🧚 Opening, part 40

The fence is made of boards or sticks or stumps.1

Long thin laths are stuck on to an iron spike, and lit; a pail of water is placed below into which the cinders fall; these lamps must be renewed as they burn down, and the charred ends swept up.2

Up to very recent times, patriarchal usages obtained through Russia, and married sons resided in the father’s house.3

This particular story portrays some of the personifications and allegorizings of the common acts of life; all of which have their appropriate blessing or grace.4 There are a number of tales of the curse attendant on the neglect of these duties, e.g. _The Devil in the Dough-pan_.5

An example of the invocations is given in a note to _The Midnight Dance_.6

_Duke.7 _ i.e. a translation of _voyevodá_, which is again a translation of the High-German _Herzog_, which again is derived from the Latin _Dux_, meaning the leader of an army, not a mere title.8

_Egóri Khrábry.9 _ Egori the Brave.10 Is the Russian counterpart for St. George the Dragon-slayer.11

_Elijah the Prophet and St. Nicholas.12 _ Perún was the God of Thunder in pagan Slavdom, and his attributes have been transferred to Elijah who is represented as driven up to Heaven in a fiery chariot darting fiery rays, drawn by four winged horses, and surrounded by clouds and flames; a tale which copied the biblical account of Elijah’s end.13 On earth the noise of the wheels is called thunder.14 In Nóvgorod there were one or two churches to St. Elijah of the Drought, and St. Elijah of the Rain, to be consulted as occasion required.15 The name-days of these saints are December 6th and July 20th.16

_Hawk.17 _ The hawk is one of the most common references in Russian folk-lore, and the reference to the clear-eyed hawk is one of the strongest metaphors.18 The crow is equally common, but is generally used as a malign being.19 In Russian folk-tale there is nothing incongruous in a man having as his sons a boy, a crow and a hawk or an eagle: or as in ‘_Márya Morévna_,’ where the marriage of Iván with a beautiful princess and of his two sisters with the eagle and the crow are all of them equally plausible.20

_Ídolishche.21 _ One of the symbols of paganism in the early ballads of Russia.22 He is generally represented as a gluttonous monster; but in the ballad of the Realms of Copper, Silver, and Gold his name has been given too as a goblin.23 Goblins are very rare in Russian folk-lore; fairies seem to be non-existent.24

_Ilyá Múromets.25 _ Ilyá Múromets is one of the heroes of the Kíev cycle; he derives his strength from mystical sources of Mother Earth, and his great feat is the slaying of the Nightingale Robber.26 He is intermediate between the ‘_elder bogatyri_,’ the earth-born Tirans, and the human champions of the legendary Court of Vladímir.27 He is always of popular origin and, as such, at variance with the semi-Scandinavian Court.28

_Iván Vasíl’evich.29 _ The Tsar Iván Vasíl’evich is a very popular figure in the Russian ballads; there are two of this name: Iván III.30 1462–1505, and Iván the Terrible, 1533–1584.31 Both were very energetic rulers who enlarged the domain of Moscow and curbed the power of the territorial nobility.32

MIDNIGHT DANCE.33 GENERAL NOTES TO THIS STORY34

The underworld is the home of magic.35 This charm, to be said by a soldier going to the wars, may be of interest.36

“Beneath the sea, the sea of Khvalýnsk [the Caspian], there stands a house of bronze, and in that house of bronze the fiery serpent is enchained, and under the fiery serpent lies the seven _pud_ key from the castle of the Prince, the Prince Vladímir, and in the princely castle, the castle of Vladímir, are laid the knightly trappings of the knights of Nóvgorod, of the youthful war-men.37

“On the broad Volga, on the steep-set banks, the princely swan swims from the Prince’s courtyard.38 I will capture that swan, I will seize it, I will grasp it.39 (I will say) ‘Thou, oh swan, fly to the sea of Khvalýnsk, peck the fiery snake to death, gain the seven _pud_ key, the key from the earth of Prince Vladímir.’40 In my power it is not to fly to the sea of Khvalýnsk; in my power it is not to peck to death the fiery snake; nor with my legs may I reach the seven _pud_ key.41 There is on the sea, on the ocean, on the island of Buyán, the eldest brother of all the crows, and he will fly to the sea of Khvalýnsk, he will peck to death the fiery snake, he will gain the seven _pud_ key; but the crow is held back by the evil witch of Kíev.42 In the standing wood, in the grey-clad forest, stands a little hut, not thatched, not wattled; and, in the little hut, lies the evil witch of Kíev.43 I will go to the standing forest, the dreamy wood, I will enter in at the hut of the evil witch of Kíev.44

“Thou, oh evil witch of Kíev, bid thy crow fly over the sea of Khvalýnsk, to the house of bronze; bid him peck the fiery snake, bid him gain the seven _pud_ key.45 She was grim, and she clove to her crow, the evil witch of Kíev.46 In my old age I cannot roam to the sea, to the ocean, to the isle of Buyán, to the Black Crow.47 Do thou bid, by my enchanting words, the crow gain me the seven _pud_ key.48

“The crow has smitten the house of bronze, has pecked the fiery snake to death, has gained the seven _pud_ key.49

“With that key I will unlock the princely castle, the castle of Vladímir, I will gain the knightly gear, the trappings of the knights of Nóvgorod, of the youthful war-men; and in that gear the arquebus cannot fell me, the shots cannot hit me, the warriors and champions, the hosts of Tatary and Kazán cannot hurt me.50

“I invoke the servant, a man, a fighter, in the host, who goeth to war with these my potent words.51

“My words die down, My deeds they crown.”52

[Kazán was the last stronghold of the Tatars.53 It was stormed in 1549.]54

_Buyán_ is a kind of fairy hill like the _Tír n’an óg_ of the Irish folk-tales, the land of youth, and cannot probably be assigned to any physical geography.55 Most probably the mythical Isle of Buyán is the reminiscence of the Isle of Rügen.56 The whole of the Pomeranian coast from Lübeck to the Memel was, prior to its conquest by the Saxons and the Brandenburgers, a Slavonic district, and the Isle of Rügen, in especial, the promontory of Arcona, a seat of the most highly developed Slavonic pagan ritual: Saxo Grammaticus has conserved us full details.57 Considering the intimate association of the mysterious stone _Alátyr_ (probably meaning amber) with Buyán: and the fact that _Buyán_ is a Slav translation of the Old Slav name Ruyán, the wind-swept isle [cf.58 English _rough_, German _rauh_, etc.]; also taken the specific references in the magic charms in connection with the facts recorded by the Scandinavian chroniclers, there seems to be little doubt that the Isle of Buyán is a folk-tale shadow of the old place of Pagan pilgrimage, contaminated, of course, with other fantastic elements.59

_Katomá.60 _ This is one of the marvellous servants whom fortunate princes possess in folk-lore.61 In Russian folk-tales they have magical attributes, and are often described by their caps, e.g. oaken-cap, blue-cap, etc.62

_Koshchéy the Deathless.63 _ The meaning of this name is very hard to determine.64 There are at least three disparate ideas involved.65 First of all the most ancient is that which occurs in the Word of Igor’s Armament, in which the word Koshchéy is used for a warrior of the hostile Pólovtsy; and, when Igor is said to be put on a Koshchéy saddle, it means he is taken into captivity.66 Hence the word _koshchéy_ came to be used in Russian as meaning a slave, or a groom, originally a captive slave from the Pólovtsy who fought the Russians for over two hundred years.67 Consequently the word has a meaning in Russian folk-lore which has a widespread Aryan notion, that of a fearful Enchanter who lives in a mountain fastness far removed; runs away with the beautiful princess, and can only be slain by the valiant lover, going through unfordable streams, impenetrable forests and unpassable mountains, so as to catch hold of his soul which is contained in a casket, or in some other manner is always terribly enclosed.68 He takes this soul, which is as a rule lastly contained in an egg, up to the Monster’s palace, scrunches it in his hand, and the monster dies.69 Thirdly, the word became confused with _kost’_, bone, and so came to mean a skeleton or miser, and a wandering Jew.70 The epithet ‘deathless’ does not mean indestructible, but that he can only be slain in an extraordinary manner and will not die in a natural way.71