A cabbage grows up near an old man's dwelling, till in like manner it rises up to the sky. The old man climbs up, makes a hole in the sky, and eats and drinks to satiety. He then returns and narrates everything to his wife. She wishes to go up too; when they are half way, the old man lets the sack drop, the old woman dies, and her husband prepares her funeral, calling in the fox[373] as a mourner.
Other variations of the same story offer us, instead of the cow's hide, the cabbage, and the beanstalk, the pea-plant, and even the oak-tree, which grows up to heaven.[374]
From the vegetable or funereal plant,—a symbol, as we have already remarked, at once of abundance and resurrection,—by which the hero ascends to heaven, where he finds riches and abundance of food, the transition was very natural to the pea which turns round, of which the hero Turn-little-Pea (the son of the king of the peas) is born.
In the second story of the third book of Afanassieff,[375] Turn-little-Pea appears as the third of the brothers, as the youngest brother, who delivers his sister and his two brothers from the monster. But the ungrateful brothers (perhaps covetous of the maiden, here called a sister, but, who is virtually the same, the bride delivered and disputed for by the three brothers in numerous Indo-European legends), tie him to an oak-tree and go home alone. Turn-little-Pea unroots the whole oak and goes off. He afterwards kills three more monster-serpents, and the she-serpents their wives.
In the thirtieth story of the second book of Afanassieff, this enterprise against the serpents, male and female, is attributed to the usual Ivan. He goes with his brothers against the serpent with twelve heads, and with his iron stick alone kills nine of them, and the three remaining ones by the help of his two brothers. Then the she-serpent and her three daughters persecute the three brothers, and Ivan in particular. She causes them to find a beautiful cushion upon the ground; Ivan, who is suspicious of some trick, first beats the cushion, upon which blood gushes out of it (in the story of Turn-little-Pea, the young hero averts the danger by making the sign of the cross with his sword, when blood comes out). The serpent then tempts them by an apple-tree with gold and silver apples. The brothers wish to pluck some; Ivan, however, first strikes the tree, and blood flows from it. They then come to a beautiful fountain, where the brothers would like to drink; Ivan strikes the fountain, and again blood comes from it. The cushion, the apple-tree, and the fountain were the three daughters of the serpent. Then the serpent, having failed to deceive them, rushes upon Ivan; the latter escapes with his brothers into a forge shut by twelve iron gates; the serpent licks the doors with her tongue to force a passage, and her tongue is caught with red-hot pincers.
In the fourth story of Erlenwein, the three brothers occur again with interesting mythical names. A woman bears three sons; one at evening, who is on this account called Većernik, or the evening one; the second at midnight, whence he is named Polunoćnik, or the midnight one; the third at the aurora, who is named Svetazór, or the clearly-seeing. The three brothers become adults in a few hours. The most valiant of the three is Svetazór, the last one. To prove his strength, he goes to the blacksmith and orders an iron club that weighs twelve puds (480 pounds); he throws it into the air and catches it on the palm of his hand, the club breaks. He orders one of twenty puds (800 pounds), throws it up, catches it on his knee, and it breaks. Finally he orders one of thirty puds (1200 pounds), throws it up, and catches it on his forehead; it bends but does not break. Svetazór has it straightened and takes it with him, as he goes with his two brothers to deliver the three daughters of the Tzar, carried off by three magicians into the three castles of copper, silver, and gold. Svetazór, after having drunk the water of strength, and received from the first princess an egg of copper, from the second one of silver, and from the third a golden one, delivers the three princesses and brings them out. The two brothers, seeing that the third princess is more beautiful than the others, think that the youngest brother is reserving her for himself, and throw him into the water. Svetazór wanders about the subterranean world, and delivers the daughter of another Tzar by killing a monster and burying him under a rock. A soldier boasts before the Tzar of having accomplished this heroic act. Svetazór invites the soldier to prove his strength, and so the truth of his boast, by lifting the rock up. He does not succeed, and Svetazór wins the trial of strength, upon which the soldier is executed by order of the Tzar. After this, Svetazór, for having once spared the life of a crow, is carried by it into the world of the living, on condition that he gives it something to eat by the way. Svetazór has at length to feed the crow with his own flesh, yet is in the end set down again safe and sound, with all his flesh, in the world above, where, with the eggs of copper, silver, and gold, he causes the castles formed of these metals to arise, in which are found the ring, the slipper, and the robe demanded from their bridegrooms by the three princesses, who hoped by this expedient to see again their lost Svetazór. Then Svetazór begins to sweep out the terrace of the golden castle. The third princess expresses her intention to take him for her husband. The nuptials are celebrated, Svetazór pardoning his two elder brothers and giving them the two elder sisters of his bride. (The princess of the copper is the evening aurora, the princess of the silver is the silvery moon, and that of the gold is the morning aurora, to whom Svetazór, the clearly-seeing, the illumined, the sun, is married.)
In the sixth story of the first book of Afanassieff, the same undertaking is accomplished by the third brother, Ivan. The monster which carries off the three sisters is an aquatic one, an otter. Abandoned by his brothers in the nether world, Ivan is overtaken by a great tempest; he takes pity upon some young birds that are bathing, and saves them under his dress, upon which the grateful mother of the birds brings him back to the upper world. In the fifteenth story of Erlenwein, the third brother is the cunning one, who, by a stratagem, and by means of his purse, which is self-replenishing, steals from his two brothers the snuff-box out of which issue as many armies as are wished for, and the cloth which makes the wearer invisible (both figures to represent the cloud from which come forth riches, solar rays, thunderbolts, and weapons, and which hides the hero, that is, renders him invisible). In the fifty-fourth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, Ivan of the dog, the hero sacrificed by his brothers, is the strong one, he who delivers the three princesses, who possesses the three rings, and gives them to the goldsmith from whom they were ordered, and who is not able to make them, by which means he is recognised.
Ivan Tzarević, inasmuch as he was born of a cow, as we have also seen above, was necessarily represented as a bull; the bull displays part of his strength by drinking; Ivan Tzarević drinks, at a gulp, whole barrels of wine of marvellous strength. In this capacity he resembles Indras, the great drinker of somas, and the drinker Bhîmas, the second brother of the Pâṇḍavas.
The third brother is now Prince Ivan (Ivan Tzarević, Ivan Karoliević, Ivan Kraliević), now the stupid Ivan (Ivan durak), Ivan the little fool (Ivan Duraćiok). But, as I have already remarked, the fool generally makes his fortune, either because the kingdom of heaven is for the poor in spirit, or because the stupidity of Ivan is feigned, or else because the fool becomes wise. In a story given in Afanassieff,[376] the fool is also lazy, and takes the name of Emilius.