University of Virginia Library

LITTLE RUSSIAN STORIES

(FROM SOUTH RUSSIA).

HERE again Mr. Ralston informs us in his preface
that he `has been able to use but little the South
Russian collections of Kulish and Rudchenko, there being
no complete dictionary available of the dialect, or rather
language, in which they are written.' He has, however,
given a long and interesting story from the Ukraine, which
I find also in Erben, the `Norka.' One of Erben's South
Russian stories is too closely identical with a pretty tale
from the government of Voronezh, given by Ralston (p. 63),
for me to give it a place here. All the other South Russian
stories in Erben's collection I have translated, and only
wish they had been more numerous.

The tales of Snake Husbands always appear to have an
evil end, though the two that I have translated do not conclude
so touchingly as the beautiful Great Russian story,
`The Watersnake' (Ralston, p. 116). Certainly the science
of comparative mythology cannot be considered as
having its data complete, until Slavonic folklore has been
thoroughly investigated and analyzed.

In No. 28 an old friend will be discovered in a very
rustic dress.

XXVIII.—THE BEAUTIFUL DAMSEL AND THE
WICKED OLD WOMAN.

In the woods stood a cottage. In it lived a man and his
wife, but they had no children. Well, they went on a
pilgrimage to beseech God to give them a child. God gave
them a daughter. She grew and prospered. The prince
about that time rode up to the place, as he was out hunting,
and sent his attendant, saying: `Be so good as to go and
ask for a draught of water at yon cottage.' The attendant
went to ask for the water just when the child was weeping,
and pearls were rolling down from her eyes. Her mother
pacified her; she began to smile; all manner of flowers
bloomed. The servant went out and said: `Prince, I have
seen a little girl; when she weeps, pearls roll down; and
when she smiles, all manner of flowers bloom.' The prince
went into the cottage, and began to tease the child to make
her cry. She cried, and pearls rolled down. He then
begged her mother to pacify her. When she smiled, the
prince saw that all manner of flowers bloomed.

The girl continued to grow, and the prince always rode
round that way when he went hunting. Well, she grew up.
The prince said: `Old man, give me your daughter to wife.'
She now embroidered handkerchiefs with eagles. But the
emperor said: `Where are your wits gone to, my son, that
you want to take a peasant girl to wife?' Then the prince
took one of the handkerchiefs that she had embroidered,
and carried it to the emperor, whereat the emperor clapped
his hands. `Marry,' said he, `my son, marry!' Then he
conducted her homeward, but in his suite was an old woman
who had her daughter with her. Well, as they were on
their way, the prince stopped to shoot something, and the
old woman took everything from the damsel, scooped out
her eyes, and thrust her into a cavern in the ground, and

dressed her daughter in her apparel; so the prince took her
to wife without recognising her.

But round the cavern there grew a multitude of bushes.
An old man came to gather brushwood. The girl, the
damsel, was sitting in the cavern, and in front of her a heap
of pearls, which she had wept as she sat; but she had no
eyes. `Take me,' said she, `kind old man, and pick up this
jewellery here.' Well, the old man took her, collected the
jewellery, and led her home. At the old man's there were no
children, but there was an old woman. She, the damsel,
said: `Collect the jewellery in a bag, and carry it to the town
for sale; and if a certain old woman meets you, then don't
sell to her, but say: "Give what you have about you." '
Well, he carried it to the town and met the old woman. The
old woman said: `Sell me the jewellery!' `Purchase.' `How
much for it?' `Give what you have about you?' She gave
him an eye. Then the damsel began with one eye to
embroider a handkerchief. Again the old man carried
jewellery to the town. The old woman again said: `Old
man, sell me the jewellery!' `Purchase.' `How much for it?'
`Give what you have about you?' She gave him the other
eye. The damsel then began to embroider still more
beautifully. The old man said: `There's a dinner at the
emperor's.' The damsel said to him: `Go, kind old man,
to the dinner and take a jug, that you may beg some soup
for me.' She also tied a handkerchief of her own sewing on
the old man's neck. When the prince espied the handkerchief
on the old man's neck, he cried: `Whence come you,
old man?' `From the farm yonder, prince; and there is
also a damsel living at my house, so be so kind as to give
her something in this jug.' `But, old man, where did you
get that handkerchief?' `I found a damsel in a cavern in the
ground, and she embroidered it.' The prince at once recognised
it by the embroidery. `'Tis she! 'tis she!' But the old
woman's daughter he packed off to tend swine. That's all.

XXIX.—THE SNAKE AND THE PRINCESS.

There was an emperor and empress who had three
daughters. The emperor fell ill, and sent his eldest
daughter for water. She went to fetch it, when a snake
said: `Come! will you marry me?' The princess replied:
`No, I won't.' `Then,' said he, `I won't give you any
water.' Then the second daughter said: `I'll go; he'll give
me some.' She went; the snake said to her: `Come! will
you marry me?' `No,' she said, `I won't.' He gave her
no water. She returned and said: `He gave me no water.
He said: "If you will marry me I will give it." ' The
youngest said: `I will go; he will give me some.' She
went, and the snake said to her: `Come! will you marry
me?' `I will,' she said. Then he drew her water from the
very bottom, cold and fresh. She brought it home, gave it
her father to drink, and her father recovered. Then on
Sunday a carriage came, and those with it said:

She was terrified, wept, and went and opened the door.
Then they said again:
Then they came into the house and placed the snake in a
plate on the table. There he lay, just as if he were of gold!
They went out of the house, and said:
They drove off with her to the snake's abode. There they
lived, and had a daughter born to them. They also took a
godmother to live with them, but she was a wicked woman.
The child soon died, and the mother died soon after it.
The godmother went in the night to the place where she
was buried, and cut off her hands. Then she came home,
and heated water-gruel, scalded the hands, and took off the
gold rings. Then the princess—such was the ordinance of
God—came to her for the hands, and said:
The godmother concealed herself under the stove. She
said again:
The next day they came and found the godmother dead
under the stove. They didn't give her proper burial, but
threw her into a hole.

XXX.—TRANSFORMATION INTO A NIGHTINGALE
AND A CUCKOO.

A damsel fell in love with a snake, and was also beloved by
him. He took her to wife. His dwelling was of pure glass,
all crystal. This dwelling was situated underground, in a
kind of mound, or something of the sort. Well, it is said

that her old mother at first grieved over her. How could
she help doing so? Well, when the time came, the snake's
wife became the mother of twins, a boy and a girl; they
looked, as they lay by their mother, as if they were made of
wax. And she was herself as beautiful as a flower. Well,
God having given her children, she said: `Now, then, since
they have been born as human beings, let us christen them
among human beings.' She took her seat in a golden
carriage, laid the children on her knees, and drove off to the
village to the pope.[3] The carriage had not got into the
open country, when sadness was brought to the mother.
The old woman had made an outcry in the whole village,
seized a sickle, and rushed into the country. She saw she had
manifest death before her, when she called to her children,
and went on to say: `Fly, my children, as birds about the
world: you, my little son, as a nightingale, and you, my
daughter, as a cuckoo.' Out flew a nightingale from the
carriage by the right-hand, and a cuckoo by the left-hand
window. What became of the carriage and horses and all
nobody knows. Nor did their mistress remain, only a dead
nettle sprang up by the roadside.

XXXI.—TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL.

A certain woman had a kind of adventure. When she
went out into the field to cut grass, or to fetch hemp, and
placed food in the stove, then somebody took the victuals
out of the stove, and ate them all clean up. She thought,
what might such a thing as this signify? Nohow could she
guess it. She came, the door was shut, and there was only
remaining in the house a baby—maybe half a year old—in
the cradle. Well, she betook herself to a wise woman. She
entreated her and paid her to come, and she came. She

looked about, she snuffed about—I mean the wise woman.
All at once she heard something indefinite. `Go you,' she
said, `into the field, and I'll hide myself and we'll see what
this is.' The woman went into the field, and the wise
woman hid herself in a corner, and kept a look-out. Then,
pop! the baby jumped out of the cradle! She looked,
and it was no more a baby, but an old man. He was quite
dwarfish, and his beard was long. In a moment he was after
the eatables, pulled the victuals out of the stove, then gave a
screech, and began to gobble up the food. When he had
devoured all, then he became a baby again; but now he
didn't crawl into the cradle, but lay down, and screeched
till the whole house rang. Then the wise woman was after
him: she placed him on a block of wood, and began to
chop the block under his feet. He screeched and she
chopped: he screeched and she chopped. Then she saw
how, taking an opportunity, he became an old man again,
and said: `Old woman, I have transformed myself not once
nor twice only: I was first a fish, then I became a bird, an
ant, and a quadruped, and now I have once more made trial
of being a human being. It isn't better thus than being
among the ants; but among human beings—it isn't worse!'

XXXII.—THE WIZARD.

There was here once in our village a certain Avstriyat, who
was such a wizard that he could cause rain or hail to pass
away when he chose. It happened that we were cutting
corn in the country; a cloud came up. We began to hurry
off the sheaves, but he took no notice, cut and cut away by
himself, smoked his pipe, and said: `Don't be frightened—
there'll be no rain.' Lo and behold, there was no rain.
Once—all this I saw with my own eyes—we were cutting
rye, when the sky became black, the wind rose: it began to

whistle at first afar off, then over our very heads. There
was thunder, lightning, whirlwind—such a tempest, that—
O God! Thy will be done! We went after our sheaves, but
he—`Don't be frightened, there'll be no rain.' `Where
won't it be?' We didn't hearken to him. But he smoked
his pipe out, and cut away quietly by himself. Up came a
man on a black horse, and all black himself: he darted
straight up to Avstriyat: `Hey! give permission!' said he.
Avstriyat replied: `No, I won't!' `Give permission; be
merciful!' `I won't. It would be impossible to get such
a quantity in.' The black horseman bowed to the man, and
hastened off over the country.

Then the black cloud became gray and whitened. Our
elders feared that there would be hail. But Avstriyat took
no notice. He cut the corn by himself and smoked his
pipe. But again a horseman came up; he hastened over
the country still quicker than the first. But this one was all
in white, and on a white horse. `Give permission!' he
shouted to Avstriyat. `I won't!' `Give permission, for
God's sake!' `I won't. It wouldn't be possible to get such
a quantity in.' `Hey! give permission; I can't hold out!
Then, and not till then, did Avstriyat relent. `Well, then,
go now, but only into the glen, which is beyond the plain.'
Scarcely had he spoken, when the horseman disappeared,
and hail poured down as out of a basket. In the course of
a short hour it filled the glen brimful, level with the banks.