“In the pitcher which stands on the stove.”
After a time the moujik asks his wife if she is asleep. “Not yet,” she replies. Then he puts the same question to Need, who gives no answer, having gone to sleep. So he takes his wife’s last sarafan, wraps up the pitcher in it, and flings the bundle into an ice-hole.[237]
In one of the “chap-book” stories (a lubochnaya skazka), a poor man “obtained a crust of bread and took it home to provide his wife and boy with a meal, but just as he was beginning to cut it, suddenly out from behind the stove jumped Kruchìna,[238] snatched the crust from his hands, and fled back again behind the stove. Then the old man began to bow down before Kruchìna and to beseech him[239] to give back the bread, seeing that he and his had nothing to eat. Thereupon Kruchìna replied, “I will not give you back your crust, but in return for it I will make you a present of a duck which will lay a golden egg every day,” and kept his word.[240]
In Little-Russia the peasantry believe in the existence of small beings, of vaguely defined form, called Zluidni who bring zlo or evil to every habitation in which they take up their quarters. “May the Zluidni strike him!” is a Little-Russian curse, and “The Zluidni have got leave for three days; not in three years will you get rid of them!” is a White-Russian proverb. In a Little-Russian skazka a poor man catches a fish and takes it as a present to his rich brother, who says, “A splendid fish! thank you, brother, thank you!” but evinces no other sign of gratitude. On his way home the poor man meets an old stranger and tells him his story—how he had taken his brother a fish and had got nothing in return but a “thank ye.”
“How!” cries the old man. “A spasibo[241] is no small thing. Sell it to me!”
“How can one sell it?” replies the moujik. “Take it pray, as a present!”
“So the spasibo is mine!” says the old man, and disappears, leaving in the peasant’s hands a purse full of gold.
The peasant grows rich, and moves into another house. After a time his wife says to him—
“We’ve been wrong, Ivan, in leaving our mill-stones in the old house. They nourished us, you see, when we were poor; but now, when they’re no longer necessary to us, we’ve quite forgotten them!”
“Right you are,” replies Ivan, and sets off to fetch them. When he reaches his old dwelling, he hears a voice saying—