Princess Helena the fair

Fairytale from Russia

_We say that we are wise folks, but our old people dispute
the fact, saying: " No, no, we were wiser than you are." But
skazkas tell that, before our grandfathers had learnt anything,
before their grandfathers were born_--

There lived in a certain land an old man of this kind who instructed
his three sons in reading and writing and all book
learning. Then said he to them:

" Now, my children! When I die, mind you come and read
prayers over my grave."

" Very good, father, very good, " they replied.

The two elder brothers were such fine strapping fellows! so
tall and stout! But as for the youngest one, Ivan, he was like
a half-grown lad or a half-fledged duckling, terribly inferior to
the others. Well, their old father died. At that very time
there came tidings from the King, that his daughter, the Princess
Helena the Fair, had ordered a shrine to be built for her
with twelve columns, with twelve rows of beams. In that shrine
she was sitting upon a high throne, and awaiting her bridegroom,
the bold youth who, with a single bound of his swift steed,
should reach high enough to kiss her on the lips. A stir ran
through the whole youth of the nation. They took to licking
their lips, and scratching their heads, and wondering to whose
share so great an honor would fall.

" Brothers! " said Vanyusha, " our father is dead; which
of us is to read prayers over his grave? "

" Whoever feels inclined, let him go! " answered the
brothers.

So Vanya went. But as for his elder brothers they did
nothing but exercise their horses, and curl their hair, and dye
their mustaches.

The second night came.

" Brothers! " said Vanya, " I've done my share of reading.
It's your turn now; which of you will go? "

" Whoever likes can go and read. We've business to look
after; don't you meddle."

And they cocked their caps, and shouted, and whooped, and
flew this way, and shot that way, and roved about the open
country.

So Vanyusha read prayers this time also--and on the third
night, too.

Well, his brothers got ready their horses, combed out their
mustaches, and prepared to go next morning to test their
mettle before the eyes of Helena the Fair.

" Shall we take the youngster? " they thought. " No, no.
What would be the good of him? He'd make folks laugh and
put us to confusion; let's go by ourselves."

So away they went. But Vanyusha wanted very much to
have a look at the Princess Helena the Fair. He cried, cried
bitterly; and went out to his father's grave. And his father
heard him in his coffin, and came out to him, shook the damp
earth off his body, and said:

" Don't grieve, Vanya. I'll help you in your trouble."

And immediately the old man drew himself up and straightened
himself, and called aloud and whistled with a ringing
voice, with a shrill whistle.

From goodness knows whence appeared a horse, the earth
quaking beneath it, a flame rushing from its ears and nostrils.
To and fro it flew, and then stood still before the old man, as if
rooted in the ground, and cried,

" What are thy commands? "

Vanya crept into one of the horse's ears and out of the
other, and turned into such a hero as no skazka can tell of, no
pen describe! He mounted the horse, set his arms akimbo,
and flew, just like a falcon, straight to the home of the Princess
Helena. With a wave of his hand, with a bound aloft, he only
failed by the breadth of two rows of beams. Back again he
turned, galloped up, leapt aloft, and got within one beam-row's
breadth. Once more he turned, once more he wheeled, then
shot past the eye like a streak of fire, took an accurate aim, and
kissed[335] the fair Helena right on the lips!

" Who is he? Who is he? Stop him! Stop him! " was
the cry. Not a trace of him was to be found!

Away he galloped to his father's grave, let the horse go free,
prostrated himself on the earth, and besought his father's counsel.
And the old man held counsel with him.

When he got home he behaved as if he hadn't been anywhere.
His brothers talked away, describing where they had
been, what they had seen, and he listened to them as of old.

The next day there was a gathering again. In the princely
halls there were more boyars and nobles than a single glance
could take in. The elder brothers rode there. Their younger
brother went there too, but on foot, meekly and modestly, just
as if he hadn't kissed the Princess, and seated himself in a
distant corner. The Princess Helena asked for her bridegroom,
wanted to show him to the world at large, wanted to give him
half her kingdom; but the bridegroom did not put in an appearance!
Search was made for him among the boyars, among
the generals; everyone was examined in his turn--but with no
result! Meanwhile, Vanya looked on, smiling and chuckling,
and waiting till the bride should come to him herself.

" I pleased her then, " says he, " when I appeared as a gay
gallant; now let her fall in love with me in my plain caftan."

Then up she rose, looked around with bright eyes that shed
a radiance on all who stood there, and saw and knew her bridegroom,
and made him take his seat by her side, and speedily was
wedded to him. And he--good heavens! how clever he turned
out, and how brave, and what a handsome fellow! Only see
him mount his flying steed, give his cap a cock, and stick his
elbows akimbo! why, you'd say he was a king, a born king!
you'd never suspect he once was only Vanyusha.

The incident of the midnight watch by a father's grave, kept by a son
to whom the dead man appears and gives a magic horse, often occurs in
the Skazkas. It is thoroughly in accordance with Slavonic ideas about
the residence of the dead in their tombs, and their ability to assist
their descendants in time of trouble. Appeals for aid to a dead parent
are of frequent occurrence in the songs still sung by the Russian
peasantry at funerals or over graves; especially in those in which
orphans express their grief, calling upon the grave to open, and the
dead to appear and listen and help.[336] So in the Indian story of
Punchkin, the seven hungry stepmother-persecuted princesses go out
every day and sit by their dead mother's tomb, and cry, and say, " Oh,
mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children, how unhappy we
are, " etc., until a tree grows up out of the grave laden with fruits
for their relief.[337] So in the German tale, [338] Cinderella is aided
by the white bird, which dwells in the hazel tree growing out of her
mother's grave.

In one of the Skazkas[339] a stepdaughter is assisted by her cow. The
girl, following its instructions, gets in at one ear and out of the
other, and finds all her tasks performed, all her difficulties
removed. When it is killed, there springs from its bones a tree which
befriends the girl, and gains her a lordly husband. In a Servian
variant of the story, it is distinctly stated that the protecting cow
had been the girl's mother--manifestly in a previous state of
existence, a purely Buddhistic idea.[340]

In several of the Skazkas we find an account of a princess who is won
in a similar manner to that described in the story of Helena the Fair.
In one case, [341] a king promises to give his daughter to anyone " who
can pluck her portrait from the house, from the other side of ever so
many beams." The youngest brother, Ivan the Simpleton, carries away
the portrait and its cover at the third trial. In another, a king
offers his daughter and half his kingdom to him " who can kiss the
princess through twelve sheets of glass." [342] The usual youngest
brother is carried towards her so forcibly by his magic steed that, at
the first trial, he breaks through six of the sheets of glass; at the
second, says the story, " he smashed all twelve of the sheets of glass,
and he kissed the Princess Priceless-Beauty, and she immediately
stamped a mark upon his forehead." By this mark, after he has
disappeared for some time, he is eventually recognized, and the
princess is obliged to marry him.[343] In a third story, [344] the
conditions of winning the princely bride are easier, for " he who takes
a leap on horseback, and kisses the king's daughter on the balcony, to
him will they give her to wife." In a fourth, the princess is to marry
the man " who, on horseback, bounds up to her on the third floor." At
the first trial, the _Durak_, or Fool, reaches the first floor, at the
next, the second; and the third time, " he bounds right up to the
princess, and carries off from her a ring." [345]

In the Norse story of " Dapplegrim, " [346] a younger brother saves a
princess who had been stolen by a Troll, and hidden in a cave above a
steep wall of rock as smooth as glass. Twice his magic horse tries in
vain to surmount it, but the third time it succeeds, and the youth
carries off the princess, who ultimately becomes his wife. Another
Norse story still more closely resembles the Russian tales. In " The
Princess on the Glass Hill" [347] the hero gains a Princess as his wife
by riding up a hill of glass, on the top of which she sits with three
golden apples in her lap, and by carrying off these precious fruits.
He is enabled to perform this feat by a magic horse, which he obtains
by watching his father's crops on three successive St. John's Nights.

In a Celtic story, [348] a king promises his daughter, and two-thirds
of his kingdom, to anyone who can get her out of a turret which " was
aloft, on the top of four carraghan towers." The hero Conall kicks
" one of the posts that was keeping the turret aloft, " the post breaks,
and the turret falls, but Conall catches it in his hands before it
reaches the ground, a door opens, and out comes the Princess Sunbeam,
and throws her arms about Conall's neck.

In most of these stories the wife-gaining leap is so vaguely described
that it is allowable to suppose that the original idea has been
greatly obscured in the course of travel. In some Eastern stories it
is set in a much plainer light; in one modern collection for
instance, [349] it occurs four times. A princess is so fond of her
marble bath, which is " like a little sea, " with high spiked walls all
around it, that she vows she will marry no one who cannot jump across
it on horseback. Another princess determines to marry him only who can
leap into the glass palace in which she dwells, surrounded by a wide
river; and many kings and princes perish miserably in attempting to
perform the feat. A third king's daughter lives in a garden " hedged
round with seven hedges made of bayonets, " by which her suitors are
generally transfixed. A fourth " has vowed to marry no man who cannot
jump on foot over the seven hedges made of spears, and across the
seven great ditches that surround her house; " and " hundreds of
thousands of Rajahs have tried to do it, and died in the attempt."

The secluded princess of these stories may have been primarily akin
to the heroine of the " Sleeping Beauty" tales, but no special
significance appears now to be attributable to her isolation. The
original idea seems to have been best preserved in the two legends of
the wooing of Brynhild by Sigurd, in the first of which he awakens her
from her magic sleep, while in the second he gains her hand (for
Gunnar) by a daring and difficult ride--for " him only would she have
who should ride through the flaming fire that was drawn about her
hall." Gunnar fails to do so, but Sigurd succeeds; his horse leaps
into the fire, " and a mighty roar arose as the fire burned ever
madder, and the earth trembled, and the flames went up even unto the
heavens, nor had any dared to ride as he rode, even as it were through
the deep murk." [350]

We will take next a story which is a great favorite in Russia, and
which will serve as another illustration of the use made of magical
" properties" in the Skazkas.

MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT.
Magic in Russian Folklore

Most of the magical " properties" of the " skazka-drama, " closely resemble those which have already been rendered familiar to us by well-known folk-tales. Of such as these--of " caps of darkness, " of " seven-leagued boots, " of " magic cudgels, " of " Fortunatus's purses, " and the like[296]--it is unnecessary, for the present, to say more than that they are of as common occurrence in Slavonic as in other stories. But there are some among them which materially differ from their counterparts in more western lands, and are therefore worthy of special notice. To the latter class belong the Dolls of which mention has already been made, and the Waters of Life and Death of which I am now about to speak. A Water of Life plays an important part in the folk-tales of every land.[297] When the hero of a " fairy story" has been done to death by evil hands, his resuscitation by means of a healing and vivifying lotion or ointment[298] follows almost as a matter of course. And by common consent the Raven (or some sort of crow) is supposed to know where this invaluable specific is to be found, [299] a knowledge which it shares with various supernatural beings as well as with some human adepts in magic, and sometimes with the Snake. In all these matters the Russian and the Western tales agree, but the Skazka differs from most stories of its kind in this respect, that it almost invariably speaks of _two_ kinds of magic waters as being employed for the restoration of life. We have already seen in the story of " Marya Morevna, " that one of these, sometimes called the _mertvaya voda_--the " dead water, " or " Water of Death" --when sprinkled over a mutilated corpse, heals all its wounds; while the other, which bears the name of the _zhivaya voda_, --the " living water, " or " Water of Life" --endows it once more with vitality. [In a Norse tale in Asbjö rnsen's new series, No. 72, mention is made of a Water of Death, as opposed to a Water of Life. The Death Water (_Doasens Vana_) throws all whom it touches into a magic sleep, from which only Life Water (_Livsens Vand_) can rouse them (p. 57). In the Rá má yana, Hanuman fetches four different kinds of herbs in order to resuscitate his dead monkeys: " the first restore the dead to life, the second drive away all pain, the third join broken parts, the fourth cure all wounds, & c." Talboys Wheeler, " History of India, " ii. 368. In the Egyptian story already mentioned (at p. 113), Satou's corpse quivers and opens its eyes when his heart has become saturated with a healing liquid. But he does not actually come to life till the remainder of the liquid has been poured down his throat. In a Kirghiz story, quoted by Bronevsky, [300] a golden-haired hero finds, after long search, the maiden to whom he had in very early life been betrothed. Her father has him murdered. She persuades the murderer to show her the body of her dead love, and weeps over it bitterly. A spirit appears and tells her to sprinkle it with water from a neighboring well. The well is very deep, but she induces the murderer to allow her to lower him into it by means of her remarkably long hair. He descends and hands up to her a cup of water. Having received it, she cuts off her hair, and lets the murderer drop and be drowned. Then she sprinkles her lover's corpse with the water, and he revives. But he lives only three days. She refuses to survive him, and is buried by his side. From the graves of the lovers spring two willows, which mingle their boughs as if in an embrace. And the neighbors set up near the spot three statues, his and hers and her nurse's. Such is the story, says Bronevsky, which the Kirghiz tell with respect to some statues of unknown origin which stand (or used to stand) near the Ayaguza, a river falling into Lake Balkhash. A somewhat similar Armenian story is quoted by Haxthausen in his Transcaucasia (p. 350 of the English translation). In the Kalevala, when Lemmenkä inen has been torn to pieces, his mother collects his scattered remains, and by a dexterous synthetical operation restores him to physical unity. But the silence of death still possesses him. Then she entreats the Bee to bring vivifying honey. After two fruitless journeys, the Bee succeeds in bringing back honey " from the cellar of the Creator." When this has been applied, the dead man returns to life, sits up, and says in the words of the Russian heroes--" How long I have slept! " [301] Here is another instance of a life-giving operation of a double nature. There is a well-known Indian story about four suitors for the hand of one girl. She dies, but is restored to life by one of her lovers, who happens one day to see a dead child resuscitated, and learns how to perform similar miracles. In two Sanskrit versions of the " Vetá lapanchavinsati, " [302] as well as in the Hindi version, [303] the life-giving charm consists in a spell taken from a book of magic. But in the Tamil version, the process is described as being of a different and double nature. According to it, the mother of the murdered child " by the charm called _sisupà bam_ re-created the body, and, by the incantation called _sanjì vi_, restored it to life." The suitor, having learnt the charm and the incantation, " took the bones and the ashes (of the dead girl), and having created out of them the body, by virtue of the charm _sisupà bam_ gave life to that body by the _sanjì vi_ incantation." According to Mr. Babington, " Sanjì vi is defined by the Tamuls to be a medicine which restores to life by dissipating a mortal swoon.... In the text the word is used for the art of using this medicine." [304]] As a general rule, the two waters of which mention is made in the Skazkas possess the virtues, and are employed in the manner, mentioned above; but there are cases in which their powers are of a different nature. Sometimes we meet with two magic fluids, one of which heals all wounds, and restores sight to the blind and vigor to the cripple, while the other destroys all that it touches. Sometimes, also, recourse is had to magic draughts of two kinds, the one of which strengthens him who quaffs it, while the other produces the opposite effect. Such liquors as these are known as the " Waters of Strength and Weakness, " and are usually described as being stowed away in the cellar of some many-headed Snake. For the Snake is often mentioned as the possessor, or at least the guardian, of magic fluids. Thus one of the Skazkas[305] speaks of a wondrous garden, in which are two springs of healing and vivifying water, and around that garden is coiled like a ring a mighty serpent. Another tells how a flying Snake brought two heroes to a lake, into which they flung a green bough, and immediately the bough broke into flame and was consumed. Then it took them to another lake, into which they cast a mouldy log. And the log straightway began to put forth buds and blossoms.[306] In some cases the magic waters are the property, not of a Snake, but of one of the mighty heroines who so often occur in these stories, and who bear so great a resemblance to Brynhild, as well in other respects as in that of her enchanted sleep. Thus in one of the Skazkas[307] an aged king dreams that " beyond thrice nine lands, in the thirtieth country, there is a fair maiden from whose hands and feet water is flowing, of which water he who drinks will become thirty years younger." His sons go forth in search of this youth-giving liquid, and, after many adventures, the youngest is directed to the golden castle in which lives the " fair maiden, " whom his father has seen in his vision. He has been told that when she is awake her custom is to divert herself in the green fields with her Amazon host--" for nine days she rambles about, and then for nine days she sleeps a heroic slumber." The Prince hides himself among the bushes near the castle, and sees a fair maiden come out of it surrounded by an armed band, " and all the band consists of maidens, each one more beautiful than the other. And the most beautiful, the most never-enough-to-be-gazed-upon, is the Queen herself." For nine days he watches the fair band of Amazons as they ramble about. On the tenth day all is still, and he enters the castle. In the midst of her slumbering guards sleeps the Queen on a couch of down, the healing water flowing from her hands and feet. With it he fills two flasks, and then he retires. When the Queen awakes, she becomes conscious of the theft and pursues the Prince. Coming up with him, she slays him with a single blow, but then takes compassion on him, and restores him to life. In another version of the story, the precious fluid is contained in a flask which is hidden under the pillow of the slumbering " Tsar Maiden." The Prince steals it and flees, but he bears on him the weight of sin, and so, when he tries to clear the fence which girds the enchanted castle, his horse strikes one of the cords attached to it, and the spell is broken which maintains the magic sleep in which the realm is locked. The Tsar Maiden pursues the thief, but does not succeed in catching him. He is killed, however, by his elder brothers, who " cut him into small pieces, " and then take the flask of magic water to their father. The murdered prince is resuscitated by the mythical bird known by the name of the _Zhar-Ptitsa_, which collects his scattered fragments, puts them together, and sprinkles them first with " dead water" and then with " live-water, " --conveyed for that purpose in its beak--after which the prince gets up, thanks his reviver, and goes his way.[308] In one of the numerous variants of the story in which a prince is exposed to various dangers by his sister--who is induced to plot against his life by her demon lover, the Snake--the hero is sent in search of " a healing and a vivifying water, " preserved between two lofty mountains which cleave closely together, except during " two or three minutes" of each day. He follows his instructions, rides to a certain spot, and there awaits the hour at which the mountains fly apart. " Suddenly a terrible hurricane arose, a mighty thunder smote, and the two mountains were torn asunder. Prince Ivan spurred his heroic steed, flew like a dart between the mountains, dipped two flasks in the waters, and instantly turned back." He himself escapes safe and sound, but the hind legs of his horse are caught between the closing cliffs, and smashed to pieces. The magic waters, of course, soon remedy this temporary inconvenience.[309] In a Slovak version of this story, a murderous mother sends her son to two mountains, each of which is cleft open once in every twenty-four hours--the one opening at midday and the other at midnight; the former disclosing the Water of Life, the latter the Water of Death.[310] In a similar story from the Ukraine, mention is made of two springs of healing and life-giving water, which are guarded by iron-beaked ravens, and the way to which lies between grinding hills. The Fox and the Hare are sent in quest of the magic fluid. The Fox goes and returns in safety, but the Hare, on her way back, is not in time quite to clear the meeting cliffs, and her tail is jammed in between them. Since that time, hares have had no tails.[311] On the Waters of Strength and Weakness much stress is laid in many of the tales about the many-headed Snakes which carry off men's wives and daughters to their metallic castles. In one of these, for instance, the golden-haired Queen Anastasia has been torn away by a whirlwind from her husband " Tsar Byel Byelyanin" [the White King]. As in the variant of the story already quoted, [312] her sons go in search of her, and the youngest of them, after finding three palaces--the first of copper, the second of silver, the third of gold, each containing a princess held captive by Vikhor, the whirlwind--comes to a fourth palace gleaming with diamonds and other precious stones. In it he discovers his long-lost mother, who gladly greets him, and at once takes him into Vikhor's cellar. Here is the account of what ensued. Well, they entered the cellar; there stood two tubs of water, the one on the right hand, the other on the left. Says the Queen-- " Take a draught of the water that stands on the right hand." Prince Ivan drank of it. " Now then, how strong do you feel? " said she. " So strong that I could upset the whole palace with one hand, " he replied. " Come now, drink again." The Prince drank once more. " How strong do you feel now? " she asked. " Why now, if I wanted, I could give the whole world a jolt." " Oh that's plenty then! Now make these tubs change places--that which stands on the right, set on the left: and that which is on the left, change to the right." Prince Ivan took the tubs and made them change places. Says the Queen-- " See now, my dear son; in one of these tubs is the 'Water of Strength, ' in the other is the 'Water of Weakness.'[313] He who drinks of the former becomes a mighty hero, but he who drinks of the second loses all his vigor. Vikhor always quaffs the Strong Water, and places it on the right-hand side; therefore you must deceive him, or you will never be able to hold out against him." The Queen proceeds to tell her son that, when Vikhor comes home, he must hide beneath her purple cloak, and watch for an opportunity of seizing her gaoler's magic mace.[314] Vikhor will fly about till he is tired, and will then have recourse to what he supposes is the " Strong Water; " this will render him so feeble that the Prince will be able to kill him. Having received these instructions, and having been warned not to strike Vikhor after he is dead, the Prince conceals himself. Suddenly the day becomes darkened, the palace quivers, and Vikhor arrives; stamping on the ground, he becomes a noble gallant, who enters the palace, " holding in his hands a battle mace." This Prince Ivan seizes, and a long struggle takes place between him and Vikhor, who flies away with him over seas and into the clouds. At last, Vikhor becomes exhausted and seeks the place where he expects to find the invigorating draught on which he is accustomed to rely. The result is as follows: Dropping right into his cellar, Vikhor ran to the tub which stood on the right, and began drinking the Water of Weakness. But Prince Ivan rushed to the left, quaffed a deep draught of the Water of Strength, and became the mightiest hero in the whole world. Then seeing that Vikhor was perfectly enfeebled, he snatched from him his keen faulchion, and with a single blow struck off his head. Behind him voices began to cry: " Strike again! strike again! or he will come to life! " " No, " replied the Prince, " a hero's hand does not strike twice, but finishes its work with a single blow." And straightway he lighted a fire, burnt the head and the trunk, and scattered the ashes to the winds.[315] The part played by the Water of Strength in this story may be compared with " the important share which the exhilarating juice of the Soma-plant assumes in bracing Indra for his conflict with the hostile powers in the atmosphere, " and Vikhor's sudden debility with that of Indra when the Asura Namuchi " drank up Indra's strength along with a draught of wine and soma." [316] Sometimes, as has already been remarked, one of the two magic waters is even more injurious than the Water of Weakness.[317] The following may be taken as a specimen of the stories in which there is introduced a true Water of Death--one of those deadly springs which bear the same relation to the healing and vivifying founts that the enfeebling bears to the strengthening water. The Baba Yaga who figures in it is, as is so often the case, replaced by a Snake in the variant to which allusion has already been made.