The existence of hills is accounted for by legendary lore in this wise. When the Lord was about to fashion the face of the earth, he ordered the Devil to dive into the watery depths and bring thence a handful of the soil he found at the bottom. The Devil obeyed, but when he filled his hand, he filled his mouth also. The Lord took the soil, sprinkled it around, and the Earth appeared, all perfectly flat. The Devil, whose mouth was quite full, looked on for some time in silence. At last he tried to speak, but choked, and fled in terror. After him followed the thunder and the lightning, and so he rushed over the whole face of the earth, hills springing up where he coughed, and sky-cleaving mountains where he leaped.[430]
As in other countries, a number of legends are current respecting various animals. Thus the Old Ritualists will not eat the crayfish (rak), holding that it was created by the Devil. On the other hand the snake (uzh, the harmless or common snake) is highly esteemed, for tradition says that when the Devil, in the form of a mouse, had gnawed a hole in the Ark, and thereby endangered the safety of Noah and his family, the snake stopped up the leak with its head.[431] The flesh of the horse is considered unclean, because when the infant Saviour was hidden in the manger the horse kept eating the hay under which the babe was concealed, whereas the ox not only would not touch it, but brought back hay on its horns to replace what the horse had eaten. According to an old Lithuanian tradition, the shape of the sole is due to the fact that the Queen of the Baltic Sea once ate one half of it and threw the other half into the sea again. A legend from the Kherson Government accounts for it as follows. At the time of the Angelical Salutation, the Blessed Virgin told the Archangel Gabriel that she would give credit to his words “if a fish, one side of which had already been eaten, were to come to life again. That very moment the fish came to life, and was put back in the water.”
With the birds many graceful legends are connected. There is a bird, probably the peewit, which during dry weather may be seen always on the wing, and piteously crying Peet, Peet,[432] as if begging for water. Of it the following tale is told. When God created the earth, and determined to supply it with seas, lakes and rivers, he ordered the birds to convey the waters to their appointed places. They all obeyed except this bird, which refused to fulfil its duty, saying that it had no need of seas, lakes or rivers, to slake its thirst. Then the Lord waxed wroth and forbade it and its posterity ever to approach a sea or stream, allowing it to quench its thirst with that water only which remains in hollows and among stones after rain. From that time it has never ceased its wailing cry of “Drink, Drink,” Peet, Peet.[433]
When the Jews were seeking for Christ in the garden, says a Kharkof legend, all the birds, except the sparrow, tried to draw them away from his hiding-place. Only the sparrow attracted them thither by its shrill chirruping. Then the Lord cursed the sparrow, and forbade that men should eat of its flesh. In other parts of Russia, tradition tells that before the crucifixion the swallows carried off the nails provided for the use of the executioners, but the sparrows brought them back. And while our Lord was hanging on the cross the sparrows were maliciously exclaiming Jif! Jif! or “He is living! He is living!” in order to urge on the tormentors to fresh cruelties. But the swallows cried, with opposite intent, Umer! Umer! “He is dead! He is dead.” Therefore it is that to kill a swallow is a sin, and that its nest brings good luck to a house. But the sparrow is an unwelcome guest, whose entry into a cottage is a presage of woe. As a punishment for its sins, its legs have been fastened together by invisible bonds, and therefore it always hops, not being able to run.[434]
A great number of the Russian legends refer to the visits which Christ and his Apostles are supposed to pay to men’s houses at various times, but especially during the period between Easter Sunday and Ascension Day. In the guise of indigent wayfarers, the sacred visitors enter into farm-houses and cottages and ask for food and lodging; therefore to this day the Russian peasant is ever unwilling to refuse hospitality to any man, fearing lest he might repulse angels unawares. Tales of this kind are common in all Christian lands, especially in those in which their folk-lore has preserved some traces of the old faith in the heathen gods who once walked the earth, and in patriarchal fashion dispensed justice among men. Many of the Russian stories closely resemble those of a similar nature which occur in German and Scandinavian collections; all of them, for instance, agreeing in the unfavorable light in which they place St. Peter. The following abridgment of the legend of “The Poor Widow,”[435] may be taken as a specimen of the Russian tales of this class.
Long, long ago, Christ and his twelve Apostles were wandering about the world, and they entered into a village one evening, and asked a rich moujik to allow them to spend the night in his house. But he would not admit them, crying:
“Yonder lives a widow who takes in beggars; go to her.”
So they went to the widow, and asked her. Now she was so poor that she had nothing in the house but a crust of bread and a handful of flour. She had a cow, but it had not calved yet, and gave no milk. But she did all she could for the wayfarers, setting before them all the food she had, and letting them sleep beneath her roof. And her store of bread and flour was wonderfully increased, so that her guests fed and were satisfied. And the next morning they set out anew on their journey.
As they went along the road there met them a wolf. And it fell down before the Lord, and begged for food. Then said the Lord, “Go to the poor widow’s; slay her cow, and eat.”
The Apostles remonstrated in vain. The wolf set off, entered the widow’s cow-house, and killed her cow. And when she heard what had taken place, she only said: