Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/357

Rh "Thou, oh evil witch of Kíev, bid thy crow fly over the sea of Khvalýnsk to the house of bronze; bid him peck the fiery snake, bid him gain the seven pud key. She was grim, and she clove to her crow, the evil witch of Kíev. In my old age I cannot roam to the sea, to the ocean, to the isle of Buyán, to the Black Crow. Do thou bid, by my enchanting words, the crow gain me the seven pud key.

"The crow has smitten the house of bronze, has pecked the fiery snake to death, has gained the seven pud key.

"With that key I will unlock the princely castle, the castle of Vladímir, I will gain the knightly gear, the trappings of the knights of Nóvgorod, of the youthful war-men; and in that gear the arquebus cannot fell me, the shots cannot hit me, the warriors and champions, the hosts of Tatary and Kazán cannot hurt me.

"I invoke the servant, a man, a fighter, in the host, who goeth to war with these my potent words.

[Kazán was the last stronghold of the Tatars. It was stormed in 1549.]

Buyán is a kind of fairy hill like the Tir n'an óg of the Irish folk-tales, the land of youth, and cannot probably be assigned to any physical geography. Most probably the mythical Isle of Buyán is the reminiscence of the Isle of Rügen. The whole of the Pomeranian coast from Lübeck to the Memel was, prior to its conquest by the Saxons and the Brandenburgers, a Slavonic district, and the Isle of Rügen, in especial, the promontory of Arcona, a seat of the most highly developed Slavonic pagan ritual: Saxo Grammaticus has conserved us full details. Considering the intimate association of the mysterious stone Alátyr (probably meaning amber) with Buyán: and the fact that Buyán is a Slav translation of the Old Slav name Ruyán, the wind-swept isle [cf. English rough, German rauh, etc.]; also taken the specific references in the magic charms in connection with the facts recorded by the Scandinavian chroniclers, there seems to be little doubt that the Isle of Buyán is a folk-tale shadow of the old place