human bones. "This was Likho
(Evil)," says the story, "and around him were seated Zluidni (Woes)
and Zhurba (Care)." Finding that Likho intends to eat him, the
misfortune-seeker takes to flight. Likho hears the iron doors creak,
and cries to them to stop the fugitive. "But he had already passed out
of doors. Only he lost his right hand, on which the door slammed:
whereupon he exclaimed 'Here's misfortune, sure enough!'"

The opening of the story of Likho is somewhat similar to that of one
of the tales of Indian origin translated by Stanislas Julien from the
Chinese. Once upon a time, we are told, a king grew weary of good
fortune, so he sent messengers in search of misfortune. It a certain
god sold to them, in the shape of a sow which devoured a peck of
needles a day. The king's agents took to worrying his subjects for
needles, and brought such trouble upon the whole kingdom, that his
ministers entreated him to have the beast put to death. He consented,
and it was led forth to die. But neither knife nor axe could penetrate
its hide, so they tried to consume it with fire. After a time it
became red-hot, and then it leaped out from amid the flames, and
dashed about setting fire to all manner of things. The conflagration
spread and was followed by famine, so that the whole land was involved
in ruin.[227]

The Polyphemus story has been so thoroughly investigated by Wilhelm
Grimm,[228] that there is no occasion to dwell upon it here. But the
following statement is worthy of notice. The inhabitants of the
Ukraine are said still to retain some recollection of the one-eyed
nation of Arimaspians of whom Herodotus speaks (Bk. IV. c. 27).
According to them the One-Eyes[229] dwell somewhere far off, beyond
the seas. The Tartars, during their inroads, used to burn towns and
villages, kill old folks and infants, and carry off young people. The
plumpest of these they used to sell to cannibals who had but one eye
apiece, situated in the forehead. And the cannibals would drive away
their purchases, like sheep, to their own land, and there fatten them
up, kill them, and eat them. A similar tradition, says Afanasief
(VIII. 260) exists also among the Ural Cossacks.

While on the subject of eyes, it may be remarked that the story of
"One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes," rendered so familiar to juvenile
English readers by translations from the German,[230] appears among
the Russian tales in a very archaic and heathenish form. Here is the