ter of
Death," viewed in its negative aspect.

[23] Chudinsky, No. 3.

[24] Afanasief, vi. p. 325. Wolfs "Niederlandische Sagen," No. 326,
quoted in Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 292. Note 4.

[25] A number of ghost stories, and some remarks about the ideas of
the Russian peasants with respect to the dead, will be found in Chap.
V. Scott mentions a story in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,"
vol. ii. p. 223, of a widower who believed he was haunted by his dead
wife. On one occasion the ghost, to prove her identity, gave suck to
her surviving infant.

[26] Afanasief, viii. p. 165.

[27] In West-European stories the devil frequently carries off a
witch's soul after death. Here the fiend enters the corpse, or rather
its skin, probably intending to reappear as a vampire. Compare Bleek's
"Reynard the Fox in South Africa," No. 24, in which a lion squeezes
itself into the skin of a girl it has killed. I have generally
rendered by "demon," instead of "devil," the word _chort_ when it
occurs in stories of this class, as the spirits to which they refer
are manifestly akin to those of oriental demonology.

[28] For an account of which, see the "Songs of the Russian People,"
pp. 333-334. The best Russian work on the subject is Barsof's
"Prichitaniya Syevernago Kraya," Moscow, 1872.

[29] Afanasief, iv. No. 9.

[30] Professor de Gubernatis justly remarks that this "howling" is
more in keeping with the nature of the eastern jackal than with that
of its western counterpart, the fox. "Zoological Mythology," ii. 130.

[31] Afanasief, vii. No. 45.

[32] _Pope_ is the ordinary but disrespectful term for a priest
(_Svyashchennik_), as _popovich_ is for a priest's son.

[33] "Father dear," or "reverend father."

[34] A phrase often used by the peasants, when frightened by anything
of supernatural appearance.

[35] Afanasief, Skazki, vii. No. 49.

[36] The Russian expression is _gol kak sokol_, "bare as a hawk."

[37] In another story St. Nicolas's picture is the surety.

[38] Another variant of this story, under the title of "Norka," will
be quoted in full in the next chapter.

[39] Afanasief, vii. p. 107.

[40] Afanasief, vii. p. 146.

[41] Or "The Seven-year-old." Khudyakof, No. 6. See Grimm, No. 94,
"Die kluge Bauerntochter," and iii. 170-2.

[42] _Voevoda_, now a general, formerly meant a civil governor, etc.

[43] Afanasief. "Legendui," No. 29.

[44] Diminutive of Peter.

[45] The word employed