Russian Fairy Tales — 26 - Chapter 4 - Magic and Witchcraft - Part 4 - Emilian the Fool - The Witch Girl - The Headless Princess
We will take next a story which is a great favorite in Russia, and which will serve as another illustration of the use made of magical "properties" in the Skazkas.
EMILIAN THE FOOL.
[351] There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted, but the third was a fool.
The elder brothers set off to sell their goods in the towns down the river,[352] and said to the fool: "Now mind, fool!
obey our wives, and pay them respect as if they were your own mothers.
We'll buy you red boots, and a red caftan, and a red shirt."
The fool said to them: "Very good; I will pay them respect."
They gave the fool their orders and went away to the downstream towns; but the fool stretched himself on top of the stove and remained lying there.
His brothers' wives say to him-- "What are you about, fool!
your brothers ordered you to pay us respect, and in return for that each of them was going to bring you a present, but there you lie on the stove and don't do a bit of work.
Go and fetch some water, at all events."
The fool took a couple of pails and went to fetch the water.
As he scooped it up, a pike happened to get into his pail.
Says the fool: "Glory to God!
now I will cook this pike, and will eat it all myself; I won't give a bit of it to my sisters-in-law.
I'm savage with them!"
The pike says to him with a human voice: "Don't eat me, fool!
if you'll put me back again into the water you shall have good luck!"
Says the fool, "What sort of good luck shall I get from you?"
"Why, this sort of good luck: whatever you say, that shall be done.
Say, for instance, 'By the Pike's command, at my request, go home, ye pails, and be set in your places.'
" As soon as the fool had said this, the pails immediately went home of their own accord and became set in their places.
The sisters-in-law looked and wondered.
"What sort of a fool is this!"
they say.
"Why, he's so knowing, you see, that his pails have come home and gone to their places of their own accord!"
The fool came back and lay down on the stove.
Again did his brothers' wives begin saying to him-- "What are you lying on the stove for, fool?
there's no wood for the fire; go and fetch some."
The fool took two axes and got into a sledge, but without harnessing a horse to it.
"By the Pike's command," he says, "at my request, drive, into the forest, O sledge!"
Away went the sledge at a rattling pace, as if urged on by some one.
The fool had to pass by a town, and the people he met were jammed into corners by his horseless sledge in a way that was perfectly awful.
They all began crying out: "Stop him!
Catch him!"
But they couldn't lay hands on him.
The fool drove into the forest, got out of the sledge, sat down on a log, and said-- "One of you axes fell the trees, while the other cuts them up into billets."
Well, the firewood was cut up and piled on the sledge.
Then says the fool: "Now then, one of you axes!
go and cut me a cudgel,[353] as heavy a one as I can lift."
The axe went and cut him a cudgel, and the cudgel came and lay on top of the load.
The fool took his seat and drove off.
He drove by the town, but the townspeople had met together and had been looking out for him for ever so long.
So they stopped the fool, laid hands upon him, and began pulling him about.
Says the fool-- "By the Pike's command, at my request, go, O cudgel, and bestir thyself."
Out jumped the cudgel, and took to thumping and smashing, and knocked over ever such a lot of people.
There they lay on the ground, strewed about like so many sheaves of corn.
The fool got clear of them and drove home, heaped up the wood, and then lay down on the stove.
Meanwhile, the townspeople got up a petition against him, and denounced him to the King, saying: "Folks say there's no getting hold of him the way we tried;[354] we must entice him by cunning, and the best way of all will be to promise him a red shirt, and a red caftan, and red boots."
So the King's runners came for the fool.
"Go to the King," they say, "he will give you red boots, a red caftan, and a red shirt."
Well, the fool said: "By the Pike's command, at my request, do thou, O stove, go to the King!"
He was seated on the stove at the time.
The stove went;
the fool arrived at the King's. The King was going to put him to death, but he had a daughter, and she took a tremendous liking to the fool.
So she began begging her father to give her in marriage to the fool.
Her father flew into a passion.
He had them married, and then ordered them both to be placed in a tub, and the tub to be tarred over and thrown into the water; all which was done.
Long did the tub float about on the sea.
His wife began to beseech the fool: "Do something to get us cast on shore!"
"By the Pike's command, at my request," said the fool, "cast this tub ashore and tear it open!"
He and his wife stepped out of the tub.
Then she again began imploring him to build some sort of a house.
The fool said: "By the Pike's command, at my request, let a marble palace be built, and let it stand immediately opposite the King's palace!"
This was all done in an instant.
In the morning the King saw the new palace, and sent to enquire who it was that lived in it.
As soon as he learnt that his daughter lived there, that very minute he summoned her and her husband.
They came.
The King pardoned them, and they all began living together and flourishing.
[355] "The Pike," observes Afanasief, "is a fish of great repute in northern mythology."
One of the old Russian songs still sung at Christmas, tells how a Pike comes from Novgorod, its scales of silver and gold, its back woven with pearls, a costly diamond gleaming in its head instead of eyes.
And this song is one which promises wealth, a fact connecting the Russian fish with that Scandinavian pike which was a shape assumed by Andvari--the dwarf-guardian of the famous treasure, from which sprang the woes recounted in the _Voelsunga Saga_ and the _Nibelungenlied_.
According to a Lithuanian tradition,[356] there is a certain lake which is ruled by the monstrous pike Strukis.
It sleeps only once a year, and then only for a single hour.
It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects.
Strukis awoke in time to upset the fisherman's boat; but fearing a repetition of the attempt, it now changes each year the hour of its annual sleep.
A
gigantic pike figures also in the _Kalevala_.
It would be easy to fill with similar stories, not only a section of a chapter, but a whole volume; but instead of quoting any more of them, I will take a few specimens from a different, though a somewhat kindred group of tales--those which relate to the magic powers supposed to be wielded in modern times by dealers in the Black Art.
Such narratives as these are to be found in every land, but Russia is specially rich in them, the faith of the peasantry in the existence of Witches and Wizards, Turnskins and Vampires, not having been as yet seriously shaken.
Some of the stories relating to the supernatural Witch, who evidently belongs to the demon world, have already been given.
In those which I am about to quote, the wizard or witch who is mentioned is a human being, but one who has made a compact with evil spirits, and has thereby become endowed with strange powers.
Such monsters as these are, throughout their lives, a terror to the district they inhabit; nor does their evil influence die with them, for after they have been laid in the earth, they assume their direst aspect, and as Vampires bent on blood, night after night, they go forth from their graves to destroy.
As I have elsewhere given some account of Slavonic beliefs in witchcraft,[357] I will do little more at present than allow the stories to speak for themselves.
They will be recognized as being akin to the tales about sorcery current farther west, but they are of a more savage nature.
The rustic warlocks and witches of whom we are accustomed to hear have little, if any, of that thirst for blood which so unfavorably characterizes their Slavonic counterparts.
Here is a story, by way of example, of a most gloomy nature.
THE WITCH GIRL.
[358] Late one evening, a Cossack rode into a village, pulled up at its last cottage, and cried-- "Heigh, master!
will you let me spend the night here?"
"Come in, if you don't fear death!"
"What sort of a reply is that?"
thought the Cossack, as he put his horse up in the stable.
After he had given it its food he went into the cottage.
There he saw its inmates, men and women and little children, all sobbing and crying and praying to God; and when they had done praying, they began putting on clean shirts.
"What are you crying about?"
asked the Cossack.
"Why you see," replied the master of the house, "in our village Death goes about at night.
Into whatsoever cottage she looks, there, next morning, one has to put all the people who lived in it into coffins, and carry them off to the graveyard.
To-night it's our turn."
"Never fear, master!
'Without God's will, no pig gets its fill!'
" The people of the house lay down to sleep; but the Cossack was on the look-out and never closed an eye.
Exactly at midnight the window opened.
At the window appeared a witch all in white.
She took a sprinkler, passed her arm into the cottage, and was just on the point of sprinkling--when the Cossack suddenly gave his sabre a sweep, and cut her arm off close to the shoulder.
The witch howled, squealed, yelped like a dog, and fled away.
But the Cossack picked up the severed arm, hid it under his cloak, washed away the stains of blood, and lay down to sleep.
Next morning the master and mistress awoke, and saw that everyone, without a single exception, was alive and well, and they were delighted beyond expression.
"If you like," says the Cossack, "I'll show you Death!
Call together all the Sotniks and Desyatniks[359] as quickly as possible, and let's go through the village and look for her."
Straightway all the Sotniks and Desyatniks came together and went from house to house.
In this one there's nothing, in that one there's nothing, until at last they come to the Ponomar's[360] cottage.
"Is all your family present?"
asks the Cossack.
"No, my own!
one of my daughters is ill.
She's lying on the stove there."
The Cossack looked towards the stove--one of the girl's arms had evidently been cut off.
Thereupon he told the whole story of what had taken place, and he brought out and showed the arm which had been cut off.
The commune rewarded the Cossack with a sum of money, and ordered that witch to be drowned.
Stories of this kind are common in all lands, but the witches about whom they are told generally assume the forms of beasts of prey, especially of wolves, or of cats.
A long string of similar tales will be found in Dr. Wilhelm Hertz's excellent and exhaustive monograph on werwolves.
[361] Very important also is the Polish story told by Wojcicki[362] of the village which is attacked by the Plague, embodied in the form of a woman, who roams from house to house in search of victims.
One night, as she goes her rounds, all doors and windows have been barred against her except one casement.
This has been left open by a nobleman who is ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of others.
The Pest Maiden arrives, and thrusts her arm in at his window.
The nobleman cuts it off, and so rids the village of its fatal visitor.
In an Indian story,[363] a hero undertakes to watch beside the couch of a haunted princess.
When all is still a Rakshasa appears on the threshold, opens the door, and thrusts into the room an arm--which the hero cuts off.
The fiend disappears howling, and leaves his arm behind.
The horror of the next story is somewhat mitigated by a slight infusion of the grotesque--but this may arise from a mere accident, and be due to the exceptional cheerfulness of some link in the chain of its narrators.
THE HEADLESS PRINCESS.
[364] In a certain country there lived a King; and this King had a daughter who was an enchantress.
Near the royal palace there dwelt a priest, and the priest had a boy of ten years old, who went every day to an old woman to learn reading and writing.
Now it happened one day that he came away from his lessons late in the evening, and as he passed by the palace he looked in at one of the windows.
At that window the Princess happened to be sitting and dressing herself.
She took off her head, lathered it with soap, washed it with clean water, combed its hair, plaited its long back braid, and then put it back again in its proper place.
The boy was lost in wonder.
"What a clever creature!"
thinks he.
"A downright witch!"
And when he got home he began telling every one how he had seen the Princess without her head.
All of a sudden the King's daughter fell grievously ill, and she sent for her father, and strictly enjoined him, saying-- "If I die, make the priest's son read the psalter over me three nights running."
The Princess died; they placed her in a coffin, and carried it to church.
Then the king summoned the priest, and said-- "Have you got a son?"
"I have, your majesty."
"Well then," said the King, "let him read the psalter over my daughter three nights running."
The priest returned home, and told his son to get ready.
In the morning the priest's son went to his lessons, and sat over his book looking ever so gloomy.
"What are you unhappy about?"
asked the old woman.
"How can I help being unhappy, when I'm utterly done for?"
"Why what's the matter?
Speak out plainly."
"Well then, granny, I've got to read psalms over the princess, and, do you know, she's a witch!"
"I knew that before you did!
But don't be frightened, there's a knife for you.
When you go into the church, trace a circle round you; then read away from your psalter and don't look behind you.
Whatever happens there, whatever horrors may appear, mind your own business and go on reading, reading.
But if you look behind you, it will be all over with you!"
In the evening the boy went to the church, traced a circle round him with the knife, and betook himself to the psalter.
Twelve o'clock struck.
The lid of the coffin flew up; the Princess arose, leapt out, and cried-- "Now I'll teach you to go peeping through my windows, and telling people what you saw!"
She began rushing at the priest's son, but she couldn't anyhow break into the circle.
Then she began to conjure up all sorts of horrors.
But in spite of all that she did, he went on reading and reading, and never gave a look round.
And at daybreak the Princess rushed at her coffin, and tumbled into it at full length, all of a heap.
The next night everything went on just the same.
The priest's son wasn't a bit afraid, went on reading without a stop right up to daybreak, and in the morning went to the old woman.
She asked him-- "Well!
have you seen horrors?"
"Yes, granny!"
"It will be still more horrible this time.
Here's a hammer for you and four nails.
Knock them into the four corners of the coffin, and when you begin reading the psalter, stick up the hammer in front of you."
In the evening the priest's son went to the church, and did everything just as the old woman had told him.
Twelve o'clock struck, the coffin lid fell to the ground, the Princess jumped up and began tearing from side to side, and threatening the youth.
Then she conjured up horrors, this time worse than before.
It seemed to him as if a fire had broken out in the church; all the walls were wrapped in flames!
But he held his ground and went on reading, never once looking behind him.
Just before daybreak the Princess rushed to her coffin--then the fire seemed to go out immediately, and all the deviltry vanished!
In the morning the King came to the church, and saw that the coffin was open, and in the coffin lay the princess, face downwards.
"What's the meaning of all this?"
says he.
