Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 4 · page 21 2101"How's this?102There's only two of us.103For whom is this third share?"104"That," says the old man, "is for him who ate my loaves."105"I ate them, old man," cries the Pope; "I did really, so help me Heaven!"106"Then the money is yours," says the old man. "107Take my share too.108And now go and serve in your parish faithfully; don't be greedy, and don't go hitting Nicholas over the shoulders with the keys."109Thus spake the old man, and straightway disappeared.110[The principal motive of this story is, of course, the same as that of "The Smith and the Demon," in No. 13 (see above, p. 70).111A miraculous cure is effected by a supernatural being.112A man attempts to do likewise, but fails.113When about to undergo the penalty of his failure, he is saved by that being, who reads him a moral lesson.114In the original form of the tale the supernatural agent was probably a demigod, whom a vague Christian influence has in one instance degraded into the Devil, in another, canonized as St. Nicholas.115The Medea's cauldron episode occurs in very many folk-tales, such as the German "Bruder Lustig" (Grimm, No. 81) and "Das junge gegluehte Maennlein" (Grimm, No. 147), in the latter of which our Lord, accompanied by St. Peter, spends a night in a Smith's house, and makes an old beggar-man young by first placing him in the fire, and then plunging him into water.116After the departure of his visitors, the Smith tries a similar experiment on his mother-in-law, but quite unsuccessfully.117In the corresponding Norse tale of "The Master-Smith," (Asbjoernsen and Moe, No. 21, Dasent, No. 16) an old beggar-woman is the victim of the Smith's unsuccessful experiment.118In another Norse tale, that of "Peik" (Asbjoernsen's New Series, No. 101, p. 219) a king is induced to kill his wife and his daughter in the mistaken belief that he will be able to restore them to life.119In one of the stories of the "Dasakumaracharita," a king is persuaded to jump into a certain lake in the hope of obtaining a new and improved body.120He is then killed by his insidious adviser, who usurps his throne, pretending to be the renovated monarch.121In another story in the same collection a king believes that his wife will be able to confer on him by her magic skill "a most celestial figure," and under that impression confides to her all his secrets, after which she brings about his death.122See Wilson's "Essays," ii.123217, &c., and 262, &c. Jacob's "Hindoo Tales," pp.124180, 315.]125II.126_About Demons.127_128From the stories which have already been quoted some idea may be gained of the part which evil spirits play in Russian popular fiction.129In one of them (No. 1) figures the ghoul which feeds on the dead, in several (Nos.13037, 38, 45-48) we see the fiend-haunted corpse hungering after human flesh and blood; the history of _The Bad Wife_ (No. 7) proves how a demon may suffer at a woman's hands, that of _The Dead Witch_ (No. 3) shows to what indignities the remains of a wicked woman may be subjected by the fiends with whom she has chosen to associate.131In the _Awful Drunkard_ (No. 6), and the _Fiddler in Hell_ (No. 41), the abode of evil spirits is portrayed, and some light is thrown on their manners and customs; and in the _Smith and the Demon_ (No. 13), the portrait of one of their number is drawn in no unkindly spirit.132The difference which exists between the sketches of fiends contained in these stories is clearly marked, so much so that it would of itself be sufficient to prove that there is no slight confusion of ideas in the minds of the Russian peasants with regard to the demoniacal beings whom they generally call _chorti_ or devils.133Still more clearly is the contrast between those ideas brought out by the other stories, many in number, into which those powers of darkness enter.134It is evident that the traditions from which the popular conception of the ghostly enemy has been evolved must have been of a complex and even conflicting character.135Of very heterogeneous elements must have been composed the form under which the popular fancy, in Russia as well as in other lands, has embodied the abstract idea of evil.136The diabolical characters in the Russian tales and legends are constantly changing the proportions of their figures, the nature of their attributes.137In one story they seem to belong to the great and widely subdivided family of Indian demons; in another they appear to be akin to certain fiends of Turanian extraction; in a third they display features which may have been inherited from the forgotten deities of old Slavonic mythology; in all the stories which belong to the "legendary class" they bear manifest signs of having been subjected to Christian influences, the effect of which has been insufficient to do more than slightly to disguise their heathenism.138The old gods of the Slavonians have passed away and left behind but scanty traces of their existence; but still, in the traditions and proverbial expressions of the peasants in various Slavonic lands, there may be recognized some relics of the older faith.139Among these are a few referring to a White and to a Black God.140Thus, among the peasants of White Russia some vague memory still exists of a white or bright being, now called Byelun,[458] who leads belated travellers out of forests, and bestows gold on men who do him good service. "141Dark is it in the forest without Byelun" is one phrase; and another, spoken of a man on whom fortune has smiled, is, "He must have made friends with Byelun."142On the other hand the memory of the black or evil god is preserved in such imprecations as the Ukraine "May the black god smite thee!"143[459] To ancient pagan traditions, also, into which a Christian element has entered, may be assigned the popular belief that infants which have been cursed by their mothers before their birth, or which are suffocated during their sleep, or which die from any causes unchristened or christened by a drunken priest, become the prey of demons.144This idea has given rise in Russia, as well as elsewhere, to a large group of stories.145The Russian peasants believe, it is said, that in order to rescue from the fiends the soul of a babe which has been suffocated in its sleep, its mother must spend three nights in a church, standing within a circle traced by the hand of a priest.146When the cocks crow on the third morning, the demons will give her back her dead child.147[460]148Great stress is laid in the skazkas and legends upon the terrible power of a parent's curse.149The "hasty word" of a father or a mother will condemn even an innocent child to slavery among devils, and when it has once been uttered, it is irrevocable.150It might have been supposed that the fearful efficacy of such an imprecation would have silenced bad language, as that of the _Vril_ rendered war impossible among the Vril-ya of "The Coming Race;" but that such was not the case is proved by the number of narratives which turn on uncalled-for parental cursing.151Here is an abridgment of one of these stories.1 2← previousChapter VI. 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