It must not be supposed that by the marvellous success of the pagan ceremony just described any sort of a blow was dealt to the orthodox beliefs of the villagers—nothing of the kind. The prestige of the priest may have suffered, but not the cause of religion. It was merely concluded by these simple-minded people that their znaharka knew the priest's business better than the bátuishka did himself, that was all!
For many a long day after these events belief in the znaharka was the supreme motive-power of the peasants of the district. If any cursing had to be done, Marfa was invited to do it. Had the evil eye fallen upon a moujik or woman of the place? Marfa defeated the sinister effects of that deplorable circumstance. Her benedictions were equally effective and in request; so were her spells, her charms, her incantations and mummeries of every kind. As the faith of the people in her powers was absolute, so her success was naturally marvellous in proportion, and for many a long year Marfa's reputation was unquestioned and her position assured. Nevertheless, a great reputation carries great responsibilities and great risks, and once a hole is found or picked in that flimsy material prestige, a rent is inevitable, and the fabric will easily and quickly go to rags and ruin! Even Marfa's glory was destined to end at last, and the beginning of the end came in the miscarriage of a certain benediction. Young Vainka Shahgin, a peasant of the village, had wooed and won the attractive Masha Sotsky; or, perhaps, the friends of Vainka had wooed the friends of Masha and won them. Anyhow, the pair were married and had been duly blessed by the znaharka, now an old woman; for without her benediction no married couple in the district would have dreamed of going forth to battle with the world and its tribulations. But ever since the znaharka's blessing had been accorded to this particular union the pair had led a cat-and-dog life. Vainka had taken to drinking immediately, while Masha had proved herself a slovenly slattern at home and the worst of housekeepers. No children came to cement the union; the marriage was a failure all round. It was rather hard on Marfa that all this should be laid to her account; but such is life! It was; and this was the first of her serious misfires. Shortly after this there came troubles with wolves. During the coldest period of a certain very severe winter, those famished animals became so tamed by starvation as to lose some of their natural aversion to the near presence of mankind. They took to making daring raids upon the village of Tirnova during the gloom of night, carrying away dogs and other domestic creatures. Soon they waxed bolder still, and, arriving in force, succeeded in killing and getting safe away with a cow and two horses. The znaharka, after this climax, was requested to solemnly curse the offenders, which she promptly did, using the ikon and the prayers of the Church as well as certain traditional incantations of a pagan character.
But the wolves were none the worse for this mixed dose—on the contrary, they seemed to be all the better for it; the treatment did them good and improved their appetite. Where, up to this time, they had been content to steal a cat, they now carried off a grown pig; the horses and cows were invaded in their very stables and outhouses; things went from bad to worse. All the world recognised that the curses of the znaharka agreed with the wolves, they grew fat upon her maledictions and the Tirnova cattle: Marfa had made another lamentable failure!
Thus, gradually, the immense prestige of the old woman waned and drooped and disappeared. One thing after another failed with her. Now that faith had gone, success went also. Those who, but yesterday, had believed in and honoured her, scoffed to-day as she passed them; nor was this all. As failures multiplied, ill-feeling towards her increased. Where she had been feared and loved, she was now ridiculed and hated. Men no longer accorded to her her former honourable appellation of "the wise woman"; they took to calling her vyedma and bába yagá, both of which terms mean witch, or sorceress, and carry a weight of abusive meaning, for a witch is always malignant, while a znaharka is invariably a useful and benevolent member of society.
The idea once started that poor Marfa was a vyedma, the unfortunate woman was—like the proverbial dog to whom a bad name has been given—practically already hanged. She rapidly grew in the ill-favour of the inconstant villagers, by whom she was accused of all manner of monstrosities of which she was entirely innocent. There was no misfortune or calamity that happened at this time within the district but it was quickly laid to the charge of Marfa. In a short while she was cursed and hated by the entire population. At last matters culminated in an accusation brought against the poor woman by the pastuch, or cowherd, of the community. The znaharka, this man declared, had taken to milking the cows of the villagers by means of witchcraft, while the animals were away at the pasture. There were two circumstances which lent colour to this statement. In the first place, the milking of cows by magical means was known to be a favourite accomplishment of vyedmui, who, from all times, have been addicted to this dishonest and wicked practice—a practice exercised by them not out of mere mischief, but for profit—for witches must live as well as any one else. In the second place, many of the cows had, of late, been unaccountably short of milk; good milkers, too, who had never hitherto disappointed their owners. Day after day these animals were found, at milking time, to be absolutely without their frothy produce. At a hastily convened meeting of the heads of houses the pastuch was instructed to watch the herd while at pasture, to watch carefully from a convenient spot, he himself remaining, if possible, unseen; and then to return and report. This the cowherd did, and with so much success that on the third day after he had received his instructions he returned from the pasture lands with full particulars as to how the vyedma Marfa had proceeded in order to effect the robbery of which she was accused. Her method proved to be an old and favourite device among witches. The herd described his experience thus: He had taken up a position, he said, in the topmost branches of a birch tree, whence he could see for miles around, while the herd browsed peacefully about the foot. At about midday he observed the vyedma (at whose name—for it had come to this—the pastuch and all his audience spat upon the ground in token of their disgust!), he observed, he said, the vyedma approaching from the direction of the village, bearing a basket which was full of empty bottles, each bottle having a separate compartment in the basket. She stopped in the middle of the communal grass-field, at a spot where lay the old plough which Ivan Tussoff had left there since last autumn to save himself the trouble of throwing it away. Then she raised her arms and waved her hands, and pronounced some incantations, the nature of which, being so far away, he could not hear, but which, he said, must have been very potent, for the entire herd, as with one accord, began to show signs of great restlessness and to low softly and mournfully. He himself also felt the effects, which were such as to give him a sensation of nervousness and great depression, and a creepy feeling all down his back, while he distinctly recognised a strong smell of sulphur filling the air. Then the vyedma, after more incantations, stuck what appeared to be a penknife into the woodwork of the old plough, when immediately drops of milk began to, first, drip from the knife, then to slowly trickle, and lastly to flow. Marfa placed her bottles one after the other beneath this singular milk-tap until all these were filled, then she departed, carrying the basket, as though it were a thing of no weight at all. When she had disappeared, the pastuch descended from his perch and tested some of the best of the cows. They proved to be as dry as bones; not a single drop of milk did their udders afford! The herdsman concluded his tale amid exclamations of horror and dismay. The peasants crossed themselves and spat. What need of further evidence? Undoubtedly there was a vyedma among them; suspicion must give place to certainty. Undoubtedly also it was the duty of those in authority in the village to rid themselves of the shame and horror of harbouring such a creature in their midst.
Russian peasants, when they have made up their minds in times of excitement to any outrageous proceeding, rarely delay long before putting their ideas into execution. Within an hour of the conclusion of the meeting the unfortunate Marfa had been arrested, accused, found guilty, sentenced, and executed. The manner of her execution was in accordance with the traditional end of convicted witches: she was placed in a large wheat sack, together with a dog, a cat, and a cock—all as innocent of conscious offence as she was herself—and thrown into the village pond, where the whole company went down to the bottom together, as a warning to other witches and evildoers, of which poor Marfa was neither the one nor the other.
Two days after this tragedy a strange moujik sauntered into the village of Tirnova and called to see the starost, who, as it happened, was at home and received him.
"Starost, brother," said the stranger, going straight to business, "why do you send your pastuch with milk to sell in our district? Have you no market of your own that you must needs spoil ours by overstocking it, and sending prices down for us?"
"Ah, my brother, forgive us this time," said the starost; "it can never occur again. It was our misfortune to harbour among us a vyedma, who stole the milk from us and no doubt sold it in your district. She is now at the bottom of the village pond, and will steal no more milk. May her purchasers escape poisoning if they have drunk the milk of the witch."
"Was your vyedma, then, in the likeness of a pastuch?" inquired the stranger.