Wednesday

Wednesday

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. Nedélya 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. Nedĕlka, 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.

Nedĕlka, 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. Nedĕlka. 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.