hich may be taken as a specimen of the Skazkas which bear
the impress of the genuine reverence which the peasants feel for their
religion, whatever may be the feelings they entertain towards its
ministers. While alluding to this subject, by the way, it may be as
well to remark that no great reliance can be placed upon the evidence
contained in the folk-tales of any land, with respect to the relations
between its clergy and their flocks. The local parson of folk-lore is,
as a general rule, merely the innocent inheritor of the bad reputation
acquired by some ecclesiastic of another age and clime.

THE CROSS-SURETY.[35]

Once upon a time two merchants lived in a certain town just on
the verge of a stream. One of them was a Russian, the other a
Tartar; both were rich. But the Russian got so utterly ruined
by some business or other that he hadn't a single bit of property
left. Everything he had was confiscated or stolen. The Russian
merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as a
rat.[36] So he went to his friend the Tartar, and besought him to
lend him some money.

"Get me a surety," says the Tartar.

"But whom can I get for you, seeing that I haven't a soul
belonging to me? Stay, though! there's a surety for you, the
life-giving cross on the church!"

"Very good, my friend!" says the Tartar. "I'll trust your
cross. Your faith or ours, it's all one to me."

And he gave the Russian merchant fifty thousand roubles.
The Russian took the money, bade the Tartar farewell, and
went back to trade in divers places.

By the end of two years he had gained a hundred and fifty
thousand roubles by the fifty thousand he had borrowed. Now
he happened to be sailing one day along the Danube, going with
wares from one place to another, when all of a sudden a storm
arose, and was on the point of sinking the ship he was in. Then
the merchant remembered how he had borrowed money, and
given the life-giving cross as a surety, but had not paid his debt.
That was doubtless the cause of the storm arising! No sooner
had he said this to himself than the storm began to subside.
The merchant took a barrel, counted out fifty thousand roubles,
wrote the Tartar a note, placed it, together with the money, in
the barrel, and then flung the barrel into the water, saying to
himself: "As I gave the cross as my surety to the Tartar, the
money will be certain to reach him."