1. the witch girl
straightway all the sotniks and desyatniks came together and went from house to house. in this one there’s nothing, in that one there’s nothing, until at last they come to the ponomar’s cottage.
she began rushing at the priest’s son, but she couldn’t anyhow break into the circle. then she began to conjure up all sorts of horrors. but in spite of all that she did, he went on reading and reading, and never gave a look round. and at daybreak the princess rushed at her coffin, and tumbled into it at full length, all of a heap.
when he was about to die, he gave orders that his sons’ wives should keep watch over him after his death for three nights, taking one night apiece, that his body should be placed in the outer chamber, and that his sons’ wives should spin wool to make him a caftan. he ordered, moreover, that no cross should be placed upon him, and that none should be worn by his daughters-in-law.
the old man was just beginning to say: “not much farther—” when the sack slipped from between his teeth, and the old woman fell to the ground and was smashed all to pieces. the old man slid down the cabbage-stalk and picked up the sack. but it had nothing in it but bones, and those broken very small. the old man went out of his house and wept bitterly.
the fiddler hid behind the stove-pipe. then came fiends, and they began to beat the rich moujik, reviling him the while, and saying: “there’s for thee, o rich man. pots of money didst thou bury but thou couldst not hide them. there didst thou bury them that we might not be able to keep watch over them. at the gate people are always riding about, the horses crush our heads with their hoofs, and in the corn-kiln we get beaten with flails.”
he ran to the village—but the village was not what it used to be. the houses were different; the people were all strangers to him. he went to the priest’s—but the priest was not the one who used to be there—and told him about everything that had happened. the priest searched through the church-books, and found that, three hundred years before, this occurrence had taken place: a bridegroom had gone to the graveyard on his wedding-day, and had disappeared. and his bride, after some time had passed by, had married another man.
in a certain village there was a girl who was lazy and slothful, hated working, but would gossip and chatter away like anything. well, she took it into her head to invite the other girls to a spinning party. for in the villages, as every one knows, it is the lazybones who gives the spinning-feast, and the sweet-toothed are those who go to it.
the moujik cut off the left skirt of the shroud, and gave up the coffin-lid. the corpse went to its grave—the grave opened. but just as the dead man was descending into it, all of a sudden the cocks began to crow, and he hadn’t time to get properly covered over. one end of the coffin-lid remained sticking out of the ground.
there wasn’t a soul in the chapel, but stretched out on a table there lay another corpse, with tapers burning in front of it. the soldier hid himself in a corner, and remained there, hardly knowing whether he was alive or dead, but waiting to see what would happen.
they fastened it to a chain; for a whole year they kept it chained up. but in spite of that, it never forgot how its master had offended it. one day it got loose, flew straight at him, and began trying to throttle him.
they came to where the wedding was; there they were given drink, and treated with the utmost hospitality. the warlock drank and drank, revelled and revelled, and then grew angry. he chased all the guests and relatives out of the house, threw the wedded pair into a slumber, took out two phials and an awl, pierced the hands of the bride and bridegroom with the awl, and began drawing off their blood. having done this, he said to the soldier: “now let’s be off.”
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| Leshy |
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