s; its explanation has been
forgotten. See Henderson's "Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern
Counties of England," 1866, p. 43.

[423] A great deal of information about vampires, and also about
turnskins, wizards and witches, will be found in Afanasief, _P.V.S._
iii. chap. xxvi., on which I have freely drawn. The subject has been
treated with his usual judgment and learning by Mr. Tylor in his
"Primitive Culture," ii. 175, 176. For several ghastly stories about
the longing of Rakshasas and Vetalas for human flesh, some of which
bear a strong resemblance to Slavonic vampire tales, see Brockhaus's
translation of the first five books of the "Kathasaritsagara," vol. i.
p. 94; vol. ii. pp. 13, 142, 147.

CHAPTER VI.

LEGENDS.

I

_About Saints._

As besides the songs or _pyesni_ there are current among the people a
number of _stikhi_ or poems on sacred subjects, so together with the
_skazki_ there have been retained in the popular memory a multitude of
_legendui_, or legends relating to persons or incidents mentioned in
the Bible or in ecclesiastical history. Many of them have been
extracted from the various apocryphal books which in olden times had
so wide a circulation, and many also from the lives of the Saints;
some of them may be traced to such adaptations of Indian legends as
the "Varlaam and Josaphat" attributed to St. John of Damascus; and
others appear to be ancient heathen traditions, which, with altered
names and slightly modified incidents, have been made to do service as
Christian narratives. But whatever may be their origin, they all bear
witness to the fact of their having been exposed to various
influences, and many of them may fairly be considered as relics of
hoar antiquity, memorials of that misty period when the pious
Slavonian chronicler struck by the confusion of Christian with heathen
ideas and ceremonies then prevalent, styled his countrymen a
two-faithed people.[424]

On the popular tales of a religious character current among the
Russian peasantry, the duality of their creed, or of that of their
ancestors, has produced a twofold effect. On the one hand, into
narratives drawn from purely Christian sources there has entered a
pagan element, most clearly perceptible in stories which deal with
demons and departed spirits; on the other hand, an attempt has been
made to give a Christian nature to what are manifestly heathen
legends, by lending saintly names to their characters and clo