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

“Well, I’m going to offer a rouble taper to Prophet Elijah; he’s been ever so good to me! When my crops were ruined by the hail, he bestirred himself like anything, and gave me a plentiful harvest, twice as good as the other would have been.”

It is not always to the Prophet Ilya that the power once attributed to Perun is now ascribed. The pagan wielder of the thunderbolt is represented in modern traditions by more than one Christian saint. Sometimes, as St. George, he transfixes monsters with his lance; sometimes, as St. Andrew, he smites with his mace a spot given over to witchcraft. There was a village (says one of the legends of the Chernigof Government) in which lived more than a thousand witches, and they used to steal the holy stars, until at last “there was not one left to light our sinful world.” Then God sent the holy Andrew, who struck with his mace—and all that village was swallowed up by the earth, and the place thereof became a swamp.[447]

About St. George many stories are told, and still more ballads (if we may be allowed to call them so) are sung. Under the names of Georgy, Yury, and Yegory the Brave, he is celebrated as a patron as well of wolves as of flocks and herds, as a Christian Confessor struggling and suffering for the faith amid pagan foes, and as a chivalrous destroyer of snakes and dragons. The discrepancies which exist between the various representations given of his character and his functions are very glaring, but they may be explained by the fact that a number of legendary ideas sprung from separate sources have become associated with his name; so that in one story his actions are in keeping with the character of an old Slavonian deity, in another, with that of a Christian or a Buddhist saint.

In some parts of Russia, when the cattle go out for the first time to the spring pastures, a pie, made in the form of a sheep, is cut up by the chief herdsman, and the fragments are preserved as a remedy against the diseases to which sheep are liable. On St. George’s Day in spring, April 23, the fields are sanctified by a church service, at the end of which they are sprinkled with holy water. In the Tula Government a similar service is held over the wells. On the same day, in some parts of Russia, a youth (who is called by the Slovenes the Green Yegory) is dressed like our own “Jack in the Green,” with foliage and flowers. Holding a lighted torch in one hand and a pie in the other, he goes out to the cornfields, followed by girls singing appropriate songs. A circle of brushwood is then lighted, in the centre of which is set the pie. All who take part in the ceremony then sit down around the fire, and eventually the pie is divided among them.

Numerous legends speak of the strange connection which exists between St. George and the Wolf. In Little Russia that animal is called “St. George’s Dog,” and the carcases of sheep which wolves have killed are not used for human food, it being held that they have been assigned by divine command to the beasts of the field. The human victim whom St. George has doomed to be thus destroyed nothing can save. A man, to whom such a fate had been allotted, tried to escape from his assailants by hiding behind a stove; but a wolf transformed itself into a cat, and at midnight, when all was still, it stole into the house and seized the appointed prey. A hunter, who had been similarly doomed, went on killing wolves for some time, and hanging up their skins; but when the fatal hour arrived, one of the skins became a wolf, and slew him by whom it had before been slain. In Little Russia the wolves have their own herdsman[448]—a being like unto a man, who is often seen in company with St. George. There were two brothers (says a popular tale), the one rich, the other poor. The poor brother had climbed up a tree one night, and suddenly he saw beneath him what seemed to be two men—the one driving a pack of wolves, the other attending to the conveyance of a quantity of bread. These two beings were St. George and the Lisun. And St. George distributed the bread among the wolves, and one loaf which remained over he gave to the poor brother; who afterwards found that it was of a miraculous nature, always renewing itself and so supplying its owner with an inexhaustible store of bread.

One of the legends attributes strange forgetfulness on one occasion to St. George. A certain Gypsy who had a wife and seven children, and nothing to feed them with, was standing by a roadside lost in reflection, when Yegory the Brave came riding by. Hearing that the saint was on his way to heaven, the Gypsy besought him to ask of God how he was to support his family. St. George promised to do so, but forgot. Again the Gypsy saw him riding past, and again the saint promised and forgot. In a third interview the Gypsy asked him to leave behind his golden stirrup as a pledge.

A third time St. George leaves the presence of the Lord without remembering the commission with which he has been entrusted. But when he is about to mount his charger the sight of the solitary stirrup recalls it to his mind. So he returns and states the Gypsy’s request, and obtains the reply that “the Gypsy’s business is to cheat and to swear falsely.” As soon as the Gypsy is told this, he thanks the Saint and goes off home.

There is an interesting Bulgarian legend in which St. George appears in his Christian capacity of dragon-slayer, but surrounded by personages belonging to heathen mythology. The inhabitants of the pagan city of Troyan, it states, “did not believe in Christ, but in gold and silver.” Now there were seventy conduits in that city which supplied it with spring-water; and the Lord made these conduits run with liquid gold and silver instead of water, so that all the people had as much as they pleased of the metals they worshipped, but they had nothing to drink.

After a time the Lord took pity upon them, and there appeared at a little distance from the city a deep lake. To this they used to go for water. Only the lake was guarded by a terrible monster, which daily devoured a maiden, whom the inhabitants of Troyan were obliged to give to it in return for leave to make use of the lake. This went on for three years, at the end of which time it fell to the lot of the king’s daughter to be sacrificed by the monster. But when the Troyan Andromeda was exposed on the shore of the lake, a Perseus arrived to save her in the form of St. George. While waiting for the monster to appear, the saint laid his head on her knees, and she dressed his locks. Then he fell into so deep a slumber that the monster drew nigh without awaking him. But the Princess began to weep bitterly, and her scalding tears fell on the face of St. George and awoke him, and he slew the monster, and afterwards converted all the inhabitants of Troyan to Christianity.[451]

St. Nicholas generally maintains in the legends the kindly character attributed to him in the story in which he and the Prophet Ilya are introduced together. It is to him that at the present day the anxious peasant turns most readily for help, and it is he whom the legends represent as being the most prompt of all the heavenly host to assist the unfortunate among mankind. Thus in one of the stories a peasant is driving along a heavy road one autumn day, when his cart sticks fast in the mire. Just then St. Kasian comes by.

Then the Lord says, “Listen, Kasian! Because thou didst not assist the moujik, therefore shall men honor thee by thanksgiving once only every four years. But to thee, Nicholas, because thou didst assist the moujik to set free his cart, shall men twice every year offer up thanksgiving.”

In another story St. Nicholas comes to the aid of an adventurer who watches beside the coffin of a bewitched princess. There were two moujiks in a certain village, we are told, one of whom was very rich and the other very poor. One day the poor man, who was in great distress, went to the house of the rich man and begged for a loan.