Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite...

[263] “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 120-153.

[264] Afanasief, vii. No. 33. The name Léshy or Lyeshy is derived from lyes, a forest.

[265] Literally “as a lun,” a kind of hawk (falco rusticolus). Lun also means a greyish light.

[266]Ottogo ya i cyed chto chortof dyed.

[267] Afanasief, P.V.S., ii. 226.

[268] Afanasief, iv. No. 40. From the Tver Government.

[269] Translated literally from Afanasief, P.V.S. ii. 227.

[270] Yastreb = vulture or goshawk

[271] Quoted from Borichefsky (pp. 183-5) by Afanasief.

[272] Tereshchenko, v. 43, 44.

[273] Literally “Life disgusted them worse than a bitter radish.”

[274] Translated literally from Afanasief, P.V.S. ii. 230.

[275] “Deutsche Mythologie,” 462.

[276] Afanasief, loc. cit. p. 231.

[277] Afanasief, iv. No. 42. From the Vologda Government.

[278]Chelpan, a sort of dough cake, or pie without stuffing.

[279]Bogatir is the regular term for a Russian “hero of romance.” Its origin is disputed, but it appears to be of Tartar extraction.

[280]Nast, snow that has thawed and frozen again.

[281]Suzhenoi-ryazhenoi.

[282]Zhenikhi.

[283]Sil’no priudaril, mightily smote harder.

[284]Okostenyeli, were petrified.

[285] Afanasief, P.V.S. i. 318-19.

[286] Ibid. i. 312.

[287] As with Der Frostige in the German story of “Die sechs Diener,” KM., No. 134, p. 519, and “The Man with the White Hat,” in that of “Sechse kommen durch die ganze Welt,” No. 71, p. 295, and their variants in different lands. See Grimm, iii. p. 122.

[288] No. 13, “The Stepmother’s Daughter and the Stepdaughter,” written down in Kazan.

[289] This is a thoroughly Buddhistic idea. According to Buddhist belief, the treasure which has belonged to anyone in a former existence may come to him in the shape of a man who, when killed, turns to gold. The first story of the fifth book of the “Panchatantra,” is based upon an idea of this kind. A man is told in a vision to kill a monk. He does so, and the monk becomes a heap of gold. A barber, seeing this, kills several monks, but to no purpose. See Benfey’s Introduction, pp. 477-8.

[290] For an account of the ovin, and the respect paid to it or to the demons supposed to haunt it see “The Songs of the Russian People,” p. 257.

[291] Chudinsky, No. 13. “The Daughter and the Stepdaughter.” From the Nijegorod Government.

[292]Vikhr’ or Vikhor’ from vit’, to whirl or twist.

[293] Khudyakof, No. 82. The story ends in the same way as that of Norka. See supra, p. 73.

[294] Khudyakof, No. 86. Morfei the Cook is merely a development of the magic cudgel which in so many stories (e.g. the sixth of the Calmuck tales) is often exchanged for other treasures by its master, to whom it soon returns—it being itself a degraded form of the hammer of Thor, the lance of Indra, which always came back to the divine hand that had hurled it.

[295] Khudyakof, No. 19. The rest of the story is that of “Der Gaudief un sin Meester,” Grimm’s KM. No. 68. (See also vol. iii. p. 118 of that work, where a long list is given of similar stories in various languages.)