n.
The peasant came, entered the house, and told Boyar to
make all the townspeople, and the carriages with coachmen, stand
in the street outside. Moreover, he gave orders that all the
coachmen should crack their whips and cry at the top of their
voices: "The Bad Wife has come! the Bad Wife has come!"
and then he went into the inner room. As soon as he entered
it, the demon rushed at him crying, "What do you mean, Russian?
what have you come here for? I'll eat you!"

"What do _you_ mean?" said the peasant, "why I didn't
come here to turn you out. I came, out of pity to you, to say
that the Bad Wife has come here."

The Demon rushed to the window, stared with all his eyes,
and heard everyone shouting at the top of his voice the words,
"The Bad Wife!"

"Peasant," cries the Demon, "wherever can I take refuge?"

"Run back into the pit. She won't go there any more."

The Demon went back to the pit--and to the Bad Wife too.

In return for his services, the Boyar conferred a rich guerdon
on the peasant, giving him his daughter to wife, and presenting
him with half his property.

But the Bad Wife sits to this day in the pit--in Tartarus.[54]

Our final illustration of the Skazkas which satirize women is the
story of the _Golovikha_. It is all the more valuable, inasmuch as it
is one of the few folk-tales which throw any light on the working of
Russian communal institutions. The word _Golovikha_ means, in its
strict sense, the wife of a _Golova_, or elected chief [_Golova_ =
head] of a _Volost_, or association of village communities; but here
it is used for a "female _Golova_," a species of "mayoress."

THE GOLOVIKHA.[55]

A certain woman was very bumptious. Her husband came
from a village council one day, and she asked him:

"What have you been deciding over there?"

"What have we been deciding? why choosing a Golova."

"Whom have you chosen?"

"No one as yet."

"Choose me," says the woman.

So as soon as her husband went back to the council (she was
a bad sort; he wanted to give her a lesson) he told the elders
what she had said. They immediately chose her as Golova.

Well the woman got along, settled all questions, took bribes,
and drank spirits at the peasant's expense. But the time came
to collect the poll-tax. The Golova couldn't do it, wasn't able
to collect it in time. There came a Cossack, and asked for the
Golova; but the