The Blind Man and the Cripple.[318]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ralston, William Ralston Shedden
The Baba Yaga began imploring them:
“My fathers! my darlings! forgive me. I will do all that is right.”
“Very good, old witch! Then show us the fountain of healing and life-giving water!” said the heroes.
“Only don’t kill me, and I’ll show it you directly!”
Well, Katoma sat on the blind man’s back. The blind man took the Baba Yaga by her back hair, and she led them into the depths of the forest, brought them to a well,[324] and said—
“That is the water that cures and gives life.”
“Look out, Uncle Katoma!” cried the blind man; “don’t make a blunder. If she tricks us now we shan’t get right all our lives!”
Katoma cut a green branch off a tree, and flung it into the well. The bough hadn’t so much as reached the water before it all burst into a flame!
“Ha! so you’re still up to your tricks,” said the heroes, and began to strangle the Baba Yaga, with the intention of flinging her, the accursed one, into the fiery fount. More than ever did the Baba Yaga implore for mercy, swearing a great oath that she would not deceive them this time.
“On my troth I will bring you to good water,” says she.
The heroes consented to give her one more trial, and she took them to another fount.
Uncle Katoma cut a dry spray from a tree, and flung it into the fount. The spray had not yet reached the water when it already turned green, budded, and put forth blossoms.
“Come now, that’s good water!” said Katoma.
The blind man wetted his eyes with it, and saw directly. He lowered the,cripple into the water, and the lame man’s feet grew again. Then they both rejoiced greatly, and said to one another, “Now the time has come for us to get all right! We’ll get everything back again we used to have! Only first we must make an end of the Baba Yaga. If we were to pardon her now, we should always be unlucky; she’d be scheming mischief all her life.”
Accordingly they went back to the fiery fount, and flung the Baba Yaga into it; didn’t it soon make an end of her!
After this Katoma married the merchant’s daughter, and the three companions went to the kingdom of Anna the Fair in order to rescue Prince Ivan. When they drew near to the capital, what should they see but Prince Ivan driving a herd of cows!
“Stop, herdsman!” says Katoma; “where are you driving these cows?”
“I’m driving them to the Princess’s courtyard,” replied the Prince. “The Princess always sees for herself whether all the cows are there.”
“Here, herdsman; take my clothes and put them on, and I will put on yours and drive the cows.”
“No, brother! that cannot be done. If the Princess found it out, I should suffer harm!”
“Never fear, nothing will happen! Katoma will guarantee you that.”
Prince Ivan sighed, and said—
“Ah, good man! If Katoma had been alive, I should not have been feeding these cows afield!”
Then Katoma disclosed to him who he was. Prince Ivan warmly embraced him and burst into tears.
“I never hoped even to see you again,” said he.
So they exchanged clothes. The tutor drove the cows to the Princess’s courtyard. Anna the Fair went into the balcony, looked to see if all the cows were there, and ordered them to be driven into the sheds. All the cows went into the sheds except the last one, which remained at the gate. Katoma sprang at it, exclaiming—
“What are you waiting for, dog’s-meat?”
Then he seized it by the tail, and pulled it so hard that he pulled the cow’s hide right off! The Princess saw this, and cried with a loud voice:
“What is that brute of a cowherd doing? Seize him and bring him to me!”
Then the servants seized Katoma and dragged him to the palace. He went with them, making no excuses, relying on himself. They brought him to the Princess. She looked at him and asked—
“Who are you? Where do you come from?”
“I am he whose feet you cut off and whom you set on a stump. My name is Katoma dyadka, oaken shapka.”
“Well,” thinks the Princess, “now that he’s got his feet back again, I must act straight-forwardly with him for the future.”
And she began to beseech him and the Prince to pardon her. She confessed all her sins, and swore an oath always to love Prince Ivan, and to obey him in all things. Prince Ivan forgave her, and began to live with her in peace and concord. The hero who had been blind remained with them, but Katoma and his wife went to the house of [her father] the rich merchant, and took up their abode under his roof.
[There is a story in the “Panchatantra” (v. 12) which, in default of other parallels, may be worth comparing with that part of this Skazka which refers to the blind man and the cripple in the forest. Here is an outline of it:—
To a certain king a daughter is born who has three breasts. Deeming her presence unfortunate, he offers a hundred thousand purses of gold to anyone who will marry her and take her away. 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. Seeing the snake in the pot, he guesses what has occurred, so he pretends to be still blind, and watches his wife and his friend. They, not knowing he can see, embrace in his presence, whereupon he catches up the “cripple” by the legs, and dashes him against his wife. So violent is the blow that her third breast is driven out of sight and the hunchback is beaten straight. Benfey (whose version of the story differs at the end from that given by Wilson, “Essays,” ii. 74) in his remarks on this story (i. p. 510-15), which he connects with Buddhist legends, observes that it occurs also in the “Tuti-Nameh” (Rosen, ii. 228), but there the hunchback is replaced by a comely youth, and the similarity with the Russian story disappears. For a solar explanation of the Indian story see A. de Gubernatis, “Zool. Mythology,” i. 85.]
Of this story there are many variants. In one of them[325] a king promises to reward with vast wealth anyone who will find him “a bride fairer than the sun, brighter than the moon, and whiter than snow.” A certain moujik, named Nikita Koltoma, offers to show him where a princess lives who answers to this description, and goes forth with him in search of her. On the way, Nikita enters several forges, desiring to have a war mace cast for him, and in one of them he finds fifty smiths tormenting an old man. Ten of them are holding him by the beard with pincers, the others are thundering away at his ribs with their hammers. Finding that the cause of this punishment is an unpaid debt of fifty roubles, Nikita ransoms the greybeard, who straightway disappears. Nikita obtains the mace he wants, which weighs fifty poods, or nearly a ton, and leaves the forge. Presently the old man whom he has ransomed comes running up to him, thanks him for having rescued him from a punishment which had already lasted thirty years, and bestows on him, as a token of gratitude, a Cap of Invisibility.
Soon after this Nikita, attended by the king and his followers, reaches the palace of the royal heroine, Helena the Fair. She at first sends her warriors to capture or slay the unwelcome visitors, but Nikita attacks them with his mace, and leaves scarce one alive. Then she invites the king and his suite to the palace, having prepared in the mean time a gigantic bow fitted with a fiery arrow, wherewith to annihilate her guests. Guessing this, Nikita puts on his Cap of Invisibility, bends the bow, and shoots the arrow into the queen’s terema [the women’s chambers], and in a moment the whole upper story is in a blaze. After that the queen submits, and is married to the king.
But Nikita warns him that for three nights running his bride will make trial of his strength by laying her hand on his breast and pressing it hard—so hard that he will not be able to bear the pressure. When that happens, he must slip out of the room, and let Nikita take his place. All this comes to pass; the bride lays her hand on the bridegroom’s breast, and says—
“Is my hand heavy?”