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

[224] The adjective likhoi has two opposite meanings, sometimes signifying what is evil, hurtful, malicious, &c., sometimes what is bold, vigorous, and therefore to be admired. As a substantive, likho conveys the idea of something malevolent or unfortunate. The Polish licho properly signifies uneven. But odd numbers are sometimes considered unlucky. Polish housewives, for instance, think it imprudent to allow their hens to sit on an uneven number of eggs. But the peasantry also describe by Licho an evil spirit, a sort of devil. (Wojcicki in the “Encyklopedyja Powszechna,” xvii. p. 17.) “When Likho sleeps, awake it not,” says a proverb common to Poland and South Russia.

[225] Afanasief, iii. No. 14. From the Voroneje Government.

[226] From an article by Borovikovsky in the “Otech. Zap.” 1840, No. 2.

[227] “Les Avadânas,” vol. i. No. 9, p. 51.

[228] In the “Philogische und historische Abhandlungen,” of the Berlin Academy of Sciences for 1857, pp. 1-30. See also Buslaef, “Ist. Och.,” i. 327-331.; Campbell’s “West Highland Tales,” i. p. 132, &c.

[229]Ednookie (edno or odno = one; oko = eye). A Slavonic equivalent of the name “Arimaspians,” from the Scythic arima = one and spû = eye. Mr. Rawlinson associates arima, through farima, with Goth. fruma, Lat. primus, &c., and spû with Lat. root spic or spec—in specio, specto, &c., and with our “spy,” &c.

[230] Grimm, No. 130, &c.

[231] Afanasief, vi. No. 55.

[232] See the “Songs of the Russian People,” p. 30.

[233] Afanasief, v. No. 34. From the Novgorod Government.

[234]Opokhmyelit’sya: “to drink off the effects of his debauch.”

[235] Erlenvein, No. 21.

[236] Our “Sunday gown.”

[237] Afanasief, viii. p. 408.

[238] Properly speaking “grief,” that which morally krushìt or crushes a man.

[239]Kruchìna, as an abstract idea, is of the feminine gender. But it is here personified as a male being.

[240] Afanasief, v. p. 237.

[241]Spasibo is the word in popular use as an expression of thanks, and it now means nothing more than “thank you!” But it is really a contraction of spasi Bog! “God save (you)!” as our “Good-bye!” is of “God be with you!”

[242] Maksimovich, “Tri Skazki” (quoted by Afanasief, viii. p. 406).

[243] Vuk Karajich, No. 13.

[244] Afanasief, viii. No. 21.

[245]Schastie and Neschastie—Luck and Bad-luck—the exact counterparts of the Indian Lakshmí and Alakshmí.

[246] Afanasief, iii. No. 9.

[247] Afanasief viii. pp. 32-4.

[248]Bezdolny (bez = without; dolya = lot, share, etc.).

[249] Everyone knows how frequent are the allusions to good and bad fortune in Oriental fiction, so that there is no occasion to do more than allude to the stories in which they occur—one of the most interesting of which is that of Víra-vara in the “Hitopadesa” (chap. iii. Fable 9), who finds one night a young and beautiful woman, richly decked with jewels, weeping outside the city in which dwells his royal master Sudraka, and asks her who she is, and why she weeps. To which (in Mr. Johnson’s translation) she replies “I am the Fortune of this King Sudraka, beneath the shadow of whose arm I have long reposed very happily. Through the fault of the queen the king will die on the third day. I shall be without a protector, and shall stay no longer; therefore do I weep.” On the variants of this story, see Benfey’s “Panchatantra,” i. pp. 415-16.

[250] From pyat = five, Friday being the fifth working day. Similarly Tuesday is called Vtornik, from vtoroi = second; Wednesday is Sereda, “the middle;” Thursday Chetverg, from chetverty = fourth. But Saturday is Subbòta.

[251]P.V.S., i. 230. See also Buslaef, “Ist. Och.” pp. 323, 503-4.

[252] A tradition of our own relates that the Lords of the Admiralty, wishing to prove the absurdity of the English sailor’s horror of Friday, commenced a ship on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, named her “The Friday,” procured a Captain Friday to command her, and sent her to sea on a Friday, and—she was never heard of again.

[253] Afanasief, “Legendui,” No. 13. From the Tambof Government.

[254] For an account of various similar superstitions connected with Wednesday and Thursday, see Mannhardt’s “Germanische Mythen,” p. 15, 16, and W. Schmidt’s “Das Jahr und seine Tage,” p. 19.

[255]Khudyakof, No. 166. From the Orel Government.

[256] Doubtful. The Russian word is “Svarit,” properly “to cook.”

[257] Compare the English nursery rhyme addressed to the lady-bird:

“Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, Your house is a-fire, your children at home.”

[258] Wednesday in this, and Friday in the preceding story, are the exact counterparts of Lithuanian Laumes. According to Schleicher (“Lituanica,” p. 109), Thursday evening is called in Lithuania Laumiú vákars, the Laume’s Eve. No work ought to be done on a Thursday evening, and it is especially imprudent to spin then. For at night, when the Laumes come, as they are accustomed to do between Thursday evening and Friday morning, they seize any spinning which has been begun, work away at it till cock-crow, and then carry it off. In modern Greece the women attribute all nightly meddling with their spinning to the Neraïdes (the representatives of the Hellenic Nereids. See Bernhard Schmidt’s “Volksleben der Neugriechen,” p. 111). In some respects the Neraïda closely resemble the Lamia, and both of them have many features in common with the Laume. The latter name (which in Lettish is written Lauma) has never been satisfactorily explained. Can it be connected with the Greek Lamia which is now written also as Λάμνια, Λάμνα and Λάμνισσα?

[259] The word Nedyelya now means “a week.” But it originally meant Sunday, the non-working day (ne = not, dyelat’ = to do or work.) After a time, the name for the first day of the week became transferred to the week itself.

[260] That of “Wilisch Witiâsu,” Schott, No. 11.

[261] That of “Trandafíru,” Schott, No. 23.

[262] J. Wenzig’s “Westslawischer Märchenschatz,” pp. 144-155. According to Wenzig Nedĕlka is “the personified first Sunday after the new moon.” The part here attributed to St. Nedĕlka is played by a Vila in one of the Songs of Montenegro. According to an ancient Indian tradition, the Aswattha-tree “is to be touched only on a Sunday, for on every other day Poverty or Misfortune abides in it: on Sunday it is the residence of Lakshmí” (Good Fortune). H. H. Wilson “Works,” iii. 70.