Russian Fairy Tales — 05 - Chapter 1 - Introductory - Part 5 - The Bad Wife - The Golovikha - The Three Copecks

The Russian peasant is by no means deficient in humor, a fact of which the Skazkas offer abundant evidence.

But it is not easy to find stories which can be quoted at full length as illustrations of that humor.

The jokes which form the themes of the Russian facetious tales are for the most part common to all Europe.

And a similar assertion may be made with regard to the stories of most lands.

An unfamiliar joke is but rarely to be discovered in the lower strata of fiction.

He who has read the folk-tales of one country only, is apt to attribute to its inhabitants a comic originality to which they can lay no claim.

And so a Russian who knows the stories of his own land, but has not studied those of other countries, is very liable to credit the Skazkas with the undivided possession of a number of "merry jests" in which they can claim but a very small share--jests which in reality form the stock-in-trade of rustic wags among the vineyards of France or Germany, or on the hills of Greece, or beside the fiords of Norway, or along the coasts of Brittany or Argyleshire--which for centuries have set beards wagging in Cairo and Ispahan, and in the cool of the evening hour have cheered the heart of the villager weary with his day's toil under the burning sun of India.

It is only when the joke hinges upon something which is peculiar to a people that it is likely to be found among that people only.

But most of the Russian jests turn upon pivots which are familiar to all the world, and have for their themes such common-place topics as the incorrigible folly of man, the inflexible obstinacy of woman.

And in their treatments of these subjects they offer very few novel features.

It is strange how far a story of this kind may travel, and yet how little alteration it may undergo.

Take, for instance, the skits against women which are so universally popular.

Far away in outlying districts of Russia we find the same time-honored quips which have so long figured in collections of English facetiae.

There is the good old story, for instance, of the dispute between a husband and wife as to whether a certain rope has been cut with a knife or with scissors, resulting in the murder of the scissors-upholding wife, who is pitched into the river by her knife-advocating husband; but not before she has, in her very death agony, testified to her belief in the scissors hypothesis by a movement of her fingers above the surface of the stream.

[47] In a Russian form of the story, told in the government of Astrakhan, the quarrel is about the husband's beard.

He says he has shaved it, his wife declares he has only cut it off.

He flings her into a deep pool, and calls to her to say "shaved."

Utterance is impossible to her, but "she lifts one hand above the water and by means of two fingers makes signs to show that it was cut."

[48] The story has even settled into a proverb.

Of a contradictory woman the Russian peasants affirm that, "If you say 'shaved' she'll say 'cut.'

" In the same way another story shows us in Russian garb our old friend the widower who, when looking for his drowned wife--a woman of a very antagonistic disposition--went up the river instead of down, saying to his astonished companions, "She always did everything contrary-wise, so now, no doubt, she's gone against the stream."

[49] A common story again is that of the husband who, having confided a secret to his wife which he justly fears she will reveal, throws discredit on her evidence about things in general by making her believe various absurd stories which she hastens to repeat.

[49] The final paragraph of one of the variants of this time-honored jest is quaint, concluding as it does, by way of sting, with a highly popular Russian saw.

The wife has gone to the seigneur of the village and accused her husband of having found a treasure and kept it for his own use.

The charge is true, but the wife is induced to talk such nonsense, and the husband complains so bitterly of her, that "the seigneur pitied the moujik for being so unfortunate, so he set him at liberty; and he had him divorced from his wife and married to another, a young and good-looking one.

Then the moujik immediately dug up his treasure and began living in the best manner possible."

Sure enough the proverb doesn't say without reason: "Women have long hair and short wits."

[50] There is another story of this class which is worthy of being mentioned, as it illustrates a custom in which the Russians differ from some other peoples.

A certain man had married a wife who was so capricious that there was no living with her.

After trying all sorts of devices her dejected husband at last asked her how she had been brought up, and learnt that she had received an education almost entirely German and French, with scarcely any Russian in it; she had not even been wrapped in swaddling-clothes when a baby, nor swung in a _liulka_.

[51] Thereupon her husband determined to remedy the short-comings of her early education, and "whenever she showed herself capricious, or took to squalling, he immediately had her swaddled and placed in a _liulka_, and began swinging her to and fro."

By the end of a half year she became "quite silky"--all her caprices had been swung out of her.

But instead of giving mere extracts from any more of the numerous stories to which the fruitful subject of woman's caprice has given rise, we will quote a couple of such tales at length.

The first is the Russian variant of a story which has a long family tree, with ramifications extending over a great part of the world.

Dr. Benfey has devoted to it no less than sixteen pages of his introduction to the Panchatantra,[52] tracing it from its original Indian home, and its subsequent abode in Persia, into almost every European land.

THE BAD WIFE.

[53] A bad wife lived on the worst of terms with her husband, and never paid any attention to what he said.

If her husband told her to get up early, she would lie in bed three days at a stretch;

if he wanted her to go to sleep, she couldn't think of sleeping.

When her husband asked her to make pancakes, she would say: "You thief, you don't deserve a pancake!"

If he said: "Don't make any pancakes, wife, if I don't deserve them," she would cook a two-gallon pot full, and say, "Eat away, you thief, till they're all gone!"

"Now then, wife," perhaps he would say, "I feel quite sorry for you; don't go toiling and moiling, and don't go out to the hay cutting."

"No, no, you thief!"

she would reply, "I shall go, and do you follow after me!"

One day, after having had his trouble and bother with her he went into the forest to look for berries and distract his grief, and he came to where there was a currant bush, and in the middle of that bush he saw a bottomless pit.

He looked at it for some time and considered, "Why should I live in torment with a bad wife?

can't I put her into that pit?

can't I teach her a good lesson?"

So when he came home, he said: "Wife, don't go into the woods for berries."

"Yes, you bugbear, I shall go!"

"I've found a currant bush; don't pick it."

"Yes I will; I shall go and pick it clean; but I won't give you a single currant!"

The husband went out, his wife with him.

He came to the currant bush, and his wife jumped into it, crying out at the top her voice: "Don't you come into the bush, you thief, or I'll kill you!"

And so she got into the middle of the bush, and went flop into the bottomless pit.

The husband returned home joyfully, and remained there three days; on the fourth day he went to see how things were going on.

Taking a long cord, he let it down into the pit, and out from thence he pulled a little demon.

Frightened out of his wits, he was going to throw the imp back again into the pit, but it shrieked aloud, and earnestly entreated him, saying: "Don't send me back again, O peasant!

let me go out into the world!

A bad wife has come, and absolutely devoured us all, pinching us, and biting us--we're utterly worn out with it.

I'll do you a good turn, if you will."

So the peasant let him go free--at large in Holy Russia.

Then the imp said: "Now then, peasant, come along with me to the town of Vologda.

I'll take to tormenting people, and you shall cure them."

Well, the imp went to where there were merchant's wives and merchant's daughters; and when they were possessed by him, they fell ill and went crazy.

Then the peasant would go to a house where there was illness of this kind, and, as soon as he entered, out would go the enemy; then there would be blessing in the house, and everyone would suppose that the peasant was a doctor indeed, and would give him money, and treat him to pies.

And so the peasant gained an incalculable sum of money.

At last the demon said: "You've plenty now, peasant; arn't you content?

I'm going now to enter into the Boyar's daughter.

Mind you don't go curing her.

If you do, I shall eat you."

The Boyar's daughter fell ill, and went so crazy that she wanted to eat people.

The Boyar ordered his people to find out the peasant--(that is to say) to look for such and such a physician.

The peasant came, entered the house, and told Boyar to make all the townspeople, and the carriages with coachmen, stand in the street outside.

Moreover, he gave orders that all the coachmen should crack their whips and cry at the top of their voices: "The Bad Wife has come!

the Bad Wife has come!"

and then he went into the inner room.

As soon as he entered it, the demon rushed at him crying, "What do you mean, Russian?

what have you come here for?

I'll eat you!"

"What do _you_ mean?"

said the peasant, "why I didn't come here to turn you out.

I came, out of pity to you, to say that the Bad Wife has come here."

The Demon rushed to the window, stared with all his eyes, and heard everyone shouting at the top of his voice the words, "The Bad Wife!"

"Peasant," cries the Demon, "wherever can I take refuge?"

"Run back into the pit.

She won't go there any more."

The Demon went back to the pit--and to the Bad Wife too.

In return for his services, the Boyar conferred a rich guerdon on the peasant, giving him his daughter to wife, and presenting him with half his property.

But the Bad Wife sits to this day in the pit--in Tartarus.

[54] Our final illustration of the Skazkas which satirize women is the story of the _Golovikha_.

It is all the more valuable, inasmuch as it is one of the few folk-tales which throw any light on the working of Russian communal institutions.

The word _Golovikha_ means, in its strict sense, the wife of a _Golova_, or elected chief [_Golova_ = head] of a _Volost_, or association of village communities; but here it is used for a "female _Golova_," a species of "mayoress."

THE GOLOVIKHA.

[55] A certain woman was very bumptious.

Her husband came from a village council one day, and she asked him: "What have you been deciding over there?"

"What have we been deciding?

why choosing a Golova."

"Whom have you chosen?"

"No one as yet."

"Choose me," says the woman.

So as soon as her husband went back to the council (she was a bad sort; he wanted to give her a lesson) he told the elders what she had said.

They immediately chose her as Golova.

Well the woman got along, settled all questions, took bribes, and drank spirits at the peasant's expense.

But the time came to collect the poll-tax.

The Golova couldn't do it, wasn't able to collect it in time.

There came a Cossack, and asked for the Golova; but the woman had hidden herself.

As soon as she learnt that the Cossack had come, off she ran home.

"Where, oh where can I hide myself?"

she cries to her husband.

"Husband dear!

tie me up in a bag, and put me out there where the corn-sacks are."

Now there were five sacks of seed-corn outside, so her husband tied up the Golova, and set her in the midst of them.

Up came the Cossack and said: "Ho!

so the Golova's in hiding."

Then he took to slashing at the sacks one after another with his whip, and the woman to howling at the pitch of her voice: "Oh, my father!

I won't be a Golova, I won't be a Golova."

At last the Cossack left off beating the sacks, and rode away.

But the woman had had enough of Golova-ing; from that time forward she took to obeying her husband.

Before passing on to another subject, it may be advisable to quote one of the stories in which the value of a good and wise wife is fully acknowledged.

I have chosen for that purpose one of the variants of a tale from which, in all probability, our own story of "Whittington and his Cat" has been derived.

With respect to its origin, there can be very little doubt, such a feature as that of the incense-burning pointing directly to a Buddhist source.

It is called-- THE THREE COPECKS.

[56] There once was a poor little orphan-lad who had nothing at all to live on; so he went to a rich moujik and hired himself out to him, agreeing to work for one copeck a year.

And when he had worked for a whole year, and had received his copeck, he went to a well and threw it into the water, saying, "If it don't sink, I'll keep it.

It will be plain enough I've served my master faithfully."

But the copeck sank.

Well, he remained in service a second year, and received a second copeck.

Again he flung it into the well, and again it sank to the bottom.

He remained a third year;

worked and worked, till the time came for payment.

Then his master gave him a rouble.

"No," says the orphan, "I don't want your money; give me my copeck."

He got his copeck and flung it into the well.

Lo and behold!

there were all three copecks floating on the surface of the water.

So he took them and went into the town.

Now as he went along the street, it happened that some small boys had got hold of a kitten and were tormenting it.

And he felt sorry for it, and said: "Let me have that kitten, my boys?"

"Yes, we'll sell it you."

"What do you want for it?"

"Three copecks."

Well the orphan bought the kitten, and afterwards hired himself to a merchant, to sit in his shop.

That merchant's business began to prosper wonderfully.

He couldn't supply goods fast enough; purchasers carried off everything in a twinkling.

The merchant got ready to go to sea, freighted a ship, and said to the orphan: "Give me your cat; maybe it will catch mice on board, and amuse me."

"Pray take it, master!

only if you lose it, I shan't let you off cheap."

The merchant arrived in a far off land, and put up at an inn.

The landlord saw that he had a great deal of money, so he gave him a bedroom which was infested by countless swarms of rats and mice, saying to himself, "If they should happen to eat him up, his money will belong to me."

For in that country they knew nothing about cats, and the rats and mice had completely got the upper hand.

Well the merchant took the cat with him to his room and went to bed.

Next morning the landlord came into the room.

There was the merchant alive and well, holding the cat in his arms, and stroking its fur; the cat was purring away, singing its song, and on the floor lay a perfect heap of dead rats and mice!

"Master merchant, sell me that beastie," says the landlord.

"Certainly."

"What do you want for it?"

"A mere trifle.

I'll make the beastie stand on his hind legs while I hold him up by his forelegs, and you shall pile gold pieces around him, so as just to hide him--I shall be content with that!"

The landlord agreed to the bargain.

The merchant gave him the cat, received a sackful of gold, and as soon as he had settled his affairs, started on his way back.

As he sailed across the seas, he thought: "Why should I give the gold to that orphan?

Such a lot of money in return for a mere cat!

that would be too much of a good thing.

No, much better keep it myself."

The moment he had made up his mind to the sin, all of a sudden there arose a storm--such a tremendous one!

the ship was on the point of sinking.

"Ah, accursed one that I am!

I've been longing for what doesn't belong to me; O Lord, forgive me a sinner!

I won't keep back a single copeck."

The moment the merchant began praying the winds were stilled, the sea became calm, and the ship went sailing on prosperously to the quay.

"Hail, master!"

says the orphan.

"But where's my cat?"

"I've sold it," answers the merchant; "There's your money, take it in full."

The orphan received the sack of gold, took leave of the merchant, and went to the strand, where the shipmen were.

From them he obtained a shipload of incense in exchange for his gold, and he strewed the incense along the strand, and burnt it in honor of God.

The sweet savor spread through all that land, and suddenly an old man appeared, and he said to the orphan: "Which desirest thou--riches, or a good wife?"

"I know not, old man."

"Well then, go afield.

Three brothers are ploughing over there.

Ask them to tell thee."

The orphan went afield.

He looked, and saw peasants tilling the soil.

"God lend you aid!"

says he.

"Thanks, good man!"

say they.

"What dost thou want?"

"An old man has sent me here, and told me to ask you which of the two I shall wish for--riches or a good wife?"

"Ask our elder brother; he's sitting in that cart there."

The orphan went to the cart and saw a little boy--one that seemed about three years old.

"Can this be their elder brother?"

thought he--however he asked him: "Which dost thou tell me to choose--riches, or a good wife?"

"Choose the good wife."

So the orphan returned to the old man.

"I'm told to ask for the wife," says he.

"That's all right!"

said the old man, and disappeared from sight.

The orphan looked round; by his side stood a beautiful woman.