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

[335]Chmoknuel, smacked.

[336] See Barsof’s rich collection of North-Russian funeral poetry, entitled “Prichitaniya Syevernago Kraya,” Moscow, 1872. Also the “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 334-345.

[337] Miss Frere’s “Old Deccan Days,” pp. 3, 4.

[338] Grimm, KM. No. 21.

[339] Afanasief, vi. No. 54.

[340]Ona krava shto yoy ye bila mati, Vuk Karajich, p. 158. In the German translation (p. 188) Wie dies nun die Kuh sah, die einst seine Mutter gewesen war.

[341] Afanasief, ii. p. 254.

[342]Cherez dvyenadtsat’ stekol.Steklo means a glass, or a pane of glass.

[343] Afanasief, ii. p. 269.

[344] Khudyakof, No. 50.

[345] Afanasief, iii. p. 25.

[346] Dasent’s “Norse Tales,” No. 40. Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 37. “Grimsborken.”

[347] Dasent, No. 13. Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 51. “Jomfruen paa Glasberget.”

[348] Campbell’s “West-Highland Tales,” iii. pp. 265, 266.

[349] Miss Frere’s “Old Deccan Days,” pp. 31, 73, 95, 135.

[350] “Völsunga Saga,” translated by E. Magnússon and W. Morris, pp. 95-6.

[351] Afanasief, vi. No. 32. From the Novgorod Government. A “chap-book” version of this story will be found in Dietrich’s collection (pp. 152-68 of the English translation); also in Keightley’s “Tales and Popular Fictions.”

[352]Nijnie, lower. Thus Nijny Novgorod is the lower (down the Volga) Novgorod. (Dahl.)

[353]Kukova, a stick or cudgel, one end of which is bent and rounded like a ball.

[354]Tak de ego ne vzat’.

[355] There are numerous variants of this story among the Skazkas. In one of these (Afanasief, vii. No. 31) the man on whom the pike has bestowed supernatural power uses it to turn a Maiden princess into a mother. This renders the story wholly in accordance with (1) the Modern Greek tale of “The Half Man,” (Hahn, No. 8) in which the magic formula runs, “according to the first word of God and the second of the fish shall such and such a thing be done!” (2) The Neapolitan story of “Pervonto” (Basile’s “Pentamerone,” No. 3) who obtains his magic power from three youths whom he screens from the sun as they lie asleep one hot day, and who turn out to be sons of a fairy. Afanasief compares the story also with the German tale of “The Little Grey Mannikin,” in the “Zeitschrift für Deutsche Mythologie,” &c., i. pp. 38-40. The incident of wishes being fulfilled by a fish occurs in many stories, as in that of “The Fisherman,” in the “Arabian Nights,” “The Fisherman and his Wife,” in Grimm (KM., No. 19). A number of stories about the Pike are referred to by A. de Gubernatis (“Zoolog. Mythology,” ii. 337-9).

[356] Quoted by Afanasief from Siemienski’s “Podania,” Posen, 1845, p. 42.

[357] “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 387-427.

[358] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 a. This story has no special title in the original.

[359] The rural police. Sotnick = centurion, from sto = 100. Desyatnik is a word of the same kind from desyat = 10.

[360] A Ponomar is a kind of sacristan.

[361] “Der Werwolf, Beitrag zur Sagengeschichte,” Stuttgart, 1862. For Russian ideas on the subject see “Songs of the Russian people,” pp. 403-9.

[362] “Polnische Volkssagen” (translated by Lewestam), p. 61.

[363] Brockhaus’s “Mährchensammlung des Somadeva Bhatta,” ii. p. 24.

[364] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 b. This story, also, is without special title.

[365] In Mr. Hain Friswell’s collection of “Ghost Stories,” 1858.

[366] Afanasief, vii. No. 36 c. Also without special title.

[367] The Russian skovoroda is a sort of stew-pan, of great size, without a handle.

[368] From Professor Brockhaus’s summary in the “Berichte der phil. hist. Classe der Königl. Sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften,” 1861, pp. 215, 16.

[369] For an account of this mythological bird, see the note on next page. Ornithologically, the Zhar-ptitsa is the Cassowary.

[370] Khudyakof, No. 110. From the Nijegorod Government.

[371]Zhar = glowing heat, as of a furnace; zhar-ptitsa = the glow-bird. Its name among the Czekhs and Slovaks is Ptak Ohnivák. The heathens Slavonians are said to have worshipped Ogon or Agon, Fire, the counterpart of the Vedic Agni. Agon is still the ordinary Russian word for fire, the equivalent of the Latin ignis.

[372] Afanasief, vii. No. 11. See also the notes in viii. p. 620, etc.

[373] Grimm’s KM., No. 57. See the notes in Bd. iii. p. 98.

[374] Afanasief, vii. No. 12.