"legends" was given in the "Fortnightly Review" for April 1, 1868. FOOTNOTES: [1] So our word "book," the German Buch, is derived from the Buche or beech tree, of which the old Runic staves were formed. Cf. liber and bbbbbb. [2] "Russische Volksmarchen in den Urschriften gesammelt und ins Deutsche ubersetzt von A. Dietrich." Leipzig, 1831. [3] "Russian Popular Tales," Chapman and Hall, London, 1857. [4] "Die altesten Volksmarchen der Russen. Von J. N. Vogl." Wien, 1841. [5] Such as the "Orient und Occident," "Ausland," &c. [6] Professor Reinhold Kohler, who is said to be preparing a work on the Skazkas, in co-operation with Professor Julg, the well- known editor and translator of the "Siddhi Kur" and "Ardshi Bordschi Khan." [7] In my copy, pt. 1 and 2 are of the 3d, and pt. 3 and 4 are of the 2d edition. By such a note as "Afanasief, i. No. 2," I mean to refer to the second story of the first part of this work. [8] This book is now out of print, and copies fetch a very high price. I refer to it in my notes as "Afanasief, Legendui." [9] This work is always referred to in my notes as "Afanasief, P.V.S." [10] There is one other recent collection of skazkas--that published last year at Geneva under the title of "Russkiya Zavyetnuiya Skazki." But upon its contents I have not found it necessary to draw. [Pg 11] CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. introductory. page. The Folk-tale in general, and the Skazka in particular--Relation of Russian Popular Tales to Russian Life--Stories about Courtship, Death, Burial and Wailings for the Dead--Warnings against Drink, Jokes about Women, Tales of Simpletons--A rhymed Skazka and a Legend 15 CHAPTER II. mythological. Principal Incarnations of Evil. On the "Mythical Skazkas"--Male embodiments of Evil: 1. The Snake as the Stealer of Daylight; 2. Norka the Beast, Lord of the Lower World; 3. Koshchei the Deathless, The Stealer of Fair Princesses--his connexion with Punchkin and "the Giant who had no Heart in his Body"--Excursus on Bluebeard's Chamber; 4. The Water King or Subaqueous Demon--Female Embodiments of Evil: 1. The Baba Yaga or Hag, and 2. The Witch, feminine counterparts of the Snake 75 CHAPTER III. mythological. Miscellaneous Impersonations. One-eyed Likho, a story of the Polyphemus Cycle--Woe, the Poor Man's Companion--Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday personified as Female Spirits--The Leshy or Wood-Demon--Legends about Rivers--Frost as a Wooer of Maidens--The Whirlwind personified as a species of Snake or Demon--Morfei and Oh, two supernatural beings 186 CHAPTER IV. [Pg 12] magic and witchcraft. 3 The Waters of Life and Death, and of Strength and Weakness--Aid given to Children by Dead Parents--Magic Horses, Fish, &c.-- Stories about Brides won by a Leap, &c.--Stories about Wizards and Witches--The Headless Princess--Midnight Watchings over Corpses--The Fire Bird, its connexion with the Golden Bird and the Phoenix 237 CHAPTER V. ghost stories. Slavonic Ideas about the Dead--On Heaven and Hell--On the Jack and the Beanstalk Story--Harmless Ghosts--The Rip van Winkle Story--the attachment of Ghosts to their Shrouds and Coffin-Lids--Murderous Ghosts--Stories about Vampires--on the name Vampire, and the belief in Vampirism 295 CHAPTER VI. legends. 1. Saints, &c. Legends connected with the Dog, the Izba, the Creation of Man, the Rye, the Snake, Ox, Sole, &c.; with Birds, the Peewit, Sparrow, Swallow, &c.--Legends about SS. Nicholas, Andrew, George, Kasian, &c. 329 2. Demons, &c. Part played by Demons in the Skazkas--On "Hasty Words," and Parental Curses; their power to subject persons to demoniacal possession--The dulness of Demons; Stories about Tricks played upon them--Their Gratitude to those who treat them with Kindness and their General Behavior--Various Legends about Devils--Moral Tale of the Gossip's Bedstead 361 [Pg 13] STORY-LIST. page. I. The Fiend 24 II. The Dead Mother 32 III. The Dead Witch 34 IV. The Treasure 36 V. The Cross-Surety 40 VI. The Awful Drunkard 46 VII. The Bad Wife 52 VIII. The Golovikha 55 IX. The Three Copecks 56 X. The Miser60 XI. The Fool and the Birch-Tree 62 XII. The Mizgir 68 XIII. The Smith and the Demon 70 XIV. Ivan Popyalof 79 XV. The Norka 86 XVI. Marya Morevna 97 XVII. Koshchei the Deathless 111 XVIII. The Water Snake 126 XIX. The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise 130 XX. The Baba Yaga 148 XXI. Vasilissa the Fair 158 XXII. The Witch 171 XXIII. The Witch and the Sun's Sister 178 [Pg 14]XXIV. One-Eyed Likho 186 XXV. Woe 193 XXVI. Friday 207 XXVII. Wednesday 208 XXVIII. The Leshy 213 XXIX. Vazuza and Volga 215 XXX. Sozh and Dnieper 216 XXXI. The Metamorphosis of the Dnieper, the Volga, and the Dvina 217 XXXII. Frost 221 XXXIII. The Blind Man and the Cripple 246 XXXIV. Princess Helena the Fair 262 XXXV. Emilian the Fool 269 XXXVI. The Witch Girl 274 4 XXXVII. The Headless Princess 276 XXXVIII. The Soldier's Midnight Watch 279 XXXIX. The Warlock 292 XL. The Fox-Physician 296 XLI. The Fiddler in Hell 303 XLII. The Ride on the Gravestone 308 XLIII. The Two Friends 309 XLIV. The Shroud 311 XLV. The Coffin-Lid 314 XLVI. The Two Corpses 316 XLVII. The Dog and the Corpse 317 XLVIII. The Soldier and the Vampire 318
XLIX.
Elijah the Prophet and Nicholas
344
L.
The Priest with the Greedy Eyes
355
LI.
The Hasty Word 370
[Pg 15]
RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
There are but few among those inhabitants of Fairy-land of whom "Popular Tales" tell, who are better known to the outer world than Cinderella--the despised and flouted younger sister, who long sits unnoticed beside the hearth, then furtively visits the glittering halls of the great and gay, and at last is transferred from her obscure nook to the place of honor justly due to her tardily acknowledged merits. Somewhat like the fortunes of Cinderella have been those of the popular tale itself. Long did it dwell beside the
hearths of the common people, utterly ignored by their superiors in social rank. Then came a period during which the cultured world recognized its existence, but accorded to it no higher rank than that allotted to "nursery stories" and "old wives' tales"--except, indeed, on those rare occasions when the charity of a condescending scholar had invested it with such a garb as was supposed to enable it to make a respectable appearance in polite society. At length there arrived the season of its final change, when, transferred from the dusk of the peasant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the unbecoming garments by which it had been [Pg 16] disfigured, it was recognized as the scion of a family so truly royal that some of its members deduce their origin from the olden gods themselves.
In our days the folk-tale, instead of being left to the careless guardianship of youth and ignorance, is sedulously tended and held in high honor by the ripest of scholars. Their views with regard to its origin may differ widely. But whether it be considered in one of its phases as a distorted "nature-myth," or in another as a demoralized apologue or parable--whether it be regarded at one time as
a relic of primeval wisdom, or at another as a blurred transcript of a page of mediaeval history--its critics agree in declaring it to be no mere creation of the popular fancy, no chance expression of the uncultured thought of the rude tiller of this or that soil. Rather
is it believed of most folk-tales that they, in their original forms, were framed centuries upon centuries ago; while of some of them it is supposed that they may be traced back through successive ages to those myths in which, during a prehistoric period, the oldest of philosophers expressed their ideas relative to the material or the spiritual world.
But it is not every popular tale which can boast of so noble a lineage, and one of the great difficulties which beset the mythologist who attempts to discover the original meaning of folk-tales in general is to decide which of them are really antique, and worthy, therefore, of being submitted to critical analysis. Nor is it less difficult, when dealing with the stories of any one country in particular, to settle which may be looked upon as its own property, and which ought to be considered as borrowed and adapted. Everyone knows that the existence of the greater part of the stories current among the various European peoples is accounted for on two different hypotheses--the one [Pg 17] supposing that most of them "were common in germ at least to the Aryan tribes before
their migration," and that, therefore, "these traditions are as much a portion of the common inheritance of our ancestors as their language unquestionably is:"[11] the other regarding at least a great part of them as foreign importations, Oriental fancies which were originally introduced into Europe, through a series of translations, by the pilgrims and merchants who were always linking the East and the West together, or by the emissaries of some of the heretical sects, or in the train of such warlike transferrers as the Crusaders, or the Arabs who ruled in Spain, or the Tartars who so long held the Russia of old times in
