“Good father Spider! please not to kill me. I’ve ever so many little ones. Without me they’ll be orphans left, and from door to door have to beg their bread and squabble with dogs.”
Well, the Spider released her. Away she flew, and everywhere humming and buzzing about, told the flies and gnats of what had occurred.
“Ho, ye gnats and flies! Meet here beneath this ash-tree’s roots. A spider has come, and, with waving of arms and weaving of nets, has set his snares in all the ways to which the flies and gnats resort. He’ll catch them, every single one!”
They flew to the spot; beneath the ash-tree’s roots they hid, and lay there as though they were dead. The Spider came, and there he found a cricket, a beetle, and a bug.
“O Cricket!” he cried, “upon this mound sit and take snuff! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, O Bug, the bun-like, beneath the ash, and spread abroad this news of me, the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold—that the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold, no longer in the world exists; that they have sent him to Kazan; that in Kazan, upon a block, they’ve chopped his head off, and the block destroyed.”
On the mound sat the Cricket and took snuff. The Beetle smote upon the drum. The Bug crawled in among the ash-tree’s roots, and cried:—
“Why have ye fallen? Wherefore as in death do ye lie here? Truly no longer lives the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold. They’ve sent him to Kazan and in Kazan they’ve chopped his head off on a block, and afterwards destroyed the block.”
The gnats and flies grew blithe and merry. Thrice they crossed themselves, then out they flew—and straight into the Spider’s snares. Said he:—
“But seldom do ye come! I would that ye would far more often come to visit me! to quaff my wine and beer, and pay me tribute!”[68]
This story is specially interesting in the original, inasmuch as it is rhymed throughout, although printed as prose. A kind of lilt is perceptible in many of the Skazkas, and traces of rhyme are often to be detected in them, but “The Mizgir’s” mould is different from theirs. Many stories also exist in an artificially versified form, but their movement differs entirely from that of the naturally cadenced periods of the ordinary Skazka, or of such rhymed prose as that of “The Mizgir.”
The following legend is not altogether new in “motive,” but a certain freshness is lent to it by its simple style, its unstrained humor, and its genial tone.
The Smith and the Demon.[69]
Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had one son, a sharp, smart, six-year-old boy. One day the old man went to church, and as he stood before a picture of the Last Judgment he saw a Demon painted there—such a terrible one!—black, with horns and a tail.
“O my!” says he to himself. “Suppose I get just such another painted for the smithy.” So he hired an artist, and ordered him to paint on the door of the smithy exactly such another demon as he had seen in the church. The artist painted it. Thenceforward the old man, every time he entered the smithy, always looked at the Demon and said, “Good morning, fellow-countryman!” And then he would lay the fire in the furnace and begin his work.
Well, the Smith lived in good accord with the Demon for some ten years. Then he fell ill and died. His son succeeded to his place as head of the household, and took the smithy into his own hands. But he was not disposed to show attention to the Demon as the old man had done. When he went into the smithy in the morning, he never said “Good morrow” to him; instead of offering him a kindly word, he took the biggest hammer he had handy, and thumped the Demon with it three times right on the forehead, and then he would go to his work. And when one of God’s holy days came round, he would go to church and offer each saint a taper; but he would go up to the Demon and spit in his face. Thus three years went by, he all the while favoring the Evil One every morning either with a spitting or with a hammering. The Demon endured it and endured it, and at last found it past all endurance. It was too much for him.
“I’ve had quite enough of this insolence from him!” thinks he. “Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him some sort of a trick!”
So the Demon took the form of a youth, and went to the smithy.
“Good day, uncle!” says he.
“Good day!”
“What should you say, uncle, to taking me as an apprentice? At all events, I could carry fuel for you, and blow the bellows.”
The Smith liked the idea. “Why shouldn’t I?” he replied. “Two are better than one.”
The Demon began to learn his trade; at the end of a month he knew more about smith’s work than his master did himself, was able to do everything that his master couldn’t do. It was a real pleasure to look at him! There’s no describing how satisfied his master was with him, how fond he got of him. Sometimes the master didn’t go into the smithy at all himself, but trusted entirely to his journeyman, who had complete charge of everything.
Well, it happened one day that the master was not at home, and the journeyman was left all by himself in the smithy. Presently he saw an old lady[70] driving along the street in her carriage, whereupon he popped his head out of doors and began shouting:—
“Heigh, sirs! Be so good as to step in here! We’ve opened a new business here; we turn old folks into young ones.”
Out of her carriage jumped the lady in a trice, and ran into the smithy.
“What’s that you’re bragging about? Do you mean to say it’s true? Can you really do it?” she asked the youth.
“We haven’t got to learn our business!” answered the Demon. “If I hadn’t been able to do it, I wouldn’t have invited people to try.”
“And how much does it cost?” asked the lady.
“Five hundred roubles altogether.”
“Well, then, there’s your money; make a young woman of me.”
The Demon took the money; then he sent the lady’s coachman into the village.
“Go,” says he, “and bring me here two buckets full of milk.”
After that he took a pair of tongs, caught hold of the lady by the feet, flung her into the furnace, and burnt her up; nothing was left of her but her bare bones.
When the buckets of milk were brought, he emptied them into a large tub, then he collected all the bones and flung them into the milk. Just fancy! at the end of about three minutes the lady emerged from the milk—alive, and young, and beautiful!
Well, she got into her carriage and drove home. There she went straight to her husband, and he stared hard at her, but didn’t know she was his wife.
“What are you staring at?” says the lady. “I’m young and elegant, you see, and I don’t want to have an old husband! Be off at once to the smithy, and get them to make you young; if you don’t, I won’t so much as acknowledge you!”
There was no help for it; off set the seigneur. But by that time the Smith had returned home, and had gone into the smithy. He looked about; the journeyman wasn’t to be seen. He searched and searched, he enquired and enquired, never a thing came of it; not even a trace of the youth could be found. He took to his work by himself, and was hammering away, when at that moment up drove the seigneur, and walked straight into the smithy.
“Make a young man of me,” says he.
“Are