311

XLV. THE COFFIN-LID 314

XLVI. THE TWO CORPSES 316

XLVII. THE DOG AND THE CORPSE 317

XLVIII. THE SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE 318

XLIX. ELIJAH THE PROPHET AND NICHOLAS 344

L. THE PRIEST WITH THE GREEDY EYES 355

LI. THE HASTY WORD 370

RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

There are but few among those inhabitants of Fairy-land of whom
"Popular Tales" tell, who are better known to the outer world than
Cinderella--the despised and flouted younger sister, who long sits
unnoticed beside the hearth, then furtively visits the glittering
halls of the great and gay, and at last is transferred from her
obscure nook to the place of honor justly due to her tardily
acknowledged merits. Somewhat like the fortunes of Cinderella have
been those of the popular tale itself. Long did it dwell beside the
hearths of the common people, utterly ignored by their superiors in
social rank. Then came a period during which the cultured world
recognized its existence, but accorded to it no higher rank than that
allotted to "nursery stories" and "old wives' tales"--except, indeed,
on those rare occasions when the charity of a condescending scholar
had invested it with such a garb as was supposed to enable it to make
a respectable appearance in polite society. At length there arrived
the season of its final change, when, transferred from the dusk of the
peasant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the
unbecoming garments by which it had been disfigured, it was recognized
as the scion of a family so truly royal that some of its members
deduce their origin from the olden gods themselves.

In our days the folk-tale, instead of being left to the careless
guardianship of youth and ignorance, is sedulously tended and held in
high honor by the ripest of scholars. Their views with regard to its
origin may differ widely. But whether it be considered in one of its
phases as a distorted "nature-myth," or in another as a demoralized
apologue or parable--whether it be regarded at one time as a relic of
primeval wisdom, or at another as a blurred transcript of a page of
mediaeval history--its critics agree in dec