Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore. Anonymous

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ single currant!”

      The husband went out, his wife with him. He came to the currant bush, and his wife jumped into it, crying out at the top her voice:

      “Don’t you come into the bush, you thief, or I’ll kill you!”

      And so she got into the middle of the bush, and went flop into the bottomless pit.

      The husband returned home joyfully, and remained there three days; on the fourth day he went to see how things were going on. Taking a long cord, he let it down into the pit, and out from thence he pulled a little demon. Frightened out of his wits, he was going to throw the imp back again into the pit, but it shrieked aloud, and earnestly entreated him, saying:

      “Don’t send me back again, O peasant! let me go out into the world! A bad wife has come, and absolutely devoured us all, pinching us, and biting us—we’re utterly worn out with it. I’ll do you a good turn, if you will.”

      So the peasant let him go free—at large in Holy Russia. Then the imp said:

      “Now then, peasant, come along with me to the town of Vologda. I’ll take to tormenting people, and you shall cure them.”

      Well, the imp went to where there were merchant’s wives and merchant’s daughters; and when they were possessed by him, they fell ill and went crazy. Then the peasant would go to a house where there was illness of this kind, and, as soon as he entered, out would go the enemy; then there would be blessing in the house, and everyone would suppose that the peasant was a doctor indeed, and would give him money, and treat him to pies. And so the peasant gained an incalculable sum of money. At last the demon said:

      “You’ve plenty now, peasant; arn’t you content? I’m going now to enter into the Boyar’s daughter. Mind you don’t go curing her. If you do, I shall eat you.”

      The Boyar’s daughter fell ill, and went so crazy that she wanted to eat people. The Boyar ordered his people to find out the peasant—(that is to say) to look for such and such a physician. The peasant came, entered the house, and told Boyar to make all the townspeople, and the carriages with coachmen, stand in the street outside. Moreover, he gave orders that all the coachmen should crack their whips and cry at the top of their voices: “The Bad Wife has come! the Bad Wife has come!” and then he went into the inner room. As soon as he entered it, the demon rushed at him crying, “What do you mean, Russian? what have you come here for? I’ll eat you!”

      “What do you mean?” said the peasant, “why I didn’t come here to turn you out. I came, out of pity to you, to say that the Bad Wife has come here.”

      The Demon rushed to the window, stared with all his eyes, and heard everyone shouting at the top of his voice the words, “The Bad Wife!”

      “Peasant,” cries the Demon, “wherever can I take refuge?”

      “Run back into the pit. She won’t go there any more.”

      The Demon went back to the pit—and to the Bad Wife too.

      In return for his services, the Boyar conferred a rich guerdon on the peasant, giving him his daughter to wife, and presenting him with half his property.

But the Bad Wife sits to this day in the pit—in Tartarus.[54]

Our final illustration of the Skazkas which satirize women is the story of the Golovikha. It is all the more valuable, inasmuch as it is one of the few folk-tales which throw any light on the working of Russian communal institutions. The word Golovikha means, in its strict sense, the wife of a Golova, or elected chief [Golova = head] of a Volost, or association of village communities; but here it is used for a “female Golova,” a species of “mayoress.”

      The Golovikha.[55]

      A certain woman was very bumptious. Her husband came from a village council one day, and she asked him:

      “What have you been deciding over there?”

      “What have we been deciding? why choosing a Golova.”

      “Whom have you chosen?”

      “No one as yet.”

      “Choose me,” says the woman.

      So as soon as her husband went back to the council (she was a bad sort; he wanted to give her a lesson) he told the elders what she had said. They immediately chose her as Golova.

      Well the woman got along, settled all questions, took bribes, and drank spirits at the peasant’s expense. But the time came to collect the poll-tax. The Golova couldn’t do it, wasn’t able to collect it in time. There came a Cossack, and asked for the Golova; but the woman had hidden herself. As soon as she learnt that the Cossack had come, off she ran home.

      “Where, oh where can I hide myself?” she cries to her husband. “Husband dear! tie me up in a bag, and put me out there where the corn-sacks are.”

Now there were five sacks of seed-corn outside, so her husband tied up the Golova, and set her in the midst of them. Up came the Cossack and said:

      “Ho! so the Golova’s in hiding.”

      Then he took to slashing at the sacks one after another with his whip, and the woman to howling at the pitch of her voice:

      “Oh, my father! I won’t be a Golova, I won’t be a Golova.”

      At last the Cossack left off beating the sacks, and rode away. But the woman had had enough of Golova-ing; from that time forward she took to obeying her husband.

      Before passing on to another subject, it may be advisable to quote one of the stories in which the value of a good and wise wife is fully acknowledged. I have chosen for that purpose one of the variants of a tale from which, in all probability, our own story of “Whittington and his Cat” has been derived. With respect to its origin, there can be very little doubt, such a feature as that of the incense-burning pointing directly to a Buddhist source. It is called—

      The Three Copecks.[56]

      There once was a poor little orphan-lad who had nothing at all to live on; so he went to a rich moujik and hired himself out to him, agreeing to work for one copeck a year. And when he had worked for a whole year, and had received his copeck, he went to a well and threw it into the water, saying, “If it don’t sink, I’ll keep it. It will be plain enough I’ve served my master faithfully.”

      But the copeck sank. Well, he remained in service a second year, and received a second copeck. Again he flung it into the well, and again it sank to the bottom. He remained a third year; worked and worked, till the time came for payment. Then his master gave him a rouble. “No,” says the orphan, “I don’t want your money; give me my copeck.” He got his copeck and flung it into the well. Lo and behold! there were all three copecks floating on the surface of the water. So he took them and went into the town.

      Now СКАЧАТЬ