h, and for further comment on
the story, see Chap. VI.

CHAPTER II.

MYTHOLOGICAL.

_Principal Incarnations of Evil._

The present chapter is devoted to specimens of those skazkas which
most Russian critics assert to be distinctly mythical. The stories of
this class are so numerous, that the task of selection has been by no
means easy. But I have done my best to choose such examples as are
most characteristic of that species of the "mythical" folk-tale which
prevails in Russia, and to avoid, as far as possible, the repetition
of narratives which have already been made familiar to the English
reader by translations of German and Scandinavian stories.

There is a more marked individuality in the Russian tales of this
kind, as compared with those of Western Europe, than is to be traced
in the stories (especially those of a humorous cast) which relate to
the events that chequer an ordinary existence. The actors in the
_comediettas_ of European peasant-life vary but little, either in
title or in character, wherever the scene may be laid; just as in the
European beast-epos the Fox, the Wolf, and the Bear play parts which
change but slightly with the regions they inhabit. But the
supernatural beings which people the fairy-land peculiar to each race,
though closely resembling each other in many respects, differ
conspicuously in others. They may, it is true, be nothing more than
various developments of the same original type; they may be traceable
to germs common to the prehistoric ancestors of the now widely
separated Aryan peoples; their peculiarities may simply be due to the
accidents to which travellers from distant lands are liable. But at
all events each family now has features of its own, typical
characteristics by which it may be readily distinguished from its
neighbors. My chief aim at present is to give an idea of those
characteristics which lend individuality to the "mythical beings" in
the Skazkas; in order to effect this, I shall attempt a delineation of
those supernatural figures, to some extent peculiar to Slavonic
fairy-land, which make their appearance in the Russian folk-tales. I
have given a brief sketch of them elsewhere.[72] I now propose to deal
with them more fully, quoting at length, instead of merely mentioning,
some of the evidence on which the proof of their existence depends.

For the sake of convenience, we may select from the great mass of the
mythical skazkas those which are suppose