Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/305

 Rh it in the deep sea, recovers it, and takes it to his mother's. When he got there they greeted each other lovingly, and then she hid him again as before. Presently in flew Koshchei the deathless and said: "Phoo! phoo! No Russian bone can the ear hear or the eye see, but there's a smell of Russia here." "What are you talking about, Koshchei? There's no one with me," replied Prince Ivan's mother. A second time spake Koshchei and said, "I feel rather unwell." Then Prince Ivan began squeezing the egg, and therefore Koshchei the deathless bent double. At last Prince Ivan came out from his hiding-place, held up the egg and said, " There is your death, Koshchei the deathless!" Then Koshchei fell on his knees before him, saying, "Don't kill me, Prince Ivan, let's be friends; all the world will lie at our feet." But these words had no weight with Prince Ivan; he smashed the egg and Koshchei the deathless died.

In another story Koshchei is killed by a blow on the forehead, inflicted "by the mysterious egg, that last link in the magic chain by which his life is darkly bound." While upon this subject Mr. Ralston quotes a Transylvanian-Saxon story concerning a witch's life, which is a light burning in an egg inside a duck, which swims on a pond inside a mountain, and she dies when it is put out. In the Bohemian story of "The Sun-horse," a warlock's strength lies in an egg which is within the duck, which is within a stag, which is under a tree. A seer finds the egg and sucks it. Then the warlock becomes as weak as a child, "for all his strength had passed into the seer."

In Serbian folk-tales the strength of a baleful being who had stolen a princess lies in a bird, which is inside the heart of a fox; and, when the bird was taken out of the heart and set on fire, that moment the wife-stealer falls down dead, and the prince regains his bride.

From the same source we have the story of "The golden-haired Twins," with an incident akin to that occurring in Punchkin. When the stepmother of the king buries the two twins whom she had stolen from their cradle there spring from the spot where they lie living trees with golden leaves and golden blossoms. The king's admiration of them aroused her jealousy, and she had them cut down; but in the long run his golden-haired princes are restored to him.

Thus far my illustrations, which could be multiplied largely, have been