Russian Fairy Tales — 20 - Chapter 3 - Mythological - Part 3 - Friday - Wednesday - The Léshy
We will now turn from the forms under which popular fiction has embodied some of the ideas connected with Fortune and Misfortune, to another strange group of figures--the personifications of certain days of the week.
Of these, by far the most important is that of Friday.
The Russian name for that day, _Pyatnitsa_,[250] has no such mythological significance as have our own Friday and the French _Vendredi_.
But the day was undoubtedly consecrated by the old Slavonians to some goddess akin to Venus or Freyja, and her worship in ancient times accounts for the superstitions now connected with the name of Friday.
According to Afanasief,[251] the Carinthian name for the day, _Sibne dan_, is a clear proof that it was once holy to Siva, the Lithuanian Seewa, the Slavonic goddess answering to Ceres.
In Christian times the personality of the goddess (by whatever name she may have been known) to whom Friday was consecrated became merged in that of St. Prascovia, and she is now frequently addressed by the compound name of "Mother Pyatnitsa-Prascovia."
As she is supposed to wander about the houses of the peasants on her holy day, and to be offended if she finds certain kinds of work going on, they are (or at least they used to be) frequently suspended on Fridays.
It is a sin, says a time-honored tradition, for a woman to sew, or spin, or weave, or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly for a man to plait bast shoes, twine cord, and the like.
Spinning and weaving are especially obnoxious to "Mother Friday," for the dust and refuse thus produced injure her eyes.
When this takes place, she revenges herself by plagues of sore-eyes, whitlows and agnails.
In some places the villagers go to bed early on Friday evening, believing that "St. Pyatinka" will punish all whom she finds awake when she roams through the cottage.
In others they sweep their floors every Thursday evening, that she may not be annoyed by dust or the like when she comes next day.
Sometimes, however, she has been seen, says the popular voice, "all pricked with the needles and pierced by the spindles" of the careless woman who sewed and spun on the day they ought to have kept holy in her honor.
As for any work begun on a Friday, it is sure to go wrong.
[252] These remarks will be sufficient to render intelligible the following story of-- FRIDAY.
[253] There was once a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it.
She span away till dinner-time, then suddenly sleep fell upon her--such a deep sleep!
And when she had gone to sleep, suddenly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such a rage!
And she went straight up to the woman who had been spinning, scooped up from the floor a handful of the dust that had fallen out of the flax, and began stuffing and stuffing that woman's eyes full of it!
And when she had stuffed them full, she went off in a rage--disappeared without saying a word.
When the woman awoke, she began squalling at the top of her voice about her eyes, but couldn't tell what was the matter with them.
The other women, who had been terribly frightened, began to cry out: "Oh, you wretch, you!
you've brought a terrible punishment on yourself from Mother Friday."
Then they told her all that had taken place.
She listened to it all, and then began imploringly: "Mother Friday, forgive me!
pardon me, the guilty one!
I'll offer thee a taper, and I'll never let friend or foe dishonor thee, Mother!"
Well, what do you think?
During the night, back came Mother Friday and took the dust out of that woman's eyes, so that she was able to get about again.
It's a great sin to dishonor Mother Friday--combing and spinning flax, forsooth!
Very similar to this story is that about Wednesday which follows.
Wednesday, the day consecrated to Odin, the eve of the day sacred to the Thundergod,[254] may also have been held holy by the heathen Slavonians, but to some commentators it appears more likely that the traditions now attached to it in Russia became transferred to it from Friday in Christian times--Wednesday and Friday having been associated by the Church as days sacred to the memory of Our Lord's passion and death.
The Russian name for the day, _Sereda_ or _Sreda_, means "the middle," Wednesday being the middle of the working week.
WEDNESDAY.
[255] A young housewife was spinning late one evening.
It was during the night between a Tuesday and a Wednesday.
She had been left alone for a long time, and after midnight, when the first cock crew, she began to think about going to bed, only she would have liked to finish spinning what she had in hand.
"Well," thinks she, "I'll get up a bit earlier in the morning, but just now I want to go to sleep."
So she laid down her hatchel--but without crossing herself--and said: "Now then, Mother Wednesday, lend me thy aid, that I may get up early in the morning and finish my spinning."
And then she went to sleep.
Well, very early in the morning, long before it was light, she heard some one moving, bustling about the room.
She opened her eyes and looked.
The room was lighted up.
A splinter of fir was burning in the cresset, and the fire was lighted in the stove.
A woman, no longer young, wearing a white towel by way of head-dress, was moving about the cottage, going to and fro, supplying the stove with firewood, getting everything ready.
Presently she came up to the young woman, and roused her, saying, "Get up!"
The young woman got up, full of wonder, saying: "But who art thou?
What hast thou come here for?"
"I am she on whom thou didst call.
I have come to thy aid."
"But who art thou?
On whom did I call?"
"I am Wednesday.
On Wednesday surely thou didst call.
See, I have spun thy linen and woven thy web: now let us bleach it and set it in the oven.
The oven is heated and the irons are ready; do thou go down to the brook and draw water."
The woman was frightened, and thought: "What manner of thing is this?"
(or, "How can that be?"
) but Wednesday glared at her angrily; her eyes just did sparkle!
So the woman took a couple of pails and went for water.
As soon as she was outside the door she thought: "Mayn't something terrible happen to me?
I'd better go to my neighbor's instead of fetching the water."
So she set off.
The night was dark.
In the village all were still asleep.
She reached a neighbor's house, and rapped away at the window until at last she made herself heard.
An aged woman let her in.
"Why, child!"
says the old crone; "whatever hast thou got up so early for?
What's the matter?"
"Oh, granny, this is how it was.
Wednesday has come to me, and has sent me for water to buck my linen with."
"That doesn't look well," says the old crone.
"On that linen she will either strangle thee or scald[256] thee."
The old woman was evidently well acquainted with Wednesday's ways.
"What am I to do?"
says the young woman.
"How can I escape from this danger?"
"Well, this is what thou must do.
Go and beat thy pails together in front of the house, and cry, 'Wednesday's children have been burnt at sea!'
[257] She will run out of the house, and do thou be sure to seize the opportunity to get into it before she comes back, and immediately slam the door to, and make the sign of the cross over it.
Then don't let her in, however much she may threaten you or implore you, but sign a cross with your hands, and draw one with a piece of chalk, and utter a prayer.
The Unclean Spirit will have to disappear."
Well, the young woman ran home, beat the pails together, and cried out beneath the window: "Wednesday's children have been burnt at sea!"
Wednesday rushed out of the house and ran to look, and the woman sprang inside, shut the door, and set a cross upon it.
Wednesday came running back, and began crying: "Let me in, my dear!
I have spun thy linen; now will I bleach it."
But the woman would not listen to her, so Wednesday went on knocking at the door until cock-crow.
As soon as the cocks crew, she uttered a shrill cry and disappeared.
But the linen remained where it was.
[258] In one of the numerous legends which the Russian peasants hold in reverence, St. Petka or Friday appears among the other saints, and together with her is mentioned another canonized day, St. Nedelya or Sunday,[259] answering to the Greek St. Anastasia, to _Der heilige Sonntag_ of German peasant-hagiology.
In some respects she resembles both Friday and Wednesday, sharing their views about spinning and weaving at unfitting seasons.
Thus in Little-Russia she assures untimely spinners that it is not flax they are spinning, but her hair, and in proof of this she shows them her dishevelled _kosa_, or long back plait.
In one of the Wallachian tales[260] the hero is assisted in his search after the dragon-stolen heroine by three supernatural females--the holy Mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday.
They replace the three benignant Baba Yagas of Russian stories.
In another,[261] the same three beings assist the Wallachian Psyche when she is wandering in quest of her lost husband.
Mother Sunday rules the animal world, and can collect her subjects by playing on a magic flute.
She is represented as exercising authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows on the hero a magic horse.
He has been sent by an unnatural mother in search of various things hard to be obtained, but he is assisted in the quest by St. Ned[)e]lka, who provides him with various magical implements, and lends him her own steed Tatoschik, and so enables him four times to escape from the perils to which he has been exposed by his mother, whose mind has been entirely corrupted by an insidious dragon.
But after he has returned home in safety, his mother binds him as if in sport, and the dragon chops off his head and cuts his body to pieces.
His mother retains his heart, but ties up the rest of him in a bundle, and sets it on Tatoschik's back.
The steed carries its ghastly burden to St. Ned[)e]lka, who soon reanimates it, and the youth becomes as sound and vigorous as a young man without a heart can be.
Then the saint sends him, under the disguise of a begging piper, to the castle in which his mother dwells, and instructs him how to get his heart back again.
He succeeds, and carries it in his hand to St. Ned[)e]lka.
She gives it to "the bird Pelekan (no mere Pelican, but a magic fowl with a very long and slim neck), which puts its head down the youth's throat, and restores his heart to its right place."
[262] St. Friday and St. Wednesday appear to belong to that class of spiritual beings, sometimes of a demoniacal disposition, with which the imagination of the old Slavonians peopled the elements.
Of several of these--such as the Domovoy or House-Spirit, the Rusalka or Naiad, and the Vodyany or Water-Sprite--I have written at some length elsewhere,[263] and therefore I will not at present quote any of the stories in which they figure.
But, as a specimen of the class to which such tales as these belong, here is a skazka about one of the wood-sprites or Slavonic Satyrs, who are still believed by the peasants to haunt the forests of Russia.
In it we see reduced to a vulgar form, and brought into accordance with everyday peasant-life, the myth which appears to have given rise to the endless stories about the theft and recovery of queens and princesses.
The leading idea of the story is the same, but the Snake or Koshchei has become a paltry wood-demon, the hero is a mere hunter, and the princely heroine has sunk to the low estate of a priest's daughter.
THE LESHY.
[264] A certain priest's daughter went strolling in the forest one day, without having obtained leave from her father or her mother--and she disappeared utterly.
Three years went by.
Now in the village in which her parents dwelt there lived a bold hunter, who went daily roaming through the thick woods with his dog and his gun.
One day he was going through the forest; all of a sudden his dog began to bark, and the hair of its back bristled up.
The sportsman looked, and saw lying in the woodland path before him a log, and on the log there sat a moujik plaiting a bast shoe.
And as he plaited the shoe, he kept looking up at the moon, and saying with a menacing gesture:-- "Shine, shine, O bright moon!"
The sportsman was astounded.
"How comes it," thinks he, "that the moujik looks like that?
--he is still young; but his hair is grey as a badger's." [265] He only thought these words, but the other replied, as if guessing what he meant:-- "Grey am I, being the devil's grandfather!"
[266] Then the sportsman guessed that he had before him no mere moujik, but a Leshy.
He levelled his gun and--bang!
he let him have it right in the paunch.
The Leshy groaned, and seemed to be going to fall across the log; but directly afterwards he got up and dragged himself into the thickets.
After him ran the dog in pursuit, and after the dog followed the sportsman.
He walked and walked, and came to a hill: in that hill was a fissure, and in the fissure stood a hut.
He entered the hut--there on a bench lay the Leshy stone dead, and by his side a damsel, exclaiming, amid bitter tears:-- "Who now will give me to eat and to drink?"
"Hail, fair maiden!"
says the hunter.
"Tell me whence thou comest, and whose daughter thou art?"
"Ah, good youth!
I know not that myself, any more than if I had never seen the free light--never known a father and mother."
"Well, get ready as soon as you can.
I will take you back to Holy Russia."
So he took her away with him, and brought her out of the forest.
And all the way he went along, he cut marks on the trees.
Now this damsel had been carried off by the Leshy, and had lived in his hut for three years--her clothes were all worn out, or had got torn off her back, so that she was stark naked but she wasn't a bit ashamed of that.
When they reached the village, the sportsman began asking whether there was any one there who had lost a girl.
Up came the priest, and cried, "Why, that's my daughter."
Up came running the priest's wife, and cried:-- "O thou dear child!
where hast thou been so long?
I had no hope of ever seeing thee again."
But the girl gazed and just blinked with her eyes, understanding nothing.
After a time, however, she began slowly to come back to her senses.
Then the priest and his wife gave her in marriage to the hunter, and rewarded him with all sorts of good things.
And they went in search of the hut in which she had lived while she was with the Leshy.
Long did they wander about the forest; but that hut they never found.
