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 ST. JOHN'S EVE

BY NIKOLAI VASILEVICH GOGOL

This story, taken from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, a series of sketches of the life of the Ukrainian peasants, offers a good illustration of the author's art, which was a combination of the romantic and realistic elements. In these pages Gogol wished to record the myths and legends still current among the plain folk of his beloved Ukrainia. The devil naturally enough peeps out here and there through the pages of this book. Gogol's devil is a product of the Russian soil, "the spirit of mischief and cunning, whom Russian literature is always trying to outplay and overcome " (Mme. Jarintzow, Russian Poets and Poems).

According to European superstition St. John's Eve is the only evening in the year when his Satanic Majesty reveals himself in his proper shape to the eyes of men. If you wish to behold his Highness face to face, stand on St. John's Eve at midnight near a mustard-plant. It is suggested by Sir James Frazer in his Golden Bough that, in the chilly air of the upper world, this prince from a warmer clime may be attracted by the warmth of the mustard.

It is believed in many parts of Europe that treasures can be found on St. John's Eve by means of the fern-seed. Even without the use of this plant treasures are sometimes said to bloom or burn in the earth, or to reveal their presence by a bluish flame on Midsummer Eve. As guardian of treasures the devil is the successor of the gnome. [289]