The Soldier and The Vampire

The Soldier And The Vampire

THE SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE.[412]

A certain soldier was allowed to go home on furlough.

Well, he walked and walked, and after a time he began to draw

near to his native village. Not far off from that village lived a

miller in his mill. In old times the Soldier had been very

intimate with him: why shouldn't he go and see his friend? He

went. The Miller received him cordially, and at once brought

out liquor; and the two began drinking, and chattering about

their ways and doings. All this took place towards nightfall, and

the Soldier stopped so long at the Miller's that it grew quite

dark.

When he proposed to start for his village, his host exclaimed:

"Spend the night here, trooper! It's very late now, and perhaps

you might run into mischief."

"How so?"

"God is punishing us! A terrible warlock has died among

us, and by night he rises from his grave, wanders through the

village, and does such things as bring fear upon the very boldest!

How could even you help being afraid of him?"

"Not a bit of it! A soldier is a man who belongs to the

crown, and 'crown property cannot be drowned in water nor

burnt in fire.' I'll be off: I'm tremendously anxious to see my

people as soon as possible."

Off he set. His road lay in front of a graveyard. On one

of the graves he saw a great fire blazing. "What's that?"

thinks he. "Let's have a look." When he drew near, he saw

that the Warlock was sitting by the fire, sewing boots.

"Hail, brother!" calls out the Soldier.

The Warlock looked up and said:

"What have you come here for?"

"Why, I wanted to see what you're doing."

The Warlock threw his work aside and invited the Soldier to

a wedding.

"Come along, brother," says he, "let's enjoy ourselves.

There's a wedding going on in the village."

"Come along!" says the Soldier.

They came to where the wedding was; there they were

given drink, and treated with the utmost hospitality. The Warlock

drank and drank, revelled and revelled, and then grew

angry. He chased all the guests and relatives out of the house,

threw the wedded pair into a slumber, took out two phials and

an awl, pierced the hands of the bride and bridegroom with the

awl, and began drawing off their blood. Having done this, he

said to the Soldier:

"Now let's be off."

Well, they went off. On the way the Soldier said:

"Tell me; why did you draw off their blood in those phials?"

"Why, in order that the bride and bridegroom might die.

To-morrow morning no one will be able to wake them. I alone

know how to bring them back to life."

"How's that managed?"

"The bride and bridegroom must have cuts made in their

heels, and some of their own blood must then be poured back

into those wounds. I've got the bridegroom's blood stowed

away in my right-hand pocket, and the bride's in my left."

The Soldier listened to this without letting a single word

escape him. Then the Warlock began boasting again.

"Whatever I wish," says he, "that I can do!"

"I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?"

says the Soldier.

"Why impossible? If any one were to make a pyre of aspen

boughs, a hundred loads of them, and were to burn me on that

pyre, then he'd be able to get the better of me. Only he'd

have to look out sharp in burning me; for snakes and worms

and different kinds of reptiles would creep out of my inside, and

crows and magpies and jackdaws would come flying up. All

these must be caught and flung on the pyre. If so much as a

single maggot were to escape, then there'd be no help for it; in

that maggot I should slip away!"

The Soldier listened to all this and did not forget it. He and

the Warlock talked and talked, and at last they arrived at the

grave.

"Well, brother," said the Warlock, "now I'll tear you to

pieces. Otherwise you'd be telling all this."

"What are you talking about? Don't you deceive yourself;

I serve God and the Emperor."

The Warlock gnashed his teeth, howled aloud, and sprang

at the Soldier--who drew his sword and began laying about him

with sweeping blows. They struggled and struggled; the Soldier

was all but at the end of his strength. "Ah!" thinks he,

"I'm a lost man--and all for nothing!" Suddenly the cocks

began to crow. The Warlock fell lifeless to the ground.

The Soldier took the phials of blood out of the Warlock's

pockets, and went on to the house of his own people. When he

had got there, and had exchanged greetings with his relatives,

they said:

"Did you see any disturbance, Soldier?"

"No, I saw none."

"There now! Why we've a terrible piece of work going

on in the village. A Warlock has taken to haunting it!"

After talking awhile, they lay down to sleep. Next morning

the Soldier awoke, and began asking:

"I'm told you've got a wedding going on somewhere here?"

"There was a wedding in the house of a rich moujik,"

replied his relatives, "but the bride and bridegroom have died

this very night--what from, nobody knows."

"Where does this moujik live?"

They showed him the house. Thither he went without

speaking a word. When he got there, he found the whole

family in tears.

"What are you mourning about?" says he.

"Such and such is the state of things, Soldier," say they.

"I can bring your young people to life again. What will

you give me if I do?"

"Take what you like, even were it half of what we've got!"

The Soldier did as the Warlock had instructed him, and

brought the young people back to life. Instead of weeping

there began to be happiness and rejoicing; the Soldier was

hospitably treated and well rewarded. Then--left about, face!

off he marched to the Starosta, and told him to call the peasants

together and to get ready a hundred loads of aspen wood.

Well, they took the wood into the graveyard, dragged the Warlock

out of his grave, placed him on the pyre, and set it alight--the

people all standing round in a circle with brooms, shovels,

and fire-irons. The pyre became wrapped in flames, the Warlock

began to burn. His corpse burst, and out of it crept snakes,

worms, and all sorts of reptiles, and up came flying crows, magpies,

and jackdaws. The peasants knocked them down and

flung them into the fire, not allowing so much as a single maggot

to creep away! And so the Warlock was thoroughly consumed,

and the Soldier collected his ashes and strewed them

to the winds. From that time forth there was peace in the

village.

The Soldier received the thanks of the whole community.

He stayed at home some time, enjoying himself thoroughly.

Then he went back to the Tsar's service with money in his

pocket. When he had served his time, he retired from the

army, and began to live at his ease.

The stories of this class are very numerous, all of them based on the

same belief--that in certain cases the dead, in a material shape,

leave their graves in order to destroy and prey upon the living. This

belief is not peculiar to the Slavonians but it is one of the

characteristic features of their spiritual creed. Among races which

burn their dead, remarks Hertz in his exhaustive treatise on the

Werwolf (p. 126), little is known of regular "corpse-spectres." Only

vague apparitions, dream-like phantoms, are supposed, as a general

rule, to issue from graves in which nothing more substantial than

ashes has been laid.[413] But where it is customary to lay the dead

body in the ground, "a peculiar half-life" becomes attributed to it by

popular fancy, and by some races it is supposed to be actuated at

intervals by murderous impulses. In the East these are generally

attributed to the fact of its being possessed by an evil spirit, but

in some parts of Europe no such explanation of its conduct is given,

though it may often be implied. "The belief in vampires is the

specific Slavonian form of the universal belief in spectres

(Gespenster)," says Hertz, and certainly vampirism has always made

those lands peculiarly its own which are or have been tenanted or

greatly influenced by Slavonians.

But animated corpses often play an important part in the traditions

of other countries. Among the Scandinavians and especially in Iceland,

were they the cause of many fears, though they were not supposed to be

impelled by a thirst for blood so much as by other carnal

appetites,[414] or by a kind of local malignity.[415] In Germany tales

of horror similar to the Icelandic are by no means unknown, but the

majority of them are to be found in districts which were once wholly

Lettic or Slavonic, though they are now reckoned as Teutonic, such as

East Prussia, or Pomerania, or Lusatia. But it is among the races

which are Slavonic by tongue as well as by descent, that the genuine

vampire tales flourish most luxuriantly: in Russia, in Poland, and in

Servia--among the Czekhs of Bohemia, and the Slovaks of Hungary, and

the numerous other subdivisions of the Slavonic family which are

included within the heterogeneous empire of Austria. Among the

Albanians and Modern Greeks they have taken firm root, but on those

peoples a strong Slavonic influence has been brought to bear. Even

Prof. Bernhard Schmidt, although an uncompromising opponent of

Fallmerayer's doctrines with regard to the Slavonic origin of the

present inhabitants of Greece, allows that the Greeks, as they

borrowed from the Slavonians a name for the Vampire, may have received

from them also certain views and customs with respect to it.[416]

Beyond this he will not go, and he quotes a number of passages from

Hellenic writers to prove that in ancient Greece spectres were

frequently represented as delighting in blood, and sometimes as

exercising a power to destroy. Nor will he admit that any very great

stress ought to be laid upon the fact that the Vampire is generally

called in Greece by a name of Slavonic extraction; for in the islands,

which were, he says, little if at all affected by Slavonic influences,

the Vampire bears a thoroughly Hellenic designation.[417] But the

thirst for blood attributed by Homer to his shadowy ghosts seems to

have been of a different nature from that evinced by the material

Vampire of modern days, nor does that ghastly revenant seem by any

means fully to correspond to such ghostly destroyers as the spirit of

Gello, or the spectres of Medea's slaughtered children. It is not only

in the Vampire, however, that we find a point of close contact between

the popular beliefs of the New-Greeks and the Slavonians. Prof.

Bernhard Schmidt's excellent work is full of examples which prove how

intimately they are connected.

The districts of the Russian Empire in which a belief in vampires

mostly prevails are White Russia and the Ukraine. But the ghastly

blood-sucker, the Upir,[418] whose name has become naturalized in so

many alien lands under forms resembling our "Vampire," disturbs the

peasant-mind in many other parts of Russia, though not perhaps with

the same intense fear which it spreads among the inhabitants of the

above-named districts, or of some other Slavonic lands. The numerous

traditions which have gathered around the original idea vary to some

extent according to their locality, but they are never radically

inconsistent.

Some of the details are curious. The Little-Russians hold that if a

vampire's hands have grown numb from remaining long crossed in the

grave, he makes use of his teeth, which are like steel. When he has

gnawed his way with these through all obstacles, he first destroys the

babes he finds in a house, and then the older inmates. If fine salt be

scattered on the floor of a room, the vampire's footsteps may be

traced to his grave, in which he will be found resting with rosy cheek

and gory mouth.

The Kashoubes say that when a Vieszcy, as they call the Vampire,

wakes from his sleep within the grave, he begins to gnaw his hands and

feet; and as he gnaws, one after another, first his relations, then

his other neighbors, sicken and die. When he has finished his own

store of flesh, he rises at midnight and destroys cattle, or climbs a

belfry and sounds the bell. All who hear the ill-omened tones will

soon die. But generally he sucks the blood of sleepers. Those on whom

he has operated will be found next morning dead, with a very small

wound on the left side of the breast, exactly over the heart. The

Lusatian Wends hold that when a corpse chews its shroud or sucks its

own breast, all its kin will soon follow it to the grave. The

Wallachians say that a murony--a sort of cross between a werwolf and

a vampire, connected by name with our nightmare--can take the form of

a dog, a cat, or a toad, and also of any blood-sucking insect. When he

is exhumed, he is found to have long nails of recent growth on his

hands and feet, and blood is streaming from his eyes, ears, nose and

mouth.

The Russian stories give a very clear account of the operation

performed by the vampire on his victims. Thus, one night, a peasant is

conducted by a stranger into a house where lie two sleepers, an old

man and a youth. "The stranger takes a pail, places it near the youth,

and strikes him on the back; immediately the back opens, and forth

flows rosy blood. The stranger fills the pail full, and drinks it dry.

Then he fills another pail with blood from the old man, slakes his

brutal thirst, and says to the peasant, 'It begins to grow light! let

us go back to my dwelling.'"[419]

Many skazkas also contain, as we have already seen, very clear

directions how to deprive a vampire of his baleful power. According to

them, as well as to their parallels elsewhere, a stake must be driven

through the murderous corpse. In Russia an aspen stake is selected for

that purpose, but in some places one made of thorn is preferred. But a

Bohemian vampire, when staked in this manner in the year 1337, says

Mannhardt,[420] merely exclaimed that the stick would be very useful

for keeping off dogs; and a strigon (or Istrian vampire) who was

transfixed with a sharp thorn cudgel near Laibach, in 1672, pulled it

out of his body and flung it back contemptuously. The only certain

methods of destroying a vampire appear to be either to consume him by

fire, or to chop off his head with a grave-digger's shovel. The Wends

say that if a vampire is hit over the back of the head with an

implement of that kind, he will squeal like a pig.

The origin of the Vampire is hidden in obscurity. In modern times it

has generally been a wizard, or a witch, or a suicide,[421] or a

person who has come to a violent end, or who has been cursed by the

Church or by his parents, who takes such an unpleasant means of

recalling himself to the memory of his surviving relatives and

acquaintances. But even the most honorable dead may become vampires by

accident. He whom a vampire has slain is supposed, in some countries,

himself to become a vampire. The leaping of a cat or some other animal

across a corpse, even the flight of a bird above it, may turn the

innocent defunct into a ravenous demon.[422] Sometimes, moreover, a

man is destined from his birth to be a vampire, being the offspring of

some unholy union. In some instances the Evil One himself is the

father of such a doomed victim, in others a temporarily animated

corpse. But whatever may be the cause of a corpse's "vampirism," it is

generally agreed that it will give its neighbors no rest until they

have at least transfixed it. What is very remarkable about the

operation is, that the stake must be driven through the vampire's body

by a single blow. A second would restore it to life. This idea

accounts for the otherwise unexplained fact that the heroes of

folk-tales are frequently warned that they must on no account be

tempted into striking their magic foes more than one stroke. Whatever

voices may cry aloud "Strike again!" they must remain contented with a

single blow.[423]

FOOTNOTES:

[379] Some account of Russian funeral rites and beliefs, and of the

dirges which are sung at buryings and memorials of the dead, will be

found in the "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 309-344.

[380] Afanasief, iv. No. 7. From the Archangel Government.

[381] Zhornovtsui, i.e. mill-stones, or a hand-mill.

[382] Pp. 341-349 of the first edition. See, also, for some other

versions of the story, as well as for an attempt to explain it, A. de

Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," i. 243, 244.

[383] See supra, chap. I. p. 36.

[384] Afanasief, iv. No. 9.

[385] Ibid., iv. No. 7. p. 34.

[386] Prigovarivat' = to say or sing while using certain (usually

menacing) gestures.

[387] Afanasief, iv. p. 35.

[388] Afanasief, vi. No. 2.

[389] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 33.

[390] Chudinsky, No. 9.

[391] Afanasief, v. No. 47. From the Tver Government.

[392] "You have fallen here" neladno. Ladno means "well,"

"propitiously," &c., also "in tune."

[393] Nenashi = not ours.

[394] Gospodi blagoslovi! exactly our "God bless us;" with us now

merely an expression of surprise.

[395] Iz adu kromyeshnago = from the last hell. Kromyeshnaya t'ma

= utter darkness. Kromyeshny, or kromyeshnaya, is sometimes used

by itself to signify hell.

[396] Ha pomin dushi. Pomin = "remembrance," also "prayers for the

dead."

[397] Afanasief, vii. No. 20. In some variants of this story, instead

of the three holy elders appear the Saviour, St. Nicholas, and St.

Mitrofan.

[398] "Die Nelke," Grimm, KM., No. 76, and vol. iii. pp. 125-6.

[399] Wenzig, No. 17, pp. 82-6.

[400] See Chap. I. p. 32.

[401] Afanasief, v. p. 144.

[402] Afanasief, vi, p. 322, 323.

[403] Evening gatherings of young people.

[404] Afanasief, v. No. 30 a, pp. 140-2. From the Voroneje

Government.

[405] Obyednya, the service answering to the Latin mass.

[406] At the end of the obyednya.

[407] The kosa or single braid in which Russian girls wear their

hair. See "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 272-5. On a story of this

kind Goethe founded his weird ballad of "Der Todtentanz." Cf.

Bertram's "Sagen," No. 18.

[408] Afanasief, v. pp. 142-4. From the Tambof Government.

[409] Afanasief, vi. pp. 324, 325.

[410] Chasovenka, a small chapel, shrine, or oratory.

[411] Afanasief, vi. pp 321, 322.

[412] Afanasief, v. pp. 144-7. From the Tambof Government.

[413] On this account Hanush believes that the Old Slavonians, as

burners of their dead, must have borrowed the vampire belief from some

other race. See the "Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie," &c., vol.

iv. p. 199. But it is not certain that burial by cremation was

universally practised by the heathen Slavonians. Kotlyarevsky, in his

excellent work on their funeral customs, arrives at the conclusion

that there never was any general rule on the subject, but that some

Slavonians buried without burning, while others first burned their

dead, and then inhumed their ashes. See "Songs of the Russian People,"

p. 325.

[414] See the strange stories in Maurer's "Isländische Volkssagen,"

pp. 112, and 300, 301.

[415] As in the case of Glam, the terrible spectre which Grettir had

so much difficulty in overcoming. To all who appreciate a shudder may

be recommended chap. xxxv. of "The Story of Grettir the Strong,"

translated from the Icelandic by E. Magnússon and W. Morris, 1869.

[416] The ordinary Modern-Greek word for a vampire, βουρκόλακας, he

says, "is undoubtedly of Slavonic origin, being identical with the

Slavonic name of the werwolf, which is called in Bohemian vlkodlak,

in Bulgarian and Slovak, vrkolak, &c.," the vampire and the werwolf

having many points in common. Moreover, the Regular name for a vampire

in Servian, he remarks, is vukodlak. This proves the Slavonian

nature (die Slavicität) of the name beyond all doubt.--"Volksleben

der Neugriechen," 1871, p. 159.

[417] In Crete and Rhodes, καταχανᾶς; in Cyprus, σαρκωμένος; in

Tenos, ἀναικαθούμενος. The Turks, according to Mr. Tozer, give the

name of vurkolak, and some of the Albanians, says Hahn, give that of

βουρβολάκ-ου to the restless dead. Ibid, p. 160.

[418] Russian vampir, South-Russian upuir, anciently upir;

Polish upior, Polish and Bohemian upir. Supposed by some

philologists to be from pit' = drink, whence the Croatian name for a

vampire pijawica. See "Songs of the Russian People," p. 410.

[419] Afanasief, P.V.S. iii. 558. The story is translated in full in

"Songs of the Russian People," pp. 411, 412

[420] In a most valuable article on "Vampirism" in the "Zeitschrift

für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde," Bd. iv. 1859, pp. 259-82.

[421] How superior our intelligence is to that of Slavonian peasants

is proved by the fact that they still drive stakes through supposed

vampires, whereas our law no longer demands that a suicide shall have

a stake driven through his corpse. That rite was abolished by 4 Geo.

iv. c. 52.

[422] Compare with this belief the Scotch superstition mentioned by

Pennant, that if a dog or cat pass over a corpse the animal must be

killed at once. As illustrative of this idea, Mr. Henderson states, on

the authority of "an old Northumbrian hind," that "in one case, just

as a funeral was about to leave the house, the cat jumped over the

coffin, and no one would move till the cat was destroyed." In another,

a colly dog jumped over a coffin which a funeral party had set on the

ground while they rested. "It was felt by all that the dog must be

killed, without hesitation, before they proceeded farther, and killed

it was." With us the custom survives; its explanation has been

forgotten. See Henderson's "Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern

Counties of England," 1866, p. 43.

[423] A great deal of information about vampires, and also about

turnskins, wizards and witches, will be found in Afanasief, P.V.S.

iii. chap. xxvi., on which I have freely drawn. The subject has been

treated with his usual judgment and learning by Mr. Tylor in his

"Primitive Culture," ii. 175, 176. For several ghastly stories about

the longing of Rákshasas and Vetálas for human flesh, some of which

bear a strong resemblance to Slavonic vampire tales, see Brockhaus's

translation of the first five books of the "Kathásaritságara," vol. i.

p. 94; vol. ii. pp. 13, 142, 147.

CHAPTER VI.

LEGENDS.

I

About Saints.

As besides the songs or pyesni there are current among the people a

number of stikhi or poems on sacred subjects, so together with the

skazki there have been retained in the popular memory a multitude of

legendui, or legends relating to persons or incidents mentioned in

the Bible or in ecclesiastical history. Many of them have been

extracted from the various apocryphal books which in olden times had

so wide a circulation, and many also from the lives of the Saints;

some of them may be traced to such adaptations of Indian legends as

the "Varlaam and Josaphat" attributed to St. John of Damascus; and

others appear to be ancient heathen traditions, which, with altered

names and slightly modified incidents, have been made to do service as

Christian narratives. But whatever may be their origin, they all bear

witness to the fact of their having been exposed to various

influences, and many of them may fairly be considered as relics of

hoar antiquity, memorials of that misty period when the pious

Slavonian chronicler struck by the confusion of Christian with heathen

ideas and ceremonies then prevalent, styled his countrymen a

two-faithed people.[424]

On the popular tales of a religious character current among the

Russian peasantry, the duality of their creed, or of that of their

ancestors, has produced a twofold effect. On the one hand, into

narratives drawn from purely Christian sources there has entered a

pagan element, most clearly perceptible in stories which deal with

demons and departed spirits; on the other hand, an attempt has been

made to give a Christian nature to what are manifestly heathen

legends, by lending saintly names to their characters and clothing

their ideas in an imitation of biblical language. Of such stories as

these, it will be as well to give a few specimens.

Among the legends borrowed from the apocryphal books and similar

writings, many of which are said to be still carefully preserved among

the "Schismatics," concealed in hiding-places of which the secret is

handed down from father to son--as was once the case with the Hussite

books among the Bohemians--there are many which relate to the creation

of the world and the early history of man. One of these states that

when the Lord had created Adam and Eve, he stationed at the gates of

Paradise the dog, then a clean beast, giving it strict orders not to

give admittance to the Evil One. But "the Evil One came to the gates

of Paradise, and threw the dog a piece of bread, and the dog went and

let the Evil One into Paradise. Then the Evil One set to work and spat

over Adam and Eve--covered them all over with spittle, from the head

to the little toe of the left foot." Thence is it that spittle is

impure (pogana). So Adam and Eve were turned out of Paradise, and

the Lord said to the dog:

"Listen, O Dog! thou wert a Dog (Sobaka), a clean beast; through all

Paradise the most holy didst thou roam. Henceforward shalt thou be a

Hound (Pes, or Pyos), an unclean beast. Into a dwelling it shall

be a sin to admit thee; into a church if thou dost run, the church

must be consecrated anew."

And so--the story concludes--"ever since that time it has been called

not a dog but a hound--skin-deep it is unclean (pogana), but clean

within."

According to another story, when men first inhabited the earth, they

did not know how to build houses, so as to keep themselves warm in

winter. But instead of asking aid from the Lord, they applied to the

Devil, who taught them how to make an izba or ordinary Russian

cottage. Following his instructions, they made wooden houses, each of

which had a door but no window. Inside these huts it was warm; but

there was no living in them, on account of the darkness. "So the

people went back to the Evil One. The Evil one strove and strove, but

nothing came of it, the izba still remained pitch dark. Then the

people prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said: 'Hew out a window!' So

they hewed out windows, and it became light."[425]

Some of the Russian traditions about the creation of man are closely

connected with Teutonic myths. The Schismatics called Dukhobortsui,

or Spirit-Wrestlers, for instance, hold that man was composed of

earthly materials, but that God breathed into his body the breath of

life. "His flesh was made of earth, his bones of stone, his veins of

roots, his blood of water, his hair of grass, his thought of the wind,

his spirit of the cloud."[426] Many of the Russian stories about the

early ages of the world, also, are current in Western Europe, such as

that about the rye--which in olden days was a mass of ears from top to

bottom. But some lazy harvest-women having cursed "God's corn," the

Lord waxed wroth and began to strip the ears from the stem. But when

the last ear was about to fall, the Lord had pity upon the penitent

culprits, and allowed the single ear to remain as we now see it.[427]

A Little-Russian variant of this story says that Ilya (Elijah), was so

angry at seeing the base uses to which a woman turned "God's corn,"

that he began to destroy all the corn in the world. But a dog begged

for, and received a few ears. From these, after Ilya's wrath was

spent, mankind obtained seed, and corn began to grow again on the face

of the earth, but not in its pristine bulk and beauty. It is on

account of the good service thus rendered to our race that we ought to

cherish and feed the dog.[428]

Another story, from the Archangel Government, tells how a certain

King, as he roamed afield with his princes and boyars, found a grain

of corn as large as a sparrow's egg. Marvelling greatly at its size,

he tried in vain to obtain from his followers some explanation

thereof. Then they bethought them of "a certain man from among the old

people, who might be able to tell them something about it." But when

the old man came, "scarcely able to crawl along on a pair of

crutches," he said he knew nothing about it, but perhaps his father

might remember something. So they sent for his father, who came

limping along with the help of one crutch, and who said:

"I have a father living, in whose granary I have seen just such a

seed."

So they sent for his father, a man a hundred and seventy years old.

And the patriarch came, walking nimbly needing neither guide nor

crutch. Then the King began to question him, saying:

"Who sowed this sort of corn?"

"I sowed it, and reaped it," answered the old man, "and now I have

some of it in my granary. I keep it as a memorial. When I was young,

the grain was large and plentiful, but after a time it began to grow

smaller and smaller."

"Now tell me," asked the King, "how comes it, old man, that thou goest

more nimbly than thy son and thy grandson?"

"Because I lived according to the law of the Lord," answered the old

man. "I held mine own, I grasped not at what was another's."[429]

The existence of hills is accounted for by legendary lore in this

wise. When the Lord was about to fashion the face of the earth, he

ordered the Devil to dive into the watery depths and bring thence a

handful of the soil he found at the bottom. The Devil obeyed, but when

he filled his hand, he filled his mouth also. The Lord took the soil,

sprinkled it around, and the Earth appeared, all perfectly flat. The

Devil, whose mouth was quite full, looked on for some time in silence.

At last he tried to speak, but choked, and fled in terror. After him

followed the thunder and the lightning, and so he rushed over the

whole face of the earth, hills springing up where he coughed, and

sky-cleaving mountains where he leaped.[430]

As in other countries, a number of legends are current respecting

various animals. Thus the Old Ritualists will not eat the crayfish

(rak), holding that it was created by the Devil. On the other hand

the snake (uzh, the harmless or common snake) is highly esteemed,

for tradition says that when the Devil, in the form of a mouse, had

gnawed a hole in the Ark, and thereby endangered the safety of Noah

and his family, the snake stopped up the leak with its head.[431] The

flesh of the horse is considered unclean, because when the infant

Saviour was hidden in the manger the horse kept eating the hay under

which the babe was concealed, whereas the ox not only would not touch

it, but brought back hay on its horns to replace what the horse had

eaten. According to an old Lithuanian tradition, the shape of the sole

is due to the fact that the Queen of the Baltic Sea once ate one half

of it and threw the other half into the sea again. A legend from the

Kherson Government accounts for it as follows. At the time of the

Angelical Salutation, the Blessed Virgin told the Archangel Gabriel

that she would give credit to his words "if a fish, one side of which

had already been eaten, were to come to life again. That very moment

the fish came to life, and was put back in the water."

With the birds many graceful legends are connected. There is a bird,

probably the peewit, which during dry weather may be seen always on

the wing, and piteously crying Peet, Peet,[432] as if begging for

water. Of it the following tale is told. When God created the earth,

and determined to supply it with seas, lakes and rivers, he ordered

the birds to convey the waters to their appointed places. They all

obeyed except this bird, which refused to fulfil its duty, saying that

it had no need of seas, lakes or rivers, to slake its thirst. Then the

Lord waxed wroth and forbade it and its posterity ever to approach a

sea or stream, allowing it to quench its thirst with that water only

which remains in hollows and among stones after rain. From that time

it has never ceased its wailing cry of "Drink, Drink," _Peet,

Peet_.[433]

When the Jews were seeking for Christ in the garden, says a Kharkof

legend, all the birds, except the sparrow, tried to draw them away

from his hiding-place. Only the sparrow attracted them thither by its

shrill chirruping. Then the Lord cursed the sparrow, and forbade that

men should eat of its flesh. In other parts of Russia, tradition tells

that before the crucifixion the swallows carried off the nails

provided for the use of the executioners, but the sparrows brought

them back. And while our Lord was hanging on the cross the sparrows

were maliciously exclaiming Jif! Jif! or "He is living! He is

living!" in order to urge on the tormentors to fresh cruelties. But

the swallows cried, with opposite intent, Umer! Umer! "He is dead!

He is dead." Therefore it is that to kill a swallow is a sin, and that

its nest brings good luck to a house. But the sparrow is an unwelcome

guest, whose entry into a cottage is a presage of woe. As a punishment

for its sins, its legs have been fastened together by invisible bonds,

and therefore it always hops, not being able to run.[434]

A great number of the Russian legends refer to the visits which Christ

and his Apostles are supposed to pay to men's houses at various times,

but especially during the period between Easter Sunday and Ascension

Day. In the guise of indigent wayfarers, the sacred visitors enter

into farm-houses and cottages and ask for food and lodging; therefore

to this day the Russian peasant is ever unwilling to refuse

hospitality to any man, fearing lest he might repulse angels unawares.

Tales of this kind are common in all Christian lands, especially in

those in which their folk-lore has preserved some traces of the old

faith in the heathen gods who once walked the earth, and in

patriarchal fashion dispensed justice among men. Many of the Russian

stories closely resemble those of a similar nature which occur in

German and Scandinavian collections; all of them, for instance,

agreeing in the unfavorable light in which they place St. Peter. The

following abridgment of the legend of "The Poor Widow,"[435] may be

taken as a specimen of the Russian tales of this class.

Long, long ago, Christ and his twelve Apostles were wandering about

the world, and they entered into a village one evening, and asked a

rich moujik to allow them to spend the night in his house. But he

would not admit them, crying:

"Yonder lives a widow who takes in beggars; go to her."

So they went to the widow, and asked her. Now she was so poor that

she had nothing in the house but a crust of bread and a handful of

flour. She had a cow, but it had not calved yet, and gave no milk. But

she did all she could for the wayfarers, setting before them all the

food she had, and letting them sleep beneath her roof. And her store

of bread and flour was wonderfully increased, so that her guests fed

and were satisfied. And the next morning they set out anew on their

journey.

As they went along the road there met them a wolf. And it fell down

before the Lord, and begged for food. Then said the Lord, "Go to the

poor widow's; slay her cow, and eat."

The Apostles remonstrated in vain. The wolf set off, entered the

widow's cow-house, and killed her cow. And when she heard what had

taken place, she only said:

"The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Holy is His will!"

As the sacred wayfarers pursued their journey, there came rolling

towards them a barrel full of money. Then the Lord addressed it,

saying:

"Roll, O barrel, into the farmyard of the rich moujik!"

Again the Apostles vainly remonstrated. The barrel went its way, and

the rich moujik found it, and stowed it away, grumbling the while:

"The Lord might as well have sent twice as much!"

The sun rose higher, and the Apostles began to thirst. Then said the

Lord:

"Follow that road, and ye will find a well; there drink your fill."

They went along that road and found the well. But they could not

drink thereat, for its water was foul and impure, and swarming with

snakes and frogs and toads. So they returned to where the Lord awaited

them, described what they had seen, and resumed their journey. After a

time they were sent in search of another well. And this time they

found a place wherein was water pure and cool, and around grew

wondrous trees, whereon heavenly birds sat singing. And when they had

slaked their thirst, they returned unto the Lord, who said:

"Wherefore did ye tarry so long?"

"We only stayed while we were drinking," replied the Apostles. "We did

not spend above three minutes there in all."

"Not three minutes did ye spend there, but three whole years," replied

the Lord. "As it was in the first well, so will it be in the other

world with the rich moujik! But as it was in the second well, so will

it be in that world with the poor widow!"

Sometimes our Lord is supposed to wander by himself, under the guise

of a beggar. In the story of "Christ's Brother"[436] a young

man--whose father, on his deathbed, had charged him not to forget the

poor--goes to church on Easter Day, having provided himself with red

eggs to give to the beggars with whom he should exchange the Pascal

greeting. After exhausting his stock of presents, he finds that there

remains one beggar of miserable appearance to whom he has nothing to

offer, so he takes him home to dinner. After the meal the beggar

exchanges crosses with his host,[437] giving him "a cross which blazes

like fire," and invites him to pay him a visit on the following

Tuesday. To an enquiry about the way, he replies, "You have only to go

along yonder path and say, 'Grant thy blessing, O Lord!' and you will

come to where I am."

The young man does as he is told, and commences his journey on the

Tuesday. On his way he hears voices, as though of children, crying, "O

Christ's brother, ask Christ for us--have we to suffer long?" A little

later he sees a group of girls who are ladling water from one well

into another, who make the same request. At last he arrives at the end

of his journey, finds the aged mendicant who had adopted him as his

brother, and recognizes him as "the Lord Jesus Christ Himself." The

youth relates what he has seen, and asks:

"Wherefore, O Lord, are the children suffering?"

"Their mothers cursed them while still unborn," is the reply.

"Therefore is it impossible for them to enter into Paradise."

"And the girls?"

"They used to sell milk, and they put water into the milk. Now they

are doomed to pour water from well to well eternally."

After this the youth is taken into Paradise, and brought to the place

there provided for him.[438]

Sometimes the sacred visitor rewards with temporal goods the kindly

host who has hospitably received him. Thus the story of "Beer and

Corn"[439] tells how a certain man was so poor that when the rest of

the peasants were brewing beer, and making other preparations to

celebrate an approaching feast of the Church, he found his cupboard

perfectly bare. In vain did he apply to a rich neighbor, who was in

the habit of lending goods and money at usurious rates; having no

security to offer, he could borrow nothing. But on the eve of the

festival, when he was sitting at home in sadness, he suddenly rose and

drew near to the sacred painting which hung in the corner, and sighed

heavily, and said,

"O Lord! forgive me, sinner that I am! I have not even wherewith to

buy oil, so as to light the lamp before the image[440] for the

festival!"

Soon afterwards an old man entered the cottage, and obtained leave to

spend the night there. After a time the guest enquired why his host

was so sad, and on learning the reason, told him to go again to his

rich neighbor and borrow a quarter of malt. The moujik obeyed, and

soon returned with the malt, which the old man ordered him to throw

into his well. When this was done the villager and his guest went to

bed.

Next morning the old man told his guest to borrow a number of tubs,

and fill them with liquor drawn from the well, and then to make his

neighbors assemble and drink it. He did so, and the buckets were

filled with "such beer as neither fancy nor imagination can conceive,

but only a skazka can describe." The villagers, excited by the news,

collected in crowds, and drank the beer and rejoiced. Last of all came

the rich neighbor, begging to know how such wonderful beer was brewed.

The moujik told him the whole story, whereupon he straightway

commanded his servants to pour all his best malt into his well. And

next day he hastened to the well to taste the liquor it contained; but

he found nothing but malt and water; not a drop of beer was there.

We may take next the legends current among the peasantry about

various saints. Of these, the story of "The Prophet Elijah and St.

Nicholas," will serve as a good specimen. But, in order to render it

intelligible, a few words about "Ilya the Prophet," as Elijah is

styled in Russia, may as well be prefixed.

It is well known that in the days of heathenism the Slavonians

worshipped a thunder-god, Perun,[441] who occupied in their

mythological system the place which in the Teutonic was assigned to a

Donar or a Thor. He was believed, if traditions may be relied upon, to

sway the elements, often driving across the sky in a flaming car, and

launching the shafts of the lightning at his demon foes. His name is

still preserved by the western and southern Slavonians in many local

phrases, especially in imprecations; but, with the introduction of

Christianity into Slavonic lands, all this worship of his divinity

came to an end. Then took place, as had occurred before in other

countries, the merging of numerous portions of the old faith in the

new, the transferring of many of the attributes of the old gods to the

sacred personages of the new religion.[442] During this period of

transition the ideas which were formerly associated with the person of

Perun, the thunder-god, became attached to that of the Prophet Ilya or

Elijah.

One of the causes which conduced to this result may have been--if

Perun really was considered in old times, as he is said to have been,

the Lord of the Harvest--that the day consecrated by the Church to

Elijah, July 20, occurs in the beginning of the harvest season, and

therefore the peasants naturally connected their new saint with their

old deity. But with more certainty may it be accepted that, the

leading cause was the similarity which appeared to the recent converts

to prevail between their dethroned thunder-god and the prophet who was

connected with drought and with rain, whose enemies were consumed by

fire from on high, and on whom waited "a chariot of fire and horses of

fire," when he was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven. And so at the

present day, according to Russian tradition, the Prophet Ilya thunders

across the sky in a flaming car, and smites the clouds with the darts

of the lightning. In the Vladimir Government he is said "to destroy

devils with stone arrows,"--weapons corresponding to the hammer of

Thor and the lance of Indra. On his day the peasants everywhere expect

thunder and rain, and in some places they set out rye and oats on

their gates, and ask their clergy to laud the name of Ilya, that he

may bless their cornfields with plenteousness. There are districts,

also, in which the people go to church in a body on Ilya's day, and

after the service is over they kill and roast a beast which has been

purchased at the expense of the community. Its flesh is cut up into

small pieces and sold, the money paid for it going to the church. To

stay away from this ceremony, or not to purchase a piece of the meat,

would be considered a great sin; to mow or make hay on that day would

be to incur a terrible risk, for Ilya might smite the field with the

thunder, or burn up the crop with the lightning. In the old Novgorod

there used to be two churches, the one dedicated to "Ilya the Wet,"

the other to "Ilya the Dry." To these a cross-bearing procession was

made when a change in the weather was desired: to the former in times

of drought, to the latter when injury was being done to the crops by

rain. Diseases being considered to be evil spirits, invalids used to

pray to the thunder-god for relief. And so, at the present day, a

zagovor or spell against the Siberian cattle-plague entreats the

"Holy Prophet of God Ilya," to send "thirty angels in golden array,

with bows and with arrows" to destroy it. The Servians say that at the

division of the world Ilya received the thunder and lightning as his

share, and that the crash and blaze of the storm are signs of his

contest with the devil. Wherefore the faithful ought not to cross

themselves when the thunder peals, lest the evil one should take

refuge from the heavenly weapons behind the protecting cross. The

Bulgarians say that forked lightning is the lance of Ilya who is

chasing the Lamia fiend: summer lightning is due to the sheen of that

lance, or to the fire issuing from the nostrils of his celestial

steeds. The white clouds of summer are named by them his heavenly

sheep, and they say that he compels the spirits of dead Gypsies to

form pellets of snow--by men styled hail--with which he scourges in

summer the fields of sinners.[443]

Such are a few of the ideas connected by Slavonian tradition with the

person of the Prophet Elijah or Ilya. To St. Nicholas, who has

succeeded to the place occupied by an ancient ruler of the waters, a

milder character is attributed than to Ilya, the thunder-god's

successor. As Ilya is the counterpart of Thor, so does Nicholas in

some respects resemble Odin. The special characteristics of the Saint

and the Prophet are fairly contrasted in the following story.