Russian Folktales

dvor against the fence there is a bench (lávka), on which the family sits in the summer. The hut is made of logs, the fence of boards.

Between the rafters and the sloped roof is the loft (cherdák), into which a ladder leads.

Inside the hut is that essential and central feature of Russian peasant life, the stove, which occupies one side of a wall. In front against it three long implements stand, the poker, broom and shovel. The oven rests on a brick or tile foundation, about eighteen inches high, with a semicircular hollow space below. The top of the stove is used for a sleeping bench (poláty) for the old folk or the honoured guest. In larger houses there may be a lezhán’ka or heating stove, used as a sleeping sofa.

The bathhouse is separate from the hut, and contains a flight of steps for different degrees of heat, obtained from white-hot stones on which water is flung. This is only found in better-class houses. In villages there is a general bathhouse to which the peasants go once a week.

Every corner in the izbá has its particular name. There is the great corner, where the Icon stands, the upper corner near the door, and the stove corner opposite to the doors of the stove.

The fence is made of boards or sticks or stumps.

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.

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

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. There are a number of tales of the curse attendant on the neglect of these duties, e.g. “The Devil in the Dough-Pan.”

An example of the invocations is given in a note to “The Midnight Dance.”

Duke. 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.

Egóri Khrábry. Egóri the Brave. Is the Russian counterpart for St. George the Dragon-slayer.

Elijah the Prophet and St. Nicholas. 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. On earth the noise of the wheels is called thunder. 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. The name-days of these saints are December 6th and July 20th.

Hawk. The hawk is one of the most common references in Russian folklore, and the reference to the clear-eyed hawk is one of the strongest metaphors. The crow is equally common, but is generally used as a malign being. In Russian folktale 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.

Ídolishche. One of the symbols of paganism in the early ballads of Russia. 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. Goblins are very rare in Russian folklore; fairies seem to be nonexistent.

Ilyá Múromets. 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. He is intermediate between the “elder bogatyrí,” the earthborn Tirans, and the human champions of the legendary Court of Vladímir. He is always of popular origin and, as such, at variance with the semi-Scandinavian Court.

Iván Vasíl’evich. The Tsar Iván Vasíl’evich is a very popular figure in the Russian ballads; there are two of this name: Iván III. 1462⁠–⁠1505, and Iván the Terrible, 1533⁠–⁠1584. Both were very energetic rulers who enlarged the domain of Moscow and curbed the power of the territorial nobility.

Midnight Dance. General Notes to This Story

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

• “Beneath the sea, the sea of Khvalýnsk,62 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.

• “On the broad Vólga, on the steep-set banks, the princely swan swims from the Prince’s courtyard. I will capture that swan, I will seize it, I will grasp it. (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.’ 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. There is on the sea, on the ocean, on the island of Buyán, the eldest brother of all the crows, and he will fly