Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/225

 Rh discovering by the aspect of his tokens that he is dead, fly to his aid, and, having procured the Water of Death and the Water of Life, revive him. He returns to his wife, whom he persuades to inquire of Koshchei whence he had got so good a steed. He tells her he got it from the Baba Yaga in return for watching her mares for three days without losing one. The heroine repeats this to Prince Ivan, and steals for him Koshchei's handkerchief, whose waving causes a bridge to spring up over the fiery river that has to be crossed. The prince sets out and crosses in safety the fiery river. Being hungry by the way, he threatens to eat, first, a chicken of a strange bird, then a bit of honeycomb, and lastly a lion-cub, but spares them,—the bird, the bees, and the lioness promising to reward him. With their assistance he watches the Baba Yaga's mares, and by a bee's directions steals a certain sorry-looking colt and rides off on it. The Baba Yaga, pursuing, is deceived by the hero, and precipitated into the fiery river. Prince Ivan steals the heroine. Koshchei pursues, but the hero with the help of a kick from his steed puts an end to him.

In this type the simple story of Bluebeard has assumed epic proportions; but so far as I know it is a type entirely peculiar to the Sclavonic race, and the variations are consequently not very great. Koshchei the Deathless is the Sclavonic Punchkin; nor do I quite understand how in the tale just cited he comes to so ordinary an end. Steelpasha, who is Koshchei's analogue among the Southern Slaves, is unconquerable until the heroine has wormed out the secret of his life from him. Some remnant of the Delilah episode is, however, left in the typical story and in some others of the group, since it is necessary to ascertain from Koshchei himself where he got his swift steed. In others the hero learns this secret from a fox he has forborne to shoot, from one of his brothers-in-law, or even from his own steed, who, and the witch's sorry colt, are in this case both the enchanted brothers of the heroine.

In the tale of Steelpasha the hero is the youngest of three sons, and the only one of the three who is willing to perform his dead