his; to keep awake on a certain night, and to spy out
who it was that came to suckle the babe. So at eventide they
all lay down on the floor, and beside them they set a lighted
taper hidden in an earthen pot.

At midnight the cottage door opened. Some one stepped
up to the cradle. The babe became still. At that moment one
of the kinsfolk suddenly brought out the light. They looked,
and saw the dead mother, in the very same clothes in which
she had been buried, on her knees besides the cradle, over
which she bent as she suckled the babe at her dead breast.

The moment the light shone in the cottage she stood up,
gazed sadly on her little one, and then went out of the room
without a sound, not saying a word to anyone. All those who
saw her stood for a time terror-struck; and then they found the
babe was dead.[25]

The second story will serve as an illustration of one of the Russian
customs with respect to the dead, and also of the ideas about
witchcraft, still prevalent in Russia. We may create for it the title
of--

THE DEAD WITCH.[26]

There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and
she had a daughter and a granddaughter. The time came for
the old crone to die, so she summoned her daughter and gave
her these instructions:

"Mind, daughter! when I'm dead, don't you wash my body
with lukewarm water; but fill a cauldron, make it boil its very
hottest, and then with that boiling water regularly scald me all
over."

After saying this, the witch lay ill two or three days, and
then died. The daughter ran round to all her neighbors, begging
them to come and help her to wash the old woman, and
meantime the little granddaughter was left all alone in the cottage.
And this is what she saw there. All of a sudden there
crept out from beneath the stove two demons--a big one and
a tiny one--and they ran up to the dead witch. The old demon
seized her by the feet, and tore away at her so that he stripped
off all her skin at one pull. Then he said to the little demon:

"Take the flesh for yourself, and lug it under the stove."

So the little demon flung his arms round the carcase, and
dragged it under the stove. Nothing was left of the old woman
but her skin. Into it the old demon inserted himself, and then
he lay down just where the witch had been lying.

Presently the daughter came back, bringing a dozen other
women with her, and th