[374] Afanassieff, v. 12, and vi. 2.—Cfr. the chapters on the Goat, the Fox, the Wolf, and the Duck, where other episodes of this legend are found again.—In the twelfth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the old man goes up to heaven to call God to account for the peas that He has taken from the top of the pea-plant; God gives him in exchange stockings of gold and garters of silver.
[375] Cfr. also v. 24.
[376] v. 55.—Cfr. also vi. 22.—Cfr. the Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac, par Bladé (Paris, 1867), where the foolish and lazy one occurs again under the name of Joan Lou Pigre.
[377] Cfr. also the two variations in Afanassieff, vi. 25.
Po malu, malu, sestritze, grai
Nie vraszi ti mavó serdienká vkrai!
Ti-sz mini szradila
Sza krasni yagodki, sza ćorvonni ćobotki!
Also cfr. the chapter on the Peacock.
[379] In the Festival of the Epiphany, which is also a festival of the husband and wife, the good fairy is accustomed to bring to the child, husband, and wife, a boot or a stocking full of presents. This nuptial boot occurs again in the English custom of throwing a slipper after a newly-married couple. Another meaning was also given to the slippers which are thrown away in the popular belief. Instead of being the heroine's shoes which, having been abandoned, serve to attract and guide the predestined husband, they are also considered as the old shoes which the devil leaves behind him when he flees (his tail, which betrays itself). The Germanic wild huntress Gueroryssa, another form of the Frau Holle—the phantom of winter expelled at Epiphany—is represented with a serpent's tail. Hence in the German carnival the use of the Schuh-teufel laufen, or running in the devil's slippers.
[380] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 4, and the chapter on the Stork.
[381] Cfr. Afanassieff, ii. 25, ii. 28, iv. 47, v. 37.