RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES.* THIS collection of stories will probably be found
more interesting by the student of folk-lore than by the general reader. They have many curious features, a few of which we shall try to point out ; but in this work, the editor, with all his own pleasure in their variations and resemblances, hardly gives us the help that we might expect from him. His own object, shown with some vagueness in the introduction, seems to be to suggest a study of the likeness between Slav and North American mythology. He has already, in a former book, made this comparison between Ireland and North America. Here, again, he seems to find much to satisfy him ; but his way of passing on any information he has gathered is not very helpful, we fancy, even to myth-students like himself.
He only professes, it is true, "to throw out a few hints;" but surely he must himself have collected many more ideas from this volume of stories than he gives to his readers, either in introduction or notes. To these notes we tarn anxiously, but to find not very much more than references.
We have no doubt, however, that matter of very great interest in the study of comparative mythology is to be found in these folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slays (Czechs), and Magyars. They have their own atmosphere of mystery, their "elemental heroes :"—"Raven,—not the common bird, but that elemental power which, after having been overcome, turned into the common raven of to-day, and flew' off to the mountains." Then there are Whirlwind and the other winds : they have a personal character in several of the stories, especially, among others, in the Czech story of "The Cuirassier and the Horned Princess," where surely, also, the moon has something to do with the Princess whose horns fell off when she had eaten the four quarters of an apple. The Magyar story of " Mirko, the King's Son," seems, more than most of these stories, to have lingered near the myths out of which it grew. The sun and stars have much to do here ; and it would not be very difficult, perhaps, for those learned in the science, to trace the whole story back to Nature. Here also we have a favourite character in Russian and Slav, as well as in Magyar tales,—" the steed, fire-eating and wise always mangy and miserable except in action." Mr. Curtin says that this magic steed "is a very significant character, whose real nature one may hope to demonstrate." If, however, he has any idea as to the real nature of the steed, he gives us no hint of it, and we are left to our own imaginations on the subject. In "Mirko," the young prince takes the shabby old mare to go in search of his father's old comrade, the Hero of the Plain, who has promised to spend his old age with the King. But every day his enemies rise up against him, as many "as there are grass- blades on the field," and every day he has to cut them down ; and till this endless task is over, he cannot join his old friend. Mirko feeds the mare with peas, beans, and red-hot coals, after which she becomes "such a golden-haired steed as the Star of Dawn." She then turns her saddle and bridle to gold, and when Mirko mounts her, she says : "How shall I bear thee, dear master ; with the speed of the fleet whirlwind, or of quick thought?" She carries him on over a great river and a copper bridge, over a great river and a silver bridge, over an. enormously wide and deep river with a golden bridge, and up "a summitless, high glass mountain, as steep as the side of a house :"—
" She stamped, and said : Open thine eyes ! What cleat thou see ?'—' I see,' said Mirko, when I look behind, something dark, as large as a groat plate.'—' Oh, my master, that is the round of
the earth. But what dost thou see before thee P I see a narrow glass road, rising like a half-circle. On both sides of it is emptiness of bottomless depth.'—' My dear master, we must pass over that road.' With that she swept on, and in an instant stamped again. Open thy eyes ! What dost thou see?'—' I see behind me,' said Mirko, faint light, in front of me is darkness so dense that when I hold my finger before my eyes I cannot see Well, we must go through that also.' She sped on anew, and again stamped. Open thy eyes! What dost thou see now ?' —` I see,' said Mirko, 'the most glorious, light, beautiful, snow- covered mountains, and in the midst of them a silken meadow ; in the centre of the silken meadow, something dark.'—' That silken meadow,' said the steed, 'belongs to the Hero of the Plain ; and the dark object in the middle is his tent, woven from black silk.'" Certainly here one feels one's self not so far from the founds, tion of things in an old myth-world. Mirko'e further adven-
Myths and Folk-Talc' of tho Rassians, natant Slays, and Magyars. By Joreratali Curtin. London : Sampson Low and Co. ISO.
tures, though highly exciting and even poetic, are of the more ordinary sort of marvels. But these Magyar stories seem to us higher and more imaginative in tone than those of the Slays. The magic horse is a more brilliant animal here, though it also plays its part well in. " Boyisla.v, Youngest of Twelve," a Czech story. In "The Reed-Maiden" (Magyar), we find ourselves again among Nature-marvels. In the Sun's own kingdom, we meet "a charm-given, lovely maiden, in a purple velvet robe She was no other than Dawn, the dearest and best-beloved daughter of the Sun In the middle of the golden forest was Dawn's garden ; in the garden her copper-roofed mansion. When the Beauty of the Skies came home, the pearly flowers shook their bells, and began to sound." In this, as well as in other Magyar stories, a gipsy makes her appearance ; an odious character, drawn with curiously lifelike touches : and this suggests to us that the modern additions to these folk-tales may be quite as interesting to some students as their mythical foundation. Here, at any rate, more than in the vague and general character —as at present known—of what remains of the myths, we can find the people among whom the stories have grown to be what they are. In the midst of all the witchcrafts and en- chantments, the wonderful golden birds and animals, among such grisly imaginations as " Baba-Ya,ga, boneleg, old and toothless," or "The Great Freezer, the Great Eater," and other such monsters—to be found in Magyar tales as well as in Russian—we are taken back now and then, with an odd homeliness, to the people who tell and hear these tales. Riding across great steppes, the youngest son of the Tsar—here, as elsewhere, there are nearly always three sons, of whom the youngest is the hero, and his name is always Ivan —meets an enormous grey wolf, who tears his horse to pieces, but, contrary to the way of wolves, spares him. It is possible that his natural enemy, the wolf, may inspire a sort of awful
admiration in the moujile, and in his mind may sometimes take the shape of a hero, This wolf, at any rate, overtakes
the grieved and tired Ivan, and with kind words consoles him : "I am sorry for thee I am sorry that I ate thy good steed," and afterwards performs all the service of a magic horse for Ivan, gives him much excellent advice, and restores him to life when his wicked brothers have killed him. The bears and foxes that haunt the dark forests are smelt and caught by a blind hero who lives there, and roasts them over his fire. One can fancy, on winter nights, such stories as these being told in the peasant's hut' not far away from the black depth of that forest. The smell of Russia—pretty strong there—makes the Russian hero known to witch or wizard or Princess. The poor simpleton of the village—Ivan the Fool—becomes so wise that he defeats all the might of the Tsar,—such a story would be more mockery than pleasure to his old mother, as she sees him lying idle in the ashes. In " Koshchei-without-Death," one of the strangest and wildest stories of all, of what folk-lorists know as the " Life-Index" type, the young hero, Ivan Tsarevich, washes himself white and goes to church, prays to the images, bows on all four sides, and separately to Peerless Beauty. But it is impossible here to point out many of the touches of daily life, special to Russia, to be found in these tales. It must be said that there is a certain. likeness among them all, a certain monotony, oven in their variations, and this, naturally
perhaps, is more evident in the Russian stories than in the others. Here and there we recognise an old friend of the Arabian Nighis,—for instance, in the Czech story of "The King of the Toads," a poor fisherman draws in his net out of the sea a copper kettle, out of which a cloud of black smoke rushes, changing into a fiery man.
One of the stories oftenest met with is of the " Goldenlocks " type, where three brothers set off to find a Princess, or to do some other task : the two elder fail, the youngest succeeds, and his brothers try unsuccessfully to revenge them- selves upon him. In another common type, the hero shows some kindness to a beast or a bird, which afterwards in its gratitude saves him from some danger, or helps him to per- form some task. These beasts and birds have magical power. Then there is the " Life-Index " type, always mysterious and strange, occurring here in one or two variants of " Koshchei- without-Death ;" a giant or hero with his soul hidden in some external object, here generally a duck's egg. The common " Bride-Wager " type, in which the hero gains the Princess by performing some task or answering riddles, is to be found here, sometimes mixed up with that other story where the conquered Princess is a sorceress, and is punished for her evil deeds in the end. There is, however, a good deal of mixture and confusion of type in these stories. " Cinderella " and "Beauty and the Beast" find themselves at close quarters in "Brigbt Finist the Falcon. ;" while in " llifarya Morevna" we have not only "Beast Brothers-in-law," but a Forbidden Chamber, and Koshehei-without-Death once more. "The White Cat" and " Goldenlocks " meet in "The Treacherous Brothers."' "The Poor Man and the King of the Crows "is of the "Golden Goose" type, only with a happy ending. One of the most original stories hi the book, though far from the most attrac- tive, is "The Seven Simeons." We see in a note that it resembles a story in the folk-lore of Ireland.
Mr. Curtin's book is well printed and charmingly bound. It may be recommended without fear to all who love fairy- tales, even if they have not the deeper interest of an acquaint- ance with folk-lore. The introduction, though not very helpful,. is worth reading, its most striking passage, we think, being the writer's description of how he came to understand the- myth of "Lucifer, son of the morning." There are few greater' joys in a man's mental history than such discoveries as this.
Previous page
