“ But Prince Ivan wept full sore, and he arrayed himself and set out a wandering, saying to himself: “Whatever happens, I will go and look for Marya Morevna!”
One day passed, another day passed: at the dawn of the third day he saw a wondrous palace, and by the side of the palace stood an oak, and on the oak sat a falcon bright. Down flew the Falcon from the oak, smote upon the ground, turned into a brave youth and cried aloud:
“Ha, dear brother-in-law! how deals the Lord with you?” ”

“ When the corpse perceived him, it came to meet him; not touching the earth with its feet, but keeping about a foot above it—the shroud fluttering after it. When it had come up with the sportsman, it made a rush at him; but the dog seized hold of it by its bare calves, and began a tussle with it. When the moujik saw his dog and the corpse grappling with each other, he was delighted that things had turned out so well for himself, and he set off running home with all his might. The dog kept up the struggle until cock-crow, when the corpse fell motionless to the ground. ”

“ And at night we see the homely dwellings of the villagers assume a picturesque aspect to which they are strangers by the tell-tale light of day, their rough lines softened by the mellow splendor of a summer moon, or their unshapely forms looming forth mysteriously against the starlit snow of winter. Above all we become familiar with those cottage interiors to which the stories contain so many references. Sometimes we see the better class of homestead, surrounded by its fence through which we pass between the often-mentioned gates. ”

“ We become well acquainted with its arrangements, with the cellar beneath its wooden floor, with the “corner of honor” in which are placed the “holy pictures,” and with the stove which occupies so large a share of space, within which daily beats, as it were the heart of the house, above which is nightly taken the repose of the family. Sometimes we visit the hut of the poverty-stricken peasant, more like a shed for cattle than a human habitation, with a mud-floor and a tattered roof, through which the smoke makes its devious way. In these poorer dwellings we witness much suffering ”

“ If thou art an old man, thou shall be my father; if a middle-aged man, my brother; but if a young man, thou shalt be my husband dear. And if thou art a woman, and an old one, thou shalt be my grandmother; if middle-aged, my mother; and if a girl, thou shalt be my own sister.” [87]
Thereupon he came forth. And when she saw him, she was delighted with him, and said:
“Wherefore, O Prince Ivan—my husband dear shalt thou be!—wherefore hast thou come hither?” ”

“ They seem, from the language of their funeral songs, sometimes to regard the departed spirit as residing in the coffin which holds the body from which it has been severed, sometimes to imagine that it hovers around the building which used to be its home, or flies abroad on the wings of the winds. In the food and money and other necessaries of existence still placed in the coffin with the corpse, may be seen traces of an old belief in a journey which the soul was forced to undertake after the death of the body ”

“ So one day he went to his tutor and said:
“Katoma, I’m tired of living alone, I want to marry.”
“Well, Prince! what’s to prevent you? you’re of an age at which it’s time to think about a bride. Go into the great hall. There’s a collection there of the portraits of all the princesses in the world; look at them and choose for yourself; whichever pleases you, to her send a proposal of marriage.”
Prince Ivan went into the great hall, and began examining the portraits. And the one that pleased him best was that of the Princess Anna the Fair—such a beauty! ”

“ When Saktideva, in the fifth book of the “Kathásaritságara,” comes after long travel to the Golden City, and is welcomed as her destined husband by its princess, she warns him not to ascend the central terrace of her palace. Of course he does so, and finds three chambers, in each of which lies the lifeless form of a fair maiden. After gazing at these seeming corpses, in one of which he recognizes his first love, he approaches a horse which is grazing beside a lake. The horse kicks him into the water; he sinks deep—and comes up again in his native land. ”

“ In a version of the story which comes from the Bukovina, one of the incidents is detailed at greater length than in either the German or the Russian tale. When the hero has been killed by his brothers, and they have carried off the Zhar-Ptitsa, and their victim’s golden steed, and his betrothed princess—as long as he lies dead, the princess remains mute and mournful, the horse refuses to eat, the bird is silent, and its cage is lustreless. But as soon as he comes back to life, the princess regains her spirits, and the horse its appetite. ”

“ The demon now believes that his proposed son-in-law must be a god in disguise, so he gives his consent to the marriage. All goes well for a time, but at last the prince wants to go home, so he and his wife fly from her father’s palace. Agnisikha pursues them. She makes her husband invisible, while she assumes the form of a woodman. Up comes her angry sire, and asks for news of the fugitives. She replies she has seen none, her eyes being full of tears caused by the death of the Rákshasa prince Agnisikha. The slow-witted demon immediately flies home to find out whether he is really dead. ”

“ The Servians say that at the division of the world Ilya received the thunder and lightning as his share, and that the crash and blaze of the storm are signs of his contest with the devil. Wherefore the faithful ought not to cross themselves when the thunder peals, lest the evil one should take refuge from the heavenly weapons behind the protecting cross. The Bulgarians say that forked lightning is the lance of Ilya who is chasing the Lamia fiend: summer lightning is due to the sheen of that lance, or to the fire issuing from the nostrils of his celestial steeds. ”

“ Sometimes the Frost is described by the people as a mighty smith who forges strong chains with which to bind the earth and the waters—as in the saying “The Old One has built a bridge without axe and without knife,” i.e., the river is frozen over. Sometimes Moroz-Treskun, the Crackling Frost, is spoken of without disguise as the preserver of the hero who is ordered to enter a bath which has been heated red-hot. Frost goes into the bath, and breathes with so icy a breath that the heat of the building turns at once to cold. ”

“ So that evening he asks his hostess about it, and she replies:
“In a certain lake stands a blue rose-tree. It is in a deep place, and no man can reach unto it. My death is there.”
He sets out in search of it, and, aided by a magic ring, reaches the lake, “and sees there the blue rose-tree, and around it a blue forest.” After several failures, he succeeds in plucking up the rose-tree by the roots, whereupon the enchantress straightway sickens. He returns to her house, finds her at the point of death, and throws the rose-bush into the cellar where his love is crying, “Behold her death!” ”

“ Sometimes the quaint lyric drama of a peasant wedding is performed before our eyes, sometimes we follow a funeral party to one of those dismal and desolate nooks in which the Russian villagers deposit their dead. On working days we see the peasants driving afield in the early morn with their long lines of carts, to till the soil, or ply the scythe or sickle or axe, till the day is done and their rude carts come creaking back. ”

“ For a long time no man takes advantage of the offer, but at last a blind man, who goes about led by a hunchback named Mantharaka or Cripple, marries her, receives the gold, and is sent far away with his wife and his friend. All three live together in the same house. After a time the wife falls in love with the hunchback and conspires with him to kill her husband. For this purpose she boils a snake, intending to poison her husband with it. But he stirs the snake-broth as it is cooking, and the steam which rises from it cures his blindness. ”

“ Before I came as a guest, but now I have come as a wooer! I wish to propose for your sister, the Princess Marya.”
“If you find favor in the eyes of my sister, I will not interfere with her wishes. Let her marry you in God’s name!”
The Princess Marya gave her consent; the Falcon married her and bore her away into his own realm.
Days follow days, hours chase hours; a whole year goes by. One day Prince Ivan and his two sisters went out to stroll in the garden green. Again there arose a stormcloud with whirlwind and lightning. ”

“ A princess is so fond of her marble bath, which is “like a little sea,” with high spiked walls all around it, that she vows she will marry no one who cannot jump across it on horseback. Another princess determines to marry him only who can leap into the glass palace in which she dwells, surrounded by a wide river; and many kings and princes perish miserably in attempting to perform the feat. A third king’s daughter lives in a garden “hedged round with seven hedges made of bayonets,” by which her suitors are generally transfixed. ”

“ The supernatural being who, in folk-tales, sways the elements and preys upon mankind, is most inadequately designated by such names as Vyed’ma, Hexe, or Witch, suggestive as those now homely terms are of merely human, though diabolically intensified malevolence. Far more in keeping with the vastness of her powers, and the vagueness of her outline, are the titles of Baba Yaga, Lamia, Striga, Troll-Wife, Ogress, or Dragoness, under which she figures in various lands. ”

“ The merchant gave him a hundred and fifty roubles, and said—
“You’ve done a deal of work, Soldier! do a little more. Come here to-night and carry my daughter to the graveyard.”
“Good, I’ll come.”
“Well, friend, what has God given?”
“Glory be to God, grandfather, I’ve got off safe! The merchant has asked me to be at his house to-night, to carry his daughter to the graveyard. Should I go or not?”
“If you go, you won’t be alive, and if you don’t go, you won’t be alive. But you must go; it will be better so.” ”

“ And so grievously did he punish the heroic steed that it could not hold out any longer, but cried aloud with a human voice—
“Batyushka Katoma! don’t utterly deprive me of life in the white world! Whatever you wish, that do you order: all shall be done according to your will!”
“Listen, O meat for dogs!” answered Katoma; “to-morrow Prince Ivan will ride you to the wedding. Now mind! when the grooms bring you out into the wide courtyard, and the Prince goes up to you and lays his hand on you, do you stand quietly, not moving so much as an ear. ”

“ Out of the head of the doomed man grows a horn; he loses all command over himself, leaps up, and dances into the flames. The Yakshini seizes his half-burnt corpse and devours it. Then she treats the second and the third pilgrim in the same way. But just as she is turning to the fourth, she lays her flute on the ground. In an instant the hero seizes it, and begins to blow it and to dance wildly around the Yakshini, fixing his eyes upon her and applying to her the words of her own spell. Deprived by it of all power, she submits, and from that time forward renders the hero good service. ”

“ So Volga lay down to sleep; down lay Vazuza also. But during the night Vazuza rose silently, fled away from Volga, chose the nearest and the straightest line, and flowed away. When Volga awoke, she set off neither slowly nor hurriedly, but with just befitting speed. At Zubtsof she came up with Vazuza. So threatening was her mien, that Vazuza was frightened, declared herself to be Volga’s younger sister, and besought Volga to take her in her arms and bear her to the Caspian Sea. And so to this day Vazuza is the first to awake in the Spring, and then she arouses Volga from her wintry sleep. ”

“ But from these dim sketches of a life beyond, or rather within the grave, in which memories of old days and old friendships are preserved by ghosts of an almost genial and entirely harmless disposition, we will now turn to those more elaborate pictures in which the dead are represented under an altogether terrific aspect. ”

“ And the elder brothers cried, “Let’s have a drink of water.” But Ivan Popyalof cried: “Stop, brothers!” and he raised his mace and struck the spring, and its waters became blood.
For the meadow, the silken cushions, the apple-tree, and the spring, were all of them daughters of the Snake.
After killing the Snake’s daughters, Ivan and his brothers went on homewards. Presently came the Snake’s Wife flying after them, and she opened her jaws from the sky to the earth, and tried to swallow up Ivan. But Ivan and his brothers threw three poods of salt into her mouth. ”

“ In the Syriote tale of “The Strigla” (Hahn, No. 65) a princess devours her father and all his subjects. Her brother, who had escaped while she was still a babe, visits her and is kindly received. But while she is sharpening her teeth with a view towards eating him, a mouse gives him a warning which saves his life. As in the Russian story the mouse jumps about on the strings of a lute in order to deceive the witch, so in the Greek it plays a fiddle. But the Greek hero does not leave his sister’s abode. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wolf enquires if he has gone to sleep, but is told that he is awake, but engrossed by the question as to “which folks are there most of in the world—the living or the dead.” The wolf goes out to count them, and Zachary sleeps in comfort, till just before it comes back to say that the living are more numerous than the dead. By the time the wolf-fiend has made a third journey in order to settle a doubt which Zachary describes as weighing on his mind—as to the numerical relation of the large beasts to the small—the three years have passed away. ”

“ Koshchei is merely one of the many incarnations of the dark spirit which takes so many monstrous shapes in the folk-tales of the class with which we are now dealing. Sometimes he is described as altogether serpent-like in form; sometimes he seems to be of a mixed nature, partly human and partly ophidian, but in some of the stories he is apparently framed after the fashion of a man. ”

“ Afterwards the Prince heaped up a pile of wood, set fire to it, burnt Koshchei the Deathless on the pyre, and scattered his ashes to the wind. Then Marya Morevna mounted Koshchei’s horse and Prince Ivan got on his own, and they rode away to visit first the Raven, and then the Eagle, and then the Falcon. Wherever they went they met with a joyful greeting.
“Ah, Prince Ivan! why, we never expected to see you again. Well, it wasn’t for nothing that you gave yourself so much trouble. [Pg 108] Such a beauty as Marya Morevna one might search for all the world over—and never find one like her!” ”

“ His life was a prosperous one, and he laid by money enough to fill two pots. The one he buried in his corn-kiln, the other under the gate of his farmyard. Well, the moujik died, and never said a word about the money to any one. One day there was a festival in the village. A fiddler was on his way to the revel when, all of a sudden, he sank into the earth—sank right through and tumbled into hell, lighting exactly there where the rich moujik was being tormented. ”

“ So Marya Morevna chose a favorable moment, and began asking Koshchei about it. Koshchei replied:
“Beyond thrice nine lands, in the thirtieth kingdom, on the other side of the fiery river, there lives a Baba Yaga. She has so good a mare that she flies right round the world on it every day. And she has many other splendid mares. I watched her herds for three days without losing a single mare, and in return for that the Baba Yaga gave me a foal.” ”

“ The Warlock drank and drank, revelled and revelled, and then grew angry. He chased all the guests and relatives out of the house, threw the wedded pair into a slumber, took out two phials and an awl, pierced the hands of the bride and bridegroom with the awl, and began drawing off their blood. Having done this, he said to the Soldier:
“Now let’s be off.”
Well, they went off. On the way the Soldier said:
“Tell me; why did you draw off their blood in those phials?”
“Why, in order that the bride and bridegroom might die. To-morrow morning no one will be able to wake them. ”