The Witch And The Sun's Sister

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Title:     The Witch And The Sun's Sister
Author: William Ralston Shedden-Ralston [More Titles by Shedden-Ralston]

Translator: Ralston, William Ralston Shedden, 1828-1889

THE WITCH AND THE SUN'S SISTER.[216]

In a certain far-off country there once lived a king and queen. And they had an only son, Prince Ivan, who was dumb from his birth. One day, when he was twelve years old, he went into the stable to see a groom who was a great friend of his.

That groom always used to tell him tales [skazki], and on this occasion Prince Ivan went to him expecting to hear some stories [skazochki], but that wasn't what he heard.

"Prince Ivan!" said the groom, "your mother will soon have a daughter, and you a sister. She will be a terrible witch, and she will eat up her father, and her mother, and all their subjects. So go and ask your father for the best horse he has--as if you wanted a gallop--and then, if you want to be out of harm's way, ride away whithersoever your eyes guide you."

Prince Ivan ran off to his father and, for the first time in his life, began speaking to him.

At that the king was so delighted that he never thought of asking what he wanted a good steed for, but immediately ordered the very best horse he had in his stud to be saddled for the prince.

Prince Ivan mounted, and rode off without caring where he went.[217] Long, long did he ride.

At length he came to where two old women were sewing and he begged them to let him live with them. But they said:

"Gladly would we do so, Prince Ivan, only we have now but a short time to live. As soon as we have broken that trunkful of needles, and used up that trunkful of thread, that instant will death arrive!"

Prince Ivan burst into tears and rode on. Long, long did he ride. At length he came to where the giant Vertodub was,[218] and he besought him, saying:

"Take me to live with you."

"Gladly would I have taken you, Prince Ivan!" replied the giant, "but now I have very little longer to live. As soon as I have pulled up all these trees by the roots, instantly will come my death!"

More bitterly still did the prince weep as he rode farther and farther on. By-and-by he came to where the giant Vertogor was, and made the same request to him, but he replied:

"Gladly would I have taken you, Prince Ivan! but I myself have very little longer to live. I am set here, you know, to level mountains. The moment I have settled matters with these you see remaining, then will my death come!"

Prince Ivan burst into a flood of bitter tears, and rode on still farther. Long, long did he ride. At last he came to the dwelling of the Sun's Sister. She received him into her house, gave him food and drink, and treated him just as if he had been her own son.

The prince now led an easy life. But it was all no use; he couldn't help being miserable. He longed so to know what was going on at home.

He often went to the top of a high mountain, and thence gazed at the palace in which he used to live, and he could see that it was all eaten away; nothing but the bare walls remained! Then he would sigh and weep. Once when he returned after he had been thus looking and crying, the Sun's Sister asked him:

"What makes your eyes so red to-day, Prince Ivan?"[219]

"The wind has been blowing in them," said he.

The same thing happened a second time. Then the Sun's Sister ordered the wind to stop blowing. Again a third time did Prince Ivan come back with a blubbered face. This time there was no help for it; he had to confess everything, and then he took to entreating the Sun's Sister to let him go, that he might satisfy himself about his old home. She would not let him go, but he went on urgently entreating.

So at last he persuaded her, and she let him go away to find out about his home. But first she provided him for the journey with a brush, a comb, and two youth-giving apples. However old any one might be, let him eat one of these apples, he would grow young again in an instant.

Well, Prince Ivan came to where Vertogor was. There was only just one mountain left! He took his brush and cast it down on the open plain. Immediately there rose out of the earth, goodness knows whence,[220] high, ever so high mountains, their peaks touching the sky. And the number of them was such that there were more than the eye could see![221] Vertogor rejoiced greatly and blithely recommenced his work.

After a time Prince Ivan came to where Vertodub was, and found that there were only three trees remaining there. So he took the comb and flung it on the open plain. Immediately from somewhere or other there came a sound of trees,[222] and forth from the ground arose dense oak forests! each stem more huge than the other! Vertodub was delighted, thanked the Prince, and set to work uprooting the ancient oaks.

By-and-by Prince Ivan reached the old women, and gave each of them an apple. They ate them, and straightway became young again. So they gave him a handkerchief; you only had to wave it, and behind you lay a whole lake! At last Prince Ivan arrived at home. Out came running his sister to meet him, caressed him fondly.

"Sit thee down, my brother!" she said, "play a tune on the lute while I go and get dinner ready."

The Prince sat down and strummed away on the lute [gusli].

Then there crept a mouse out of a hole, and said to him in a human voice:

"Save yourself, Prince. Run away quick! your sister has gone to sharpen her teeth."

Prince Ivan fled from the room, jumped on his horse, and galloped away back. Meantime the mouse kept running over the strings of the lute. They twanged, and the sister never guessed that her brother was off. When she had sharpened her teeth she burst into the room. Lo and behold! not a soul was there, nothing but the mouse bolting into its hole! The witch waxed wroth, ground her teeth like anything, and set off in pursuit.

Prince Ivan heard a loud noise and looked back. There was his sister chasing him. So he waved his handkerchief, and a deep lake lay behind him. While the witch was swimming across the water, Prince Ivan got a long way ahead. But on she came faster than ever; and now she was close at hand! Vertodub guessed that the Prince was trying to escape from his sister. So he began tearing up oaks and strewing them across the road. A regular mountain did he pile up! there was no passing by for the witch! So she set to work to clear the way. She gnawed, and gnawed, and at length contrived by hard work to bore her way through; but by this time Prince Ivan was far ahead.

On she dashed in pursuit, chased and chased. Just a little more, and it would be impossible for him to escape! But Vertogor spied the witch, laid hold of the very highest of all the mountains, pitched it down all of a heap on the road, and flung another mountain right on top of it. While the witch was climbing and clambering, Prince Ivan rode and rode, and found himself a long way ahead. At last the witch got across the mountain, and once more set off in pursuit of her brother. By-and-by she caught sight of him, and exclaimed:

"You sha'n't get away from me this time!" And now she is close, now she is just going to catch him!

At that very moment Prince Ivan dashed up to the abode of the Sun's Sister and cried:

"Sun, Sun! open the window!"

The Sun's Sister opened the window, and the Prince bounded through it, horse and all.

Then the witch began to ask that her brother might be given up to her for punishment. The Sun's Sister would not listen to her, nor would she give him up. Then the witch said:

"Let Prince Ivan be weighed against me, to see which is the heavier. If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!"

This was done. Prince Ivan was the first to get into one of the scales; then the witch began to get into the other. But no sooner had she set foot in it than up shot Prince Ivan in the air, and that with such force that he flew right up into the sky, and into the chamber of the Sun's Sister.

But as for the Witch-Snake, she remained down below on earth.

[The word terem (plural terema) which occurs twice in this story (rendered the second time by "chamber") deserves a special notice. It is defined by Dahl, in its antique sense, as "a raised, lofty habitation, or part of one--a Boyar's castle--a Seigneur's house--the dwelling-place of a ruler within a fortress," &c. The "terem of the women," sometimes styled "of the girls," used to comprise the part of a Seigneur's house, on the upper floor, set aside for the female members of his family. Dahl compares it with the Russian tyurma, a prison, and the German Thurm. But it seems really to be derived from the Greek τέρεμνον, "anything closely shut fast or closely covered, a room, chamber," &c.

That part of the story which refers to the Cannibal Princess is familiar to the Modern Greeks. In the Syriote tale of "The Strigla" (Hahn, No. 65) a princess devours her father and all his subjects. Her brother, who had escaped while she was still a babe, visits her and is kindly received. But while she is sharpening her teeth with a view towards eating him, a mouse gives him a warning which saves his life. As in the Russian story the mouse jumps about on the strings of a lute in order to deceive the witch, so in the Greek it plays a fiddle. But the Greek hero does not leave his sister's abode. After remaining concealed one night, he again accosts her. She attempts to eat him, but he kills her.

In a variant from Epirus (Hahn, ii. p. 283-4) the cannibal princess is called a Chursusissa. Her brother climbs a tree, the stem of which she gnaws almost asunder. But before it falls, a Lamia comes to his aid and kills his sister.

Afanasief (viii. p. 527) identifies the Sun's Sister with the Dawn. The following explanation of the skazka (with the exception of the words within brackets) is given by A. de Gubernatis ("Zool. Myth." i. 183). "Ivan is the Sun, the aurora [or dawn] is his [true] sister; at morning, near the abode of the aurora, that is, in the east, the shades of night [his witch, or false sister] go underground, and the Sun arises to the heavens; this is the mythical pair of scales. Thus in the Christian belief, St. Michael weighs human souls; those who weigh much sink down into hell, and those who are light arise to the heavenly paradise."]

As an illustration of this story, Afanasief (P.V.S. iii. 272) quotes a Little-Russian Skazka in which a man, who is seeking "the Isle in which there is no death," meets with various personages like those with whom the Prince at first wished to stay on his journey, and at last takes up his abode with the moon. Death comes in search of him, after a hundred years or so have elapsed, and engages in a struggle with the Moon, the result of which is that the man is caught up into the sky, and there shines thenceforth "as a star near the moon."

The Sun's Sister is a mythical being who is often mentioned in the popular poetry of the South-Slavonians. A Servian song represents a beautiful maiden, with "arms of silver up to the elbows," sitting on a silver throne which floats on water. A suitor comes to woo her. She waxes wroth and cries,

Whom wishes he to woo?
The sister of the Sun,
The cousin of the Moon,
The adopted-sister of the Dawn.

Then she flings down three golden apples, which the "marriage-proposers" attempt to catch, but "three lightnings flash from the sky" and kill the suitor and his friends.

In another Servian song a girl cries to the Sun--

O brilliant Sun! I am fairer than thou,
Than thy brother, the bright Moon,
Than thy sister, the moving star [Venus?].

In South-Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth. But among the Northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. "Thou askest me of what race, of what family I am," says the fair maiden of a song preserved in the Tambof Government--

My mother is--the beauteous Sun,
And my father--the bright Moon;
My brothers are--the many Stars,
And my sisters--the white Dawns.[223]

A far more detailed account might be given of the Witch and her near relation the Baba Yaga, as well as of those masculine embodiments of that spirit of evil which is personified in them, the Snake, Koshchei, and other similar beings. But the stories which have been quoted will suffice to give at least a general idea of their moral and physical attributes. We will now turn from their forms, so constantly introduced into the skazka-drama, to some of the supernatural figures which are not so often brought upon the stage--to those mythical beings of whom (numerous as may be the traditions about them) the regular "story" does not so often speak, to such personifications of abstract ideas as are less frequently employed to set its conventional machinery in motion.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 160-185.

[73] In one story (Khudyakof, No. 117) there are snakes with twenty-eight and twenty-nine heads, but this is unusual.

[74] Afanasief, ii. No. 30. From the Chernigof Government. The accent falls on the second syllable of Ivan, on the first of Popyalof.

[75] Popyal, provincial word for pepel = ashes, cinders, whence the surname Popyalof. A pood is about 40lbs.

[76] On slender supports.

[77] Pod mostom, i.e., says Afanasief (vol. v. p. 243), under the raised flooring which, in an izba, serves as a sleeping place.

[78] Zatvelyef, apparently a provincial word.

[79] The Russian word krof also signifies blood.

[80] The last sentence of the story forms one of the conventional and meaningless "tags" frequently attached to the skazkas. In future I shall omit them. Kuzma and Demian (SS. Cosmas and Damian) figure in Russian folk-lore as saintly and supernatural smiths, frequently at war with snakes, which they maltreat in various ways. See A. de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," vol. ii. p. 397.

[81] Afanasief, Skazki, vol. vii. p. 3.

[82] Chudo = prodigy. Yudo may be a remembrance of Judas, or it may be used merely for the sake of the rhyme.

[83] In an Indian story ("Kathásaritságara," book vii. chap. 42), Indrasena comes to a place in which sits a Rákshasa on a throne between two fair ladies. He attacks the demon with a magic sword, and soon cuts off his head. But the head always grows again, until at last the younger of the ladies gives him a sign to split in half the head he has just chopped off. Thereupon the demon dies, and the two ladies greet the conqueror rapturously. The younger is the demon's sister, the elder is a king's daughter whom the demon has carried off from her home, after eating her father and all his followers. See Professor Brockhaus's summary in the "Berichte der phil. hist. Classe der K. Sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," 1861. pp. 241-2.

[84] Khudyakof, No. 46.

[85] Afanasief, vol. i. No. 6. From the Chernigof Government. The Norka-Zvyer' (Norka-Beast) of this story is a fabulous creature, but zoologically the name of Norka (from nora = a hole) belongs to the Otter.

[86] Literally "into that world" as opposed to this in which we live.

[87] This address is a formula, of frequent occurrence under similar circumstances.

[88] Literally "seated the maidens and pulled the rope."

[89] Some sort of safe or bin.

[90] Khudyakof, ii. p. 17.

[91] "Kathásaritságara," bk. vii. c. xxxix. Wilson's translation.

[92] Genesis, xxxvii. 3, 4.

[93] "Zoological Mythology," i. 25.

[94] Quoted from the "Nitimanjari," by Wilson, in his translation of the "Rig-Veda-Sanhita," vol. i. p. 142.

[95] See also Jülg's "Kalmukische Märchen," p. 19, where Massang, the Calmuck Minotaur, is abandoned in the pit by his companions.

[96] Khudyakof, No. 42.

[97] Erlenvein, No. 41. A king's horses disappear. His youngest son keeps watch and discovers that the thief is a white wolf. It escapes into a hole. He kills his horse at its own request and makes from its hide a rope by which he is lowered into the hole, etc.

[98] Afanasief, v. 54.

[99] The word koshchei, says Afanasief, may fairly be derived from kost', a bone, for changes between st and shch are not uncommon--as in the cases of pustoi, waste, pushcha, a wild wood, or of gustoi, thick, gushcha, sediment, etc. The verb okostenyet', to grow numb, describes the state into which a skazka represents the realm of the "Sleeping Beauty," as being thrown by Koshchei. Buslaef remarks in his "Influence of Christianity on Slavonic Language," p. 103, that one of the Gothic words used by Ulfilas to express the Greek δαιμόνιον is skôhsl, which

"is purely Slavonic, being preserved in the Czekh kauzlo, sorcery; in the Lower-Lusatian-Wendish, kostlar means a sorcerer. (But see Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie," pp. 454-5, where skôhsl is supposed to mean a forest-sprite, also p. 954.) Kost' changes into koshch whence our Koshchei." There is also a provincial word, kostit', meaning to revile or scold.

[100] Bezsmertny (bez = without, smert' = death).

[101] Afanasief, viii. No. 8. Morevna means daughter of More, (the Sea or any great water).

[102] Grom. It is the thunder, rather than the lightning, which the Russian peasants look upon as the destructive agent in a storm. They let the flash pass unheeded, but they take the precaution of crossing themselves when the roar follows.

[103] Zamorskaya, from the other side of the water, strange, splendid.

[104] In Afanasief, iv. No. 39, a father marries his three daughters to the Sun, the Moon, and the Raven. In Hahn, No. 25, a younger brother gives his sisters in marriage to a Lion, a Tiger, and an Eagle, after his elder brothers have refused to do so. By their aid he recovers his lost bride. In Schott, No. 1 and Vuk Karajich, No. 5, the three sisters are carried off by Dragons, which their subsequently-born brother kills. (See also Basile, No. 33, referred to by Hahn, and Valjavec, p. 1, Stier, No. 13, and Bozena Nêmcova, pp. 414-432, and a German story in Musæus, all referred to by Afanasief, viii. p. 662.)

[105] See Chap. IV.

[106] "Being by the advice of her father Hæreð given in marriage to Offa, she left off her violent practices; and accordingly she appears in Hygelác's court, exercising the peaceful duties of a princess. Now this whole representation can hardly be other than the modern, altered, and Christian one of a Wælcyrie or Swan-Maiden; and almost in the same words the Nibelungen Lied relates of Brynhild, the flashing shield-may of the Edda, that with her virginity she lost her mighty strength and warlike habits."--Kemble's Beowulf, p. xxxv.

[107] Khudyakof, ii, p. 90.

[108] Khudyakof, No. 20.

[109] Afanasief, i. No. 14.

[110] Khudyakof, No. 62.

[111] Erlenvein, No. 31.

[112] Afanasief, ii. No. 24. From the Perm Government.

[113] A conventional expression of contempt which frequently occurs in the Skazkas.

[114] Do chugunnova kamnya, to an iron stone.

[115] "Russkaya kost'." I have translated literally, but the words mean nothing more than "a man," "something human." Cf. Radloff, iii. III. 301.

[116] Bog prostit = God will forgive. This sounds to the English ear like an ungracious reply, but it is the phrase ordinarily used by a superior when an inferior asks his pardon. Before taking the sacrament at Easter, the servants in a Russian household ask their employers to forgive them for any faults of which they may have been guilty. "God will forgive," is the proper reply.

[117] Khudyakof, No. 43.

[118] Vikhor' (vit' = to whirl), an agent often introduced for the purpose of abduction. The sorcerers of the present day are supposed to be able to direct whirlwinds, and a not uncommon form of imprecation in some parts of Russia is "May the whirlwind carry thee off!" See Afanasief, P.V.S. i. 317, and "Songs of the Russian People," p. 382.

[119] This story is very like that of the "Rider of Grianaig," "Tales of the West Highlands," iii. No. 58.

[120] Cf. Herodotus, bk. iv. chap. 172.

[121] Khudyakof, No. 44.

[122] Erlenvein, No. 12, p. 67. A popular tradition asserts that the Devil may be killed if shot with an egg laid on Christmas Eve. See Afanasief, P.V.S. ii. 603.

[123] Afanasief, i. No. 14, p. 92. For an account of Buyan, see "Songs of the Russian People," p. 374.

[124] Afanasief, vii. No. 6, p. 83.

[125] Some of these have been compared by Mr. Cox, in his "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," i. 135-142. Also by Professor A. de Gubernatis, who sees in the duck the dawn, in the hare "the moon sacrificed in the morning," and in the egg the sun. "Zoological Mythology," i. 269.

[126] Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 36, Dasent, No. 9, p. 71.

[127] Asbjörnsen's "New Series," No. 70, p. 39.

[128] Haltrich's "Deutsche Volksmärchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbürgen," p. 188.

[129] Wenzig's "Westslawischer Märchenschatz," No. 37, p. 190.

[130] Campbell's "Tales of the West Highlands," i. No. 4, p. 81.

[131] Hahn, No. 26, i. 187.

[132] Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 215, 294-5.

[133] Vuk Karajich, No. 8. The monster is called in the Servian text an Ajdaya, a word meaning a dragon or snake. It is rendered by Drache in the German translation of his collection of tales made by his daughter, but the word is evidently akin to the Sanskrit ahi, the Greek ἐχιρ ἐχιδνα, the Latin anguis, the Russian

ujak, the Luthanian angis, etc. The Servian word snaga answers to the Russian sila, strength.

[134] Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days," pp. 13-16.

[135] Castren's "Ethnologische Vorlesungen über die Altaischen Völker," p. 174.

[136] The story has been translated by M. de Rougé in the "Revue Archéologique," 1852-3, p. 391 (referred to by Professor Benfey, "Panchatantra," i. 426) and summarized by Mr. Goodwin in the "Cambridge Essays" for 1858, pp. 232-7, and by Dr. Mannhardt in the "Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie," &c., vol. iv. pp. 232-59. For other versions of the story of the Giant's heart, or Koshchei's death, see Professor R. Köhler's remarks on the subject in "Orient und Occident," ii. pp. 99-103. A singular parallel to part of the Egyptian myth is offered by the Hottentot story in which the heart of a girl whom a lion has killed and eaten, is extracted from the lion, and placed in a calabash filled with milk. "The calabash increased in size, and in proportion to this, the girl grew again inside it." Bleek's "Reynard the Fox in South Africa," p. 55. Cf. Radloff, i. 75; ii. 237-8, 532-3.

[137] Khudyakof, No. 109.

[138] Khudyakof, No. 110.

[139] Afanasief, v. No. 42. See also the Zagovor, or spell, "to give a good youth a longing for a fair maiden," ("Songs of the Russian People," p. 369,) in which "the Longing" is described as lying under a plank in a hut, weeping and sobbing, and "waiting to get at the white light," and is desired to gnaw its way into the youth's heart.

[140] For stories about house snakes, &c., see Grimm "Deutsche Mythologie," p. 650, and Tylor, "Primitive Culture," ii. pp. 7, 217-220.

[141] Or Ujak. Erlenvein, No. 2. From the Tula Government.

[142] Grimm, "Deutsche Mythologie," 456. For a description of the Rusalka and the Vodyany, see "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 139-146.

[143] Afanasief, v. No. 23. From the Voroneje Government.

[144] Three of the well-known servants of Fortunatus. The eater-up (ob'egedat' = to devour), the drinker-up (pit' = to drink, opivat'sya, to drink oneself to death), and "Crackling Frost."

[145] Opokhmyelit'sya, which may be rendered, "in order to drink off the effects of the debauch."

[146] The Russian bath somewhat resembles the Turkish. The word here translated "to scrub," properly means to rub and flog with the soft twig used in the baths for that purpose. At the end of the ceremonies attended on a Russian peasant wedding, the young couple always go to the bath.

[147] A sort of pudding or jelly.

[148] Afanasief, v. No. 28. In the preceding story, No. 27, the king makes no promise. He hides his children in (or upon) a pillar, hoping to conceal them from a devouring bear, whose fur is of iron. The bear finds them and carries them off. A horse and some geese vainly attempt their rescue; a bull-calf succeeds, as in the former case. In another variant the enemy is an iron wolf. A king had promised his children a wolf. Unable to find a live one, he had one made of iron and gave it to his children. After a time it came to life and began destroying all it found, etc. An interesting explanation of the stories of this class in which they are treated as nature-myths, is given by A. de Gubernatis in his "Zoological Mythology," chap. i. sect. 4.

[149] Khudyakof, No. 17.

[150] It has already been observed that the word chudo, which now means a marvel or prodigy, formerly meant a giant.

[151] Erlenvein, No. 6, pp. 30-32. The Russian word idol is identical with our own adaptation of ειδωλου.

[152] Khudyakof, No. 18.

[153] Zhidenok, strictly the cub of a zhid, a word which properly means a Jew, but is used here for a devil.

[154] Khudyakof, No. 118.

[155] Chort, a word which, as has been stated, sometimes means a demon, sometimes the Devil.

[156] Afanasief, viii. p. 343.

[157] "Old Deccan Days," pp. 34-5. Compare with the conduct of the Cobra's daughter that of Angaraka, the daughter of the Daitya who, under the form of a wild boar, is chased underground by Chandasena. Brockhaus's "Mährchensammlung des Somadeva Bhatta," 1843, vol. i. pp. 110-13.

[158] "Panchatantra," v. 10.

[159] Upham's "Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon," iii. 287.

[160] Afanasief says (P.V.S. iii. 588), "As regards the word yaga (yega, Polish jedza, jadza, jedzi-baba, Slovak, jenzi, jenzi, jezi-baba, Bohemian, jezinka, Galician yazya) it answers to the Sanskrit ahi = snake."

Shchepkin (in his work on "Russian Fable-lore," p. 109) says: "Yaga, instead of yagaya, means properly noisy, scolding, and must be connected with the root yagat' = to brawl, to scold, still preserved in Siberia. The accuracy of this etymology is confirmed by the use, in the speech of the common people, of the designation Yaga Baba for a quarrelsome, scolding old woman."

Kastorsky, in his "Slavonic Mythology," p. 138, starts a theory of his own. "The name Yaga Baba, I take to be yakaya baba, nycyakaya baba, and I render it by anus quædam." Bulgarin (Rossiya, ii. 322) refers the name to a Finnish root. According to him, "Jagga-lema, in Esthonian, means to quarrel or brawl, jagga-lemine means quarrelling or brawling." There is some similarity between the Russian form of the word, and the Singalese name for a (male) demon, yaka, which is derived from the Pali yakkho, as is the synonymous term yakseya from the Sanskrit yaksha (see the valuable paper on Demonology in Ceylon by Dandris de Silva Gooneratne Modliar in the "Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society," 1865-6). Some Slavonic philologists derive yaga from a root meaning to eat (in Russian yest'). This corresponds with the derivation of the word yaksha contained in the following legend: "The Vishnu Purāna, i. 5, narrates that they (the Yakshas) were produced by Brahmā as beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspect, and with long beards, and that, crying out 'Let us eat,' they were denominated Yakshas (fr. jaksh, to eat)." Monier Williams's "Sanskrit Dictionary," p. 801. In character the Yaga often resembles a Rákshasí.

[161] Afanasief, i. No. 3 b. From the Voroneje Government.

[162] Khudyakof, No. 60.

[163] See Grimm, KM. iii. 97-8. Cf. R. Köhler in "Orient und Occident," ii. 112.

[164] Grimm, No. 79. "Die Wassernixe."

[165] Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 14. Dasent, p. 362. "The Widow's Son."

[166] Hahn, No. 1.

[167] Campbell's "Tales of the West Highlands," No. 2.

[168] Töppen's "Aberglauben aus Masuren," p. 146.

[169] Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days," p. 63.

[170] "Kathásaritságara," vii. ch. xxxix. Translated by Wilson, "Essays," ii. 137. Cf. Brockhaus in the previously quoted "Berichte," 1861, p. 225-9. For other forms, see R. Köhler in "Orient and Occident," vol. ii. p. 112.

[171] See, however, Mr. Campbell's remarks on this subject, in "Tales of the West Highlands," i. pp. lxxvii-lxxxi.

[172] Afanasief, viii. No. 6.

[173] See the third tale, of the "Siddhi Kür," Jülg's "Kalm. Märchen," pp. 17-19.

[174] Schleicher's "Litauische Märchen," No. 39. (I have given an analysis of the story in the "Songs of the Russian People," p. 101.) In the variant of the story in No. 38, the comrades are the hero Martin, a smith, and a tailor. Their supernatural foe is a small gnome with a very long beard. He closely resembles the German "Erdmänneken" (Grimm, No. 91), and the "Männchen," in "Der starke Hans" (Grimm, No. 166.)

[175] Hahn, No. 11. Schleicher, No. 20, &c., &c.

[176] Wenzig, No. 2.

[177] "Tales of the West Highlands," ii. p. 15. Mr. Campbell says "I believe such a mode of torture can be traced amongst the Scandinavians, who once owned the Western Islands." But the Gaelic "Binding of the Three Smalls," is unknown to the Skazkas.

[178] Erlenvein, No. 3.

[179] Afanasief, vii. No. 30.

[180] Khudyakof, No. 97.

[181] Khudyakof, No. 14. Erlenvein, No. 9.

[182] Afanasief, iv. No. 44.

[183] The first krasavitsa or beauty.

[184] Chulanchik. The chulan is a kind of closet, generally used as a storeroom for provisions, &c.

[185] Prigovarivaya, the word generally used to express the action of a person who utters a charm accompanied by a gesture of the hand or finger.

[186] Became a nevyesta, a word meaning "a marriageable maiden," or "a betrothed girl," or "a bride."

[187] Ishbushka, a little izba or cottage.

[188] "Phu, Phu! there is a Russian smell!" the equivalent of our own "Fee, faw, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!"

[189] Luchina, a deal splinter used instead of a candle.

[190] Chernushka, a sort of wild pea.

[191] Krasnoe solnuischko, red (or fair) dear-sun.

[192] Equivalent to saying "she liked to wash her dirty linen at home."

[193] I break off the narrative at this point, because what follows is inferior in dramatic interest, and I am afraid of diminishing the reader's admiration for one of the best folk-tales I know. But I give an epitome of the remainder within brackets and in small type.

[194] From the Poltava Government. Afanasief, vi. No. 28 b.

[195] Grimm, No. 65. The Wallachian and Lithuanian forms resemble the German (Schott, No. 3. Schleicher, No. 7). In all of them, the heroine is a princess, who runs away from an unnatural father. In one of the Modern Greek versions (Hahn, No. 27), she sinks into the earth. For references to seven other forms of the story, see Grimm, KM., iii. p. 116. In one Russian variant (Khudyakof, No. 54), she hides in a secret drawer, constructed for the purpose in a bedstead; in another (Afanasief, vi. No. 28 a), her father, not recognising her in the pig-skin dress, spits at her, and turns her out of the house. In a third, which is of a very repulsive character (ibid. vii. No. 29), the father kills his daughter.

[196] Afanasief, vi. No. 18.

[197] The Russian word is zakukovali, i.e., "They began to cuckoo." The resemblance between the word kukla, a puppet, and the name and cry of the cuckoo (Kukushka) may be merely accidental, but that bird has a marked mythological character. See the account of the rite called "the Christening of the Cuckoos," in "Songs of the Russian people," p. 215.

[198] Very like these puppets are the images which reply for the sleeping prince in the opening scene of "De beiden Künigeskinner" (Grimm, No. 113). A doll plays an important part in one of Straparola's stories (Night v. Fable 2). Professor de Gubernatis identifies the Russian puppet with "the moon, the Vedic Râkâ, very small, but very intelligent, enclosed in the wooden dress, in the forest of night," "Zoological Mythology," i. 207-8.

[199] Afanasief, ii. No. 31.

[200] Khudyakof, No. 55.

[201] Ibid., No. 83.

[202] Wojcicki's "Polnische Volkssagen," &c. Lewestam's translation, iii. No. 8.

[203] The germ of all these repulsive stories about incestuous unions, proposed but not carried out, was probably a nature myth akin to that alluded to in the passage of the Rigveda containing the dialogue between Yama and Yami--"where she (the night) implores her brother (the day) to make her his wife, and where he declines her offer because, as he says, 'they have called it sin that a brother should marry his sister.'" Max Müller, "Lectures," sixth edition, ii. 557.

[204] Afanasief, vii. No. 18.

[205] Her name Vyed'ma comes from a Slavonic root véd, answering to the Sanskrit vid--from which springs an immense family of words having reference to knowledge. Vyed'ma and witch are in fact cousins who, though very distantly related, closely resemble each other both in appearance and in character.

[206] Afanasief, i. No. 4 a. From the Voroneje Government.

[207] Ivashko and Ivashechko, are caressing diminutives of Ivan.

[208] "Some storytellers," says Afanasief, "substitute the word snake (zmei) in the Skazka for that of witch (vyed'ma)."

[209] Diminutive of Elena.

[210] Gusi--lebedi, geese--swans.

[211] Afanasief, i. No. 4.

[212] Kulish, ii. 17.

[213] Khudyakof, No. 53.

[214] Ibid. No. 52.

[215] The demonism of Ceylon "represents demons as having human fathers and mothers, and as being born in the ordinary course of nature. Though born of human parents, all their qualities are different from those of men. They leave their parents sometime after their birth, but before doing so, they generally take care to try their demoniac powers on them." "Demonology and Witchcraft in Ceylon," by Dandris de Silva Gooneratne Modliar. "Journal of Ceylon Branch of Royal Asiatic Society," 1865-6, p. 17.

[216] Afanasief, vi. No. 57. From the Ukraine.

[217] "Whither [his] eyes look."

[218] Vertodub, the Tree-extractor (vertyet' = to twirl, dub = tree or oak) is the German Baumdreher or Holzkrummacher; Vertogor the Mountain leveller (gora = mountain) answers to the Steinzerreiber or Felsenkripperer.

[219] Why are you just now so zaplakannoi or blubbered. (Zalplakat', or plakat' = to cry.)

[220] Otkuda ni vzyalis.

[221] Vidimo--nevidimo, visibly--invisibly.

[222] Zashumyeli, they began to produce a shum or noise.

[223] Afanasief, P.V.S., i. 80-84. In the Albanian story of "The Serpent Child," (Hahn, No. 100), the heroine, the wife of the man whom forty snake-sloughs encase, is assisted in her troubles by two subterranean beings whom she finds employed in baking. They use their hands instead of shovels, and clean out the oven with their breasts. They are called "Sisters of the Sun."

[The end]
William Ralston Shedden-Ralston's short story: Witch And The Sun's Sister

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