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

[72] “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 160-185.

[73] In one story (Khudyakof, No. 117) there are snakes with twenty-eight and twenty-nine heads, but this is unusual.

[74] Afanasief, ii. No. 30. From the Chernigof Government. The accent falls on the second syllable of Ivan, on the first of Popyalof.

[75]Popyal, provincial word for pepel = ashes, cinders, whence the surname Popyalof. A pood is about 40lbs.

[76] On slender supports.

[77]Pod mostom, i.e., says Afanasief (vol. v. p. 243), under the raised flooring which, in an izba, serves as a sleeping place.

[78]Zatvelyef, apparently a provincial word.

[79] The Russian word krof also signifies blood.

[80] The last sentence of the story forms one of the conventional and meaningless “tags” frequently attached to the skazkas. In future I shall omit them. Kuzma and Demian (SS. Cosmas and Damian) figure in Russian folk-lore as saintly and supernatural smiths, frequently at war with snakes, which they maltreat in various ways. See A. de Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” vol. ii. p. 397.

[81] Afanasief, Skazki, vol. vii. p. 3.

[82]Chudo = prodigy. Yudo may be a remembrance of Judas, or it may be used merely for the sake of the rhyme.

[83] In an Indian story (“Kathásaritságara,” book vii. chap. 42), Indrasena comes to a place in which sits a Rákshasa on a throne between two fair ladies. He attacks the demon with a magic sword, and soon cuts off his head. But the head always grows again, until at last the younger of the ladies gives him a sign to split in half the head he has just chopped off. Thereupon the demon dies, and the two ladies greet the conqueror rapturously. The younger is the demon’s sister, the elder is a king’s daughter whom the demon has carried off from her home, after eating her father and all his followers. See Professor Brockhaus’s summary in the “Berichte der phil. hist. Classe der K. Sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften,” 1861. pp. 241-2.

[84] Khudyakof, No. 46.

[85] Afanasief, vol. i. No. 6. From the Chernigof Government. The Norka-Zvyer’ (Norka-Beast) of this story is a fabulous creature, but zoologically the name of Norka (from nora = a hole) belongs to the Otter.

[86] Literally “into that world” as opposed to this in which we live.

[87] This address is a formula, of frequent occurrence under similar circumstances.

[88] Literally “seated the maidens and pulled the rope.”

[89] Some sort of safe or bin.

[90] Khudyakof, ii. p. 17.

[91] “Kathásaritságara,” bk. vii. c. xxxix. Wilson’s translation.

[92] Genesis, xxxvii. 3, 4.

[93] “Zoological Mythology,” i. 25.

[94] Quoted from the “Nitimanjari,” by Wilson, in his translation of the “Rig-Veda-Sanhita,” vol. i. p. 142.

[95] See also Jülg’s “Kalmukische Märchen,” p. 19, where Massang, the Calmuck Minotaur, is abandoned in the pit by his companions.

[96] Khudyakof, No. 42.

[97] Erlenvein, No. 41. A king’s horses disappear. His youngest son keeps watch and discovers that the thief is a white wolf. It escapes into a hole. He kills his horse at its own request and makes from its hide a rope by which he is lowered into the hole, etc.

[98] Afanasief, v. 54.

[99] The word koshchei, says Afanasief, may fairly be derived from kost’, a bone, for changes between st and shch are not uncommon—as in the cases of pustoi, waste, pushcha, a wild wood, or of gustoi, thick, gushcha, sediment, etc. The verb okostenyet’, to grow numb, describes the state into which a skazka represents the realm of the “Sleeping Beauty,” as being thrown by Koshchei. Buslaef remarks in his “Influence of Christianity on Slavonic Language,” p. 103, that one of the Gothic words used by Ulfilas to express the Greek δαιμόνιον is skôhsl, which “is purely Slavonic, being preserved in the Czekh kauzlo, sorcery; in the Lower-Lusatian-Wendish, kostlar means a sorcerer. (But see Grimm’s “Deutsche Mythologie,” pp. 454-5, where skôhsl is supposed to mean a forest-sprite, also p. 954.) Kost’ changes into koshch whence our Koshchei.” There is also a provincial word, kostit’, meaning to revile or scold.

[100]Bezsmertny (bez = without, smert’ = death).

[101]Afanasief, viii. No. 8. Morevna means daughter of More, (the Sea or any great water).

[102]Grom. It is the thunder, rather than the lightning, which the Russian peasants look upon as the destructive agent in a storm. They let the flash pass unheeded, but they take the precaution of crossing themselves when the roar follows.

[103]Zamorskaya, from the other side of the water, strange, splendid.

[104] In Afanasief, iv. No. 39, a father marries his three daughters to the Sun, the Moon, and the Raven. In Hahn, No. 25, a younger brother gives his sisters in marriage to a Lion, a Tiger, and an Eagle, after his elder brothers have refused to do so. By their aid he recovers his lost bride. In Schott, No. 1 and Vuk Karajich, No. 5, the three sisters are carried off by Dragons, which their subsequently-born brother kills. (See also Basile, No. 33, referred to by Hahn, and Valjavec, p. 1, Stier, No. 13, and Bozena Nêmcova, pp. 414-432, and a German story in Musæus, all referred to by Afanasief, viii. p. 662.)

[105] See Chap. IV.

[106] “Being by the advice of her father Hæreð given in marriage to Offa, she left off her violent practices; and accordingly she appears in Hygelác’s court, exercising the peaceful duties of a princess. Now this whole representation can hardly be other than the modern, altered, and Christian one of a Wælcyrie or Swan-Maiden; and almost in the same words the Nibelungen Lied relates of Brynhild, the flashing shield-may of the Edda, that with her virginity she lost her mighty strength and warlike habits.”—Kemble’s Beowulf, p. xxxv.

[107] Khudyakof, ii, p. 90.

[108] Khudyakof, No. 20.

[109] Afanasief, i. No. 14.

[110] Khudyakof, No. 62.

[111] Erlenvein, No. 31.