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

All of a sudden, luckily for him, the cocks began to crow, the devils vanished, the witch fell flat on the floor. The soldier jumped down from the stove-pipe, and began putting out the fire. When he had put it out he set every thing to rights, placed the merchant’s daughter in her coffin, covered it up with the lid, and betook himself to reading the psalter. At daybreak came the merchant, and listened at the door to find out whether the Soldier was alive or not. When he heard his voice he opened the door and said—

“Well this. When you get to the merchant’s, everything will be ready there. At ten o’clock the relations of the deceased will begin taking leave of her; and afterwards they will fasten three iron hoops round the coffin, and place it on the funeral car; and at eleven o’clock they will tell you to take it to the graveyard. Do you drive off with the coffin, but keep a sharp look-out. One of the hoops will snap. Never fear, keep your seat bravely; a second will snap, keep your seat all the same; but when the third hoop snaps, instantly jump on to the horse’s back and through the duga (the wooden arch above its neck), and run away backwards. Do that, and no harm will come to you.”

The Soldier lay down to sleep, slept till the evening, and then went to the merchant’s. At ten o’clock the relations began taking leave of the deceased; then they set to work to fasten iron hoops round the coffin. They fastened the hoops, set the coffin on the funeral car, and cried—

The Soldier got into the car and set off: at first he drove slowly, but as soon as he was out of sight he let the horse go full split. Away he galloped, but all the while he kept an eye on the coffin. Snap went one hoop—and then another. The witch began gnashing her teeth.

Here the last hoop snapped: on to the horse jumped the Soldier, and through the duga, and then set off running backwards. The witch leapt out of the coffin and tore away in pursuit. Lighting on the Soldier’s footsteps she followed them back to the horse, ran right round it, saw the soldier wasn’t there, and set off again in pursuit of him. She ran and ran, lighted again on his footsteps, and again came back to the horse. Utterly at her wit’s end, she did the same thing some ten times over. Suddenly the cocks began crowing. There lay the witch stretched out flat on the road! The Soldier picked her up, put her in the coffin, slammed the lid down, and drove her to the graveyard. When he got there he lowered the coffin into the grave, shovelled the earth on top of it, and returned to the merchant’s house.

[The next chapter will contain a number of vampire stories which, in some respects, resemble these tales of homicidal corpses. But most of them belong, I think, to a separate group, due to a different myth or superstition from that which has given rise to such tales as those quoted above. The vampire is actuated by a thirst which can be quenched only by blood, and which impels it to go forth from the grave and destroy. But the enchanted corpses which rise at midnight, and attempt to rend their watchers, appear to owe their ferocity to demoniacal possession. After the death of a witch her body is liable, says popular tradition, to be tenanted by a devil (as may be seen from No. iii.), and to corpses thus possessed have been attributed by the storytellers the terrible deeds which Indian tales relate of Rákshasas and other evil spirits. Thus in the story of Nischayadatta, in the seventh book of the “Kathásaritságara,” the hero and the four pilgrims, his companions, have to pass a night in a deserted temple of Siva. It is haunted by a Yakshini, a female demon, who turns men by spells into brutes, and then eats them; so they sit watching and praying beside a fire round which they have traced a circle of ashes. At midnight the demon-enchantress arrives, dancing and “blowing on a flute made of a dead man’s bone.” Fixing her eyes on one of the pilgrims, she mutters a spell, accompanied by a wild dance. 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.[368]]

In one of the skazkas a malignant witch is destroyed by a benignant female power. It had been predicted that a certain baby princess would begin flying about the world as soon as she was fifteen. So her parents shut her up in a building in which she never saw the light of day, nor the face of a man. For it was illuminated by artificial means, and none but women had access to it. But one day, when her nurses and Mamzeli had gone to a feast at the palace, she found a door unlocked, and made her way into the sunlight. After this her attendants were obliged to allow her to go where she wished, when her parents were away. As she went roaming about the palace she came to a cage “in which a Zhar-Ptitsa,[369] lay [as if] dead.” This bird, her guardians told her, slept soundly all day, but at night her papa flew about on it. Farther on she came to a veiled portrait. When the veil was lifted, she cried in astonishment “Can such beauty be?” and determined to fly on the Zhar-Ptitsa to the original of the picture. So at night she sought the Zhar-Ptitsa, which was sitting up and flapping its wings, and asked whether she might fly abroad on its back. The bird consented and bore her far away. Three times it carried her to the room of the prince whose portrait she had so much admired. On the first and second occasion he remained asleep during her visit, having been plunged into a magic slumber by the Zhar-Ptitsa. But during her third visit he awoke, “and he and she wept and wept, and exchanged betrothal rings.”

So long did they remain talking that, before the Zhar-Ptitsa and his rider could get back, “the day began to dawn—the bird sank lower and lower and fell to the ground.” Then the princess, thinking it was really dead, buried it in the earth—having first cut off its wings, and “attached them to herself so as to walk more lightly.”

After various adventures she comes to a land of mourning. “Why are you so mournful?” she asks. “Because our king’s son has gone out of his mind,” is the reply. “He eats a man every night.” Thereupon she goes to the king and obtains leave to watch the prince by night. As the clock strikes twelve the prince, who is laden with chains, makes a rush at her; but the wings of the Zhar-Ptitsa rustle around her, and he sits down again. This takes place three times, after which the light goes out. She leaves the room in search of the means of rekindling it, sees a glimmer in the distance, and sets off with a lantern in search of it. Presently she finds an old witch who is sitting before a fire, above which seethes a cauldron. “What have you got there?” she asks. “When this cauldron seethes,” replies the witch, “within it does the heart of Prince Ivan rage madly.”

Pretending to be merely getting a light, the Princess contrives to splash the seething liquid over the witch, who immediately falls dead. Then she looks into the cauldron, and there, in truth, she sees the Prince’s heart. When she returns to his room he has recovered his senses. “Thank you for bringing a light,” he says. “Why am I in chains?” “Thus and thus,” says she. “You went out of your mind and ate people.” Whereat he wonders greatly.[370]

The Zhar-Ptitsa, or Fire-Bird, which plays so important a part in this story, is worthy of special notice. Its name is sufficient to show its close connection with flame or light,[371] and its appearance corresponds with its designation. Its feathers blaze with silvery or golden sheen, its eyes shine like crystal, it dwells in a golden cage. In the depth of the night it flies into a garden, and lights it up as brightly as could a thousand burning fires. A single feather from its tail illuminates a dark room. It feeds upon golden apples which have the power of bestowing youth and beauty, or according to a Croatian version, on magic-grasses. Its song, according to Bohemian legends, heals the sick and restores sight to the blind. We have already seen that, as the Phœnix, of which it seems to be a Slavonic counterpart, dies in the flame from which it springs again into life, so the Zhar-Ptitsa sinks into a death-like slumber when the day dawns, to awake to fresh life after the sunset.

One of the skazkas[372] about the Zhar-Ptitsa closely resembles the well-known German tale of the Golden Bird.[373] But it is a “Chap-book” story, and therefore of doubtful origin. King Vuislaf has an apple-tree which bears golden fruits. These are stolen by a Zhar-Ptitsa which flies every night into the garden, so he orders his sons to keep watch there by turns. The elder brothers cannot keep awake, and see nothing; but the youngest of the three, Prince Ivan, though he fails to capture the bird, secures one of its tail-feathers. After a time he leaves his home and goes forth in search of the bird. Aided by a wolf, he reaches the garden in which the Zhar-Ptitsa lives, and succeeds in taking it out of its golden cage. But trying, in spite of the wolf’s warning, to carry off the cage itself, an alarm is sounded, and he is taken prisoner. After various other adventures he is killed by his envious brothers, but of course all comes right in the end. 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 Zhar-Ptitsa recommences its magic song, and its cage flashes anew like fire.

In another skazka[374] a sportsman finds in a forest “a golden feather of the Zhar-Ptitsa; like fire does the feather shine!” Against the advice of his “heroic steed,” he picks up the feather and takes it to the king, who sends him in search of the bird itself. Then he has wheat scattered on the ground, and at dawn he hides behind a tree near it. “Presently the forest begins to roar, the sea rises in waves, and the Zhar-Ptitsa flies up, lights upon the ground and begins to peck the wheat.” Then the “heroic steed” gallops up, sets its hoof upon the bird’s wing, and presses it to the ground, so that the shooter is able to bind it with cords, and take it to the king. In a variant of the story the bird is captured by means of a trap—a cage in which “pearls large and small” have been strewed.

I had intended to say something about the various golden haired or golden-horned animals which figure in the Skazkas, but it will be sufficient for the present to refer to the notices of them which occur in Prof. de Gubernatis’s “Zoological Mythology.” And now I will bring this chapter to a close with the following weird story of