ttage, and dropped him in the upper room.
Early the next morning his mother set to work to bake pancakes, baked
them, and all of a sudden fell to thinking about her boy. "Where is my
Ivashko?" she cried; "would that I could see him, were it only in a
dream!"
Then his father said, "I dreamed that swans and geese had brought our
Ivashko home on their wings."
And when she had finished baking the pancakes, she said, "Now, then,
old man, let's divide the cakes: there's for you, father! there's for
me! There's for you, father! there's for me."
"And none for me?" called out Ivashko.
"There's for you, father!" went on the old woman, "there's for me."
"And none for me!" [repeated the boy.]
"Why, old man," said the wife, "go and see whatever that is up there."
The father climbed into the upper room and there he found Ivashko.
The old people were delighted, and asked their boy about everything
that had happened. And after that he and they lived on happily
together.
[That part of this story which relates to the baking
and eating of the witch's daughter is well known in
many lands. It is found in the German "Haensel und
Grethel" (Grimm. _KM._ No. 15, and iii. p. 25, where a
number of parallels are mentioned); in the Norse
"Askelad" (Asbjoernsen and Moe, No. 1. Dasent, "Boots
and the Troll," No. 32), where a Troll's daughter is
baked; and "Smoerbuk" (Asb. and Moe, No. 52. Dasent,
"Buttercup," No. 18), in which the victim is daughter
of a "Haugkjoerring," another name for a Troll-wife;
in the Servian story of "The Stepmother," &c. (Vuk
Karajich, No. 35, pp. 174-5) in which two _Chivuti_,
or Jews, are tricked into eating their baked mother;
in the Modern Greek stories (Hahn, No. 3 and ii. p.
181), in which the hero bakes (1) a _Drakaena_, while
her husband, the _Drakos_, is at church, (2) a
_Lamiopula_, during the absence of the _Lamia_, her
mother; and in the Albanian story of "Augenhuendin"
(Hahn, No. 95), in which the heroine gets rid in a
similar manner of Maro, the daughter of that four eyed
+sykieneza+. (See note, ii, 309.) Afanasief also refers
(i. p. 121) to Haltrich, No. 37, and Haupt and
Schmaler, ii. pp. 172-4. He also mentions a similar
tale about a giantess existing among the Baltic
Kashoubes. See also the end of the so
|