The old man consented. “Give me that good youth,” said he. “He shall serve instead of a son to me.”
There was no help for it; they had to give him the youth. And when the old man had returned home, the youth told him to go to Novgorod, there to enquire for a merchant, and ask him whether he had any children.
He did so, and the merchant replied,
“I had an only son, but his mother cursed him in a passion, crying, ‘The devil take thee!’[462] And so the devil carried him off.”
It turned out that the youth whom the old man had saved from the devils was that merchant’s son. Thereupon the merchant rejoiced greatly, and took the old man and his wife to live with him in his house.[463]
And here is another tale of the same kind, from the Vladimir Government.
Once upon a time there was an old couple, and they had an only son. His mother had cursed him before he was born, but he grew up and married. Soon afterwards he suddenly disappeared. His parents did all they could to trace him, but their attempts were in vain.
Now there was a hut in the forest not far off, and thither it chanced that an old beggar came one night, and lay down to rest on the stove. Before he had been there long, some one rode up to the door of the hut, got off his horse, entered the hut, and remained there all night, muttering incessantly:
“May the Lord judge my mother, in that she cursed me while a babe unborn!”
Next morning the beggar went to the house of the old couple, and told them all that had occurred. So towards evening the old man went to the hut in the forest, and hid himself behind the stove. Presently the horseman arrived, entered the hut, and began to repeat the words which the beggar had overheard. The old man recognized his son, and came forth to greet him, crying: