vegetable or funereal plant,--a symbol, as we have already

remarked, at once of abundance and resurrection,--by which the hero

ascends to heaven, where he finds riches and abundance of food, the

transition was very natural to the pea which turns round, of which the

hero Turn-little-Pea (the son of the king of the peas) is born.

In the second story of the third book of _Afanassieff_,[375]

Turn-little-Pea appears as the third of the brothers, as the youngest

brother, who delivers his sister and his two brothers from the

monster. But the ungrateful brothers (perhaps covetous of the maiden,

here called a sister, but, who is virtually the same, the bride

delivered and disputed for by the three brothers in numerous

Indo-European legends), tie him to an oak-tree and go home alone.

Turn-little-Pea unroots the whole oak and goes off. He afterwards

kills three more monster-serpents, and the she-serpents their wives.

In the thirtieth story of the second book of _Afanassieff_, this

enterprise against the serpents, male and female, is attributed to the

usual Ivan. He goes with his brothers against the serpent with twelve

heads, and with his iron stick alone kills nine of them, and the three

remaining ones by the help of his two brothers. Then the she-serpent and

her three daughters persecute the three brothers, and Ivan in

particular. She causes them to find a beautiful cushion upon the ground;

Ivan, who is suspicious of some trick, first beats the cushion, upon

which blood gushes out of it (in the story of _Turn-little-Pea_, the

young hero averts the danger by making the sign of the cross with his

sword, when blood comes out). The serpent then tempts them by an

apple-tree with gold and silver apples. The brothers wish to pluck some;

Ivan, however, first strikes the tree, and blood flows from it. They

then come to a beautiful fountain, where the brothers would like to

drink; Ivan strikes the fountain, and again blood comes from it. The

cushion, the apple-tree, and the fountain were the three daughters of

the serpent. Then the serpent, having failed to deceive them, rushes

upon Ivan; the latter escapes with his brothers into a forge shut by

twelve iron gates; the serpent licks the doors with her tongue to force

a passage, and her tongue is caught with red-hot pincers.

In the fourth story of _Erlenwein_, the three brothers occur again with

interesting mythical names. A woman bears three sons; one at evening,

who is on this account called Vecernik, or the evening one; the second

at midnight, whence he is named Polunocnik, or the midnight one; the

third at the aurora, who is named Svetazór, or the clearly-seeing. The

three brothers become adults in a few hours. The most valiant of the

three is Svetazór, the last one. To prove his strength, he goes to the

blacksmith and orders an iron club that weighs twelve puds (480 pounds);

he throws it into the air and catches it on the palm of his hand, the

club breaks. He orders one of twenty puds (800 pounds), throws it up,

catches it on his knee, and it breaks. Finally he orders one of thirty

puds (1200 pounds), throws it up, and catches it on his forehead; it

bends but does not break. Svetazór has it straightened and takes it

with him, as he goes with his two brothers to deliver the three

daughters of the Tzar, carried off by three magicians into the three

castles of copper, silver, and gold. Svetazór, after having drunk the

water of strength, and received from the first princess an egg of

copper, from the second one of silver, and from the third a golden one,

delivers the three princesses and brings them out. The two brothers,

seeing that the third princess is more beautiful than the others, think

that the youngest brother is reserving her for himself, and throw him

into the water. Svetazór wanders about the subterranean world, and

delivers the daughter of another Tzar by killing a monster and burying

him under a rock. A soldier boasts before the Tzar of having

accomplished this heroic act. Svetazór invites the soldier to prove his

strength, and so the truth of his boast, by lifting the rock up. He does

not succeed, and Svetazór wins the trial of strength, upon which the

soldier is executed by order of the Tzar. After this, Svetazór, for

having once spared the life of a crow, is carried by it into the world

of the living, on condition that he gives it something to eat by the

way. Svetazór has at length to feed the crow with his own flesh, yet is

in the end set down again safe and sound, with all his flesh, in the

world above, where, with the eggs of copper, silver, and gold, he causes

the castles formed of these metals to arise, in which are found the

ring, the slipper, and the robe demanded from their bridegrooms by the

three princesses, who hoped by this expedient to see again their lost

Svetazór. Then Svetazór begins to sweep out the terrace of the golden

castle. The third princess expresses her intention to take him for her

husband. The nuptials are celebrated, Svetazór pardoning his two elder

brothers and giving them the two elder sisters of his bride. (The

princess of the copper is the evening aurora, the princess of the silver

is the silvery moon, and that of the gold is the morning aurora, to whom

Svetazór, the clearly-seeing, the illumined, the sun, is married.)

In the sixth story of the first book of _Afanassieff_, the same

undertaking is accomplished by the third brother, Ivan. The monster

which carries off the three sisters is an aquatic one, an otter.

Abandoned by his brothers in the nether world, Ivan is overtaken by a

great tempest; he takes pity upon some young birds that are bathing,

and saves them under his dress, upon which the grateful mother of the

birds brings him back to the upper world. In the fifteenth story of

_Erlenwein_, the third brother is the cunning one, who, by a

stratagem, and by means of his purse, which is self-replenishing,

steals from his two brothers the snuff-box out of which issue as many

armies as are wished for, and the cloth which makes the wearer

invisible (both figures to represent the cloud from which come forth

riches, solar rays, thunderbolts, and weapons, and which hides the

hero, that is, renders him invisible). In the fifty-fourth story of

the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, Ivan of the dog, the hero sacrificed

by his brothers, is the strong one, he who delivers the three

princesses, who possesses the three rings, and gives them to the

goldsmith from whom they were ordered, and who is not able to make

them, by which means he is recognised.

Ivan Tzarevic, inasmuch as he was born of a cow, as we have also seen

above, was necessarily represented as a bull; the bull displays part

of his strength by drinking; Ivan Tzarevic drinks, at a gulp, whole

barrels of wine of marvellous strength. In this capacity he resembles

Indras, the great drinker of somas, and the drinker Bhîmas, the second

brother of the Pândavas.

The third brother is now Prince Ivan (Ivan Tzarevic, Ivan Karolievic,

Ivan Kralievic), now the stupid Ivan (Ivan durak), Ivan the little fool

(Ivan Duraciok). But, as I have already remarked, the fool generally

makes his fortune, either because the kingdom of heaven is for the poor

in spirit, or because the stupidity of Ivan is feigned, or else because

the fool becomes wise. In a story given in _Afanassieff_,[376] the fool

is also lazy, and takes the name of Emilius.

Emilius is sent with a barrel to draw water; he only goes on account

of the promise made him by his sister, that he will receive as a

reward a pair of red boots.--This desire of the boy-hero, and of the

girl-heroine, is spoken of in many popular songs, and among others, in

a Piedmontese one, as yet unpublished. In the seventeenth story of the

fifth book of _Afanassieff_,[377] the sister kills her brother, Little

John, to possess herself of his red strawberries (as in the Esthonian

tale), and his red little shoes. Upon his grave a fine cane grows; a

shepherd makes a flute of it, and the flute, pressed to the lips,

begins to emit the following lamentation:--

"Gently, gently, little shepherd, play;

Do not wound my heart!

My little sister, the traitress,

For the red little strawberries, for the red little shoes!"

When the flute is pressed to the sister's lips, instead of the word

"little shepherd," it says, "Little sister, thou hast betrayed

me,"[378] and her crime is thus discovered. These little red shoes

are simply a variation of the slippers which are lost by the fugitive

aurora, and found again by the sun, and which both wish to wear. (I

refer to this myth the origin of the nuptial custom in Europe of

maidens, towards the new year, throwing the slipper to know whether,

during the next year, they will be married, and who is to be their

husband.)[379] The slipper lost by the maiden, Little Mary (Masha, the

Marion of Piedmontese and French legends), and found by the prince,

also occurs in the Russian tales. In the thirtieth of the sixth book

of _Afanassieff_, Little Mary's elder sister begins by trying on the

slipper; but it is too small; the foot will not go in. Seeing this,

Little Mary's step-mother advises her daughter to cut off her great

toe, which would not enter; then the foot goes in, and the messengers

of the prince lead the eldest sister away; but two doves fly after

them and cry out, "Blood on her foot, blood on her foot." The deceit

is discovered, and the eldest sister sent back; the prince causes his

true and predestined bride, Little Mary, to be carried off. (This is

the usual exchange of wives, upon which I have remarked in my "Essay

on the Comparative History of Nuptial Usages," and of which the

legend of Queen Berta is one of the most popular examples. The

Russian Little Mary, like Cinderella, is at first of ugly aspect, and

then beautiful. In the Russian story, the maiden becomes beautiful by

mounting upon the stove. Sîtâ comes forth, beautiful in her innocence,

passing through the fire; the morning aurora only seems beautiful when

it passes through the flames of the Eastern sky. The stove brings us

back to the interrupted story of the foolish and lazy Emilius (or

Ivan).--On account, therefore, of the promise made to him of the red

boots, he goes to the fountain with the barrel to draw water. In the

fountain he catches a pike, who beseeches him to set him at liberty,

and promises in return to make him fortunate. Being lazy, the greatest

favour that he wishes for at this moment is that he may be helped to

carry the barrel; the grateful pike performs the miracle of the barrel

full of water which walks of its own accord. (I have already

endeavoured to explain this myth: the cloud is represented as a barrel

in the Vedic hymns; it moves on of its own accord; the barrel does the

same; the hero, as long as he is shut up in the cloud, remains

foolish; the barrel of the fool walks of itself.) Emilius is then sent

to cut wood; by favour of the grateful pike, it is enough for him to

send his hatchet, which cuts the wood of itself; the wood piles itself

upon the waggon, and the waggon, without being drawn by any one,

advances, passing or crushing whatever it meets; they endeavour to

arrest its progress, when the trunk of an oak-tree detaches itself

from the waggon, and, like a stick, beating on every side, sweeps the

road (these are all curious variations of the walking forest or

cloud). The Tzar then sends to invite him to court, and knowing his

weak penchant for things of a red colour, he promises him a red robe,

a red hat, and red boots. When the Tzar's envoys arrive, Emilius,

like his _alter ego_ Ivan Durak (Ivan the fool), is warming himself at

the stove; grudging all trouble, he obtains from the pike the favour

of being carried by the stove itself to the Tzar at court. The Tzar's

daughter falls in love with him; the Tzar shuts the young couple up in

a cask (the usual cloud-barrel, which occurs in the form of a little

chest in other stories, a variation of the wooden dress), and has them

thrown into the sea. Emilius, who was drunk in the cask, sleeps; the

princess wakens him, and beseeches him to save her; by means of the

pike, the cask comes to a beautiful island, where it breaks open;

Emilius becomes handsome, rich, and happy in a beautiful palace with

the young princess. (The aurora and the sun of evening are thrown

together into the ocean of night, until they land on the happy isle of

the east, where they reappear again together in all their splendour.)

One of the most popular stupidities of the fool is that of letting the

wine contained in the barrel flow out upon the ground, when he is left

alone at home; in the Russian story, too, Ivan the fool leaves the

beer that is fermenting in the barrel open (Indras with his lightning

makes a hole in the cloud-barrel, and the rain comes out).[380]

The fool Ivan takes his good luck from the living, but he also does so

from the dead. On account of having watched three nights by the tomb

of his father, his luck begins,[381] the shade of his father having

blessed him; but, as the dead bring good luck (a belief which, at any

rate, has always been entertained by the heirs of rich men deceased),

the third brother speculates on the body of his own mother. We do not

know whether he does so out of pure simplicity, or with some hidden

and far-seeing design, presumable from the ease with which he

exchanges the character of a fool for that of a cunning schemer (the

first Brutus of popular tradition). In the seventeenth story of

_Erlenwein_, after he has carried a treasure home, by selling his ox

to the tree, and then cutting down the tree, which contains money, he

always guards his money, and sleeps upon it. His brothers know this,

and resolve to go and kill him. But that very night, the third, the

foolish brother, leaves his mother in charge of the treasure; the

brothers come and kill his mother by mistake, instead of him. He turns

up, and threatens to give them up to justice; they bribe him with a

hundred roubles to keep silence. Then the third brother takes his

mother's body and carries it into the middle of the road, in order

that a merchant's waggon may crush it; when this happens, he accuses

the merchant of murder, until the latter gives him a hundred more

roubles to say nothing about it. He then comes to a village by night

with his mother's corpse; he places it against a peasant's door, and

knocks at the window; the peasant opens the door, the body falls, and

the peasant treads upon it, upon which the so-called stupid son cries

out that he has killed his mother, and receives another hundred

roubles, on promise of silence. Then the two elder brothers, finding

that it is possible to speculate upon corpses, and make one's fortune,

kill their wives, and go to town with their bodies; they are

immediately arrested and put into prison.

The law of atavism evolves itself in the generation of the heroes of

mythical legends, no less than in that of simple mortals upon earth.

Of a stupid father is born a wise son, and then the wise son in turn

has a foolish one. I do not as yet know how to explain this singular

fact of natural history; its appearance in mythology, however, is not

difficult to understand. To the luminous day succeeds the gloomy

night, and then again to the dark night the luminous day; to summer

succeeds winter, and to winter summer; to white black, and to black

white; to heat cold, and to cold heat.

On this account, in legends, when the mother is intelligent, the son,

generally speaking, is silly; whereas, when the mother is silly,[382]

the son is usually intelligent.

In the fifth story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, a soldier enters

the house of a woman, while her son is travelling, and induces her to

believe that he has just returned from hell, where he had seen her son

employed in taking the storks to pasture, and greatly in want of money;

the soldier says that he is about to return to hell, and will be happy

to take with him whatever the woman wishes to send to her son. The

credulous woman gives him some money, directing him to take it

immediately to hell, and give it to her poor child. The soldier

disappears, and shortly afterwards the woman's son returns home; his

mother is greatly astonished at his appearance, and tells him how she

has been deceived; he gets angry and leaves the house again, swearing

never to return till he finds some one more foolish than his mother. He

is a skilful thief; he steals from a lady, whilst her husband is absent,

a hog with its little pigs, and puts them in safe concealment; the

husband returns, hears what has taken place, and follows the thief with

a carriage and horses. The robber hears him coming; squats down on the

ground, takes off his hat, and pretends to be covering with it a bird

or a falcon, which wishes to escape. The husband comes and asks him if

he has seen the robber; the latter answers that he has seen him, but

that he is a long way off, and that the roads by which he can be

overtaken are many and winding. The husband, who, perhaps, does not know

the proverb which says, "Who wishes, let him go; who wishes not, let him

send," asks the robber to overtake the fugitive; the thief demurs,

saying that he has under his hat a falcon, which cost his master three

hundred roubles, and that it may escape. The gentleman promises to take

care of it, and if the falcon escapes, to pay the three hundred roubles.

The thief does not believe his promise, and desires the three hundred

roubles in pledge of his good faith; the gentleman gives them, and the

thief goes off with the carriage, the horses, and the three hundred

roubles. The gentleman stays till evening looking at the hat, waiting

for his friend to return; at last he loses patience, wants to see what

there is under the hat, and finds nothing--but a proof of his own

stupidity.[383]

Ivan (John), and oftener still Vaniusha (Little John, the Giovannino

of Italian legends), distinguishes himself, not only by his thieving

accomplishments, but also by his courage. In order to play the part of

a thief, as Little John does in all the Indo-Europeans legends, not

only industry, but courage must be called into requisition; hence he

acquires, like the Chevalier Bayard, the good reputation of a hero

without fear and without reproach. The hero Ivan is now the son of a

king, now of a merchant, and now of a peasant; the merchants wished,

no less than the peasants, to appropriate to themselves the most

popular hero of tradition. In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book

of _Afanassieff_, neither the shades of night, nor brigands, nor

death, can make the hero afraid; but he is terrified and dies, falling

into the water, when the little _iersh_ (the perch) leaps upon his

stomach, whilst he is asleep in his fishing-boat. In the Tuscan

story,[384] the fearless hero Giovannino, after having confronted

every kind of danger, dies from the terror the sight of his own shadow

inspires him with. In the same way, in the _Rigvedas_, the god Indras,

terrified at his own shadow, or, probably, that of his dead enemy,

takes to flight after the killing of the serpent Ahis.[385]

The following heroes are also variations of Prince Ivan, Ivan the son

of the cow, Ivan the peasant's son, Ivan the merchant's son, and the

cunning Ivan:--1st, Alessino Papovic, the son of the priest (it is

well known that the Russian priests are not bound to celibacy), who

kills Tugarin, the son of the serpent, by prayer, that is, by praying

to the Holy Mother of God, to order the black cloud to cause drops of

rain to fall on the monster's wings, upon which the son of the

serpent, like the Vedic Ahis, when Indras opens a way for the rivers

to come out, instantly falls to the ground;[386] 2d, Baldak, son of

Boris, the boy seven years old, who succeeds in spitting in the

Sultan's face--(I have already remarked, in the preface to this work,

that the king of the Turks is, in the Slavonic tradition, as well as

in that of Persia, the representative of the devil; the demon, when

the hero approaches, smells the odour of human flesh in India, of

Christian flesh in Western stories,[387] and of Russian flesh in

Russian fairy tales)--but who afterwards becomes the Sultan's

prisoner, because he appears to the third daughter of the latter with

a star under his heel, or shows his heel (which is the vulnerable part

of both hero and monster); 3d, Basil Bes-ciastnoi, who goes, by his

father-in-law's order, into the kingdom of the serpent, in order to

receive a gift from him, with adventures similar to those of the young

Plavacek in Bohemian stories, when he goes to seek the three golden

hairs of the old Vsieveda (the all-seeing, the Vedic sun

Viçvavedas);[388] 4th, The third brother who exchanges two sacks of

flies and gnats he has caught for good cattle.[389] The same hero

takes the name of Little Thomas Berennikoff; being blind of one eye,

he kills an army of flies, and boasts of having killed an army of

heroes; he thus dishonestly gains the reputation of being a hero, and

is fortunate in having an opportunity offered him of proving his

bravery by killing a monster-serpent, who, out of foolhardiness, shuts

both eyes when he sees that Thomas has but one; he afterwards destroys

an army of Chinese with the trunk of a tree, rooted up by his

indomitable horse, which a real hero had bound to the tree;[390] 5th,

The cunning rogue, Little Thomas (Thomka; the quacks in Piedmont are

accustomed to give the name of Tommasino to the little devil which

they conjure out of a phial), who, by means of disguises, cheats and

robs the priest;[391] 6th, The third brother who does not suffer

himself to be put to sleep by the witch (as we have seen above the

third sister who keeps one of her three eyes open);[392] 7th, The

famous robber, Klimka,[393] who, by means of a drum (in Indian tales a

trumpet), terrifies his accomplices, the robbers, and takes their

money, and then steals from a gentleman his horse, his casket of

jewels, and even his wife; 8th, The Cossack who delivers the maiden

from the flames, and carries her to his golden house, where there are

two other maidens (be it understood, the one in the silver house, and

the other in that of copper); from which three maidens the Cossack

receives a shirt which renders him invulnerable, a sword which

produces the most marvellous effects in slaughtering men, and a purse

which, when shaken, drops money;[394] 9th, The celebrated Ilia

Muromietz (Elias of Murom), round whom, as also around Svetazór and

Svyatogor (holy mount), Dobrynia Nikitic, and the heroes of Vladimir,

is grouped an entire heroic Russian epic poem.[395]

Other variations of the same hero are the son of the merchant given

up to be educated by the devil, who teaches him every kind of craft;

the boy Basil, who understands the language of birds, and who makes

his parents serve him;[396] the merchant or son of a peasant,[397]

who, because he prefers good advice to money, acquires a fortune; the

virtuous workman, who receives by way of pay for his labour only three

kapeika, which, spent in good works, enables him at last to marry the

king's daughter, or the princess who did not laugh.[398]

The legend of the hero Ivan has yet other interesting forms,

reflective of the beautiful Vedic myth of the Açvinâu, who into their

flying chariot-vessel also take up the unhappy. In _Afanassieff_,[399]

the third brother, thought to be foolish, is ill-treated by his

parents, who dress and feed him badly. The king issues a proclamation,

that whoever can make a flying vessel will obtain his daughter to

wife. The mother sends forth her three sons in quest of the necessary

enchantment; to her third son she gives a little brown bread and

water, whilst the two eldest go provided with good white loaves and

some brandy. The fool meets on the way a poor old man, salutes him,

and begins to share with him his scanty store of food; the old man

transmutes his brown bread into white, and his water into brandy, and

then advises him to enter the forest, to make the sign of the cross

upon the first tree he finds, and to strike it with his axe; then to

throw himself on the ground and stay there until he wakens; he will

see a vessel ready before him: "Sit down in it," added the old man,

"and fly whither your behest requires you; and by the way take up

beside you as many as you meet."[400] This chariot is freighted with

abundance, both to eat and to drink; the young man overtakes several

needy beggars, and invites them up into the chariot; he receives only

poor people, not a single rich man.[401] But these poor men afterwards

show their gratitude to the hero, and help him in other adventures

imposed upon him by the Tzar, who hopes by this means to get rid of a

son-in-law of such vulgar origin. One of the new tasks imposed

requires him to eat twelve oxen, and to drink at one gulp forty

barrels of wine; in this he is helped by Eating (Abiédalo) and by

Drinking (Apiválo), whom he had entertained in his chariot-ship, and

who eat and drink instead of him.[402] At last he comes to claim and

marry the young princess. (The hero-sun, taken up into the chariot of

the Açvinâu, by the grace of the Açvinâu, invoked by him in danger, is

delivered, and espouses the aurora.)

In a variation of this legend, a prince, fifteen years of age, who has

been lost by his parents, is found again by means of a riddle which

they propose, and which he alone can solve.[403] In the Vedic hymns it

is now the aurora, the beautiful maiden, who delivers the hero-sun,

and now the hero-sun who delivers the beautiful maiden, the aurora.

In the forty-first story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, a little

girl, seven years old (semilietká), presents herself to the Tzar, who

must marry her, inasmuch as she solves the riddle proposed by him, by

arriving riding on a hare (an animal which represents the moon), with

a quail (an animal which seems to represent the sun) tied to her

hand.[404] She too, like the aurora, knows all; she too protects the

poor against the rich, and the innocent against the guilty. The dwarf

Allwis is a form of this child. Allwis is the omniscient man of the

Edda, who solves all the questions put to him by the god Thor, in

order to obtain his daughter; when he is done with answering these

questions, day breaks, and the sun shines.

The wondrous girl of seven years of age (the aurora), brings us back

to the marvellous puppet (generally, the moon). It is three puppets

(the wooden chest of Marion d'bosch, or wooden little Mary of the

Piedmontese story, the dark forest of night, the tree that hides the

splendid treasures of the evening aurora; another variety of the same

myth in relation to the sun) that hide the three splendid dresses of

the stars, the moon and the sun, which belong to the beautiful maiden,

the daughter of the priest (a variation of the Vedic aurora, duhitar

divas, or daughter of the sky). It is the three puppets which enable

the beautiful girl to descend through the ground, and so escape from

the persecutions of her father and seducer (in other versions, of her

brother), and which go down with her, dressed as old women, and enter

a forest, where, near an oak-tree, there is the house of a princess,

who has a young and handsome son.[405] In a variation of this

story,[406] the girl is persecuted, not by her father, but the

well-known cruel stepmother, for whom she divides the wheat from the

barley, and draws water at the fountain (like the Vedic maiden Apalâ);

she goes three times splendidly dressed to church (which takes the

place of the ball-room of other stories), where she is seen three

times by a handsome prince; she is twice followed, and twice

disappears; the third time the prince has gum (pitch, in other

variations) put on the ground; the fugitive loses her golden slipper

in consequence, which the prince picks up, and tries on all the

maidens till he finds his bride. In another story,[407] where the

relation of the aurora with the two Açvinâu comes out in wonderful

distinctness,[408] it is by means of her marvellous speaking puppet

(_i.e._, the moon, the Vedic Rakâ, very small, but very intelligent,

enclosed in the wooden dress, in the forest of night) that the girl,

persecuted by her step-mother, weaves a cloth so fine that it can pass

like a thread through the eye of a needle (just as the girl's feet are

very small, so also are the puppet's hands). The marvellous cloth is

brought to the Tzar, but no one is found who is able to sew it into a

shirt for the Tzar.[409] The maiden alone, by the help of her puppet,

succeeds; the Tzar wishes to see the girl who prepared his

extraordinary shirt, and goes to find her; he is astonished at her

beauty, and marries her. In the _Rigvedas_, the aurora weaves a robe

for her husband the sun.

The same girl (the aurora) whom we have here only as a good,

beautiful, intelligent, and skilful maiden, appears in other stories

given in _Afanassieff_ as a heroic damsel. In the seventh story of the

first book she disguises herself as a man, and mocks the Tzar three

times. In the fourteenth story of the first book, the same girl, under

the name of Anastasia the beautiful, vanquishes and binds the serpent,

and discovers the secret of how he can be killed. Under the name of

Helen, or Little Helen, she is the protectress of her little brother,

Ivanusca (Little John),[410] and his guide through the world; and when

the boy, by the incantation of a witch, is transformed into a lamb or

kid (in a story of the Canavese, in Piedmont, the seven monks,

brothers of the courageous girl, are transformed into seven hogs), she

recommends him to the care of the prince, her husband, in order that

he may destroy the evil work of the witch. The same maiden is found

again as the very wise Basilia (Vasilisa Premudraia), who succours the

young hero, because, after stealing her dress while she was bathing in

the sea, he restores it to her, agreeably to her prayer. For this

favour she gratefully accomplishes for him the labours imposed upon

him by the king of the waters, and ends, after many vicissitudes, by

marrying him.[411] She appears once more as the royal maiden

(Tzar-dievitza), who comes three times with her ships by sea to lead

away the young Ivan, beloved by her;[412] and I also place among the

girl-heroines the daughter of the shepherd in the twenty-ninth story

of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, of which this is an abridgment.

There was once a king who could not find a maiden beautiful enough to

suit his taste. One day, returning from the chase (the solar hero

always meets the aurora, his bride, when returning from the hunt in

the forest of night), he meets a shepherd's daughter, who is leading

out the flock to pasture, so beautiful that her like would be sought

for in vain over the world. He becomes enamoured of her, and promises

to make her his wife, but only on condition that she will never say

anything displeasing to him, whatever he may do; the poor enamoured

maiden consents, the nuptials are celebrated, and the couple live

together happily for a year. A boy is born to them; then the king says

roughly to his wife that the boy must be killed, that it may never be

said the heir to the throne is the son of a shepherdess. The poor

woman resigns herself to her fate, remarking, "The will of the king

must be done." Another year passes, and a daughter is born. The king

informs his wife that she too must be killed, as she can never become

a princess, but will always remain a peasant girl. The unhappy mother

once more bows her head to the will of the king, who, however,

consigns his son and daughter, not to an executioner, but to his

sister, that they may receive all the attentions due to their royal

pedigree and standing. Years pass away; the little prince and princess

grow up beautiful, healthy, good, and happy, and pass adolescence.

Then the king puts his wife to the last proof. He sends her back to

her house in the dress of a shepherdess, signifying at the same time

that she has lived with him long enough. Then he orders her to return,

to put the rooms in order, and to wait upon the new bride whom he

intends to take her place; the shepherd's daughter obeys again without

a murmur. The new bride arrives, and is set down at the table; they

eat, drink, and are merry; the shepherd's daughter is obliged to see

and hear all, and to serve in silence; at last the king asks her,

"Well, is not my bride beautiful?" To which the unhappy woman

responds with a heroic effort, "If she seem beautiful to thee, still

more does she seem so to me." Then the king, at the summit of his

felicity, exclaims, "Dress thyself again in thy royal robes, and place

thyself by my side; thou hast been, and shalt always be, my wife, my

only wife; this, my supposed bride, is thy daughter, and this handsome

youth is thy son." The poor heroine had undergone the last proof of

her virtue, and triumphed.

But the virtue of the legendary heroine is not always so sound. Often

the good wife, sister, maiden, or woman is corrupted by contact with the

wicked. We have already seen how the beautiful aurora, the pitying and

beneficent maiden, becomes, in the Vedic hymns themselves, the

evil-doer, whom the god Indras overthrows and destroys. The Hellenic

Amazons, the beautiful and proud warrior-women, were also pursued,

fought with, and vanquished by the Hellenic heroes. Thus the

Scandinavian warrior, Walkiries, has a double aspect, a good and a bad.

The Russian stories also supply numerous instances of the ease with

which the good degenerates into the demon, the hero into the monster,

and the beautiful heroine into the powerful and mischief-working witch.

This good sister Helen or Little Helen, so careful a guardian of her

brother John, ends, when she conceives a passion for the monster, with

becoming his perfidious persecutor. (The evening aurora is represented

as a friend of the monster of night, who conspires with him against

her brother the sun; and whoever observes the sinister aspect often

assumed by the reddish sky of evening, will find this fiction a very

natural one. I have said above that a Piedmontese proverb predicts bad

weather for the morrow from a red evening; but in Piedmont the belief

is also widely diffused that the red of evening signifies blood, and

that this bloody redness signifies war. It certainly does mean war,

but a mythical war--the war in which the hero, fighting against the

monster, succumbs and sheds blood. It is a woman that is the hero's

destruction. A counter-type of the biblical Delilah is found in all

the popular Indo-European traditions; the Vedic aurora, the sister of

Râvanas in the _Râmâyanam_, the sister of Hidimbas in the

_Mahâbhâratam_, the Hellenic Dejanira, Ariadne, Medea, the Amazons,

Helen, the Slavonic Helen, and Anna the Sabine woman, the Scandinavian

Walkiries, Freya, Idun, Brünhilt, Gudrun, the Germanic Krîmhilt, are

all forms of one and the same heroine, conceived now in the light of a

saint, and now in that of a witch.

In the Russian story,[413] after the bull has saved from the bear the

fugitive brother and sister, Ivan Tzarevic and Helen the exceedingly

beautiful (Prekraçna), they enter a brigand's house. Their bull,

having become a dwarf, kills all the brigands, and shuts their bodies

up in a room, which he forbids Helen to enter; the latter, not

attending to the prohibition, enters, and seeing the head of the

brigand chief, falls in love with him, resuscitates him by means of

the water of life, and then conspires with him to destroy her brother

Ivan, by requiring him to accomplish enterprises in which death seemed

inevitable, or else by ordering him to bring her, first, the milk of a

wolf, then that of a she-bear, and then that of a lioness. Ivan, by

the help of his dwarf (or the sun grown small during the night, and

perhaps also the moon), accomplishes all these undertakings. We have

already seen how white comes from black; the milk of the wolf, the

bear, and the lioness is the _alba luna_, or the white morning sky

brought back by the solar hero. Ivan is then sent to fetch the eggs of

the burning bird (Szar-ptitza). Ivan goes with his dwarf (that is to

say, the moon, or he makes himself a dwarf, in other words, renders

himself invisible); the bird is enraged, and swallows the dwarf

(_i.e._, the red sky of evening, the burning bird, or phoenix, absorbs

the moon or the sun in its flames.[414]) Ivan goes back to his sister

without the eggs, upon which she threatens to burn him in the bath.

Ivan, with the help of the wolf's, the bear's, and the lion's whelps,

or Ivan, with the young wolf, bear, or lion (the moon), or Ivan the

son of the wolf, Ivan the son of the bear, Ivan the son of the lion

(Ivan born of the she-wolf Night, the she-bear Night, or the lioness

Night), tears the brigand to pieces, and binds his sister (as the

Vedic cow) to a tree (the aurora almost always loses herself in a tree

or the water). Then Ivan wishes to marry a heroine. [Two myths are

here united in the story, originating in one and the same phenomenon,

which seems twofold, because observed at different, almost literally

succeeding, instants. The morning sun comes and puts to flight his

sister the aurora, driving her back into the forest of night, and

binding her to the tree; the morning sun passes safe and sound through

the flames (like Sîfrit in the _Nibelungen_), vanquishes and subdues

the aurora, makes her his, and espouses her.] He fights with her

first, and succeeds in throwing her with his lance from her horse, and

subduing her. The first night--that is, when evening comes, she

embraces and presses him so tightly, and with such strength, that he

cannot succeed in extricating himself (the evening aurora envelops and

surrounds the sun; it is the famous nuptial belt, the belt of

strength of the god Thor, the shirt of Nessus). At last, however,

towards morning, Ivan vanquishes, subdues, and throws down (like

Sîfrit in the _Nibelungen_) the girl-heroine (the morning sun, as

Indras, throws down the aurora). He then thinks of liberating his

sister Helen, who is bound to the tree, in order to take her with him;

but she, under the pretext of combing his hair, thrusts a dead man's

tooth into his head. Ivan is about to die. Here the primary myth of

the sun and aurora, as brother and sister, reappears, and the

secondary one of the husband and wife is forgotten. The lion's whelp

comes forward and extracts the tooth; the lion is on the point of

dying, when the young bear runs up and extracts it again. He is also

about to die; the fox then comes up, who assumes towards the end of

the story the part played in the middle by the young wolf (in the same

way as in Indian tales the jackal is substituted for the fox), and,

with more cunning, throws the dead man's tooth into the fire, and thus

saves himself--_i.e._, the solar hero, passing through the flames,

comes out of the shadows which enveloped him during the night. Helen

is attached to the tail of a horse (of Ivan's solar horse itself), and

is thus made to perish (when the sun comes forth in the morning the

aurora loses herself behind him).

The same story of Ivan's perfidious sister, of which the mythical

sense appears to me more than usually evident, occurs again in other

forms in Russian tales.

Whilst Ivan is travelling with his sister towards the kingdom where

all the people die[415] (that is, towards the night), a fairy gives

him a towel, by shaking which a bridge may be thrown across a

river--(is this bridge the milky way, the bridge or road to be taken

by the souls in the Persian and Porphyrian belief, as well as in the

German?)--but advises him never to let his sister see him shake it.

Ivan arrives with his sister in the kingdom of the dead; they come

upon a river on the further bank of which there is a serpent, who has

the power of transforming himself into a handsome youth; Ivan's sister

becomes enamoured of him, and he induces her to steal the towel from

her brother and shake it. The sister, under the pretext of washing the

dirty linen, takes off the fairy's towel and shakes it; a bridge

rises, upon which the serpent crosses the river, and then conspires

with the girl with intent to work Ivan's ruin. They demand the usual

milk, which Ivan brings; then the flour which is shut up within twelve

doors. Ivan goes thither with his beasts of prey, takes the flour and

brings it away, but his beasts remain shut up inside; then his

strength diminishes, and the serpent, boasting that he fears him no

longer, prepares to devour him. Ivan, by the advice of a crow, prays

for time, and procrastinates till his beasts of prey, gnawing the

twelve doors through, come to his help, and tear the serpent in

pieces. The serpent's bones are burned in the fire, its ashes are

dispersed to the four winds, and the sister is bound to a stone pillar

(to the rock or mountain upon which the aurora arises, fading away

afterwards when the sun appears). Ivan places near her some hay and a

vessel full of water, that she may have whereof to eat and drink, and

another empty vessel, which she is to fill with her tears: when she

has eaten the hay, drunk the water, and filled the vessel with her

tears, it will be a sign that God has forgiven her; when Ivan too will

forgive her. Meanwhile, Ivan goes into a kingdom where there is

nothing but mourning, because a twelve-headed serpent is massacring

all the people (the usual nocturnal sky, where it is now the hero-sun,

now the heroine aurora that sacrifices itself), and the king's

daughter is the next victim. Ivan, by the help of his hunting animals,

cuts the serpent to pieces, and then goes to sleep on the knees of the

king's daughter. While he sleeps, a water-carrier passes towards

morning, cuts off his head, and presents himself to the king as the

deliverer of the princess, whom he demands for his wife. The beasts of

prey come up, descry the crow upon Ivan's corpse, and prepare to eat

it, when the crow begs for its life; they consent, and in return

require it to search for the water of life and death, by means of

which Ivan is resuscitated; the water-carrier's deceit is found out,

and Ivan marries the princess whom he had delivered from the monster.

Then he goes to look for his sister, and finds she has eaten the hay,

drunk the water, and filled half the vessel with tears; upon this he

pardons her, and takes her away with him.

In another story,[416] instead of the perfidious sister, we have the

perfidious mother (probably step-mother), who, to please her demon

lover, feigns illness, and demands from Ivan the heart, first of the

three-headed, then of the six-headed, and finally of the twelve-headed

monster. Ivan accomplishes these undertakings. He is then sent to a hot

bath, to weaken his strength. Ivan goes, and his head is cut off by the

monster. But Ivan's two sons resuscitate him by rubbing a root upon his

body; the demon lover of Ivan's mother dies as soon as the hero revives

again. In the two sons of Ivan we recognise again the myth of the

Açvinâu, the celestial physicians who resuscitate the solar hero.

In another story, Ivan Karolievic (king's son) is threatened with

death by his own wife,[417] who, feigning illness, demands the usual

milk of a she-wolf, a she-bear, and a lioness, and then the enchanted

powder (powder of gold or flour), which is under the devils mill,

barred behind twelve doors. Ivan comes out, but his beasts remain

inside. He returns and finds his wife with the serpent, the son of the

serpent; he chaunts the song of death--he sings it three times;[418]

on hearing which the serpent is thrown down, and the beasts, regaining

strength to deliver themselves, come out and tear the serpent, and

with him the perfidious wife is put to death.

Ivan's perfidious wife occurs again in the thirty-fifth story of the

fifth book of _Afanassieff_, under the name of Anna the very beautiful

(Prekraçnaia). She has married Ivan Tzarevic against her will, because

she could not solve a riddle which he proposed to her; she does not love

him, and endeavours to destroy him by requiring an extraordinary proof

of his valour,[419] in which, by the help of his tutor, Katoma, Ivan is

victorious, so that Anna falls into his hands. But, understanding that

Ivan's strength is not in himself, but his tutor, she induces Ivan to

send him away, after depriving him of his feet. Anna then sends Ivan to

take the cows to pasture. The lame Katoma finds in the forest a blind

man, also made so by Anna;[420] they become friends and consociate

together, and carry off a beautiful maiden to be their sister; but a

witch comes and makes the maiden comb her hair, whilst she sucks her

breast (we must remember that in the Indian story the girl has three

breasts, or is defective in her breast, in the same way as the witch

makes the Russian girl so by sucking her breast). The poor girl grows

thin and ugly, until the old witch is surprised in her evil doings by

the two heroes, fallen upon by them like a mountain of stone, and

pressed so tightly that she cries for mercy. Then they demand to be

shown where the fountain of life and healing can be found. The old woman

conducts them into a dense forest, and shows them a fountain. They first

throw a dry twig in, which immediately takes fire; they threaten to kill

the old witch, and force her to lead them to another fountain, into

which they throw another dry twig; it becomes green again. Then one rubs

his eyes, and the other his feet, with the water, and both become

healthy and strong again. They throw the witch into the fountain of

fire. Katoma, in a shepherd's dress, goes to deliver the hero Ivan from

the demon cow, which lifts up its tail and gives him back his strength

and splendour. This is again the Vedic myth of the Açvinâu united to the

aurora, who cure the blind and the lame, _i.e._, themselves, and save

the multiform solar hero.

Finally, such as we have found the blind girl in the Vedic hymns, so

we meet her again in Russian tradition.[421] A servant-maid takes out

the eyes of the maiden her mistress, after having put her to sleep by

means of a herb, and marries the king in her stead. The girl awakens,

hears but does not see; an old shepherd receives her into his house;

during the night she, although blind, sews a crown for the Tzar and

sends the old man to court to sell it for an eye (this is a variation

of Queen Berta in the forest). The servant-maid, now become queen,

tempted by the beauty of this crown, takes one of the girls eyes out

of her pocket and gives it to the old man. The maiden arises at the

aurora, washes her eye in her own saliva (_i.e._, the dew. In Tuscany,

the peasants believe that whoever washes his face in the dew before

the sun rises on St John's Day, will have no illness all the year

following), puts it in the socket and sees. She then sews another

crown, and, in the same manner, recovers her other eye at the next

aurora. Then the servant-queen learns that she is alive, and makes

hired murderers cut her to pieces. Where the maiden is buried, a

garden arises and a boy shows himself. The boy goes to the palace and

runs after the queen, making such a din that she is obliged, in order

to silence him, to give him the girl's heart, which she had kept

hidden. The boy then runs off contented; the king follows him, and

finds himself before the resuscitated maiden. He marries her, and the

servant-girl is blinded, and then torn to pieces by being fastened to

the tails of horses. Like the German Geneviève and the Hindoo

Çakuntalâ, the Russian wife is recognised by her husband by means of a

boy. This is the young sun, who enables the old one to be born again,

to arise again and be young once more; this is the son who, in the

Hindoo legend, gives his father his eyesight back, and by doing so,

naturally imparts to him the means of recognising his wife, whom he

had forgotten, or rejected, or lost, according to the various forms

assumed by the celestial myth of the separation of husband and wife.

I might now carry on this comparison by entering the mythical field of

the more Western Slavonic nations;[422] but it is not my intention to

convert this modest volume into an entire library of legends; neither is

it necessary for my purpose, as by so doing I should not add much more

evidence to that which I have thus far attempted to collect, in order to

prove how zoological mythology is the same in existing Slavonic

tradition as it was in Hindoo antiquity. I have, moreover, gone rather

minutely into the contents of Russian tradition in particular, because,

on account of our ignorance of the language, which is beautiful and

worthy of study, it is little known, and because it is of especial

importance in our present inquiry. I believe, if I do not deceive

myself, that I have, up to this point, given an account of all the more

essential legends developed in the Eastern Aryan world relating to the

myth of the cow and the bull; and now, in moving towards the West, I

think I may venture to proceed with greater expedition, because we shall

find ourselves in a region already familiar to us. It seemed to me that

it was especially necessary, for a just comparison, to determine and fix

the character of Oriental tradition, in order that it may be easy for

the student to classify the interminable stories and traditions which

have already been collected in Western Europe, and which are published

in languages which are, certainly, different from each other, but all,

comparatively speaking, readily accessible. If I have succeeded in

imparting to the reader an understanding of the more authentic sources

of legendary traditions and their most probable meanings, I shall go on

with more courage and a greater confidence to the investigations that

follow.

FOOTNOTES:

[348] These last have already been translated into English, and

illustrated, by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A. The _Narodnija Skaski_

sabrannija selskimi uciteliami, isdanie A. A. Erlenwein (Moskva 1863),

and the more voluminous N. Aphanasieva, _Narodnija ruskija skaski_,

Isd. 2 (Moskva 1860, 1861), have not thus far been translated into

other European languages. I have therefore thought fit to make copious

quotations from them as well for the use of Western readers, as on

account of the real importance of their mythical contents, whilst

awaiting the publication of the competent work which Mr Ralston is

expressly preparing upon Russian songs.

[349] iii. 8805, and following.

[350] _Afanassieff_, ii. 29.

[351] iv. 45.

[352] This subject is already given in _Æsop's Fables_, in the

twenty-first fable (ed. Del Furia, Florence, 1809): the man prays to a

wooden idol (xülinon theon) that it may make him rich; the statue does

not answer; he breaks it to pieces, and gold comes out of it.

[353] Seventeenth story.

[354] Cfr. also in _Afanassieff_, the story, v. 19.

[355] Cfr. also, for the variations, the twenty-second of _Erlenwein_,

and iii. 24, of _Afanassieff_.

[356] Story 54.

[357] Cfr. the first story of my collection of the _Novelline di Santo

Stefano di Calcinaia_, Torino, A. F. Negro, 1869. I am also acquainted

with a Piedmontese variation, differing but little from this Tuscan

story.

[358] In the story, ii. 27, of the collection of _Afanassieff_, the

beautiful princess, near the sea, combs the youngest son of the Tzar,

who goes to sleep.

[359] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat.

[360] v. 37.

[361] v. 50.

[362] v. 9.

[363] In Lafontaine, _Fables_, vii. 1, the animal sacrificed is the ass.

[364] _Afanassieff_, iv. 20-22.--In a Lithuanian song, which describes

the nuptials of animals, the bull appears as a woodcutter or

woodman.--Cfr. Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und

Sage_, iii. 75.

[365] _Afanassieff_, v. 6.

[366] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Wolf.

[367] _Afanassieff_, v. 41.

[368] _Afanassieff_, iv. 1.--In another variation of the same myth,

which we have already referred to in the Vedic hymns, the birds come,

on the contrary, out of a horse.

[369] v. 54.

[370] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 54, and the chapters on the Fish and the

Eel.

[371] I read in the travels of Olearius in Persia during the year

1638, French translation: "Les Persans disent que la montagne de

Kilissim a une telle propriété que tous ceux qui y montent n'en

descendent point; que le schach Abas obligea un jour un de ses

chasseurs, en lui promettant une grosse somme d'argent, à monter sur

cette montagne, et qu'il y monta effectivement, l'ayant fait connoître

par le feu qu'il alluma; mais qu'il n'en descendit point, et que l'on

ne sçait point ce qu'il devint avec son chien, qu'il menait avec lui."

[372] _Afanassieff_, iv. 9.--In the well-known English story of _Jack

and the Bean-stalk_, it is the giant who is killed by the fall from

heaven, when Jack cuts the bean-stalk close to the ground.

[373] _Afanassieff_, iv. 7.--Cfr. the chapter on the Fox.

[374] _Afanassieff_, v. 12, and vi. 2.--Cfr. the chapters on the Goat,

the Fox, the Wolf, and the Duck, where other episodes of this legend

are found again.--In the twelfth story of the fifth book of

_Afanassieff_, the old man goes up to heaven to call God to account

for the peas that He has taken from the top of the pea-plant; God

gives him in exchange stockings of gold and garters of silver.

[375] Cfr. also v. 24.

[376] v. 55.--Cfr. also vi. 22.--Cfr. the _Contes et Proverbes

Populaires recueillis en Armagnac_, par Bladé (Paris, 1867), where the

foolish and lazy one occurs again under the name of Joan Lou Pigre.

[377] Cfr. also the two variations in _Afanassieff_, vi. 25.

[378]

Po malu, malu, sestritze, grai

Nie vraszi ti mavó serdienká vkrai!

Ti-sz mini szradila

Sza krasni yagodki, sza corvonni cobotki!

Also cfr. the chapter on the Peacock.

[379] In the Festival of the Epiphany, which is also a festival of the

husband and wife, the good fairy is accustomed to bring to the child,

husband, and wife, a boot or a stocking full of presents. This nuptial

boot occurs again in the English custom of throwing a slipper after a

newly-married couple. Another meaning was also given to the slippers

which are thrown away in the popular belief. Instead of being the

heroine's shoes which, having been abandoned, serve to attract and

guide the predestined husband, they are also considered as the old

shoes which the devil leaves behind him when he flees (his tail, which

betrays itself). The Germanic wild huntress Gueroryssa, another form

of the Frau Holle--the phantom of winter expelled at Epiphany--is

represented with a serpent's tail. Hence in the German carnival the

use of the _Schuh-teufel laufen_, or running in the devil's slippers.

[380] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 4, and the chapter on the Stork.

[381] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, ii. 25, ii. 28, iv. 47, v. 37.

[382] The _mère sotte_ has become proverbial in France, where, in the

sixteenth century, Pierre Gringore wrote a satirical comedy with the

title of _Le Jeu de Mère Sotte_, in which the Mère Sotte is the

Catholic Church.

[383] A similar story, which, on account of its indecent details, I

was not able to publish in my collection of the _Novelline di Santo

Stefano di Calcinaia_, is narrated upon the hills of Signa, near

Florence. It is also told, with some variations, in Piedmont.--Cfr. a

Russian variety of the same story in the chapter on the Hen.

[384] _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, 22.

[385] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes.

[386] _Afanassieff_, vi. 59.--But in the tale v. 11, he knows how to

fight well.

[387] In England the monster smells the blood of an Englishman, as in

the familiar lines in _Jack the Giant-Killer_--

"Fe fo fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman;

Be he alive or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

[388] Cfr. Teza, _The Three Golden Hairs of the Grandfather Know-all_, a

Bohemian tale (_I tre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto_, Bologna, 1866).

[389] _Afanassieff_, ii. 7.

[390] v. 11.

[391] _Afanassieff_, v. 7, 8.

[392] iv. 46.

[393] v. 6; _Erlenwein_, 7.

[394] _Erlenwein_, 5.--In the first story of _Erlenwein_, the

last-born, Vaniusha (Little John), takes from disputing peasants, by a

stratagem, first a marvellous arrow, then a hat which makes the wearer

invisible, and, finally, a mantle which flies of itself. He promises

to divide them equitably, and for this service makes them pay him

beforehand, each of the three times, a hundred roubles; he then throws

the objects far away and says, that he who is able to find them will

have them; all search, but he alone finds them. (Thus Argunas, in the

_Mahâbhâratam_, hides his wonderful arms in the trunk of a tree, in

which he alone can find them.)

[395] Cfr. Schiefner, _Zur Russischen Heldensage_, Petersburg, 1861.

This is how the hero Svyatogor is described in a Russian popular epic

song cited by Ralston (_The Songs of the Russian people_): "There

comes a hero taller than the standing woods, whose head reaches to the

fleeting clouds, bearing on his shoulders a crystal coffer."

[396] _Afanassieff_, vi. 41.

[397] v. 31, and _Erlenwein_, 16.

[398] v. 32.

[399] vi. 27.

[400] Çadis v nievó, i leti kuda nadobno; da po daroghie zabirái k

sebié vsiákavo vstriecnavo.

[401] Na karablié niet ni adnavó pána, a vsió córnie ludi.

[402] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 23.--Ice, in the form of an old man,

comes to try the boiling bath into which the king of the sea wishes to

throw the young hero; when Ice has tried the bath, the youth enters it

without suffering any harm.--The trial of drinking occurs again in a

grandiose form in the combat between Loki and Thor to empty the cup in

the Edda of Snorri, a different form of the Hindoo legend of Agastyas,

who dries up the sea.--Odin, too, as Indras and as Bhîmas, at three

gulps dries up three lakes of mead.

[403] _Afanassieff_, v. 42.

[404] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare and the Quail.

[405] _Afanassieff_, vi. 28, and ii. 31.

[406] _Afanassieff_, vi. 20.--Cfr. i. 3, and ii. 31, where we have the

same particular of the prince who strikes three times the disguised

girl who serves him, as in the Tuscan story of the Wooden Top (the

puppet), the third in my collection of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano

di Calcinaia_.

[407] iv. 44.

[408] Cfr. next chapter.

[409] Cfr. the chapter on the Spider.

[410] _Afanassieff_, ii. 29, and iv. 45.

[411] v. 23.

[412] v. 42.

[413] _Afanassieff_, v. 27.

[414] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Eagle, the Vulture, and the

Falcon.

[415] _Afanassieff_, vi. 52.

[416] _Afanassieff_, vi. 63.

[417] vi. 51.

[418] In the story, vi. 52, Ivan, by playing in a marvellous manner on

a flute, is recognised by the princess whom he had delivered from the

monster.

[419] Cf. next chapter.

[420] We find the blind-lame man again in an epigram by Ausonius of

Bordeaux, a writer of the fourth century:--

"Insidens cæco graditur pede claudus utroque,

Quo caret alteruter, sumit ab alterutro.

Cæcus namque pedes claudo gressumque ministrat,

At claudus cæco lumina, pro pedibus."

[421] _Afanassieff_, v. 39.

[422] The student who wishes to extend his researches in Slavonic

tradition may consult with profit, among others, the following

works:--Schwenck, _Mythologie der Slaven_; Hanusch, _Slavische

Mythologie_; Woycicki, _Polnische Märchen_; Schleicher, _Littauische

Märchen_; Wenzig, _Westslavischer Märchenschatz_; Kapper, _Die Gesänge

der Serben_; Chodzko, _Contes des Paysans et des Pâtres Slaves_; Teza,

_Itre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto_, a Bohemian story; Miçkievic,

_Canti Popolari Illirici_.