he Baba Yaga to the river, and
gnashed her teeth with spite; then she went home for her oxen,
and drove them to the river. The oxen drank up every drop of
the river, and then the Baba Yaga began the pursuit anew.
But the girl put her ear to the ground again, and when she heard
that the Baba Yaga was near, she flung down the comb, and
instantly a forest sprang up, such an awfully thick one! The
Baba Yaga began gnawing away at it, but however hard she
worked, she couldn't gnaw her way through it, so she had to go
back again.

But by this time the girl's father had returned home, and he
asked:

"Where's my daughter?"

"She's gone to her aunt's," replied her stepmother.

Soon afterwards the girl herself came running home.

"Where have you been?" asked her father.

"Ah, father!" she said, "mother sent me to aunt's to ask
for a needle and thread to make me a shift. But aunt's a Baba
Yaga, and she wanted to eat me!"

"And how did you get away, daughter?"

"Why like this," said the girl, and explained the whole
matter. As soon as her father had heard all about it, he became
wroth with his wife, and shot her. But he and his daughter
lived on and flourished, and everything went well with them.

In one of the numerous variants of this story[162] the heroine is sent
by her husband's mother to the Baba Yaga's, and the advice which saves
her comes from her husband. The Baba Yaga goes into another room "in
order to sharpen her teeth," and while she is engaged in that
operation the girl escapes, having previously--by the advice of the
Cat, to which she had given a lump of butter--spat under the
threshold. The spittle answers for her in her absence, behaving as do,
in other folk-tales, drops of blood, or rags dipped in blood, or
apples, or eggs, or beans, or stone images, or wooden puppets.[163]

The magic comb and towel, by the aid of which the girl effects her
escape, constantly figure in Skazkas of this class, and always produce
the required effect. A brush, also, is frequently introduced, from
each bristle of which springs up a wood. In one story, however, the
brush gives rise to mountains, and a _golik_, or bath-room whisk,
turns into a forest. The towel is used, also, for the purpose of
constructing or annihilating a bridge. Similar instruments are found
in the folk-tales of every land, whether they appear as the brush,
comb, and mirror of the German water-sprite;[164] or