The Romance of the Woods

The ceremony to be performed by a peasant family removing from one house to another is full of significance, and is, or was, universally recognised as a most important function. In this ceremony there seems to occur that confusion between the domovoy and the spirits of the departed to which I have already made allusion in the course of this chapter. The whole function centres in the stove, or rather in the embers burning within it. When the family have packed up and are ready to go, the old grandmother, if there be one, or the oldest woman of the establishment, carefully rakes up the red-hot embers still glowing within the stove at the moment of departure, depositing these in a pan which is then quickly covered up. That these embers are supposed to be in some way connected with the spirits of the departed is evident, because the tradition specially enjoins that the greatest care must be observed lest any of them slip through the aperture and into the grate; for if this calamity should happen, it would signify that certain of the rodítyelui had slipped through the barrier and fallen into the fires of hell. When the whole of the glowing coals have been raked out and collected, the old woman carries the pan across to the new house, chanting over and over again as she goes, the words, "Welcome, little grandsire, to the new home." Arrived at the house, the old woman knocks three times upon the wall, and is admitted. The whole family have assembled meanwhile and are ready to greet the old woman and her pan and embers. "Welcome, little grandsire, to the new home" is the cry, repeated over and over again, while the embers are taken out one by one, and placed, still alight, within the new stove. Thus the rodítyelui perform their "flitting," after which they are as much at home in the new abode as they were in the old haunts. I should mention, before leaving the subject, that previously to the occupation of a new house, a cock and hen are let loose in the living room, which is not entered until after the cock has crowed. No evil spirit can bear to hear a cock crow, and the rite is doubtless performed with a view to ridding the house of any evil spirits which may have previously taken possession of the edifice. Domovoys do not object to the crowing of cocks—another proof that the domovoy is in a state of grace.

Holy Church has stepped in and substituted for the ceremonies which I have just described, special services for those about to occupy new premises, and these Christian functions now largely take the place of the Pagan rites; but the change of ceremony has not dethroned either the domovoy or the rodítyelui, who still reign, and will doubtless reign for the next thousand years, over the imagination of Ivan Ivanovitch, as the personal and permanent and undoubted guests and guardians of his establishment. There is a special domovoy in charge of the bath-house which forms a feature in every Russian village. This domovoy has a strong objection to the villagers bathing themselves late at night, specially if they do so without having first prayed aloud. It is not very clear what form his displeasure takes when his wishes in this connection are disregarded; but it is known that he dislikes the practice of late bathing. Probably it keeps him up. However, if the moujik be impious enough to disregard his objections and to take a bath at an unseasonable hour of the night, when all good moujiks, and banniks also, should be asleep, a can of warm water and a birch-rod-swisher should be left by the untimely "ablutioner" in propitiation of the bannik (who is the domovoy of the bath-house) thus kept from his rest by the thoughtless and unselfish conduct of the former. Whether the bannik ever utilises the opportunity thus offered him of enjoying a comfortable scrub, tradition does not say. If the bath domovoy is a good Russian, and has imbibed anything of the nature of the moujik during his long connection with that unsavoury member of society, probably he does not use the warm water and the swish; for he will not wash himself unless he is forced to do so by circumstances over which he has no control, such as popular opinion, or the customs or the bye-laws of the village in which he has his habitation.

I have already mentioned that when the Prince of the Spirits of Evil descended from the abode of light and took up his dwelling in the realms of darkness, which are his habitation to this very hour, there accompanied him certain other spirits, inferiors and followers. Among these, according to Slavonic folk-lore, were the vodyánnuie, or water-spirits; the vozdúshnuie, or spirits of the air; and the liéshuie, or wood-demons. There were many others in his train—such as the karliki, or gnomes—beings of little or no interest in the everyday life of the peasant because they rarely interfere in human affairs, if they can avoid it, and have no special connection with humanity; whereas the domovuie, as I have shown, and the water and wood spirits, as I intend now to describe, are constantly in contact with members of our race, either for good or for evil. Many of the followers of the Chief demon accompanied their leader into his new home and there remain with him to this day; but it will be better to leave these bad characters where they are, and to concern ourselves solely with those whom common interests have brought into connection with our race. The spirits which I have named did indeed accompany their former leader as far as the portals of his new realm, the nether regions; but they did not actually enter its confines, or if they did do so, did not stay longer than just so much time as was required to arrive at the conclusion that the atmosphere of the place was not such as to suit their private ideas of comfort—which did not take them long—after which they quickly turned their backs upon the front gates and made off as rapidly as possible; the liéshuie hiding themselves in the forests, the karliki burying themselves in the earth, while the vozdúshnuie remained in the cool air—finding it refreshing after the heated atmosphere to which they had been lately introduced; and the vodyánnuie, who had perhaps stayed a moment or two longer beside their chief, or who were possibly more sensitive to the discomfort of a warm temperature, plunged headlong into the water in order to cool their parched frames, and have remained in the pleasant depths ever since—taking over the management of all springs and rivers and pools upon the surface of the dry land. These same vodyánnuie are a tricky race of beings and require much propitiation at the hands of millers, fishermen, and others who have dealings with them or with the waters within their jurisdiction. Millers, especially, require to be careful to keep in touch with the vodyánnuie; for each mill-race possesses its own particular water-spirit, and the miller will have no luck, and deserve none, if he does not cast into the race at least one black pig per annum as a gift to the spirit which has its habitation in his waters. The ordinary annual offering to the water-spirits is, however, a horse, whose legs have been previously tied together with red ribbons, and who has been smeared for the sacrifice with honey. A heavy stone is attached to the unfortunate animal's neck and he is thrown into a deep pool. The vodyánnuie, who have in all probability shown their displeasure for some time before the sacrifice by causing the river to overflow its banks, or the ice to carry away the bridge, having now received their rights as by custom established, at once settle down in peace and quietness for a whole year. But they are, as I have said, a tricky lot, and they must not be depended upon by bathers, or by peasants who would fain cool their horses' heated flanks in the deep pool after a hard day of work in the fields. The vodyánnui of the place may be of a malicious disposition, and though everything may have been done in order to secure his benevolent neutrality towards bathers, yet he is just as likely as not to pull down by the leg his very warmest admirer, or the horse of his most sincere follower.

Here, again, the Church, anxious to substitute for the Pagan observances which I have mentioned in connection with the vodyánnuie her own orthodox functions, has ordained for the use of the faithful solemn services for the "blessing of the waters." These services are now performed twice each year all over Russia, and have largely ousted the ancient rites and sacrifices which were considered necessary in honour, or in propitiation of the water-spirits; but though the sacrificial observances are discontinued, the belief in the existence of the vodyánnuie, as active and malevolent beings whose dwelling-place is in the pools and streams, still retains its hold upon the minds of the people with much of its ancient intensity. Before quitting the subject of water-spirits, I should mention that the nymphs and mermaids of our own and universal folk-lore are represented in that of the Slavs by beings known as rusalki, an entirely distinct species from the surly and malicious vodyánnuie. The latter are of the male sex, while the rusalki are all females, and frequently very beautiful. They employ their good looks unfortunately to the ruin of our race, too frequently luring young men to their doom, by enticing them into the deep waters and there either tickling them to death or else drowning them; for the rusalki are of a mischievous and frivolous nature and have very little good feeling about them. Many of the rusalki are supposed to be the spirits of stillborn or of unbaptized children, or of women who have committed suicide or who have been for some other reason deprived of the privilege of Christian burial. When a child dies unbaptized, its spirit is said to wander through the world for seven years, longing and entreating to be baptized. If any person sufficiently pure in spirit to discern the pleading soul-voice has the presence of mind, on hearing it, to pronounce the words, "I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," then the forlorn soul is satisfied and flits away to Paradise; but if the seven years go by and the soul remains unbaptized, it becomes a rusalka. Annual prayers are offered in Russian churches for the unbaptized, and if the wandering spirit is fortunate enough to be close at hand and to overhear the words of the priest during one of these services, its object is attained: it is considered to have come within actual range of the working of the baptismal rite, and Paradise is won for that soul. There are some who believe that the spirits of the unbaptized, in their wanderings through the world, assume the form of a cuckoo; and these make a point for this reason of baptizing every cuckoo they hear, or even of performing the rite in effigy if no living cuckoo should be available. The fishermen of the Caspian have a pretty legend with regard to the rusalki. They declare that these water-maidens are frequently greatly troubled as to the nature of the future state and their own probable destiny therein. The mermaids, to give them a familiar name, are represented as occasionally appearing at the surface of the water to inquire whether the fishermen can tell them whether the end of the world is still far off?

The rusalki vary in size, as do all the spirit forms of Russian folk-lore. Sometimes they are spoken of as tiny beings floating in the cup of the water-lily; sometimes as huge female forms which haunt the cornfields and steal the grain of the peasants. When caught thus misbehaving themselves the rusalki are punished in effigy, straw figures, representing the robbers, being tossed about by companies of girls, who eventually cast them into the water. When this has been done the cornfield is safe from further plunderings at the hands of the beautiful but dishonest water-maidens.

The vozdúshnuie, or spirits of the air, have but little to do with man, their realm being outside his usual "beat." There are no doubt as many spirits dwelling in the air as inhabit the waters, woods, and houses, but until man shall have taken to journeying in balloons or shall have mastered the science of flying, it is probable that he will not be molested to any great extent by this branch of the spirit family. I will therefore pass on to consider the wood-goblins, whom I have left until the last, because, with the sole exception of the domovoy, the liéshui is by far the most important of the spirits who engage in dealings with mankind, as well as the most picturesque. In a country whose woods and forests cover thousands of miles of territory, it is only natural that the spirits whose home is in the fastnesses of those pine-grown regions should play a great part in the imagination of a poetic and superstitious people living beneath the shadow of the pine trees. The liéshuie are, without doubt, by nature evil spirits, or demons; but, like their brethren of the waters and of the air, they may be propitiated by the observance of certain rites and ceremonies, and by this means rendered friendly or at least neutral towards those who are desirous of living in their good graces—a most necessary condition of existence for those whose flocks and herds wander day-long in the wilds and moors and woodlands of the interior of Russia. The liéshui is, in the estimation of his friend Ivan Ivanovitch, a shocking bad character. He is generally an old man, very hairy and wild in appearance, as might be expected. He is a terrible drunkard, and is frequently quite incapacitated and helpless after his bacchanalian excesses; on such occasions he is watched over and protected from the assaults of his enemies by his chief friend and henchman, the bear. But not only is he a drunkard, he is equally a slave to another vice, the indulgence of which seems to strike one as unexpectedly sophisticated in a denizen of the forest: he is a gambler and a card-player, speculating to a tremendous extent, and staking all his possessions frequently enough at a single coup. When the village ochotnik, or sportsman, finds to his annoyance that the hares, the blackcock, or the tree partridges within his district have become so scarce that it is no longer worth his while to tramp the woods after them, the apparently unaccountable circumstance is plain enough to his enlightened intelligence: the liéshui of the place has gambled them away to his next-door neighbour. The same explanation accounts for the migration of squirrels and birds from one part of the country to another—they are in the act of going over to swell the possessions of the fortunate liéshui who has won them from their former owner. I should mention, however, that clubs are never used in the packs of cards with which the liéshuie carry on their games of speculation, since these, to a certain extent, resemble the shape of a cross, an emblem which neither wood-goblins, nor any other evil spirit dares to look upon. But besides these gamblings with one another, and perhaps as the outcome of these very transactions and the ill-feeling and bad blood which operations of this kind so frequently engender, terrific encounters occasionally take place between the rival liéshuie of a district, when the forest is devastated for hundreds of yards around, the pines lying prone and uprooted in every conceivable position and in every direction, just as though a hurricane of wind had passed by and torn them up, hurling them right and left as it went. Many a time have I encountered such a scene of desolation in mid-forest, and have found the greatest difficulty in forcing a way through the chaos formed by this lom, as it is called. Ignorant as I was in those days of the true origin of these patches of devastation, I used fondly to imagine that the ruin I saw had indeed been wrought by the agency of the tempest, though it was always a puzzle to me to account for the limited sphere in which the whirlwind had conducted its destructive operations; the theory of a wood-goblin duel, of course, satisfactorily accounts for the circumstance. When a liéshui marries—for he does take to himself a wife in his own good time—his bridal feasts and processions create terrible disorder in the forest; birds and beasts rush frightened and screaming from the neighbourhood, trees are knocked down and strewn about the ground, and the place becomes a pandemonium. It is not very apparent whom this unprincipled goblin finds to marry him. Perhaps the Erl-King has an unlimited supply of those deceitful daughters of his! The peasants naturally have much to do with the spirits whose habitation is in the forests which surround their dwellings, for their flocks and herds must wander free over the outlying pasture-lands, and if the goblin of the district has not been propitiated, the position of such herds, entirely at the mercy of every marauding wolf or bear, is wretched indeed. When the favour of the liéshui has been gained over, then neither bear nor wolf will be permitted by that all-powerful sylvan authority to injure cow or horse, let it wander where it will, even within the actual confines of the forest. In these days there is a special church function, known as the "blessing of the herd," for use on the first occasion, in each spring, on which the village cattle are allowed to go forth to pasture, this service being designed to take the place of more ancient ceremonies for the propitiation of the wood-goblins.

Occasionally a peasant, after a walk in the woods, feels himself indisposed without any apparent reason for his indisposition. When this is the case it may be assumed with practical certainty that he has crossed the path of a liéshui. The sick man must immediately return to the wood, bearing an offering of bread, salt, and a clean napkin. Over these goods he must pronounce a prayer, afterwards leaving them behind him for the use of the goblin, and returning to his home, when the sickness will quickly pass from him. If any favour is to be asked of the liéshui, he may be invoked for this purpose by the following process: Cut down a number of young birches and place them in a circle, taking care that the tops all converge towards the centre. Then stand in the middle, take the cross from your neck—every Russian wears this—and pocket it, and call out "Grandpapa!" The spirit will instantly appear. There is "another way," as the cookery books would say: Go into the wood on St. John's Eve and fell a tree, taking care that it falls towards the west. Stand on the stump, facing east, and look down at your toes; then invoke the liéshui thus: "Oh! grandfather, come, but not in the form of a grey wolf, nor of a black raven; but come in the shape I myself wear!" Whereupon the spirit appears immediately in the form of a human being, and, like a man, prepared to make a bargain, if favours are asked. The liéshui has quite a strong sense of the great modern principle of quid pro quo, and generally gets the best of it in his dealings with mankind.

Yet another peculiarity of the wood-goblin is his love for startling and frightening those whose business compels them to journey through his domain. He will take up a position among the boughs of a tree under which the traveller must pass, suddenly giving vent, on the approach of the latter, to all manner of terrifying sounds—loud frenzied laughter, barking, neighing, bellowing, howling as of a wolf, anything that will startle or alarm the intruder.

Undoubtedly the wood-goblin is the cause of a vast amount of trouble to poor Ivan Ivanovitch; and he is, therefore, far from occupying the snug place which his cousin, the domovoy, enjoys in the national imagination. On the other hand, he might be very much worse than he is, and he is undoubtedly, with all his faults and shocking vices, infinitely preferable to that mean and skulking and treacherous relative of his, the vodyánnui.

  CHAPTER VIII

THE BEAR THAT DIED OF CURSES

The village folk of Spask were a good-natured lot, as most Russian villagers are, and old Tatiana Danilovna was a popular character in the community for many sufficient reasons. In the first place she was a widow with several children, whom she did her best to support without begging, which is in itself a great distinction for any widow in a Russian village; and Tatiana, her special talents and qualifications apart, had but her late husband's little allotment of land, the portion of one soul (and oh, what a drunken soul was Yashka Shagin, while still under bondage to the flesh!), wherewith to feed the whole five of her brats. But then, as I have just hinted, Tatiana had talents of her own, which enabled her to supplement the meagre income producible from her bit of the communal land, which, but for this fortunate provision of nature in her favour, would have been just about enough to starve upon handsomely. The fact of the matter is, old Tatiana was a znaharka. If the reader were to look out this word in the dictionary he would probably find the English equivalent given as "a sorceress"; but this is not exactly the meaning of the name, which is derived from the root zna, and signifies rather "a woman who knows her way about." This much old Tatiana certainly did know, as well as most people, although I am sorry to say that her education in the usual fields of even elementary learning had been entirely overlooked. As znaharka she did a considerable business, however, in all of the following useful departments of that avocation. She gave her blessing to couples about to be married; and bold indeed would that couple have been who presumed to approach the hymeneal altar without having previously insured themselves against the onslaughts of the evil eye by undergoing the ceremony indicated. Besides this she did a fairish bit of exorcising, for there were always plenty of evil spirits knocking about near Spask, and the priest of the nearest church could not always be got at very conveniently; besides her fee was, naturally, lower than that of his reverence, who could not be expected to come all that distance and bring a large ikon with him into the bargain, for nothing; also, the priest had to be refreshed, while Tatiana was frugal to a fault in her habits, and was far too wise a woman to go near the village beer-shop at any time for drinking purposes. She would use the resort as a convenient place for haranguing the assembled souls, indeed, and visited it also occasionally in a benevolent way, to haul some boosing moujik out of the den before he should have drunk his soul out of his body. Then, again, Tatiana was the sage femme of the district, and ushered into the world every little squalling moujik that was unfortunate enough to be born into this vale of tears and poverty. Lastly, for even the tale of Tatiana's accomplishments must end somewhere, she was the medico of the place. Tatiana did not attempt surgery, but she knew a number of incantations and charms, which, of course, are the same thing without the vivisection. Faith and Tatiana together effected many a cure in Spask; and it is marvellous, when one thinks of it, how very simple a matter will set right our suffering bodies if we only know how to "do the trick." Tatiana knew how to do the trick, and had herbs and potent decoctions which were able to remove every disease, unless, indeed, it was God's will that the patient should die, in which case, of course, neither Tatiana, nor Professor Virchow, nor any one else, would have kept the poor creature alive. When Providence was willing that the sick person should enjoy a further lease of life, then Tatiana and her herbs and her occasional blood-letting were safe things to resort to, as all Spask well knew, and were as sure as anything could be to pull the patient through with flying colours. She also dealt in charms for the use of lovers, mothers (or would-be mothers), hunters, farmers, &c.; and could doctor horses and cows and dogs and poultry with wonderful success, always, of course, under the saving clause as to force majeure, in the way of interferences from Providence. I will merely add that Tatiana was dear to all children, whom she regaled with prianniki (biscuits) after a good stroke of business, and that the whole village feared as well as respected the old woman.