The Witch

The Witch

THE WITCH.[206]

There once lived an old couple who had one son called

Ivashko;[207] no one can tell how fond they were of him!

Well, one day, Ivashko said to his father and mother:

"I'll go out fishing if you'll let me."

"What are you thinking about! you're still very small; suppose

you get drowned, what good will there be in that?"

"No, no, I shan't get drowned. I'll catch you some fish;

do let me go!"

So his mother put a white shirt on him, tied a red girdle round

him, and let him go. Out in a boat he sat and said:

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther,

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther!

Then the canoe floated on farther and farther, and Ivashko began to

fish. When some little time had passed by, the old woman hobbled down

to the river side and called to her son:

Ivashechko, Ivashechko, my boy,

Float up, float up, unto the waterside;

I bring thee food and drink.

And Ivashko said:

Canoe, canoe, float to the waterside;

That is my mother calling me.

The boat floated to the shore: the woman took the fish, gave her boy

food and drink, changed his shirt for him and his girdle, and sent him

back to his fishing. Again he sat in his boat and said:

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther,

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther.

Then the canoe floated on farther and farther, and Ivashko began to

fish. After a little time had passed by, the old man also hobbled down

to the bank and called to his son:

Ivashechko, Ivashechko, my boy,

Float up, float up, unto the waterside;

I bring thee food and drink.

And Ivashko replied:

Canoe, canoe, float to the waterside;

That is my father calling me.

The canoe floated to the shore. The old man took the fish, gave his

boy food and drink, changed his shirt for him and his girdle, and sent

him back to his fishing.

Now a certain witch[208] had heard what Ivashko's parents had cried

aloud to him, and she longed to get hold of the boy. So she went down

to the bank and cried with a hoarse voice:

Ivashechko, Ivashechko, my boy,

Float up, float up, unto the waterside;

I bring thee food and drink.

Ivashko perceived that the voice was not his mother's, but was that of

a witch, and he sang:

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther,

Canoe, canoe, float a little farther;

That is not my mother, but a witch who calls me.

The witch saw that she must call Ivashko with just such a voice as

his mother had.

So she hastened to a smith and said to him:

"Smith, smith! make me just such a thin little voice as Ivashko's

mother has: if you don't, I'll eat you." So the smith forged her a

little voice just like Ivashko's mother's. Then the witch went down by

night to the shore and sang:

Ivashechko, Ivashechko, my boy,

Float up, float up, unto the waterside;

I bring thee food and drink.

Ivashko came, and she took the fish, and seized the boy and carried

him home with her. When she arrived she said to her daughter

Alenka,[209] "Heat the stove as hot as you can, and bake Ivashko well,

while I go and collect my friends for the feast." So Alenka heated the

stove hot, ever so hot, and said to Ivashko,

"Come here and sit on this shovel!"

"I'm still very young and foolish," answered Ivashko: "I haven't yet

quite got my wits about me. Please teach me how one ought to sit on a

shovel."

"Very good," said Alenka; "it won't take long to teach you."

But the moment she sat down on the shovel, Ivashko instantly pitched

her into the oven, slammed to the iron plate in front of it, ran out

of the hut, shut the door, and hurriedly climbed up ever so high an

oak-tree [which stood close by].

Presently the witch arrived with her guests and knocked at the door of

the hut. But nobody opened it for her.

"Ah! that cursed Alenka!" she cried. "No doubt she's gone off

somewhere to amuse herself." Then she slipped in through the window,

opened the door, and let in her guests. They all sat down to table,

and the witch opened the oven, took out Alenka's baked body, and

served it up. They all ate their fill and drank their fill, and then

they went out into the courtyard and began rolling about on the grass.

"I turn about, I roll about, having fed on Ivashko's flesh," cried

the witch. "I turn about, I roll about, having fed on Ivashko's

flesh."

But Ivashko called out to her from the top of the oak:

"Turn about, roll about, having fed on Alenka's flesh!"

"Did I hear something?" said the witch. "No it was only the noise of

the leaves." Again the witch began:

"I turn about, I roll about, having fed on Ivashko's flesh!"

And Ivashko repeated:

"Turn about, roll about, having fed on Alenka's flesh!"

Then the witch looked up and saw Ivashko, and immediately rushed at

the oak on which Ivashko was seated, and began to gnaw away at it. And

she gnawed, and gnawed, and gnawed, until at last she smashed two

front teeth. Then she ran to a forge, and when she reached it she

cried, "Smith, smith! make me some iron teeth; if you don't I'll eat

you!"

So the smith forged her two iron teeth.

The witch returned and began gnawing the oak again.

She gnawed, and gnawed, and was just on the point of gnawing it

through, when Ivashko jumped out of it into another tree which stood

beside it. The oak that the witch had gnawed through fell down to the

ground; but then she saw that Ivashko was sitting up in another tree,

so she gnashed her teeth with spite and set to work afresh, to gnaw

that tree also. She gnawed, and gnawed, and gnawed--broke two lower

teeth, and ran off to the forge.

"Smith, smith!" she cried when she got there, "make me some iron

teeth; if you don't I'll eat you!"

The smith forged two more iron teeth for her. She went back again, and

once more began to gnaw the oak.

Ivashko didn't know what he was to do now. He looked out, and saw that

swans and geese[210] were flying by, so he called to them imploringly:

Oh, my swans and geese,

Take me on your pinions,

Bear me to my father and my mother,

To the cottage of my father and my mother,

There to eat, and drink, and live in comfort.

"Let those in the centre carry you," said the birds.

Ivashko waited; a second flock flew past, and he again cried

imploringly:

Oh, my swans and geese!

Take me on your pinions,

Bear me to my father and my mother,

To the cottage of my father and my mother,

There to eat, and drink, and live in comfort.

"Let those in the rear carry you!" said the birds.

Again Ivashko waited. A third flock came flying up, and he cried:

Oh, my swans and geese!

Take me on your pinions,

Bear me to my father and my mother,

To the cottage of my father and my mother,

There to eat, and drink, and live in comfort.

And those swans and geese took hold of him and carried him back, flew

up to the cottage, and dropped him in the upper room.

Early the next morning his mother set to work to bake pancakes, baked

them, and all of a sudden fell to thinking about her boy. "Where is my

Ivashko?" she cried; "would that I could see him, were it only in a

dream!"

Then his father said, "I dreamed that swans and geese had brought our

Ivashko home on their wings."

And when she had finished baking the pancakes, she said, "Now, then,

old man, let's divide the cakes: there's for you, father! there's for

me! There's for you, father! there's for me."

"And none for me?" called out Ivashko.

"There's for you, father!" went on the old woman, "there's for me."

"And none for me!" [repeated the boy.]

"Why, old man," said the wife, "go and see whatever that is up there."

The father climbed into the upper room and there he found Ivashko.

The old people were delighted, and asked their boy about everything

that had happened. And after that he and they lived on happily

together.

  [That part of this story which relates to the baking

  and eating of the witch's daughter is well known in

  many lands. It is found in the German "Hänsel und

  Grethel" (Grimm. _KM._ No. 15, and iii. p. 25, where a

  number of parallels are mentioned); in the Norse

  "Askelad" (Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 1. Dasent, "Boots

  and the Troll," No. 32), where a Troll's daughter is

  baked; and "Smörbuk" (Asb. and Moe, No. 52. Dasent,

  "Buttercup," No. 18), in which the victim is daughter

  of a "Haugkjœrring," another name for a Troll-wife;

  in the Servian story of "The Stepmother," &c. (Vuk

  Karajich, No. 35, pp. 174-5) in which two _Chivuti_,

  or Jews, are tricked into eating their baked mother;

  in the Modern Greek stories (Hahn, No. 3 and ii. p.

  181), in which the hero bakes (1) a _Drakäna_, while

  her husband, the _Drakos_, is at church, (2) a

  _Lamiopula_, during the absence of the _Lamia_, her

  mother; and in the Albanian story of "Augenhündin"

  (Hahn, No. 95), in which the heroine gets rid in a

  similar manner of Maro, the daughter of that four eyed

  συκιένεζα. (See note, ii, 309.) Afanasief also refers

  (i. p. 121) to Haltrich, No. 37, and Haupt and

  Schmaler, ii. pp. 172-4. He also mentions a similar

  tale about a giantess existing among the Baltic

  Kashoubes. See also the end of the song of Tardanak,

  showing how he killed "the Seven Headed Jelbegen,"

  Radloff, i. p. 31.]

A variant of this story (from the Chernigof Government)[211] begins by

telling how two old people were childless for a long time. At last the

husband went into the forest, felled wood, and made a cradle. Into

this his wife laid one of the logs he had cut, and began swinging it,

crooning the while a rune beginning

Swing, blockie dear, swing.

After a little time "behold! the block already had legs. The old

woman rejoiced greatly and began singing anew, and went on singing

until the block became a babe." In this variant the boy rows a silver

boat with a golden oar; in another South Russian variant[212] the boat

is golden, the oar of silver. In a White-Russian variant quoted by

Afanasief (i. p. 118), the place of the witch's daughter is filled by

her son, who had been in the habit of alluring to her den by gifts of

toys, and there devouring, the children from the adjacent villages.

Buslaef's "Historical Essays," (i. pp. 313-321) contain a valuable

investigation of Kulish's version of this story, which he compares

with the romance of "The Knight of the Swan."

In another of the variants of this story[213] Ivanushka is the son of

a Baruinya or Lady, and he is carried off in a whirlwind by a Baba

Yaga. His three sisters go to look for him, and each of them in turn

finds out where he is and attempts to carry him off, after sending the

Baba Yaga to sleep and smearing her eyelids with pitch. But the two

elder sisters are caught on their way home by the Baba Yaga, and

terribly scratched and torn. The youngest sister, however, succeeds in

rescuing her brother, having taken the precaution of propitiating with

butter the cat Jeremiah, "who was telling the boy stories and singing

him songs." When the Baba Yaga awakes, she tells Jeremiah to scratch

her eyes open, but he refuses, reminding her that, long as he has

lived under her roof, she has never in any way regaled him, whereas

the "fair maiden" had no sooner arrived than she treated him to

butter. In another variant[214] the bereaved mother sends three

servant-maids in search of her boy. Two of them get torn to pieces;

the third succeeds in saving Ivanushka from the Baba Yaga, who is so

vexed that she pinches her butter-bribed cat to death for not having

awakened her when the rescue took place. A comparison of these three

stories is sufficient to show how closely connected are the Witch and

the Baba Yaga, how readily the name of either of the two may be

transferred to the other.

But there is one class of stories in which the Vyed'ma is

represented as differing from the Baba Yaga, in so far as she is the

offspring of parents who are not in any way supernatural or inhuman.

Without any apparent cause for her abnormal conduct, the daughter of

an ordinary royal house will suddenly begin to destroy and devour all

living things which fall in her way--her strength developing as

rapidly as her appetite. Of such a nature--to be accounted for only on

the supposition that an evil spirit has taken up its abode in a human

body[215]--is the witch who appears in the somewhat incomprehensible

story that follows.