Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/73

 Rh Then his mother said to him: “Do not take her to wife, my son. Why should you entertain this fancy which is surely of the devil?” He obeyed his mother and did not marry the Plague, but walled her up with stones, and that is why the plague mostly rages in Stamboul (Constantinople) to this day. Afterwards, the youth proclaimed himself Tsar, and as he was begotten by a bone he was called Kostantin, or Constantine (Serbian Kost=bone). Then he wrested the kingdom from the King of the Jews, and thus the words came true which had been spoken when he was still a bone.

The second tale is entitled: Sveti Andrija (St. Andrew), and runs as follows:

Once upon a time, in the days when God still walked upon earth, there lived a man called Andrija (Andrew) who had killed ninety and nine men. Then he repented and went to find the Lord to seek forgiveness. And on his way he met a Saint. The Saint asked him whither he was going. Andrija replied that he was seeking the Lord to beg forgiveness of his sins. Then the Saint said: “Tell me in what you have sinned and I will tell you what to do to gain forgiveness. I know all about it as well as the Lord himself.” So Andrija told him that he had killed ninety and nine men. Then the Saint bade him go home and for a whole year carry wood to the top of a hill and build it into a pile. When the year was past, he was to stand in the middle of the pile and set fire to it from without, and what remained of his body after the burning would be purified from sin, and his sin would be carried hence with the part of his body that was consumed. This Andrija did, and all the wood was consumed, and himself with it as well. Then it chanced that the Lord passed by with St. Sava, and the Lord said: “Let us go and see what has remained.” But they found nothing but only the heart, as it had been taken clean out of a man. Then the Lord said to St. Sava: “Take the heart and we will roast it