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

[Next morning Vasilissa “buried the skull,” locked up the house and took up her quarters in a neighboring town. After a time she began to work. Her doll made her a glorious loom, and by the end of the winter she had weaved a quantity of linen so fine that it might be passed like thread through the eye of a needle. In the spring, after it had been bleached, Vasilissa made a present of it to the old woman with whom she lodged. The crone presented it to the king, who ordered it to be made into shirts. But no seamstress could be found to make them up, until the linen was entrusted to Vasilissa. When a dozen shirts were ready, Vasilissa sent them to the king, and as soon as her carrier had started, “she washed herself, and combed her hair, and dressed herself, and sat down at the window.” Before long there arrived a messenger demanding her instant appearance at court. And “when she appeared before the royal eyes,” the king fell desperately in love with her.

“No; my beauty!” said he, “never will I part with thee; thou shalt be my wife.” So he married her; and by-and-by her father returned, and took up his abode with her. “And Vasilissa took the old woman into her service, and as for the doll—to the end of her life she always carried it in her pocket.”]

The puppet which plays so important a part in this story is worthy of a special examination. It is called in the original a Kùkla (dim. Kùkolka), a word designating any sort of puppet or other figure representing either man or beast. In a Little-Russian variant[194] of one of those numerous stories, current in all lands, which commence with the escape of the heroine from an incestuous union, a priest insists on marrying his daughter. She goes to her mother’s grave and weeps there. Her dead mother “comes out from her grave,” and tells her what to do. The girl obtains from her father a rough dress of pig’s skin, and two sets of gorgeous apparel; the former she herself assumes, in the latter she dresses up three Kuklui, which in this instance were probably mere blocks of wood. Then she takes her place in the midst of the dressed-up forms, which cry, one after the other, “Open, O moist earth, that the fair maiden may enter within thee!” The earth opens, and all four sink into it.

Sometimes it is a brother, instead of a father, from whom the heroine is forced to flee. Thus in the story of Kniaz Danila Govorila,[196] Prince Daniel the Talker is bent upon marrying his sister, pleading the excuse so often given in stories on this theme, namely, that she is the only maiden whose finger will fit the magic ring which is to indicate to him his destined wife. While she is weeping “like a river,” some old women of the mendicant-pilgrim class come to her rescue, telling her to make four Kukolki, or small puppets, and to place one of them in each corner of her room. She does as they tell her. The wedding day arrives, the marriage service is performed in the church, and then the bride hastens back to the room. When she is called for—says the story—the puppets in the four corners begin to coo.[197]

The earth opens, and the girl slowly sinks into it. Twice again the puppets sing their song, and at the end of its third performance, the earth closes over the head of the rescued bride. Presently in rushes the irritated bridegroom. “No bride is to be seen; only in the corners sit the puppets singing away to themselves.” He flies into a passion, seizes a hatchet, chops off their heads, and flings them into the fire.[198]

In another version of the same story[199] a son is ordered by his parents to marry his sister after their death. They die, and he tells her to get ready to be married. But she has prepared three puppets, and when she goes into her room to dress for the wedding, she says to them:

In two other Russian versions of the same story, the sister escapes by natural means. In the first[200] she runs away and hides in the hollow of an oak. In the second[201] she persuades a fisherman to convey her across a sea or lake. In a Polish version[202] the sister obtains a magic car, which sinks underground with her, while the spot on which she has spat replies to every summons which is addressed to her.[203]

Before taking leave of the Baba Yaga, we may glance at a malevolent monster, who seems to be her male counterpart. He appears, however, to be known in South Russia only. Here is an outline of the contents of the solitary story in which he is mentioned. There were two old folks with whom lived two orphan grandchildren, charming little girls. One day the youngest child was sent to drive the sparrows away from her grandfather’s pease. While she was thus engaged the forest began to roar, and out from it came Verlioka, “of vast stature, one-eyed, crook-nosed, bristly-headed, with tangled beard and moustaches half an ell long, and with a wooden boot on his one foot, supporting himself on a crutch, and giving vent to a terrible laughter.” And Verlioka caught sight of the little girl and immediately killed her with his crutch. And afterwards he killed her sister also, and then the old grandmother. The grandfather, however, managed to escape with his life, and afterwards, with the help of a drake and other aiders, he wreaked his vengeance on the murderous Verlioka.[204]

We will now turn to another female embodiment of evil, frequently mentioned in the Skazkas—the Witch.[205] She so closely resembles the Baba Yaga both in disposition and in behavior, that most of the remarks which have been made about that wild being apply to her also. In many cases, indeed, we find that one version of a story will allot to a Baba Yaga the part which in another version is played by a Witch. The name which she bears—that of Vyed’ma—is a misnomer; it properly belongs either to the “wise woman,” or prophetess, of old times, or to her modern representative, the woman to whom Russian superstition attributes the faculties and functions ascribed in olden days by most of our jurisprudents, in more recent times by a few of our rustics, to our own witch. The supernatural being who, in folk-tales, sways the elements and preys upon mankind, is most inadequately designated by such names as Vyed’ma, Hexe, or Witch, suggestive as those now homely terms are of merely human, though diabolically intensified malevolence. Far more in keeping with the vastness of her powers, and the vagueness of her outline, are the titles of Baba Yaga, Lamia, Striga, Troll-Wife, Ogress, or Dragoness, under which she figures in various lands. And therefore it is in her capacity of Baba Yaga, rather than in that of Vyed’ma, that we desire to study the behavior of the Russian equivalent for the terrible female form which figures in the Anglo-Saxon poem as the Mother of Grendel.