XVIII.—THE SPIRIT OF A BURIED MAN.
A poor scholar was going by the highway into a town, and found under the walls of the gate the body of a dead man, unburied, trodden by the feet of the passers-by. He had not much in his purse, but willingly gave enough to bury him, that he might not be spat upon and have sticks thrown at him. He performed his devotions over the fresh heaped-up grave, and went on into the world to wander. In an oak wood sleep overpowered him, and when he awoke, he espied with wonderment a bag full of gold. He thanked the unseen beneficent hand, and came to the bank of a large river, where it was necessary to be ferried over. The two ferrymen, observing the bag full of gold, took him into the boat, and just at an eddy took from him the gold and threw him into the water. As the waves carried him away insensible, he by accident clutched a plank, and by its aid floated successfully to the shore. It was not a plank, but the spirit of the buried man, who addressed him in these words: ‘You honoured my remains by burial; I thank you for it. In token of gratitude I will teach you how you can transform yourself into a crow, into a hare, and into a deer.’ Then he taught him the spell. The scholar, when acquainted with the spell, could with ease transform himself into a crow, into a hare, and into a deer. He wandered far, he wandered wide, till he wandered to the court of a mighty king, where he remained as an archer in attendance at the court. This king had a beautiful daughter, but she dwelt on an inaccessible island, surrounded on all sides by the sea. She dwelt in a castle of copper, and possessed a sword such that he who brandished it could conquer the largest army. Enemies had invaded the territory of the king; he needed and desired the victorious sword. But how to obtain it, when nobody had up to that time succeeded in getting on to the lonely island? He therefore made proclamation that whoever should bring the victorious sword from the princess should obtain her hand, and, moreover, should sit upon the throne after him. No one was venturesome enough to attempt it, till the wandering scholar, then an archer attached to the court, stood before the king announcing his readiness to go, and requesting a letter, that on receipt of that token the princess might give up the weapon to him. All men were astonished, and the king entrusted him with a letter to his daughter. He went into the forest, without knowing in the least that another archer attached to the court was dogging his steps. He first transformed himself into a hare, then into a deer, and darted off with haste and speed; he traversed no small distance, till he stood on the shore of the sea. He then transformed himself into a crow, flew across the water of the sea, and didn’t rest till he was on the island. He went into the castle of copper, delivered to the beautiful princess the letter from her father, and requested her to give him the victorious sword. The beautiful princess looked at the archer. He captured her heart at once. She asked inquisitively how he had been able to get to her castle, which was on all sides surrounded by water and knew no human footsteps. Thereupon the archer replied that he knew secret spells by which he could transform himself into a deer, a hare, and a crow. The beautiful princess, therefore, requested the archer to transform himself into a deer before her eyes. When he made himself into a graceful deer, and began to fawn and bound, the princess secretly pulled a tuft of fur from his back. When he transformed himself again into a hare, and bounded with pricked up ears, the princess secretly pulled a little fur off his back. When he changed himself into a crow and began to fly about in the room, the princess secretly pulled a few feathers from the bird’s wings. She immediately wrote a letter to her father and delivered up the victorious sword. The young scholar flew across the sea in the form of a crow, then ran a great distance in that of a deer, till in the neighbourhood of the wood he bounded as a hare. The treacherous archer was already there in ambush, saw when he changed himself into a hare, and recognised him at once. He drew his bow, let fly the arrow, and killed the hare. He took from him the letter and carried off the sword, went to the castle, delivered to the king the letter and the sword of victory, and demanded at once the fulfilment of the promise that had been made. The king, transported with joy, promised him immediately his daughter’s hand, mounted his horse, and rode boldly against his enemies with the sword. Scarcely had he espied their standards, when he brandished the sword mightily several times, and that towards the four quarters of the world. At every wave of the sword large masses of enemies fell dead on the spot, and others, seized with panic, fled like hares. The king returned joyful with victory, and sent for his beautiful daughter, to give her to wife to the archer who brought the sword. A banquet was prepared. The musicians were already striking up, the whole castle was brilliantly lighted; but the princess sat sorrowful beside the assassin-archer. She knew at once that he was in nowise the man whom she saw in the castle on the island, but she dared not ask her father where the other handsome archer was; she only wept much and secretly: her heart beat for the other.
The poor scholar, in the hare’s skin, lay slain under the oak, lay there a whole year, till one night he felt himself awakened from a mighty sleep, and before him stood the well-known spirit, whose body he had buried. He told him what had happened to him, brought him back to life, and said: ‘To-morrow is the princess’s wedding; hasten, therefore, to the castle without a moment’s delay; she will recognise you; the archer, too, who killed you treacherously, will recognise you.’ The young man sprang up promptly, went to the castle with throbbing heart, and entered the grand saloon, where numerous guests were eating and drinking. The beautiful princess recognised him at once, shrieked with joy, and fainted; and the assassin-archer, the moment he set eyes on him, turned pale and green from fear. Then the young man related the treason and murderous act of the archer, and in order to prove his words, turned himself in presence of all the assembled company into a graceful deer, and began to fawn upon the princess. She placed the tuft of fur pulled off him in the castle on the back of the deer, and the fur immediately grew into its place. Again he transformed himself into a hare, and similarly the piece of fur pulled off, which the princess had kept, grew into its place immediately on contact. All looked on in astonishment till the young man changed himself into a crow. The princess brought out the feathers which she had pulled from its wings in the castle, and the feathers immediately grew into their places. Then the old king commanded the assassin-archer to be put to death. Four horses were led out, all wild and unbroken. He was bound to them by his hands and feet, the horses were started off by the whip, and at one bound they tore the assassin-archer to pieces. The young man obtained the hand of the young and charming princess. The whole castle was in a brilliant blaze of light, they drank, they ate with mirth; and the princess did not weep, for she possessed the husband that she wished for.
XIX.—THE PALE MAIDEN.
A peasant farmer in reduced circumstances had a beautiful daughter, whom an old knight, the proprietor of the village, wanted to marry, and that even by compulsion. But the damsel disliked him, and her parents also refused to consent to the marriage. So the proprietor persecuted them in every way in his power, and so oppressed them with forced labour and ordered them to be beaten on the slightest occasion, that the poor farmer could hold out no longer, but determined to remove from the village with his whole family. In the cottage in which the farmer dwelt there was something continually grating behind the stove, but though they searched several times, and turned the seat constructed at the side of the stove upside down, yet were they unable to discover aught. But when, on the day of their departure, they were removing the rest of their goods, they heard a more and more articulate grating, and whilst they were impatiently listening, as the grating and scraping went on, out of the stove sprang a thin pale form, like a buried maiden. ‘What the devil is this?’ cried the father. ‘For heaven’s sake!’ screamed the mother, and all the children after her. ‘I am no devil,’ said the thin pale maiden, ‘but I am your Poverty. You are now taking yourselves off hence, and you are bound to take me with you to your new abode.’ The poor householder was no fool; he bethought himself a little, and neither seized nor throttled his Poverty, for she was so slight that he could have done nothing of any consequence to her, but he made the lowest possible reverence to her, and said: ‘Well, your gracious ladyship, if you are so well satisfied amongst us, then come with us; but, as you see, we are removing everything for ourselves, so help us to carry something, and we shall get off the quicker.’ Poverty agreed to this, and wanted to take a couple of small vessels out of the house, but the householder distributed the small vessels among his children to remove, and said that there was still a block of wood in the yard which must also be taken away. Going out into the yard, he made a cut in the block from above with his axe. He then called Poverty, and politely requested her to help him remove the block. Poverty did not see on which side to lift the block, till, when the farmer pointed out the cleft to her, she put her long thin fingers in the chink. The farmer, pretending to lift the block on the other side, suddenly pulled his axe out of the cleft, and Poverty’s long thin fingers remained squeezed in the block, so that, being utterly unable to pull them out, she shrieked out immediately in what pain she was. But all in vain. The farmer removed all his goods as well as his children, quitted the cottage completely, and returned to the place no more.
When the farmer settled in another village, things went with him so prosperously that ere long he was the richest man in the whole village; he married his daughter to a respectable and wealthy farmer’s son, twenty years old, and the whole family prospered. On the other hand, the proprietor of the first village, the oppressor of these poor people, having to assign vacant cottages to fresh tenants, came to inspect the cottage left vacant by the reduced farmer, who had refused to give him his daughter. Seeing Poverty beside the block complaining of the pain of her fingers, he took pity on the pale maiden, took her fingers out by means of a wedge, and set her completely free. From the time of her liberation the pale maiden never quitted the side of her liberator, and when, moreover, the devil lit a fire in the old stove, and the proprietor went dotty with love in his old age, he spent and spent, and ran through everything that he had.
XX.—THE PLAGUE-SWARM.
A Ruthenian, having lost his wife and children by the plague, fled into the forest from his desolate cottage and sought safety there. He wandered about all day long; towards evening he constructed a booth of branches, lit a little fire, and fell asleep, wearied out. It was already after midnight when a mighty noise awoke him. He rose to his feet, listened, and heard a kind of songs in the distance, and accompanying the songs a sound of tambourines and fifes. He listened, in no small astonishment, that, when death was raging around, people were rejoicing there so merrily. The noise that he heard kept continually approaching, and the terrified Podolian[8] espied a swarming multitude advancing along a wide road. It was a troop of strange-looking spectres that circled round a carriage; the carriage was black and elevated, and in it sat the Plague. At every step the frightful company kept increasing; for on the road almost everything was transformed into a spectre.
[8] A Ruthenian by nationality, a Podolian by locality.
Feebly burned his little fire; a tolerably large firebrand was still smoking a little. Scarcely had the plague-swarm drawn near when the firebrand stood upon feet, extended two arms—the burning part began to glitter with two glaring eyes—it began to sing in concert with the others. The villager was stupefied; in speechless terror he seized his axe and was on the point of striking the nearest spectre, but the axe flew out of his hands, transformed itself into a tall woman with raven-black tresses, and, singing, vanished before his eyes. The plague-swarm proceeded onwards; and the Podolian saw how the trees, the bushes, the owls, the screech-owls, assuming tall shapes, increased the multitude, the terrible harbinger of a frightful death. He fell down powerless, and when in the morning the warmth of the sun awoke him, the vessels that he had brought with him were smashed and broken, the clothes torn to rags, the provisions spoilt. He perceived that no one but the plague-swarm had done him all this mischief, and, thanking God that he had at any rate escaped with life, proceeded further to seek shelter and food.