Woe.[233]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ralston, William Ralston Shedden
The peasant made a clean breast of everything—how Woe the Woeful had attached itself to him, how he and Woe had drunk away all that he had, to the very last thread, so that the only thing that was left him was the soul in his body. How Woe showed him a treasure in the open field, how he took that treasure, and freed himself from Woe into the bargain. The rich man became envious.
“Suppose I go to the open field,” thinks he, “and lift up the stone and let Woe out. Of a surety it will utterly destroy my brother, and then he will no longer brag of his riches before me!”
So he sent his wife home, but he himself hastened into the plain. When he came to the big stone, he pushed it aside, and knelt down to see what was under it. Before he had managed to get his head down low enough, Woe had already leapt out and seated itself on his shoulders.
“Ha!” it cried, “you wanted to starve me to death in here! No, no! Now will I never on any account depart from you.”
“Only hear me, Woe!” said the merchant: “it wasn’t I at all who put you under the stone.”
“Who was it then, if it wasn’t you?”
“It was my brother put you there, but I came on purpose to let you out.”
“No, no! that’s a lie. You tricked me once; you shan’t trick me a second time!”
Woe gripped the rich merchant tight by the neck; the man had to carry it home, and there everything began to go wrong with him. From the very first day Woe began again to play its usual part, every day it called on the merchant to renew his drinking.[234] Many were the valuables which went in the pot-house.
“Impossible to go on living like this!” says the merchant to himself. “Surely I’ve made sport enough for Woe! It’s time to get rid of it—but how?”
He thought and thought, and hit on an idea. Going into the large yard, he cut two oaken wedges, took a new wheel, and drove a wedge firmly into one end of its axle-box. Then he went to where Woe was:
“Hallo, Woe! why are you always idly sprawling there?”
“Why, what is there left for me to do?”
“What is there to do! let’s go into the yard and play at hide-and-seek.”
Woe liked the idea. Out they went into the yard. First the merchant hid himself; Woe found him immediately. Then it was Woe’s turn to hide.
“Now then,” says Woe, “you won’t find me in a hurry! There isn’t a chink I can’t get into!”
“Get along with you!” answered the merchant. “Why you couldn’t creep into that wheel there, and yet you talk about chinks!”
“I can’t creep into that wheel? See if I don’t go clean out of sight in it!”
Woe slipped into the wheel; the merchant caught up the oaken wedge, and drove it into the axle-box from the other side. Then he seized the wheel and flung it, with Woe in it, into the river. Woe was drowned, and the merchant began to live again as he had been wont to do of old.
In a variant of this story found in the Tula Government we have, in the place of woe, Nuzhda, or Need. The poor brother and his wife are returning home disconsolately from a party given by the rich brother in honor of his son’s marriage. But a draught of water which they take by the way gets into their heads, and they set up a song.
“There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices prolong the strain.
“‘Whoever is that?’ say they.
“‘Thy Need,’ answers some one or other.
“‘What, my good mother Need!’
“So saying the man laid hold of her, and took her down from his shoulders—for she was sitting on them. And he found a horse’s head and put her inside it, and flung it into a swamp. And afterwards he began to lead a new life—impossible to live more prosperously.”
Of course the rich brother becomes envious and takes Need out of the swamp, whereupon she clings to him so tightly that he cannot get rid of her, and he becomes utterly ruined.[235]
In another story, from the Viatka Government, the poor man is invited to a house-warming at his rich brother’s, but he has no present to take with him.
“We might borrow, but who would trust us?” says he.
“Why there’s Need!” replies his wife with a bitter laugh. “Perhaps she’ll make us a present. Surely we’ve lived on friendly terms with her for an age!”
“Take the feast-day sarafan,”[236] cries Need from behind the stove; “and with the money you get for it buy a ham and take it to your brother’s.”
“Have you been living here long, Need?” asks the moujik.
“Yes, ever since you and your brother separated.”
“And have you been comfortable here?”
“Thanks be to God, I get on tolerably!”
The moujik follows the advice of Need, but meets with a cold reception at his brother’s. On returning sadly home he finds a horse standing by the road side, with a couple of bags slung across its back. He strikes it with his glove, and it disappears, leaving behind it the bags, which turn out to be full of gold. This he gathers up, and then goes indoors. After finding out from his wife where she has taken up her quarters for the night, he says:
“And where are you, Need?”
“In the pitcher which stands on the stove.”
After a time the moujik asks his wife if she is asleep. “Not yet,” she replies. Then he puts the same question to Need, who gives no answer, having gone to sleep. So he takes his wife’s last sarafan, wraps up the pitcher in it, and flings the bundle into an ice-hole.[237]
In one of the “chap-book” stories (a lubochnaya skazka), a poor man “obtained a crust of bread and took it home to provide his wife and boy with a meal, but just as he was beginning to cut it, suddenly out from behind the stove jumped Kruchìna,[238] snatched the crust from his hands, and fled back again behind the stove. Then the old man began to bow down before Kruchìna and to beseech him[239] to give back the bread, seeing that he and his had nothing to eat. Thereupon Kruchìna replied, “I will not give you back your crust, but in return for it I will make you a present of a duck which will lay a golden egg every day,” and kept his word.[240]
In Little-Russia the peasantry believe in the existence of small beings, of vaguely defined form, called Zluidni who bring zlo or evil to every habitation in which they take up their quarters. “May the Zluidni strike him!” is a Little-Russian curse, and “The Zluidni have got leave for three days; not in three years will you get rid of them!” is a White-Russian proverb. In a Little-Russian skazka a poor man catches a fish and takes it as a present to his rich brother, who says, “A splendid fish! thank you, brother, thank you!” but evinces no other sign of gratitude. On his way home the poor man meets an old stranger and tells him his story—how he had taken his brother a fish and had got nothing in return but a “thank ye.”