Cornell University Library PG 3140.R16 3 1924 026 606 446 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026606446 THE SONGS THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. LONDON : GILBERT AND KIVINGTON, PKINTERS, ST. John's square. i4I^^^^ OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE, AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF SLAVONIC MYTHOLOGY AND RUSSIAN SOCIAL LIFE. By W. R. S. UALSTON, M.A. OF THE BHITISH MUSEUM, AUTHOB OF " KBILOP AND HIS BABIES." ILontion : ELLIS & GREEN, 33, KING STREET, COVKNT GARDEN. 1872. I All rig /its reserved.^ PREFACE. "When tte present volume was originally 'planned it was intended to contain an account of Russian folk- lore in general — of the stories, legends, riddles, pro- verbs, and epic as well as lyric poems, which oral tradition has preserved among the Russian peasantry. But I soon found that the subject was one which, if treated at all in detail, would require more time and space than I had expected. So I thought it best to restrict myself for the present to a part of it only, leaving the rest to be described afterwards. In this first instalment of the work, therefore, I have dealt chiefly, though not exclusively, with the lyric poetry of the peasantry; the next will be mainly devoted to their Popular Tales and their Metrical Romances. In order to render intelligible the songs I have quoted, it has been necessary to give some slight account of the religious ideas attributed to the ancient VI PEBFACE. Slavonians and the superstitions current among their descendants, as well as of some of the manners and customs of the Eussian peasantry, especially with regard to marriages and funerals. But my book can make no pretence to any thing like a satisfactory grappling with the difficult problems — mythological, ethnological, philological, historical — suggested by the study of Slavonic antiquities. Perhaps the best excuse I- can offer for my shortcomings with respect to those questions is this. A great part of the ground over which I have hastily skimmed has been explored by a scholar who is far better qualified for the task than I am. And so to Mr. MorfiU's forthcoming work on " The Slaves " I refer, at all events for a time, all who wish for fuller information on the subject. In the translations contained in the present volume I have attempted to give, in every case, as literal a version of the original as possible. My rule has been to translate the songs into prose, hne for line and word for word, and this rule has scarcely ever been broken. Only here and there, in the introductory chapter and in that on Marriage, I have been some- times almost unconsciously led into following, to some slight extent, the rhythmical flow of the Russian. Rhyme, as my readers are probably aware, very rarely PSEFACJi!. VU appears in any but modern Russian Songs, and upon recent poetry I haye not touched. For inconsistency in the use of accents I have only this excuse to offer. On my " copy" I had marked every accented syllable, but typographical difficulties prevented me from carrying out my original idea. After having begun to print, however, I found that certain -words were specially liable to be mispro- nounced, so I inserted a few marks here and there, where they seemed to be most needed, in order to show on which syllable the accent ought to fall. With respect to the authorities Ijhave consulted, it may be as well to say a few word«-. My^ chief aim has been to render available to such students of mythology and folk-lore as may happen not to read Russian, some part, at least, of the evidence bearing upon those subjects which has been collected in Russia, but which has not been hitherto rendered into generally intelligible speech, and therefore I have not thought it necessary to make more than occasional reference to books written in, or translated into, the languages of "Western Europe '. Of the ^ A long list of books in various languages on Slavonic Anti- quities is given by Dr. I. J. Hanusch. See Die WissenscJiaft des slamschen Mythus, pp. 48 — 71. A number of Russian Songs have been faithfully translated by P. Von Goetze, under the title of Stimmen des russischen Voiles in Liedern. Stuttgart, 1828. A Vlll PEEFAOE. Russian authorities, on which I have mainly relied, a full list will be given at the end of this preface. The Songs contained in the present volume have been taken, for the most part, from the rich collections " made by Sakharof and Shein ; the descriptions of popular manners and customs have been mainly bor- rowed from the valuable works of Snegiref and Tereshchenko ; the greater part of the chapter on Funeral Songs I have extracted from the erudite treatise by Kotlyarevsky, " On the Funeral Rites of the Heathen Slavonians;" and for the arrangement and much of the contents of the chapter on Mythic and Ritual Songs I am indebted to Orest Miller's " Historical Survey of Russian Literature." But it is to Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasief, whosg recent and premature death cannot sufficiently be deplored, that I am under the deepest obligations. His great work, " On the Poetic Views of the Old Slavonians about Nature" is a rich storehouse to which I have had constant recourse in the present volume; on his excellent collections of Russian Popular Tales and Legends the next volume will be based ; and from his writings in general I have de- rived frequent assistance while studying the Builinas, few occur also in the collection entitled Balalaika. Mine Sammhina slawischer Lieder von W. von Waldlruhl. Leipzig, 1848. PEEFACE. IX or Metrical Eomances — with respect to wliich* the special books of reference are the collections of Euib- nikof and Kiryeevsky^, and the critical works of Buslaef, Bezsonof, Maikof, Orest Miller, Schiefaer, Stasof, and many others. There is one other Russian scholar to whom I wish to render hearty acknowledg- ments for aid constantly received. Were it not for the great dictionary " of the hving Eussian language " by Vladimir Dahl, a foreigner would be hopelessly bewildered when trying to make his way through the difficult field of Eussian folk-lore. Finally, let me offer cordial thanks for the assist- ance personally tendered to me by many Eussian friends, as well upon other occasions as on those of my visits to Eussia in 1868 and 1870. To them I dedicate my book, trusting that, imperfect as it is, they will recognize in it such traces of honest work as may render them lenient towards its sins both of omission and of commission. January, 1872. ^ A new collection of luilinas is now in the press, containing the poems written down from the dictation of the Olonets " rhapsodists " by the editor, A. F. Hilferding. PKBFACE. The following are the Russian books to which I am principally indebted. In alluding to them in the foot-notes to the present volume I have fre- quently given only the initials of their titles, just as I have often represented the words Deutsche Mythologie by the letters D. M. Apanasiep. Poetioheshiya Vozwyeniya Slavyan na Prirodu. [Poetic Views of the Slavonians about Nature.] 3 vols. Moscow, 1865-69. 8vo. - NmrodMuiya MussMya Skaitiki. [Popular Russian Tales.] Third edition. 8 Pts. Moscow, 1863. Svo. Bezsokof. Kalyehi PerehhozMe. [Wandering Psalm-singers. A collection of their songs.] 6 pts. Moscow. 1860-62. 8vo. BrsLAEF. Istoricheshie Oeherki, etc. [Historical Sketches of National Literature and Art.] 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1861. fol. ■ O Vliyanii Khristianstva na Slavyanshy Yazuih. [On the Influence of Christianity on Slavonic Language.] Moscow, 184S. Svo. DahIi. Poslovitsui Russhago Naroda. [Proverbs of the Russian People.] Moscow, 1862. fol. Erlenbbin. Narodnuiya ShazTci. [Popular Tales collected by village Schoolmasters.] Moscow, 1863. 8vo. Kastoeskt. NaaJiertanie Slovanshoi Mithologii. [Outline of Slavonic Mythology.] St. Petersburg, 1841. 8vo. Kavelin. SocTiineniya. [Collected works.] 4 vols. Moscow, 1859. Khtjdyakoe. Velihorusshiya SkazM. [Great-Eussian Popular Tales.] 3 pts. Moscow, 1860-62. Kibyeevskt. Pyesnisolrcmnuiya P.V.KiryeevsJcim, etc. [Songs collected by P. V. Kiryeevsky. Edited by P. A. Bezsonof and others.] Second edition. Parts 1 — 8. Moscow, 1868, etc. 8vo. PREFACE. XI KoTLTAKETSKT. O PogrehaVnuikh Oluichayahh YazuichesMlch Blavyan. [On the Funeral Customs of the heathen Slavonians.] Moscow, 1868. 8vo. Maikof. O Builinahh Vladimirova TsiMa. [On the Builiuas of the Vladimir Cycle.] St. Petersburg, 1863. 8vo. VeliTcorusshiya Zahlinaniya. [Great-Russian SpeUs.J St. Petersburg, 1869. 8vo. Oeest Millee. Opuit Istoricheshago Ohozryeniya Busshoi Slovesnosii. [Attempt at an Historical Survey of Russian Literature Part 1. Section 1. Second edition.] St. Peters- burg, 1866. 8vo. Khristomatiya, etc. [Chrestomathy, appended to the "Attempt, etc."] Part 1. Section 1. Second edition. St. Petersburg, 1866. 8vo. Ilya Mv/romets. [Ilya of Murom and the Heroes of Kief.] St. Petersburg, 1869. Eoyal 8vo. EuiBNlKOP. Fyesni sobrannuiya P. W. Buibnikovuim. [Songs collected by P. N. Euibnikof. Edited by P. A. Bezsonof, etc.] 4 vols. Moscow, 1861-67. 8vo. Sakhaeoi'. Shazaniya Busskago NarodM. [Utterances of the Russian People. Third edition.] 2 vols." St. Petersburg, 1841. Royal 8vo. Pyesni Busskago Naroda. [Songs of the Russian People]. 5 vols. St. Petersburg, 1838-39. 12mo. ScHOEPPlNG (or Shepping). Mithui Slavyanshago Yazuichestva. [Myths of Slavonic Heathendom.] Moscow, 1849. 8vo. Busshm/a Narod/nost\ etc. [Russian Nationality in its Superstitions, Rites, and Popular Stories.] Moscow, 1862. 8vo. Shchepkin. Oh IslooTinikaTch i Jbrmakh Busskago Basnosloviya. [On the Sources and Forms of Russian Mythology.] 2 pts. Moscow, 1859-61. Shbin. BussTciya Narodnuiya Pyesni. [Russian Popular Songs, collected and arranged by P. V. Shein.] Vol. I. Moscow, 1870. Royal 8vo. SuEGHEEF. Busshie Prostonarodnuie Prazdniki, etc. [Russian Popular Festivals and Superstitious Rites.] 4 vols. Mos- cow, 1837-39. 8vo. ' I possess, unfortunately, only the first volume. The second I have never even so much as seen, so rare has the book become. XU PREFACE. Snegieef. MussMe v svoihh Poslovitsahh. [The Eussians in their Proverbs.] 4 vols. Moscow,p832. 12ino. SoLOViEP. Istoriya Bossii. [History of Russia*.] Fourth edition. Moscow, 1856, etc. Svo. Teeeshchenko. BuitRusskago Naroda. [Manners and Customs of the Eussian People.] 7 vols. St. Petersburg, 1848. Svo. P.S. — ^Since this Preface was written, I have learnt that M. Hilferding is about to publish an account of his travels through the Olonets Government in search of builinas. It wiU appear in the number of the Vyestnik Earopui for March -^. In it he will give a full description of his wanderings among the places and people mentioned by Euibnikof (see infra, pp. 63-76), from whom, it maybe as well to observe, he differs on some minor points. February 15, 1872. * In progress ; only about twenty-four volumes have as yet been published. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. INTEODUCTOBT. KloroTod, or Choral, Songs The Posidyelka, or Social Grathering The Besyeda . . . \ Divisions of Songs Cossack and Eobber Songs Soldier Songs .... The Builinas, or Metrical Romances Story of Svyatogor Eidhnikof s Eesearches Note on Metres .... PAGE 1 32 36 39 42 61 55 58 64 77 CHAPTEE II. MTTHOLOGT. SECTION I. — THE OLD GODS. Old Slavonic Mythology Perun Other Slavonic Deities .... 80 86 103 SECTION II. — DEMIGODS AND PAIEIES. Ideas about the Soul The Domovoy, or House-spirit .... 107 120 XIV CONTENTS. House-changing Ceremonies Tlie Eusalka, or Naiad The Vodyany, or Water-sprite The Lyeshy, or Wood-demon PAGE 136 139 148 168 SECTION III. — STOBTLAND BEINGS. The B4ba Taga, or Ogress . 161 Koshchei the Immortal . 164 The Witch . 168 The Stia,lre . 172 The Water-king . 178 Swan Maidens 179 Tom Thumb . 183 CFAPTEE 111. MYTHIC AND BITTTAL SONGS. Kolyadki, or Christmas Songs 186 Gadaniya, or Guessings 195 Ovsen and New Year Songs 202 Feast of the Epiphany 207 Death of Winter 210 Reception of the Spring 211 Cuckoo Christening . 214 Eastertide .... 219 Krasnaya Gorka 222 Dodola Songs . 227 St. George Songs 229 Semik and Whitsuntide Songs 233 Midsummer Eites 239 Kupilo .... 241 Funeral of Kostroma, or Tarilo 244 Harvest Eites .... 247 CONTENTS. XV Yolos, the Cattle-God . September Customs . The Ovin, or Com-Mln Dmitry's Saturday PAGE 254 257 260 CHAPTjEK rv. MAEBIAGE SONGS. A modern Peasant Wedding Old Slavonian ideas about Marriage Purchase of the Bride Bride's Sorrow at leaviug her Home Her affection towards her Parents Mitigation of Patriarchal Severity Love Songs .... A Bride's Complaint . Songs of Married Life Mythical Wedding Guests . 263 282 283 287 292 293 295 303 305 306 CHAPTER V. FTTNEEAL SONGS. Death Weddings The Eadunitsa . Modern Funeral Eites Funeral Banquets Ghost Banquets Ancient Funeral Rites Human Sacrifices Strava and Trizna 309 310 313 320 321 322 327 331 XVI CONTENTS, PAGE Iiament of Orphans 334 A Widow's Lament 338- Wailings at Graves 343 CHAPTEE VI. SOECEET AND WITCHCEAFT. Zagadkas, or Enigmas . 346 Zagov6rs, or Spells 357 Bnyan, the Elysian Isle 374 The stone Alatuir ........ 376 Wizards and Witches 878 Amulets 387 Cattle-spells 389 Poisoners 393 Cattle-plague Spells 395 Cholera and SmaU-pox 402 Werewolves 404 Vampires 409 History of Eussian Witchcraft . . . . . .417 Mythological Explanations 427 Conclusion 433 THE SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. INTKODUCTORy. Before entering upon the consideration of the more important features of the poetical folk-lore of Russia — the relics of mythic and ritual song, the remains of a wide-spread system of sorcery -which have drifted down to our days in the form of truncated spells, exorcisms, and incantations, and the fragmentary epics or metrical romances called Builinas — before endeavouring to fix the fleeting images they offer of the past, it may be as well to tarry awhile in the present; to trace a rapid outline of the general aspect of Russian popular poetry ; to give some brief account of the songs which are sung on ordinary occasions by the peasantry, of the times and places when and where they are usually to be heard, and of what manner of persons they are who sing them. And perhaps the simplest method of conveying this information will be to describe in a few words what are, so far at least as the younger members of the B 2 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. peasantry are concerned, two of the most popular institutions of Eussia — the Khorovod, or choral dance, and the Posidyelka, or social gathering. As soon as the long winter has fully passed away, and the spring has made its welcome influence felt, the thoughts of the younger members of every village community in Russia begin to turn towards the blended dance and song of the Khorovod. Before long, what are called the vernal Khorovod s are making their voices heard all over the land, to pass successively into those of summer and autumn, before they disappear at the approach of wintry weather. "Whence were derived these circling dances to the sound of song, or at what period they gained their hold upon the Slavonic peoples, neither history nor tradition can say. All that the Russian peasant cares to know about them is, that they formed the favourite solace of generation after generation of his ever-toiling and often sufiering ancestors, and that the songs which belong to them have been for the most part carefully handed down from parent' to child from some remote period of time of which he has but a very vague idea. Nor have the researches of the learned thrown any very clear light on the subject, nothing definite being known even as to the origin of the word Khorovod — one of which the equivalent, among many of the Slavonians, is the simpler term Kolo, a circle. But it is not on the history of the Khorovod that it is proposed to dwell at present, but rather on the songs associated with it, on the poetical delineations SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 3 of Russian social life for which it has offered itsetf as at once canvas and frame, on the long series of versified domestic dramas towards the performance of which it has from immemorial times contributed successive generations of actors. To the student of the popular poetry of Russia the Khorovod is one of the most instructive, as well as interesting, of the institutions of the country. How rich in popular poetry that country is but few foreigners are tho- roughly aware. And indeed there are many of its natives who have but a very shght idea of the poetic wealth amassed by the great body of their country- men — the full appreciation, and the careful study of the songs of the common people being among the results of comparatively recent times. A vein of natural and genuine poetry runs through the thought and speech of the Russian peasant, and so in the songs which accompany him through life there is a true poetic ring. But it is not on their poetic charm alone that their value depends. They have the additiolial merit of frequently offering a faithful picture of the manners of the people by or among whom they are sung; of often echoing the expressions, and embodying the sentiments, of the many millions of Russian men and women of low degree, with whose inner hves it is not easy to become acquainted. As in the Builinas, or " metrical romances," to which the people love to listen, — fragmentary epics dealing with the adventures of princes and heroes,' — the dimly-seen form of the historical past of Russia is supposed by most of their B 2 4 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. commentators to reveal itself; so in the songs of the villagers, by common consent, may be recognized the principal features of the life led -within the family circle by the Russian peasants. On them, remarks one of the principal collectors of his country's popular poetry', their songs have no slight influence. Com- mencing at the side of his cradle, song accompanies the Russian man during the games of his childhood and the sports of his youth, and gives expression to his earliest feelings of love. In the ears of the girls it is always ringing; and if it depicts in sombre hues the unwelcome change from maiden freedom to wedded subjection, it also paints, in glowing colours, the happiness of mutual attachment. To the husband and wife it suggests many a form of loving words, and teaches them how, with croons about the " evil Tartars " of olden days, to lull their babes to sleep, and to soothe the restlessness of their elder children. Song lightens the toil of the working hours, whether carried on out of doors^ amid exposure to sun and wind, and rain and frost, or within the stifling hut, by the feeble Hght of a pinewood splinter ; it enlivens the repose of the holiday, giving animation to the choral dance by day, and the social gathering by night. The younger generation grows up, and song escorts the conscript son to the army, the wedded daughter to her new home, and mourns over the sorrow of the parents of whom their children have taken what may be a last farewell. ' Euibnikof, in. r>. iii. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 5 Then comes the final scene of all, and when the tired eyes are closed for ever, and the weary hands are crossed in peace, song hovers around the silent form, and addresses to its heedless ears passionate words of loving entreaty. Nor does its ministering cease even then, for, as each returning spring brings back the memory of the past together with fresh hopes for the future, song rises again above the graves of the departed, as, after the fashion of their pagan ances- tors, the villagers celebrate their yearly memorial of the dead. "Who composed these songs no one can say, and even what date ought to be assigned to them cannot well be determined. The mythical fragments have evidently come down from heathen times, bearing the unmistakable stamp of great antiquity; and many of the ritual songs, includuig those relating to marriage, have probably been sung for many hundreds of years. But the majority of the songs with which we have to do at present, those used by Khorovod performers, must be referred, so far at least as their present form is concerned, to a much later date. Judging by their structure, says Tereshchenko^, these songs belong to different, but not distant periods. A few of those which will presently be quoted, such as the " Millet Sowing," the " Tit- mouse," and the " Poppy Growing," he attributes to the Sixteenth Century, but the rest to the Seven- teenth or Eighteenth. As to their composers, he - IV. 136. 6 SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. continues, all that we can determine about them is that they must have belonged to the common people, for otherwise they never could have expressed with so much sympathy the simple thoughts and feelings of the villagers, or described with such accuracy, and with so complete a freedom from artificial embellish- ment, the commonplace occurrences of village-life. The latter part of this criticism is not likely to be disputed, but as regards the dates of the songs Tereshchenko's arguments have not been universally accepted as conclusive. When a holiday arrives, in fine spring weather, even the saddest looking of Russian hamlets assumes a lively aspect'. In front of their wooden huts the old people sit " simply chatting in a rustic row," the younger men and women gather together in groups, each sex apart from the other, and talk about their fields and their flocks, their families, and their house- hold afiairs. Across the river they see their horses, free from labour for the day, browsing in the green meadows ; above the copse rises the blue cupola of a neighbouring chiu-ch ; beyond the log-houses a streak of road stretches away into the distance, and loses itself among the woods which darken the plain and fringe the horizon. Along the village street and the slope towards the river stroll the girls in their holiday array, merrily wending towards the open space in which the Khorovods are always held, and singing as they go — ' Terestchenko, iv. I3(i — 140. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 7 The beautifal maidens have come forth • From -within the gates, to wander out of doors. They have carried out with them a nightiagale. And have set the nightingale upon the grass, On the grassy turf, on the blue flowers. The nightingale will break into song, And the beautifal maidens wiU begin to dance ; But the young wives will pour forth tears. " Play on, ye beautiful maidens, While you stiU are at hberty in a father's home. While you still lead a life of ease in the home of a mother." When the appointed spot is reached they form a circle, take hands, and begin moving this way and that, or round and round. If the village is a large one a couple of Khorovods are formed, one at each end of the street, and the two bands move towards each other singing a song which changes, when they blend together, into the Byzantium-remembering chorus — To Tsargorod Will I go, wUl I go. With my lance the wall Will I pierce, will I pierce. After this they proceed with their games and songs under the guidance of the Khorovodnitsa, or leader of the dance. If they become tired of performing by themselves, they invite the village youths to join them, singing — The bright falcons have met in the oak-forest : Into the greenwood have flown the white cygnets. Fluttering about from bush to bush. O SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. Pondering, considering, " How shall we make ourselves nests ? How shall we build ourselves warm nests ?" Didi, Ladi, Didi, Ladushki ! " How shall we maidens form our Khorovod ? How shall we fair ones begin new carols ?" Often, however, the Khorovod remains composed of girls alone, and then she who plays the male part in any of what may be called the little operettas which they perform, sometimes adopts a man's hat or cap, in order to be in keeping with her assumed character. Of these brief metrical dramas, the number of which is considerable, the following may be taken as speci- mens: In the Murmanka ShVyapa, the " Murman Cap*," a drunken Pan, or Lord, comes staggering in, followed by a Pan'ya, or Lady. Presently his cap falls ofi", and he orders the Lady to pick it up. The chorus sings — Prom the Prince has come a drunken Lord, He has dropped his_ Murman cap. To the Lady young the Lord has cried, " Come hither, come hither, O Lady young. Pick up, pick up, my Murman cap." The Lady, in the pride of her maiden liberty, replies — "I, my Lord, am not thy handmaid; I am the handmaid of my father And of my mother." * The Murmanki were large caps, richly adorned with fur, worn in old times by the Grand Dukes and Boyars. The word may possibly be corrupted from the name Norman. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLK. y The chorus recommences — From the Prince has come a drunken Lord, He has dropped his Murman cap. To his Lady young the Lord has cried^ " Come hither, come hither, My Lady young, Pick up, pick up, My sable Murman cap." By this time the Lady has become his wife, so she no longer refuses to obey his commands, but replies with humility, "My Lord, I am thy handmaid, I will pick up thy sable Murman cap, And I will place it on thy daring head\" The idea of the despotic power of the husband is expressed still more strongly in the favourite game of "A Wife's Love." A youth and a girl, or more frequently two girls, one of whom wears a man's hat, take their place in the middle of the circle of singers, who begin^ Wife, I am going. To walk through the bazaar''. Wife, my wifie. Hard is thy heart. Wife, I will buy thee Muslin for a sleeve. Wife, my wifie. Hard is thy heart. See, wife, here is MusHn for a. sleeve. = Tereshchenko, iv. 158. " The Kitai-Gorod, or China-Town of Moscow, is part of the bazaar outside the Kremlin. It takes its name from Kitaigrod in Podolia, the birthplace of Helena, the mother of Ivan the Terrible. 10 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. The husband offers his present. At first his wife will not look at it ; presently she snatches it from his hand, and flings it on the ground. The chorus sings, Grood people, only see ! She does not love her husband at all ! Never agrees with him, never bows down to him, From him turns away ! The second act is similar to the first. The husband buys his wife a golden ring, but it fares no better than his former present. Then comes the third and final act, in which the husband cries — Wife, I will go To the bazaar — Wife, I will buy thee A silken whip. This time when he brings his new offering, and says — There, wife. Is your dear present ! She looks upon him affectionately, he gives her a blow with the whip, and she bows low before him and kisses him, while the chorus sings — Good people, only see ! How well she loves her Lord ! Always agrees with him, always bows down to him, Gives him kisses. And the satisfied husband concludes with the words, Wife, my wifie. Soft is thy heart'. ' Tereshchenko, it. 238. SONGS OP THE KUSSIAN PEOPLE. 11 The subject of wife-beating plays a considerable part in Russian popular poetry. The following song may serve as a specimen of the manner in wHcli it is treated. Across the Don a plank lay, thin and bending ; No foot along it passed. But I alone, the young one, from the hUl, I went along it with my true love dear, And to my love I said : O darling, dear ! Beat not thy wife without a cause. But only for good cause beat thou thy wife. And for a great offence. Far away is my father dear, And farther stiU my mother dear ; They cannot hear my voice, They cannot see my burning tears'. The " MiUet-Sowing," the "Hedge" and the " Beer-Brewing" wiU occur in a later chapter : the " Geese," the " Sparrow," and many others of the same kind, ought to be described among the "games" of which the Russian people possess so rich a store, rather than among their poems, and therefore we will not dwell upon them at present, but there are a few others in which historical allusions occur, and which therefore seem to deserve especial attention. Such, for instance, are the " Titmouse" and the " Oak Bench." The subject of the first is marriage. The Bul- finch, after many unsuccessful attempts, determines to get married ; so his sister, the Titmouse, invites * Shein, i. 103 12 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. the birds to her dwelhng, in order that he may choose a spouse^ The person who represents the Bulfinch wanders about inside the Khorovod, seeking for his bride among its members, who sing — Beyond the sea the Titmouse lived ; not grand, Not sumptuous was her state — but beer she brewed, Bought malt, and borrowed hops. The Blackbird brewed, And the distiller was the Eagle grey. " Grant us, Lord, that we the beer may brew, May brew the beer, the brandy may distil — We will invite as guests the little birds." The widow Owl, though uninvited, came. The Bulfinch wandered through the passages, The Owl caressed the feathers of her head. Among themselves the birds began to say, " Why ever don't you marry, Bulfinch dear?" " Fain would I marry could I find a bride. I'd take the Linnet — only she's my mother. I'd take the Titmouse — only she's my sister. I'd take the Magpie — but she chatters so. But there, across the water, Uves the Quail : Neither my mother nor my aunt is she : Her do I love, and I will marry her'." This song is said to have been written during the reign of Ivan the Terrible (a.d. 1533 — 1684) but to have been prohibited for a time, on account of its containing allusions to the life of a certain influential Boyar. . In the " Oak Bench" a girl sits pensively in the middle of a circle of young people who, with linked hands, move around her, singing — " Tereshchenko, n'. 280. SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 13 By the river side Lies an oaken bench, An oaken plank — On that oaken bench Sits a fair young Swede, In a blue pelisse. With a girdle of silk. Presently some of the youths leave the circle and lay hands on her — There have come dragoons, Young cavahers, They have seized, have laid hold of the Swedish woman. Have set her in a carriage, Have taken her along the banks of the Moskva. The prisoner begins to weep, on which some of the youths console her, others strike up merry music, and the rest break into a lively dance — The Swedish woman has begun to weep piteously. But the dragoons console her. They strike upon their drums. They tootle on their fifes. At the sight of so much merriment the captive forgets her sorrows, and joins her warders in the dance, while the chorus sings — The Swedish woman has grown more joyous, The Swede has begun to dance. And having danced she has bowed low. Well done ! 0, ye dragoons ! Ye know how to seize a Swedish woman. And at consoling a Swedish woman are ye expert '. ' Tereshchcnko, it. ic5. 14 SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. This song is one of many similar relics of the war between Peter the Great and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. But such chants as this, although rendered in- teresting by their historical associations, are not remarkably poetic. It may be as well, therefore, before going farther, to give some specimens of songs which possess intrinsic as well as accidental merit, prefacing them, however, by a few words of deprecatory criticism. There are two points in which these dramatic sketches of Russian hfe may seem defective to foreign eyes — they may appear to lack variety of form, and still more to be wanting in contrast of colour. Nor can it be denied that they are often monotonous and sombre. In former days, at least, the ideas of their composers not unnaturally revolved in a narrow circle. In the choice of their themes, the popular poets seldom ventured off the beaten track ; in the treatment of their subjects they rarely deviated from the ordinary method. And the tone of their compo- sitions, undoubtedly, is apt to be painfully subdued. Although one of the saddest features of Russian peasant hfe, the slavery which weighed so heavily on the mass of the people from the time of Boris Godunof to that of Alexander II., is seldom, if ever, alluded to in the popular songs, yet a settled gloom too often prevails in many of the pictures they offer, unbroken by a sparkle of high light, unrelieved by a touch of warm colour. In this, however, they are not out of keeping with the landscape of certain SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 15 parts of Russia, suggestive as they are of grey plains dotted witli sad brown huts, or of dark forests where no sound is heard but the sighing of the wind through the pines. But such drawbacks being ad- mitted, it is only fair to recognize the merits also of these songs of the people — the untutored freshness of their thought, the nervous vigour of their lan- guage, the musical ring of their versification, their complete freedom from the sickly affectation, the wearisome sentimentality, and the tawdry ornamenta- tion of the mopk pastorals and spuiious idylls of the age in which very many of them were composed. Unfortunately it is next to impossible to give in a translation, however faithful it may be, any idea of the greater part of these merits. The stuffed nightingale of the taxidermist is but a poor exchange for the living songster of the wood- land. Love is, of coiu"se, the inspirer of the great majority of these songs, but it is generally the darker side of love which they reveal ; it is on its sorrows, its dis- appointments, its betrayals, that they lay most stress. The separation of lovers, for instance, is one of their favourite themes. Generally it is a girl who bewails her lot, lamenting over the departure of him who is so dear to her. Such is the case, for instance, in the following lyric — Yalley of mine, sweet valley ! O thou wide valley ! Within that valley A Guelder-rose tree grew. 16 SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. And on that tree There sat a Cuckoo kookooing. " Wherefore, my Cuckoo, Art thou kookooing ? " " Wherefore, sad maiden, Art thou sorrowing ? " " How can I, poor Cuckoo, Cease from kookooing ? " " How can I, sad maiden. Cease from sorrowing ? " " One green garden had I — And that is withering ! " " One dear friend had I— And he is departing ! Alone does he leave me. The young one, alone M " Sometimes it is the youth who mourns for a lost love — stolen away from him perhaps by a richer rival. " Why, Dove, art thou so joyless ? " How can I, poor Dove, be joyous ? Late last night my mate was with me. My mate was with me, on one wing she slept. Slept on one wing, embraced me with the other. With the other embraced me, calling me her dear one. " Dear beloved one ! Dovelet blue ! Sleep, yet do not sleep, my dovelet. Only do not, sleeping, lose me, darling." The Dove awoke, his mate was gone ! Hither, thither, he flung himself, dash'd himself, Hither, thither, in homes of Nobles, Homes of Kobles, Princes, Merchants. In a Merchant's garden did I find my Dove, In a Merchant's garden, underneath an apple-tree ; ' Shein, i. 310. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 17 Underneath an appk-tree, wounded sore with, shot 4 The Merchant's son had wounded my Dove, Wounded her with a weapon of gold ^ But the desertion is generally on the part of the " good youth." The girl's heart remains faithful to its love. Misty is the sunlight, misty; None the sun can see. Mournful is the maiden, mournful: None her grief can tell. Not her father dear, nor her mother dear. Nor her sister dear, dovelet white. Mournful is the maiden, mournful. " Canst not thou find a solace for thy woe? Canst not thou thy dear Mend forget ? Neither by day nor yet by night, Neither at dawn nor by the evening glow ?'' Thus did the maiden in her grief reply — " Then only my dear love will I forget. When my swift feet shall under me give way. And to my side my hands fall helplessly ; What time my eyes are filled with dust, And coffin boards my bosom white conceal*." When her lover is taken from her, a girl is some- times described as being so crushed by the blow that she can mb longer endure to live. Such a despair as this is described in a song which commences with a broken-hearted youth's complaint — " Keep watch no more by night, dear love, The waxen taper burn no more, ^ Shein, i. 323. The last line is translated from another copy. * Sakharof, I. iii. 208. 18 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. No more await me at the midniglit hour. Ah me ! our sunny days have passed away, The stormy wind has carried off our joys, And scattered them across the open plain ! My father has arranged, My mother has enjoined, That I should take another as my wife ! There blaze not in the sky two suns, Nor shine two moons, Nor can the youth's heart two loves know. My father I will not disobey. My mother's behests I will fulfil. And I wiU take another as my wife — Another will I wed — Death early wooed, • Death early wooed by violence !" Then melted into tears the maiden fair. And thus with tears she spake : " Oh thou, my love, my eye's delight! , No dweller in the white light will I be When thou art gone, my source of hope ! The swan knows not two mates. Two mates the dove knows not, Nor I two loves." No longer keeps she watch by night, But still the waxen taper burns. Upon the table stands a coffin new, "Within the coffin lies the maiden fair^ A maiden whose parents wish her to marry a stranger and give up her " hope, her heart's beloved," exclaims in her grief — Forth will I go To the meadows green. With outcry loud On Harm will I call. ' Sakharof, I. iii. 208. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLK. 19 " Come hither, come hither, • Ye beasts of prey ! Here is luscious food — Come tear me to shreds ! Only leave untouched My beating heart, And bear it away To the hands of my dear one. Ah ! there let him see How fondly I loved him^." Sometimes it is death that steps in between two lovers and separates them for ever. Here is part of a song expressing the passionate grief of a youth whose " dovelet dear," whose " sweet cygnet," has piassed away " at the rising of the bright sun." O winds, warm winds. Warm autumn winds. Breathe not, ye are not wanted here. But hither fly ye stormy winds From the Northern side ; Asunder rend moist mother earth, And furrowing the open field, The open, sweeping plain, Reveal to me the coffin planks. And let me for the last of times. To my beloved one say farewell'. And here is a shghtly modified extract from another, in which is heard the wailing of a " fair maiden" at the death-bed of her lover. As he lies there in his last agony, at his right hand stand his father and mother, on his left his brother and his sister. At the • ' Sakharof, I. iii. 206. ' Sakharof, i iii. 204. c 2 20 SONOS OF THE ETJSSIAN PEOPLE, head of his couch are his friends. " Opposite his heart" stands the " fair maiden" weeping and bitterly lamenting. If God -would grant my love his health. Were it but for one idle day, Though it were only for one little hour — Then would I wander with my love. Would tread the mossy turf, Would pluck the flow'rets blue, • Would weave a garland for my love, And place it on my darling's head. Then homewards leading him in glad content, Would say, " My hope, my love ! We two will keep together, love, Nor part, my darling, till at death We say farewell for ever to the light : Leaving behind us some such fame as this — That we two loved each other tenderly, And loyally, my love, together died^" To the tears of a wife the songs attach less impor- tance than to those of " a dear friend," or of a mother or a sister. In one instance a brave youth lies dead beside a thicket in the plain — There weeps his mother — as a river runs ; There weeps his sister — as a streamlet flows ; There weeps his youthful wife — as falls the dew. The sun will rise and gather up the dew*. And indeed a d^ing husband often seems to think less about the sorrow of his wife than about that of his parents and his children — • Sakharof, i. iii 207. " Sakharof, i. iii. 209. SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 21 Not for my kinsman do I grieve, Nor for my youthful wife — But for my little ones I grieve. My darling little ones are left. Dear little tiny innocents, To suffer pangs of hunger and of cold'. Not only do the songs frequently describe the in- difference vrhich is likely to attend upon marriages contracted without the intervention of love, but they find a fruitfiil theme in the hatred into which that indifference sometimes deepens. Many of the most striking among them are devoted to tales of crime, especially to stories of poisoning. One of them, for instance, which is said to be founded on fact, de- scribes with repulsive realism the murder of an old , husband by his young and faithless wife. But it is generally the husband who makes away with his wife, sometimes merely because he is tired of her, some- times in order that he may fill her place with one who is nearer to his heart. It is generally by the agency of poison that a husband rids himself of the wife who has become an encumbrance — Thanks, thanks to the blue pitcher ! It has rid me of my cares, my longings ! Not that cares afflicted me. My real affliction was my wife. " Hast not thou long been aHing, wife ? Get worse and worse then, wife, Make haste to die ! Then shall I lead a freer life." ' Sakharof, i. iii. 204. 22 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. I will take a sharp axe ; I will seek the green copse ; I will fell a young pine ; I will build a new room; I will set in it a glazed stove. And I wUl take to myself a young wife, And to my children a cruel stepmother. But the children answered him and said : " Be thou burnt with fire, thou new room ! And do thou die, cruel stepmother ! But rise, rise again, our own mother dear^ ! " In many cases the poisoner is a girl, who, driven wild by passion or hate, avenges her real or fancied wrongs by the deadly cup. Through the meadow she went The wicked one ; She dug for an evil root. " I dug for the evil root. Deep, deep down ! I washed the evil root. White, all white ! I dried the evil root Dry, all dry ! I pounded the evil root. Small, so small. I dressed the evil root. Dressed it — and meant it For my cruel love. To the lot of my own dear brother That evil root fell. ' Shein, I. 358. The epithet applied to the stepmother is a purely conventional one. Just as in the songs an axe is always called sharp, a pitcher blue, a hand white, a girl beautiful, and a youth or a horse "good," so is the stepmother always styled lihhaya, malicious. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 23 At eventide, my brother Began to moan. At midnight, my brother Called for the priest. With the grey Hght, my brother Passed away. " Bury me, my sister Between three roads ; The Petersburg and the Moscow And the road that leads to Tver. All who pass by Win pray to God, And on thee, sister, A curse invoked" In one song, which bears the stamp of a foreign origin, and is probably of a mythical character, a sister intentionally offers a deadly draught to her brother, with the design of consuming him with fire. He happens, however, to let a drop fall from the cup on his horse's mane, which instantly begins to burn. Thereupon he cuts off her head at once, remarking that she is a snake and no sister of his. But this piece of oriental savagery is merely a lyrical setting either of ideas connected with the old and deeply rooted belief in witchcraft, of which an account will be given in another chapter, or of some mytholo- gical fragment which has given rise to various stories of a somewhat similar kind ; as, for instance, that of Arthur's narrow escape from death at the hands of Guendolen — an incident which Sir Walter Scott bor- rowed, in his "Bridal of Triermain," from theGerman ' Shein, i. 328. 24 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. tale of how Count Otto of Oldenburg was invited by a fairy maiden to drink from a magic horn, and how he let a poriion of the proffered beverage fall on his white steed, the hair of which it immediately burnt off*. But whatever may be its origin, it decidedlymust not be looked upon as in any way typical of the rela- tions existing between brothers and sisters in Russia. On these relations the Russian songs do not dwell nearly so much as the Servian, but still there are to be found among them expressions of brotherly or sis- terly love or regret. Of such a nature is the follow- ing lament, which is interesting, moreover, inasmuch as it contains one of the allusions to the Tartars — those terrible enemies who used to overrun the land — which are to be met with in Russian popular poetry so much less often than might have been expected. In his garden green A youth sowed flowers, And having sown them, wept, " Ah me ! blue flow'rets dear, Who is to water you ? To shelter you from evil frosts ? My father and my mother are too old, A sister had I once, But she for water to the Danube went. Was she drowned in the Danube's waves ? Was she lost in the forest dark ? Did the wolves her body rend ? Or evil Tartars carry her away ? In the Danube had she been drowned. Turbid with sand the Danube's waves would roll ; * Thorpe's Northern Mjthology, III. 128, Deutsche Sagm, 54,i. SONGS OF THE ETJSSUN PEOPLE. 25 If the wolves had her body rent, Scattered across the plain her bones would lie. If the Tartars had carried her off. Surely some tidiugs would have reached my ears '." In one instance a husband's mere wish proves fatal to his " evil wife." It must be remembered that death was usually represented by the Slavonians, unless under strong ecclesiastical influence, as a female being. Against my will was I married ; I have taken an evil wife. An evil one, not to my Hking, Neither in feeling nor thought. Lovingly Hve with her — that will I not. Across the stream will I go. Love will I make to the girls. As for that wife of mine I will go pray for her death. Along the bank of the stream Death, the beautiful, goes. " Ho there ! My beautiful Death I Turn thee back again, Death ! Make an end of my wife ! " Scarce had I spoken — when Death Began her work with my wife. Scarce had I time to look round — Shrouded in linen white was her corpse I Struck was the stroke on the bell*. One more extract may be given, in which an unna- tural husband longs for his wife's death. The cry of A^oo' which occurs in it is the Slavonic equivalent * Sakharof, l. iii. 205. ' Shein, I. 356. ' The vowel sounds a, u, pronounced as in Italian. 26 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. of the Australian Ooo-ey, and is a call with which the woods of Russia may be heard ringing in summer and autumn, when the young people wander through them gathering nuts and berries — Out in the dreamy woods, There goes wandering a fair maiden, That fair maiden, darling Mashenka. Masha was gathering berries and mushrooms. Ere she'd gathered her berries and mushrooms, She lost her way in the gloomy forest, Began to A-oo to her dear friend. " A-oo ! A-oo ! Thou dear friend. Not far art thou, dear ; wilt not thou answer to my call." " I cannot answer to thy call. For over me are watchers three — Watchers three — three stern ones they. The first watcher — my wife's father, The second watcher — my wife's mother, The third watcher — my young wife." " We will find him, we will consume him with fire ; Consume him with fire; cast him into the swift stream." " Oh ! arise, thou terrible storm-cloud ! Strike dead my wife's father ! Pierce her mother with thy arrow, Beat my young wife to death with the rush of rain ! But spare, spare, the fair maiden, The fair maiden my olden love*." In the next song the " olden love " dies, and the news of her death is brought to him to whom she used to be dear, but with whom fate has not allowed her to be linked — ' Shein, i. 341. SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 27 From under tlie stone, tlie wliite stone. Fire blazes not, nor pitch seettes, But a youth's heart is seething. Not for his father dear, nor for his mother dear, Nor for a young wife well-beloved. Seethes the heart of the youth; But for a maiden well beloved. For her who used to be his love. " There had reached me broken tidings That the maiden fair was iU. Quickly follows them a letter — The maiden fair is dead. I will sadly to the stable : Lead my good — my best horse forth. Hasten to the church of God, Tie my horse beside the bel&y, Stamp upon the mould. Spht open, damp Mother Earth ! Fly asunder, ye coffin planks ! Unroll, brocade of gold ! Awake, awake, maiden fair, O maiden fair, my olden love ' ! " A great number of the songs are devoted to the sorrows of a young wife, condemned to Hve with an old and uncongenial husband. The following is one of the most characteristic of her complaints. It may be as well to take this opportunity of remarking that when poetry which deals with the various relation- ships of married Hfe has to be rendered into English, the poverty of our own family nomenclature, com- pared with that of Russia, is very cramping to a translator. Such odious terms as father-in-law, mother-in-law, and the rest of the endearing appella- ' Quoted from an old MS. by Shein, I. 324. 28 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. tions of a spouse's kinsfolk so ominously terminating in law, are all but inadmissible, and it is absolutely impossible to find Bnglisk equivalents for many of tlie numerous Slavonic names for persons mutually affected by the various degrees of consanguinity and connexion. Inherited by the Slavonians from their Aryan ancestors in Central Asia, they have been retained by them in many instances all but intact, and they remain among them to bear witness to the strength of their domestic attachments, to the vigour of their family life. The "Wipe. Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage goes my husband's father, Angrily about it keeps he pacing. Choeus. Thumping, scolding, thumping, scolding, Never lets his daughter sleep. Fathee-in-Law. Up, up, up, thou sloven there ! Up, up, up, thou sluggard there ! Slovenly, slatternly, sluggardish slut ! The "Wipe. Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage goes my husband's mother, Angrily about it keeps she pacing. Chorus. Thumping, scolding, thumping, scolding. Never lets her daughter sleep. songs op the eussian people. 29 Motheb-ik-Law. Tip, up, up ! thou sloven there ! Up, up, up ! thou sluggard there ! Slovenly, slatternly, sluggardish slut ! The Wife. Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage steals my well-beloved one. All so lightly, softly, keeps he whisp'ring. The Lovee. Sleep, sleep, sleep, my darling one ! Sleep, sleep, sleep, my precious one ! Driven out, thrown away, married too soon' ! If the last song was dark with discontent, the next is expressive of the utter blackness of despair. The word rendered in it by sorrow is the Russian Oore meaning misfortune, calamity, woe, a beiag who, as wiU be seen farth^ on, often figures in the popular tales — as for instance, in that in which a poverty- stricken wretch tries to keep up appearances by sing- ing, and hears another voice in unison with his own, for which he cannot account until he discovers that it belongs to Gore — ^to misery, who is keeping him company. The fish into which sorrow is supposed in the song to turn itself, is the Byelaya Buibitsa, a large Caspian fish, probably the largest with which the poet was acquainted. ' Shein, I. 336. 30 SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. Whither shall I, the fair maiden, flee from sorrow ? If I fly from Sorrow into the dark forest, After me runs Sorrow with an axe. " I will fell, I will fell the green oaks ; I will seek, I will find the fair maiden." If I fly from Sorrow into the open field, After me runs Sorrow with a scythe. " I will mow, I will mow the open field ; I will seek, I will find the fair maiden." Whither then shall I flee from Sorrow ? If I rush from Sorrow into the blue sea — After me comes Sorrow as a huge fish. " I will drink, I will swallow the blue sea : I will seek, I will find the fair maiden." If I seek refiige from Sorrow in marriage — Sorrow follows me as my dowry. If I take to my bed to escape from Sorrow — Sorrow sits beside my pillow. And when I shall have fled from sorrow into the damp earth — Sorrow will come after me with a spade. Then will Sorrow stand over me, and cry triumphantly, " I have driven, I have driven, the maiden into the damp earth^." As these dolorous laments might leave on the mind of the reader the erroneous impression that Russian popular poetry is of a morbid character, it will be as well to give at least one specimen of a love-song, in which the pathetic does not deepen into the tragic. /The little wild birds have come flying From beyond the sea, the blue sea. The little birds go fluttering About the bushes, over the open field, All have their mates and rejoice in love. " Shein, l. 322. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 31 Only the good youtli, Alexandrushka, A homeless orphan in the wide world, Grieves like a pining -cuckoo, And melts away in burning tears. The poor lad has no one, No one in the wide world to fondle him, No one ever brings joy to the orphan. Uttering words of kind endearment. >^ Should he go out into the open field — There to trample underfoot his cares, His misery and his bitter longing — His longing and his misery not to be shaken off — • Or should he go out into the dark forest, His sorrow will not fly away. The heart of the good youth Is eaten up with care. He fades, he withers in his loneliness, Like a blade of grass in the midst of a wild plain. To the youth not even God's light is dear ! But Dunya dear has taken pity On the poor fellow, on the orphan. She has caressed the homeless one, She has spoken to him terms of endearment. The beautiful maiden has fallen in love With the lad, Alexandrushka — She has covered him with her silken veil. She has called him her darling, her beloved one — And his sorrow and sighing have passed away'. .- During the summer months, as has already been observed, it is in the Khorovods that songs are chiefly to be heard, their period varying in different locahties, and being most prolonged in the neighbourhood of towns or in places where manufactories bring together large numbers of young people. In the villages, as ' Tereshchenko, ii. 315. Sakharof, i. iii. 130. 32 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. soon as the harvest and other field-labours are over, and the evenings begin to grow dark and long, com- mence the social gatherings of the young people called Posidyelld, Besyedui, Dosvithi, etc. In the greater part of Russia the Posidyelka prevails — so called from posidyef, to sit awhile. This is how it is described by Tereshchenko : — When the appointed evening comes, the village girls take their work to a cottage selected for the purpose, and there spend some hours in spinning and combing flax, hemp, and wool. As they sit at their work they lighten it with much laughter and chattering, discussing their domestic aflFairs, or the character of their sweethearts, or they sing such songs as — " Spin, my spinner ! Spin, idle not ! '' " Gladly would I have spun, But to the neighbour's I'm called At the Besyeda to feast." or- The green copse All night moaned — But I, poor Dunya, All night sat up. Waiting for my love*. At first they all spin away steadily, but about a couple of hours after supper-time they throw aside their work, and take to playing games. By degrees the youths make their appearance, and exchange greetings with the girls. After a time the distaffs, * Tereshchenko, t. 156. SONGS OP THE KUSSIAM PEOPLE. 33 spindles, combs, and hackles are put away, and the young people begin dancing to the sound of reed pipes, balalaikas, and other musical instruments, or of songs sung by the girls in chorus, such as — Remember, dear, remember, My former love. How we two together, my own, would wander. Or sit through the dark autumnal nights. And whisper sweet secret words. " Thou, my own, must never tnarry. I, the maiden, will never wed." Soon, very soon, my love has changed her mind : " Marry, dear, marry ! I am going to wed\" Sometimes the songs are of a very melancholy ^nature, as, for instance : — Oak wood, dear oak wood, Green oak wood of mine ! Why moaning so early ? Low bending thy boughs ? From thee, from the oak wood. Have all the birds flown ? One bird still lingers, The cuckoo so sad, Day and night singing kookoo. She never is still. Of the wandering falcon The cuckoo complains. He has torn her warm nest. He has scattered her young. Her cuckoolings dear. In her lofty chamber A maiden fair sits ; By the window she weeps ' Tereshchenko, Y. 157. 3i SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. As a rivulet flows, . As a spring wells she sobs. Of the wandering youth The maiden complains — Trom her father and mother He lured her away To a strange far off home. Strange, far off, unknown, He has lured her — and now Fain would fling her aside". In the middle of a series of such melancholy songs as these, the girls will suddenly begin to dance. " The performers (says Tereshchenko) stand facing each other, and beat time to the music with their feet; then they turn round in opposite . directions, change places, and anew stamp on the ground, and anew turn round." If they dance to the sound of song, the women and girls form a circle around them, as in the Khoroyod, and sing what are called- plyasovuiya pyesni, dance-songs — from plyasdf, to dance. Here is a specimen. In the original, each alternate line is composed of the exclamation, Akh! moy BozMn'ha! followed by a repetition of the last words of the preceding line -.-^ Ah ! on the hill a pine-tree stands ! Ah ! dear Lord ! a pine-tree stands ! Under the pine a soldier lies ! Ah ! dear Lord ! a soldier lies ! Over the soldier a black steed stands, With its right hoof tearing up the ground, Water it seeks for its soldier lord. ' Tereshelienko, T. 1J9. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 35 " Water, my steed, thou wilt not find. From the ground the soldier will never rise. Gallop, my steed, by bank and brae, By bank and brae, gallop on to my home. There will come to greet thee a grey-haired dame. That grey-haired dame is my mother dear. There will come to greet thee a lady fair — That lady fair is my youthful wife — To greet thee will little lordhngs come — Those little lordlings my children are. They wiU join in caressing thee, my steed — They will join in questioning thee, my steed. Say not, my steed, that I bleeding lie — But tell them I serve in my troop, dark steed, In my troop I serve, my st«p I gain." His death gains the soldier beneath the pine. His death ! dear Lord ! beneath the pine '. To the Posidyelld of Great-Russia correspond the Little-Russian DosvitM, so called because the young people keep up their amusements do svita, till the dawn, and the White-Russian SwpretM. On spring and summer evenings, also, are held social festivals which often last all night, and which in White-Russia are called Bozhinld, and in Little-Russia Vechernitsui — from vecher, evening. These Vechernitsui often led in old times to quarrels, and even to murders, among the hot-blooded Cossacks; but it is said that it was always very rare for them to be accompanied by any bad consequences so far as the girls who took part in them were concerned. Each girl is attended at these gatherings by her regular and acknowledged sweetheart, and his attentions almost ' Tereshchenko, T. 165. ;d 2 36 SONGS OF THE KUSSIAN PEOPLE. always end in marriage. ' This is the case, also," at the Posidyelld, Sesyedui, etc., of Great Russia. A sin- gular amount of liberty is conceded to the rustic lover, but he would meet with general reprobation were he to take advantage of his position, and then attempt to evade making amends for his wrong-doing. Of the Besyedas in the Olonets Government — one of those outlying districts in the north-east of Eussia, in which the songs of old times have been best preserved — a very pleasant and picturesque account has been given by Ruibnikof, a collector to whom students of Eussian folklore are deeply in- debted. "When October comes, he says, the young men of each village choose some clean and spacious cottage, and meet in it almost every evening during the winter months. These gatherings commence at seven o'clock, and last till a late hour. Each of the men pays the owner of- the cottage from two to three kopecks a night for the right of entry, or from twenty-five to thirty [from tenpence to a shilling] for the whole season. When music is required, they make a special collection for the purpose. As a general rule the girls are admitted free, but in some districts they pay their share of the expenses. If we follow the guidance of Euibnikof to one of these merry gatherings, we find ourselves in a spa- cious izba — a term applied to the whole cottage as well as to its "keeping-room". Its ceiling is made of interlacing planks. On the left of the door is a brick stove, with ample space between it and the wall, and liberal accommodation for sleepers on the polati, or SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 37 raised flooring carried from tte stove to tlie opposite side of the room. Along the walls stretch, benches, and above them shelves. One of the walls is pierced by three windows, the middle one of which, called the red or fair window, is somewhat larger than the others, and at the end of that wall is the corner of honour where stand the iconui, or holy pictures, with a lamp burning before them. The scene is Kghted up by a number of candles placed on the cross beams and shelves. Before long the room becomes fuU. Not only the immediate neighbours, but also the lads and lasses from the surrounding villages have met together, some of them coming from places as much as eight or nine mUes distant. The girls occupy the benches extending from the stove to the centre window, dressed for the most part in thin chemises with short sleeves, and in red sarafans, or stuff petticoats, fastened at the waist with a girdle of ribbon. Eound their necks are thrown handkerchiefs of different colours, but not so as to hide their necklaces of glass beads. In their ears are large earrings, also of glass. On their heads they wear a network of horsehair, decorated with lace and beads, to which some add a sort of ornamented coronet of glass beads. The old people and the married couples sit near the stove and take no active part in the amusements, unless it be that here and there some old woman holds a lighted fir wood splinter for the benefit of the guests. , Near the door stands the owner of the cottage and collects the entrance-money. The young men stroL. about on the 38 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. side opposite ttat occupied by the girls, most of them dressed in' blue caftans, though here and there a hurlah, a man who is in the habit of working for wages in Petersburg, wears a long surtout, " or even a Palmerston-Paletot*." After a time the amusements of the evening begin, games and dances following each other in regular order, attended by songs, which are not chosen capri- ciously at the will of the singers, but are accepted in accordance with the dictates of established usage. Hour after hour the singing goes on until the party breaks up, the lights are put out, and, escorted by their " dear friends," the girls speed home across the snow. It would be gasy to give picture after picture of a similar kind, in which should be portrayed the bright side of social life among those Russian peasants who remain faithful to the old manners and customs of their ancestors. But to do full justice to the sub- ject a whole volume would be required, and not a mere introductory chapter. And so we will tarry no longer in the region of the picturesque, but will pro- ceed to clear the way for the discussion of the mythi- cal arid ritual or ceremonial songs which have to follow, by giving a rapid sketch of some divisions of the general subject which have not yet been noticed. The songs which have been quoted in the preceding pages belong for the most part to the class of those called Ooiosovuiya (golos = voice) or Protyuzhntiiya, ' Kuibnikof, iii. 42? — 429. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 39 rUg drawn out (protyagdf, to prolong). One of* ttem, however — that of the wounded soldier — has already been referred to the division of the Plya- sovuiya, or dance-songs. The song in which the wife begs not to be beaten except for good cause, is ranked in the collection from which it is taken among the Obryddnuiya, or Ritual and Cere- monial Songs, inasmuch as it specially belongs to the Obrydd [feast or ceremony] of the Tololca, or friendly assistance rendered to a man by his neighbours at harvest time. Of the Obryddnuiya Pyesni, by far the most important class of Russian songs ', a detailed account will be given farther on, those of a mythical nature being taken together, and the Svddebnuiya Pyesni, or Marriage Songs, \_8vad'ba = marriage] of which one or two specimens have already been given, being discussed in a separate chapter, as also will be the ZapldcJiki, or Wailings for the Dead. Of five other diAQsions, to which a considerable space has been devoted by Sakharof in his collection, it wiU be sufficient merely to give a few specimens. Of these five divisions, four comprise, together with some others, the " Cossack Songs," " Robber Songs," " Soldier Songs," and " Historical Songs," most of which may be arranged together as descendants or imitators of the old semi-historical poetry of Russia. There exist in the memories of the people, as has already been observed, a vast number of poems called Builinas^ ' The word " song " is used here in the sense in which we gene- rally employ it. The Russian term Pyesni is applied to poems of all kinds, epic as well as lyric. 40 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. fragmentary epics, to wBicli neither ottr metrical ro- mances nor our historical ballads exactly correspond, although they ofifer certain points of resemblance — and the -historical songs, and most of the others of which we have just spoken, are generally written in the same style and metre as the Builinas, and often contain scraps of poetry which have been borrowed from thefn. As a general rule, however, there is not much poetry to be found in the " Soldier Songs," or " Historical Songs " in Sakharof s collection. As for the " popular poetry " laboriously produced now- a-days in the towns, and unblushingly fathered upon soldiers and gipsies, it is not worthy of serious notice, contrasting as it does most unfavourably with that which flowed spontaneously in olden days from the well of Russian undefiled. Here and there, however, in remote parts of the country, the old Slavonic faculty of improvisation still lives among the peasantry, and sometimes gives birth to metrical effusions which are caught up by their hearers, and so added to the common stock of current song. " Almost every woman," says Ruibnikof, speaking of the neighbourhood of Lake Onega, " can give ex- pression to her feelings of distress, either by construct- ing a new lament (zapldchka) , or by adapting an old one to the circumstances." And he proceeds to speak of a aapldchka improvised by a young woman of the neighbourhood. A first cousin of hers died, and all the family bitterly lamented his loss. But his cousin's grief was expressed in a lyrical form with such force and clearness, that her zcupldchlca immediately ac- SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 41 quired notoriety, and was adopted by other women, wto now sing it whenever a similar calamity befalls them'. Some idea of its nature may be obtained from the following extract, which forms about a third of the whole : — Against my mother do I make complaint. Who did not let me go, unhappy me. To him, the dear, the loved. My cousin dear. Grieving I would have sat The sick, the painful bed beside. Sadly would I have begged My cousin dear to speak. Perchance to me he might have spoken, said If only just one secret word Which I would then have sadly told To my dear aunt beloved. Unhappy that I am, I would have given To death, swift-footed, keen. My raiment gay. My pleasant way of Hfe, And all my golden store ungrudgingly . . . But never would have let my cousin dear depart^. Of the Cossack and Robber Songs given by Sak- harof, and the other songs called Udaluiya — bold, daring, courageous, etc. — some are not a little pro- saic ; but there are also many of them that are as remarkable for their freshness and vigour, as for the interesting nature of the historical allusions they contain. The Cossack Songs are generally about the Don or the Volga ; along the banks of those rivers ride the Cossack horse, or on their waters float the ' Euibnikof, ui. xlvii. "^ Euibnikof, ni. 423. 42 SONGS -OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. Cossack boats. In one song a young Cossack, riding away on a foray, sorrowfully parts from his betrothed ; in another he sends from his last field a farewell message to his home. In all of them breathe the same feelings of courage, of loyalty, of independence, the same attachment to a fi:"ee life, the same con- tempt for death. Of the Tsar himself they speak, as a general rule, with devotion ; but his messengers are not always treated with respect. One of the songs, for instance, describes how a great Boyar (probably a certain Prince Dolgoruky), starts from Moscow for " the quiet Don Ivanovich," boast- ing that he will hang up all the Cossacks. They, suspecting his intention, meet together and form a great circle, in the middle of which he takes his stand and begins to read aloud " the Tsar's Ukases." When he comes to the royal titles the Cossacks all doff their caps, but he keeps his on, — Thereupon they rose in commotion. Flung themselves upon the Boyar, Cut off his proud head. And threw his white body into the quiet Don ; And having killed him, they said to his corpse, — " Respect, Boyar, the Gosudar, Don't go glorying or giving yoxirself airs before him." Then they went to the Tsar with their confession :: — " thou. Father orthodox Tsar ! Judge us according to a just decision. Order to be done to us what pleaseth thee. Thou art master of our bold heads':" ' Sakhai-of, I. iii. 238. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 43 A subject wbich is frequently treated iu the songs is that of a Cossack who lies grieving in a dark prison. In one instance he entreats his parents to ransom him, but they say they cannot do so ; then he turns to the " fair maiden" whom he loves, and she immediately hastens to release him. In another song a prisoner who has lain for twenty-two years in " a dark dungeon without windows or doors," within the white stone walls of " the famous city of Azof," hears " His Sultanic Majesty, the Turkish Tsar himself" go by, and calls out to him, demand- ing that he may be set free, adding, — If thou dost not order me to be let out, I will at once write a letter. Not with pen and ink, But with my burning tears. To my comrades on the quiet Don. The glorious, quiet Don wiU rise in anger ; The whole Cossack circle will fly to arms ; They will shatter the Turkish forces, And lead thee, Tsar, away into captivity. On hearing this " His Sultanic Majesty" immediately cries to his " field-marshals," — " Set free the brave youth, The brave youth, the Don Cossack, Let him go to his Russian land. To his White Tsar*." Of a more poetic nature is the following address to the favourite river of the Cossacks : — * Sakharof, I. iii. 237- 44 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. Father of ours ! famous, quiet Don ! Don Ivanovich, our nourisher ! " Great praise of thee is spoken, Great praise and words of honour. That thou didst swiftly run in olden days, Swiftly but all clearly didst thou run. But now, our nourisher, all troubled dost thou flow, Troubled unto thy depths art thou, Don. Then glorious, quiet Don thus made reply, — " How otherwise than troubled can I be ? I have sent forth my falcons bright, My falcons bright, the Don-Kazaks. Deprived of them my steep banks crumble down. Deprived of them my shoals are thick with sand'." And so is this description of a battle with the Tartars : — Beyond the famous river Utva, Among the Utvinsk hiUs, In a wide valley, A cornfield was ploughed. Not with the plough was the field ploughed, But with keen Tartar spears. Not with a harrow was the field harrowed, But with swift feet of horses. Not with rye, nor with wheat, was the field sown, But that cornfield was sown With bold Cossack heads. Not with rain was it moistened, Not with strong autumn showers ; That field was moistened With burning Cossack tears". Most of what have been styled the " Eobber ' Sakharof, i. iii. 240. " Sakharof, i. iii. 243. SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 45 Songs " are reminiscences of the famous insnrrection of the Don Cossacks, headed by Stenka Eazin, against the Tsar Alexis MikhaUovich. For several years that insurgent chief maintained his power along the course, not only of the Don, but also of the Yolga., forcing the merchant-ships which sailed down that river to pay him tribute, and at times setting the country iu a blaze, from Simbirsk to the Caspian. Both on land and on the rivers, as well as on the Caspian Sea, he long set the forces of the Tsar at defiance. Once he surrendered, and promised to live peaceably, but he soon broke out into even more furious revolt than before. At last he was beaten tiear Simbirsk, and soon afterwards was taken pri- soner and sent to Moscow, where he was put to a cruel death in the year 1672. In one of the Songs the Sun is entreated to rise " above the high hUl, above the green oak wood, above the landmarks of the brave youth Stepan Timofeevich, called Stenka Razin," for the thick fogs of night lie heavy on the hearts of the insurgents : — Rise, rise, red Sun, Give warmth to us, poor sufferers. No thieves are we, nor highwaymen. We are the workmen of Stenka Razin. Our oars we wave — a ship we board, Our maces' we wave — a caravan we seize, A hand we wave — a maiden we carry off'. ' The Kisten is a metal ball to which a leather strap or a short wooden handle is attached, a kind of " slung shot." ' Sakharof, l. iii. 227. 46 SONGS OF THK RUSSIAN PEOPLE. ■The last surviTor of a band which has been crushed in fight makes his way slowly homewards through the dark forests, sadly thinking of his comrades who are either dead or in prison. Arriving at a river, he is rowed across it by the ferrymen, but no sooner does he reach the other side than he feels that death is close at hand, so he cries, — Bury me, brothers, between three roads, The Kief and the Moscow, and the Murom famed in story. At my feet fasten my horse. At my head set a life-bestowing cross, In my right hand place my keen sabre. Whoever passes by will stop ; Before my hfe-bestowing cross will he utter a prayer, • At the sight of my black steed — will he be startled, At the sight of my keen sword — ^will he be terrified. " Surely this is a brigand who is buried here ! A son of the brigand, the bold Stenka Razin* ! " "When these freebooters are taken prisoners,, they make it a point of honour to maintain a defiant demeanour in the presence of their capturers. One ° Sakharof, i. iii. 226. The same idea occurs at the end of our own ballad of " Eobin Hood's Death and Burial : " — " Lay me a green sod under my head, And another at my feet-: And lay my bent bow by my side, Which was my music sweet ; And make my grave of gravel and green, Which is most right and meet. Let me have length and breadth enough. With a green sod under my head : That they may say, when I am dead, Here lies bold Eobin Hood." SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 47 of them is asked by the Tsar himself whether he has' had many companions in his forays, and who they were with whom he robbed and stole. This is his answer : — " I will tell thee, source of hope, orthodox Tsar, All the truth will I tell to thee, the whole truth. The number of my companions was four. My first companion — the dark night, My second companion — a knife of steel. My third companion — my good steed, My fourth companion — a tough bow. And my messengers were keen arrows." Whereupon the Tsar compliments him upon his knowledge of how " to steal and to make bold reply," and rewards him with " a lofty dwelUng in the midst of the plain, with two pillars and a cross-beam." It is not always a freebooter whose courage in the presence of his enemies is lauded in the songs. In one of them it is a Knyaz Boydrin, a Boyar Prince, who is going to the scaffold amid the tears of his family, and who prefers death to the humihation of asking for pardon — ^in another the bold criminal is " a great Boyar, the Strehtz Ataman," condemned to death "for treason against the Tsar's Majesty" — an allusion, no doubt, to the executions which took place under Peter the Great, after the failure of the Third Insurrection of the Stryel'tsui, the Eussian Praeto- rians, in the year 1698. As the Ataman [Hetman] is being led to the block from the KremHn — In front of him goes the terrible headsman. Bearing in his hand a sharp axe ; 48 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE, After tim foUo-w his father and his mother, His father and his mother and his young wife ; They "weep as a river flows, Their sobbing is like the sound of a rushing stream, And amid their sobs they incessantly entreat him. " child, dear child of ours ! Humble thyself before the Tsar, Offer him thy confession. Perchance the Gosudar Tsar will pardon thee, Will leave thy bold head on thy strong shoulders." Hard as a stone grows the heart of the brave youth; He stiffens his neck and defies the Tsar, Not listening to his father and mother. Not pitying his young wife, Feeling no sorrow for his children. He was led to the Eed Field, And there his bold head Was struck off from his strong shoulders '. Many of the songs are devoted to love. Here, for instance, is the outline of a romantic story. A brave youth leaves his native Ukraine, and enters into the service of " the King of Lithiiania," who shows him great favour. The King has a fair daughter, whose heart is won by the young Cossack, a fact of which her father is made aware by the youth's " own evil brothers," who repeat the idle boastings in which he had indulged when under the influence of strong driak. The King in his wrath orders his favourite to be taken out at once to the place of execution.. His commands are obeyed, and the youth soon stands at the foot of the gallows : — On the first step mounted the youth : " Farewell, farewell, my father and my mother !" -' Sakharof, i. iii. 224. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 49 On the second step mounted the youth : " Farewell, farewell, my kith and kin !" On the third step mounted the youth : " Farewell, my sweet Princess !" The. Princess heard the voice afar off, She hastened into her lofty chamber. She seized her golden keys. She opened a sUver coffer. She took two steel daggers. And pierced her white bosom. In the open field swings the brave youth, On the daggers bends down the Princess and dies'**. The only consolation which the bereaved fiither can find is that of cutting off the heads of the fatal informers. By way of conclusion, the foUowiag romance of robber life may be given : — It was in the city of Kief That there hved a rich widow : Nine sons had she. Her tenth child was a daughter dear; Her did her brothers carefully bring up, Brought her up and gave her in marriage, To a young dweller by the sea, To a rich Boyar. He took her to the seaside. And there they lived a year, two years. But in the third year they grew weary, And set off to pay her mother a visit. They travelled one day, they travelled two days. The third day they made a halt,* To cook kasha, and to let their horses graze. It was not evil crows that flew down on them, It was evil robbers who pounced upon them. ^ Sakharof, i. iii. 230, 231. 60 SONGS OF THE ETJSSIAN PEOPIiB. The husband they put to death, His child they flung into the sea, His wife they kept as a prisoner. And after that they lay down to sleep. But one of their number did not lie down to sleep. Did not he down, but prayed to God, And took to questioning the captive. " Moryanka, Moryanka, Moryanushka^ From what city dost thou come ? Who are thy father and thy mother ?" The captive teUs her story in the words with which the song opens, to the horror of her listener. With a loud cry exclaimed he then — " brothers, brothers of mine ! No mere dweller by the sea have we slain, We have slain the dear husband of our sister ! No mere child have we flung into the sea. But our own sister's son ! No mere seaside woman have we taken captive We have taken captive our own sister ! Sister dear, our own sister ! Do not tell this to our mother. We will find thee another husband. We will endow thee more richly than before." But with tears does the sister reply, — " With whatsoever ye may endow me. Ye cannot bring my dear one back to life*." Of the Soldier Songs some refer to the wars with Sweden, as, for instance, one in which " General ' Moryanka means a female dweller by the seaside. Moryan- ushka is an affectionate diminutive of the word. * Sakharof, i. iii. 228. SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 51 Boris Petrovich. Sheremetef " marches out of Pskoff, and his troops " chase the Swedish general up to the very walls of Dorpat;" and another in which a girl tells her mother of a dream she has had — how in a vision of the night she saw a steep hill on which lay a white rock ; and on this rock grew a cytisus bush, on which sat a dark blue eagle, holding in its claws a black crow. To which the mother replies that she wiU explain the dream : — The steep hill is stone-built Moskva, The white rock is our Kreml Gorod, And the cytisus bush is the Kremlin palace ; The dark blue eagle is our father the Orthodox Tsar, And the black crow is the Swedish King. Our Gosudar will conquer the Swedish land. And the King himself wUl lead into captivity'. Many of them refer to various mihtary and naval exploits, one describing how a Russian Admiral ter- rified the Turks, another telHng how the blood of the infidels was poured forth at the taking of Azof, and a third embodying the expressions used by the Orthodox Tsar himself, as he steered across the Cas- pian Sea one of a fleet of thirty Russian ships. Some of the most interesting are devoted to the soldier's sorrows. In one, for instance, we see the young conscript enrolled among the " Imperial dra- goons," and hear Jiim lament as his long locks fall before the ofl&cial scissors :— " Not for my black curls do I mourn. But I mourn for my own home. * Sakharof, I. iii. 232. E 2 52 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. In my home are three sorrows, And the first sorrow is — I have parted from my father and mother, From my father and from my mother, From my young wife, From my orphaned boys. From my Httle children^" In the days when long terms of mihtary service were the rule, a conscript was generally looked upon as lost to his native village, and the occasion of his departure was one of great sorrow and mourning. Here is a song which used to be sung by the rela- tions of a recruit when he took leave of his home, in a district of the Archangel Government. The inhabitants of the village, old and young, would col- lect on such an occasion, and amid sobs and tears would listen to the sad lament : — Warm, warm, red Sun ! Shine, shine, bright Moon [Mydsyats] !. Together with the clear stars, Together with the bright Moon [Luna], So that we, the old thieves-bloodsuckers. May be able to see to go to the dram-shop To go to the dram-shop and take counsel : .From the rich to take — and not to restore. From the poor to take — and so to ruin. Beyond the brook, beyond the river, In the house of an old widow Is her only son Ivanushko — Of him will we make a soldier. Good and pleasing is he by nature. Favour has he found in the eyes of the girls. Of service has he been to all the commune'. ° Sakharof, i. iii. 234. ' Ruibnikof, iii. 460. SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 53 In another song we witness the setting out of a mighty army : — The powerful army of the "White Tsar, Going, brothers, to the Prussian land. Sturdily the soldiers march, " all joyous, all powdered;" one only of them is sad, for after him follows a fair maiden, bitterly weeping. " Do not weep," he says, trying to comfort her, — Not thou alone art unhappy, I also, the bold youth, am sad — Going to a far-off land — To an unknown, far-off land Do I go in the service of the Gosudar*. In a third it is not for his own sorrows that the soldier weeps. His tears flow for the mighty monarch who is no more : — Ah ! thou bright moon, batyushka ! Not as in old times dost thou shiae. Not as iu old, in former times. For from the evening to the midnight hour. From the midnight hour tdl the grey dawn, Dost thou hide thyself behind clouds, Dost thou cover thyself with black vapour. So was it with us, in Holy Russia. In Petersburg, that famous city, In the church of Peter and Paul, At the right side of the choir. By the tomb of the Emperor, By the tomb of Peter the First, Peter the First, the Great, A young sergeant prayed to God, ' Sakharof, I. iii. 235. 54 SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. Weeping the while, as a river flows, For the recent death of the Emperor, The Emperor, Peter the First. And thus amid his sobs he spake, — " SpUt asunder, damp mother Earth On all four sides — Open, ye coffin planks. Unroll, O brocade of gold — And do thou arise, awake, Gosudar, Awake Batyushka, Orthodox Tsar. Look upon thy army dear, The well loved, the brave. Without thee are we all orphans, Having become orphans, have we lost all strength'." This song may serve also as a fair specimen of the class styled " Historical." The faculty of composing Buillnas, or what are usually styled the real historical poems of Russia, is supposed by some writers to have existed among the people till the time of Peter the Great, and then to have expired during the great social revolution brought about by that monarch. Of these Builinas^whether of the Vladimir cycle, or of the series referring to Ivan the Terrible, Alexis Mikhailovich, and other Tsars who Uved after the Tartar period — I hope at some future period to give a detailed account. At present it is rather with lyric than with epic poetry that I propose to deal, and therefore I will not dwell any longer on the "Historical Songs," and those of a similar nature. But before parting with the subject, it may not be amiss to say a few words about the Builinas and their reciters. ° Sakharof, i. iii. 232. SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 55 Until the beginning of tlie present century very few persons even suspected that Russia could boast of possessing a national epos. It was vaguely reported that a considerable mass of more or less historical poetry was floating about in the memories of the people, but little had been done to secure and pre- serve it. From time to time small collections were made, one of the most interesting of which, so far as English readers are concerned, is that which is now at Oxford, having been formed by Richard James, an EngHsh clergyman, a great number of whose manuscripts are preserved in the Bodleian Library. He was in Moscow in the summer of 1619, and spent the ensuing winter in the extreme north, where he was detained on his return home by way of Archangel. His collection consists of six poems, chiefly relating to events which had recently taken place in Russia^ In the year 1804 there appeared at Moscow a book which extended the growing knowledge that there existed in Russia a rich mine of historical poetry. This was the work entitled "Ancient Russian Poems," containing 26 out of the 61 old " epic poems " which purported to have been collected by a certain Kirsha Danilof, towards the middle of the 18th century, at the Demidof mining works, in the Government of Perm. Fourteen years later the entire collection was edited by Kalaidovich. No farther steps of any importance were taken till about twenty ^ Professor Buslaef has written an interesting article on these poems. Ist. OcherJci, i. 47C — 548. They have been printed by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. 66 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. years ago tlie St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences began to publish a rich, collection of national songs, and some ten years later the first parts appeared of the two great collections made, the one by P. B. Kiryeevsky, and the other by P. N. Euibnikof. The former is still in progress, the latter was completed in the year 1867. With respect to the contents of these two rich storehouses of national poetry — for the building up of which the greatest credit is due to the patient ex- plorers and collectors just mentioned, and their aiders or supervisors, such scholars, forinstance, as Aksakof, Bezsdnof, Buslaef, Dahl, Kostomarof , and many others — the theory most in repute in Russia is that they are all poetic relics of the past history of the country, and that in them may be studied its successive phases, from the far-oflF days of heathenism to the period of social revolution under Peter the Great, when, toge- ther with many other things appertaining to the past, the faculty of composing "epic" poetry dwindled away. But it should also be mentioned that another theory exists, but meets with only scant favour, to the effect that the poems which are regarded as re- cords of Russia's earliest days are merely renderings of eastern romances, which have been borrowed by Russian minstrels from Mongol and Turkish sources, and altered in accordance with Russian ideas. Into the questions raised by the antagonism of these two theories I hope, at the fitting time, to enter ; at pre- sent I content myself with stating their existence. According to one of the supporters of the first SONGS OP THK RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 57 theory^, tte epos of the Builinas may be divided' into certain cycles, eacli of wHcli has its own poetic characteristics, and is to some extent expressive of the outer and inner life, the actions and the senti- ments, of its own period. The earliest of these cycles is supposed, by the school of critics to which he belongs, to be that which deals with the mythical personages generally known as the " Elder Heroes," and considered to be " evident personifications of the Powers of Nature." Closely connected with it is the Cycle named after Yladimir the Great, and containing a number of fragmentary epic poems chiefly relating to the deeds of the " Younger Heroes " — the Russian Paladins of ancient days, whose somewhat shadowy forms are seen grouped around that of Vladimir himself, the Slavonic counterpart of Arthur or of Charlemagne, as he holds high revel within the halls of Kief. Next in order of time to the Vladimir, or Kief Cycle, is placed that of Novgorod, prized for the pictures of hfe it is supposed to ofl'er during the days of that ancient Eepublic's pride and prosperity. The fourth place is occupied by the Royal or Moscow Cycle, which deals with really historic characters and events, and ultimately resolves itself into the classes of Historical and Soldier Songs of which notice has already been taken. As a specimen of the mythical Builinas, we may take the story of Svyatogor. He is one of the most = See Maikof, " On the Builinas of the Vladimir Cycle." p. 1. 58 SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. striking of the " Elder Heroes." His name is derived from his dwelling-place, which is v svyatuihh gorakh, " among the Holy Mountains." He is of gigantic sta- ture, and his weight is such that the earth itself can scarcely support him. His strength is so prodigious that it is a burden even to himself. On one occasion, however, it proves insufficient. Svyatogor, we are told, has made himself ready to start on an expedi- tion : — He saddles his good horse. And he goes forth into the open field. With Svyatogor is no one equal in strength, And the strength through his veins Courses with right living force. Heavily laden is he with strength as with a weighty burden. See now, Svyatogor exclaims : — " Could I but find its equal in weight^ I would lift the whole earth !" Svyatogor riding over the steppe Lights upon a little wallet^. He takes his whip and pushes the wallet — it does not move : He tries to move it with a finger — but it does not yield: He grasps it from on horseback with one hand- — but it wiU not be lifted. ' Tyaga seems to mean here the equivalent of the earthly weight. In order to lift the earth Svyatogor must find a standing-place capable of supporting him when so heavily burdened. The remark is somewhat similar to that attributed to Archimedes. ■* Peremetnaya SumocJika, a pair of wallets or bags, fastened together so as to be thrown across the shoulders or the saddle. SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 59 " Many a year have I ridden about the world, But to sucli a wonder has my riding never brought me, Such a marvel have I never seen before ; That a little wallet Will not move, nor yield, not let itself be lifted ! " Down from his good steed lights Svyatogor, With both hands he sei^ies the wallet. Lifts the wallet a Httle higher than his knees : But iuto the earth up to his knees siuks Svyatogor, Down his white face pours a stream not of tears, but of blood^ Ilya Muromets, the representative of the younger race of heroes, has been told by the mystic beings who infused almost matchless strength into his for- merly crippled hmbs, that he might safely fight with all the heroes he might meet except.three or four — the first of the exceptions being Svyatogor. Accord- ingly, after a time he saddles his good steed, and goes out in search of adventures. One day, as he rides afield, he sees a white tent beneath a taU oak, and in the tent is a huge bed, on which he Hes down. Going to sleep, he slumbers on for three days and three nights, — On the third day his good steed Hears a loud roar tvom the northern side : Damp mother earth staggers, The dark forests rock. The streams overflow their steep banks. Then the good steed strikes the ground with its hoofs, but cannot wake Dya until it cries aloud with " Kuibnikof, i. 32. 60 SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. a human voice, and tells him that Svyatogor is coming to the tent. Ilya leaps to his feet, lets his horse go free, and climbs up among the branches of the oak. Thence he sees how — There comes a hero taller than the standing woods, "Whose head reaches to the fleeting clouds. Bearing on his shoulders a crystal coffer. The hero comes to the green oak. Takes from his shoulder the crystal coffer, Opens the coffer with a golden key : Out comes thence a heroic woman. Such a beauty on the whole earth Had never been seen, never been heard of. As soon as she leaves the coffer she proceeds to spread a sumptuous table, and Svyatogor eats and drinks, and then goes into the tent and falls asleep. His wife comes out from the tent, sees Ilya in the tree, and orders him to come down. This part of the narrative is almost identical with a portion of the story told in the first chapter of the "Arabian Nights," but the sequel is different. After Ilya has obeyed. The beautiful one, the hero's wife. Placed him in her husband's vast pocket. And aroused her husband from his deep sleep. The hero Svyatogor awoke. Placed his wife in the crystal coffer. Locked it with the golden key. Sat upon his good horse. And started for the Holy Mountains. Then his good horse began to stumble. And the hero struck it with his silken whip On its stout haunches. Then the horse said, with a human voice, — SOXGS OF THE ErSSIAX PEOPLE. 61 " Formerly I carried the hero and the hero's wife. But now I bear the hero's wife and two heroes. Xo wonder that I stumble !" And the hero Svyatogor drew out Hya Muromets from his pocket, And began to question him, As to who he was and how he came Into his deep pocket. Ilja tells him aU that has happened, and Svyatogor, after making himself a widower, enters into a bond of fraternity with him, adopting him as his " younger brother," and instructing him in all the science with which it befits a hero to be acquainted. The two com- rades afterwards travel on together " to the Xorthern Mountains," and on their way they come to a great coffin. On this coflfin was written this inscription, — " Whosoever is destined to lie in this coffin. He will he down in it." Ilya Muromets lay down in it ; For him was the coffin too long and too broad. Down lay the hero Svyatogor : Him did the coffin fit. Thus spake the hero, — " The coffin is made exactly for me. Xow lift the hd, Hya, Cover me up." Thus answered Hya Muromets, — " I will not hft the lid, elder brother, Nor will I cover thee up — No Uttle joke is this thou art playing, Hitending to bury thyself." Then the hero took the hd and closed the coffin with it himself. But when he wished to raise it, 62 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. In no manner could he do so. He struggled and strove hard to lift it, And he cried aloud to Ilya Muromets, " Ah ! younger brother ! Surely my fate has found me out ; I cannot lift the coffin-lid, Do thou try to Uft it." Ilya Muromets tried to lift the coffin-hd [the story goes on to say in prose], but what could he do ! Then thus spoke the hero Svyatogor, — " Lift up my sword of steel, and strike across the coffin-lid." But to lift Svyatogor' s sword of steel was beyond the strength of Ilya Muromets. Then the hero Svyatogor called to him and said : " Bend down to the coffin, to the little chink that is in it, and I will breathe upon thee with heroic breath^" So Hyabent down, and the hero Svyatogor breathed upon him with his heroic breath. Then Ilya felt that thrice -as much strength as he had possessed before was added unto him, and he lifted the sword of steel, and struck across the coffin-lid. From that mighty blow wide flew the sparks, and where the sword of steel had struck, on that spot stood out a ridge of iron. Again did the hero Svyatogor call to him — " I stifle, younger brother, once more try to strike with the sword — this time along the coffin-lid." Hya Muromets struck the coffin lid lengthways, and there also there sprang up a ridge of iron. Again the hero Svyatogor exclaimed, — " My breath deserts me, younger brother. Bend down to the chink, and I will breathe on thee once more, and will giveover to thee all my great strength." ° The breath {duhh) was supposed to be intimately connected with the soul (dusha). SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 63 But Hya Muromets replied, — " Strength enough have I, elder brother. Were it otherwise, and had I more, the earth would not be able to support me." Then spake the hero Svyatogor, — " Well hast thou done, younger brother, in that thou didst not obey my last command. I should have breathed on thee with the breath of the grave, and thou wouldst have lain dead near me. And now farewell ! Take to thyself my sword of steel, but fasten to my cojQfin my good heroic steed. No other than I can hold that steed in hand." Then passed out of the chink his dying breath, and Hya bade farewell to Svyatogor, made fast his good steed to his cofl&n, girded Svyatogor's sword of steel on his loins, and went his way into the open field'^. Having given a specimen of the Buillnas contained in the two great collections of national poems recently compiled ia Russia, I will attempt to convey some idea of the manner in which they were collected. The best method of doing so seems to be to condense the graphic account of his exploring journeys drawn up by one of the chief compilers, P. N. Ruibnikof. How great was his industry may be measured by the fact that its results fill four large volumes. These con- tain 236 Builinas, the number of verses in the entire, work amounting to rather more than 60,000. Kir- yeevsky's collection, the whole of which has not yet been published, is on folly as great a scale. In the course of the year 1859 Ruibnikof, who was then employed upon Government business in Petro- zavodsk, a town situated on the western shore of Lake ' Euitnikof,.!. 33—42. 64 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. Onega, was informed that a number of old and curious songs were preserved among the rural population of the Olonets Government, and during the ensuing winter he betook himself to the task of collecting these " memorials of national poetry," making espe- cial use of the opportunity afforded him by a visit which he paid to the Shungsk Fair, whither he was sent in search of certain statistics. Thither, he was informed, numbers of KaMU (in modern days gene- rally blind psalm-singers) formerly used to repair, and there they would sit by the churchyard and sing songs to crowds of listeners. But in the year 1860 " the police had begun to drive the singers away from the churchyard, and would no longer allow them to sing in the streets." At his urgent request, however, the Police-master contrived to find a couple of min- strels, and brought them to his lodgings. " When they had warmed themselves and talked a little," he says, " I began to ask them to sing any thing they knew. At first they would not, but when I had my- self recited something to them from memory out of the Kniga Golubinaya, they began first one 8ti]ch (religious poem), and then another, and sang through all the pieces they knew." From their dictation Ruibnikof wrote down a number of poems. Eventu- ally he induced the police authorities to cease from harassing them, and so " from that time they again appeared at the Fa,ir, took up their old quarters by the churchyard, and once more solicited alms from the public by singing religious poems." About the same time he became acquainted with a SOXGS OF THK EUSSIAN I'EOPLE. 65 celebrated Fop/e/ufea or professional "Wailer." The Wailer is, as we shall see farther on, a personage of no small importance in a Russian community, for it is she who sees that old customs are reHgiously pre- served at marriages and funerals, and on other solemn occasions. She it is who teaches the bride to mourn in becoming verse for the loss of her " maiden free- dom," and prompts the widow and the orphan to wail as befits them over the coffin or the grave of the departed. The particular Wailer in question enjoyed so widely spread areputation that she was often summoned to remote spots, even to a district inha- bited by Old-Eitualists, who kept up ancient customs with great strictness, and were, as a general rule, able to do their own " howling" for themselves. From her he obtained a number of good wedding songs and funeral " complaints." But so far as Builinas were concerned, only rumours reached his ears. The Shungsk people did not care for such things. The Chinovniks (or civil officials) thought his interest in them was a proof of sheer idleness, the merchants gave up their minds to business alone, and the rest of the community were by no means well disposed towards such profane poetry as is represented by the BuiLina. As a general rule, indeed, wherever Old-RituaUsts — ^the Puritans of Russia — abound, there those memorials only of poetry and art are cared for which are purely religious or which help to support the Old-Ritual. The Old-Ritualists feel for secular poetry what was felt in olden days by the Slavonic framers of the rules 66 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. drawn up for persons leading an ascetic life, wlio were forbidden " to sing Satanic songs or to scan- dalize the profane world." But he was told that there was a certain tailor called Butuilka (or the Bottle), who was in the habit of roaming from village to village, and of singing Bui- linas as he worked. Euibnikof immediately set off in search of him, twice crossing Lake Onega on the ice, and once traversing its waters in a wretched boat, but he could not succeed in finding him. It was not till 1863 that he made the poetical tailor's acquaint- ance. In the summer of 1860 Ruibnikof received a roving commission to collect statistics about the Government of Olonets. This gave him an excellent opportunity of studying the manners and customs of the peasantry in remote districts, and he profited by it to the utter- most. It is well known, he says, how difiicult it is for a Bdrin — a " gentleman" — and how especially difficult it is for a Ohinovnik, or Government official, to gain the confidence of the common people, or to obtain from them any details about their way of living. Still, if they see that their visitor respects their customs, and is of a sympathetic nature, they are by no means inaccessible. On the contrary, they readily respond to his advances. It is an advantage to the inquirer to wear the national dress. " But his dress is not the main point. What he must do is to respect the independence of the religious beliefs of the people, the characteristics of their way of life, the hard labour of the agriculturist and the artisan, and SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. Q*? at the same time to fling aside all bookish prejudices and fine airs. In that case the peasant will not refuse to recognize as a brother even a man who has received a university education, and will readily tell him all he wants to "know." And so, " one fresh May morning," having donned the dress of the com- mon people, Euibnikof went down to the quay at Petrozavodsk, and began to look for a boat to take him to the other side of Lake Onega. The ice had scarcely had time to thaw, but boats had already begun to arrive from different parts of the lake, laden with butter, eggs, and meal, and manned by peasants who gave their services as rowers in return for a free passage. There was, however, only one boat from that part of the shore to which he wished to go. So in it, although it could offer but small accommoda- tion, he was obliged to start. The boat left the quay at night, rowed by three men and a woman, but had not got far on its way when a strong head wind arose, and about six o'clock in the morning the weary rowers were glad to take refuge under the lee of a desolate little island about eight miles from Petrozavodsk. Euibnikof landed and walked to a small hut intended for the benefit of weather-bound mariners, but it was full of peasants, for several other boats had been forced to take shelter from the storm, so he made himself some tea at a wood fire which was burning outside, and then lay down to sleep on the bare ground. Before long he was awakened by strange sounds. Some one was singing beside the fire. He had heard many songs, but never such a one as that to which F 2 68 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. he was now listening. " Lively, fantastic, joyous, it now streamed rapidly along, and now with broken flow seemed to recall to mind something antique, something forgotten by our generation." For a time Euibnikof remained betwixt sleeping and waking, unwilling to move, " so pleasant was it to remain under the influence of an entirely new impres- sion." Half slumbrously he could see a group of peasants sitting a little way off", listening to a song sung by a grey-haired old man, with a full white beard, keen eyes, and a kindly expression of counte- nance. When one song was ended another began, which turned out to be one of the Novgorod Builinas. When the second song came to an end Ruibnikof got up .and made acquaintance with the singer, a pea- sant named Leonty Bogdanovich. He heard many Builinas sung afterwards, he says, and that by skilled minstrels, but their performance never again pro- duced the strong impression which was made upon him by the broken voice of the old singer to whom he listened that stormy spring morning, on the deso- late island amid the wild waves of Lake Onega. After spending some hours in friendly chat with the peasants, who formed a circle round the wood fire, Ruibnikof agreed to change boats and to accompany some of his new acquaintances to their village. One of the party was the singer, who helped to speed the hours by singing snatches of song to the men and by gossiping with the women. His age was seventy years " with a tail," but he was brisk and hearty, though " he had known but few good days in his life." SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 69 About midday the boat came to the " Monk" — a long and narrow sandbank in the middle of the lake, much dreaded in stormy weather — and towards evening it •wasgHding between the indented shores of a secluded gulf, dotted with many islands. Here and there appeared villages and hamlets, and along the edge of the water were cottages, and little piers to which skiffs were attached. On went the voyagers, Leonty Bogdanovich singing the following song, in which the rest joined in chorus — It is not the cuckoo that is mourning in the moist wood, Nor the nightingale that is sadly complaining in the green garden, Alas, it is a good youth who tearfully laments in a time of need. My mother can I not recall to mind, And who was it who gave to me, the orphan, to eat and to drink ? To me, the orphan, did the Orthodox Commune give to eat and to drink. To me, the good youth, did mother Volga give to drink. My yellow curls did a beauteous maiden twine. And late in the evening they landed below the village of Seredka. That evening as Ruibnikof was sitting in the cot- tage of the old singer, Leonty Bogdanovich, who had insisted on showing him hospitality, he was told by his host that the two best skaziteli — or reciters — of the neighbourhood lived close by, their names being Kozma Ivanof Romanof and Trofim Grigorief 70 SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. Ryabinin. " Take me to Ryabinin to-morrow morn- ing," said Ruibnikof. " No," replied Leonty. " I must give bim notice first. He is a proud man, and a stubborn one. If you don't persuade bim be- forehand, you'll get notbing out of bim." The next day Ruibnikof wandered about the vil- lage, and made acquaintance with a number of the cottagers, many of whom afterwards came to spend the evening with him. While they were talking and telhng him stories, an old man of middle height, stoutly built, with flaxen hair and a small grey beard, stepped across the threshold. This was Ryabinin. To Ruibnikof s request that- he would sing " about some hero or other," he at first refused to accede. " It would be improper to recite profane songs at present," he replied, " to-day is a fast. One should sing reUgious songs." Ruibnikof explained that there could be no sin in reciting Builinas, which treated of " ancient Princes and Holy-Russian heroes," and at last Ryabinin allowed himself to be persuaded, and first said and then sang one of the epic poems. Such was the commencement of Ruib- nikof's acquaintance with a "reciter" from whom he afterwards obtained three-and-twenty Builinas. Ryabinin was well off for a peasant, having a good allotment of land, and making a fair livelihood by fishing. The other fishermen held him in great re- spect " on account of his knowledge of epic poetry," and used to take it in turns to do his share of the work when they were out fishing in common, in order that they might Hsten to his songs. He had acquired SOXGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 71 his stock of poetry partly by listening to an uncle wlio was a celebrated "reciter," and to a certain Kokotin, who kept a traktir, or tavern, at St. Peters- burg, and who was a great lover of BuOinas, of which he had a collection in manuscript. But his chief in- structor had been one Hya Blustaf ef, the principal reciter of the whole province of Olonets, " who knew a countless number of Builinas, and could sing for whole days about different heroes." The peasants used to gather round him and say, " Now, then Hya ! sing us a Builina." And he would reply, " Give me a poltina (half a rouble) ; then I'U sing a Builina." And if one of the richer peasants produced the coin the old man would at once commence his recital. In this respect Ryabinia differed from him, for his pride prevented him from taking money from Ruibnikof, who says, " In spite' of my urgent request, he would not consent to receive any thing from me in return for what he had taught me. When I, at my departure, gave his eldest daughter a handkerchief, he imme- diately presented me with an embroidered towel, and thought fit to account for his gift, and the reception of my present, as follows : — " When friends part for a long time, it is customary among us to exchange presents by way of remembrance." A few days after his arrival Ruibnikof made the acquaintance of the other reciter, Romanof. This was a blind, white-haired old man of ninety, who lived in a rude hut with an old woman to wait upon him. He had for his support the rent derived from his allotment of ground^ and also a sum of six roubles 72 SONGS Ol' THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. allowed him yearly by the Duma or council. The rent he received each year for his piece of ground was paid in kind, and amounted to 20 poods of rye flour, — the pood being equal to about 3 6 lbs. — a pood of salt, a pood of groats, and three loads of hay. Moreover he kept a cow, and had money laid up for " a black day." ^ Romanof was very willing to sing, and when he was invited to do so he poured forth Builina after Builina which he had learnt in early days. In former times, according to his account, it was customary for the old men and women to meet together and make nets, and then the "reciters " used to sing Builinas to them. From Romanof fourteen Builinas were obtained by Ruibnikof, who, after his return hojne to Petroza- vodsk, kept up the acquaintance- he had made with him and with Ryabinin. Besides these two, he be- came acquainted with several other "reciters," such as Shchegolenkof, for instance, a tailor who wandered about the neighbouring villages in search of work, being too weak to undertake field-labour, and whose niece also was able to sing several poems. On one occasion Ruibnikof was taken to see another woman who could sing. At first she refused to do so, but eventually complied with his request whUe suckhng her babe. It was then that he found out for the first time "that womeu have their own bah'i starinui (women's old poems), which are sung by them with special pleasure, but not so readily by the men." In another village an old woman sang him a starina. SONGS OP THE EUSSIAX PEOPLE. 73 having previously stipulated for a small piece of money in return. Among the other singers vrhom Ruibmkof turned to account was Terenty Jevlef, a surly man of fifty, living in a sohtary hut he had Gonsferucted for him- self; Andrei Sarafanof, a middle-aged man occupied in fishing; and Peter Ivanof Kornilof, an elderly blind man living -with his relations, and deriving a fair Hvelihood from the rent paid him for the use of his share of the communal lands. On one occasion a singer of local fame was summoned, who sent back word that he was too ill to come. Ruibnikof set off in search of him, and arriving at his cottage was told that he had gone off to the woods. Thither he went in search of him, and having found him, asked him why he had taken to flight in so unnecessary a man- ner. The singer explained that he had got into trouble about a fire in the woods, and that he had fancied Ruibnikof was an officer of the law who had come to inflict legal penalties upon him. As soon as Ruibnikof had told him his real mission, the peasant's fear left him, and he took his place beside the stump on which his visitor had sat down, and then and there sang him a Builina. In one of the villages Ruibnikof found an excellent singer, Mkifor Prokhorofby name, who sang away to him during the whole of two evenings, his cottage being full of peasants all the time. " The old people listened silently, and the younger ones also sat quietly, only now and then interrupting the story by their exclamations. But at the most exciting pas- 74 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. sages they fidgetted a little on their seats, and bent forwards towards the reciter, as, for instance, when he told them how Ilya's son, not recognizing his father, bent his toughbow and shot an arrow into Ilya's white tent. From Nikifor Prokhorof, who gained his living by field-labour, Ruibnikof obtained twelve Builinui. In the town of Pudoj, as Ruibnikof was informed, builine poetry used once to be held in great respect. Sixty years ago the merchants and other townspeo- ple, even the civil officials being included in the num- ber, used to meet together in the evenings on purpose to listen to Builmas ; but long before his visit they had gone out of fashion. Fortunately he made the acquaint- ance of a young man, Andrei Sorokin, who kept an inn which his father had kept before him, and who was in the habit of telling stories and reciting baUads to his customers. "Travellers go to him in the even- ing and often sit up all night listening to his long stories about different heroes." In the Kargopol district Ruibnikof found that the Kalild, who looked on their singing and reciting from a thoroughly commercial point of view, asked payment for all that they contributed in the way of ballad poetry or hymns. "Up to this time," he says, " I had been accustomed to offer money of my own accord in return for singing, especially when I took away a peasant from his work. Some of the singers refused to take my money, others accepted it, either as a gift or as a recompense for their loss of time." One of the Kalild had a cottage of his own, but SONGS OF THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 75 scarcely ever lived in it, preferring to go about with* Ms comrades to fairs and markets, and there to gain money by singiiig " spiritual songs." Along the river Onega Uve numbers of sectaries, who are very fond of such poetry, though they object to all that is mundane. In the Archangel Government, however, where there are rich peasants in the villages, this Kaliha was in the habit of reciting BuOinas. Sometimes an attempt was made to deceive Ruib- nikof. A peasant named Bogdanof, for instance, who had received some money from him for singing Builinas, wanted to earn more, so he " recalled to mind a number of fragments of tales, legends, and traditions, and did his best to weave them into a Builina." The result was unsatisfactory, but the minstrel was not to be discouraged ; going to a Kabak, he fortified himself with strong liquors and returned to the attack. Failing a second time, he betook him self to a neighbour, who told him a starina, which he tried to repeat to Ridbnikof, breaking down, however, at the end of the first ten lines. Eventually he became so troublesome that he had to be abruptly sent about his business. Another time a village " scribe" brought Ruibrnkof half-a-dozen poems which he professed to have heard, but which he had really transcribed bodily from the printed collection of Kirsha Danilof. With Butuilka (the Bottle) whose real name was Chukkoef, Ruibnikof made acquaintance in 1863. He is the possessor of a good piece of land, but his main income is derived from tailor's work, in quest of which he spends nearly the whole winter, wandering from 7Q SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. village to village in one of the districts bordering on Lake Onega. He afterwards visited Kuibnikof at Petrozavodsk, and there sang to him all the Builinas he knew, nine of which Kuibnikof has inserted in his collection. In some of the districts around Lake Onega, as, for instance, in those of Petrozavodsk andPudoj, the remains of the old epic poetry are carefully preserved by the rural population. Every peasant there " is acquainted with the contents of some Builinas, and with the names of certain heroes," and every intelli- gent man of a certain age has a Builina or two com- mitted to memory. Even if he thinks at first that he knows nothing about them, he will, if he reflects awhile, find at least fragments of them coming into his mind. In some places they are chiefly retained in the memories of the SkazUeli, or reciters, who sing them from a love for poetry, in others they are only to be heard from the Kalihi, who make a livelihood out of them. As a general rule the singers have learnt them from their fathers or grandfathers. Most of the Kalihi make a point of handing them down to their children. " But the greater part of the reciters," says Euibnikof, " leave no heirs for their poetic stores, and in the course of twenty or thirty years, after the deaths of the best representatives of the present generation of singers, the Builinas, even in the Government of Olonetz, will be preserved. in the memories of but a very few members of the rural population'." ' Ruibiiikof, iii. pp. vi — lii. SONGS OP THE EUSSIAN PEOPLE. 11 Note. A few words ahout the measures of the songs may be considered useful. The following specimens are given by Sakharof in his Pyesni Musskago Naroda '. The Khorovod Songs are as foUows : — (1) A MM npoco CiajlH. A mui But we proso millet syeyali. have sown. (2) 3an.ieTH ca n.iBTeHb sanjieTHca. zapleti Become woven sya pleten' fence zapletisya. become woven. (3) Ah bo no.i* Ah Bo noji*. Ah bo no.ii ^HHHHbKa. Ay vo polye Ay vo polye. Ay vo polye Lipin'ka. Ah, afiel Ah, afiel( a, Ah, afield. Lindenling. The " Dance Songs " are usually in one of the following metres ; — (1) Bo no.ii 6e peaa cto fljia. Vo polye be reza sto yala. Afield, a birch-tree stood. (2) noH^y Mjia^a no /^ynaio. Poydu mlada po Dunayu. I will go, the young one by the Danu be. ' II. 51 — 53. 78 SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. (3) Axt, yTyiuKa Akh, utushka Ah, duckie (4) KaK-B y nacL Kak u nas How with us jiyroBaa. lugovaya. meadowy. BO ca^o'iKy. vo sadochku. in the gardenling. Of the Svyatki songs, sung at Christmas, Sakharof gives the following specimens in his Skazaniya Russkago Naroda, ^, the work to which such frequent reference has already heen made : — (1) II],yKft ni;ia Ona XBOCTt KaKi na iqy Shchuka shla Ona khvost Kak na shchu A Pike came She [her] tail How on the Pike Hsx HoBa BOJlOKJia Ki Heniyfi iz Nova volokla kye cheshuy out of trailed [are] scales ropoAa. ■azi, Biijiaosepa. Ka eepe6paHan. goroda. iz Byelaozera. ka serebranaya. Novogorod. from Byeloozero. silvery. (2) PacTBopio Eastvoryu I knead H KBauiOH ya kvashon the dough Ky ua ^OHblUIK'fe. ku na donuishkye. on the donuishha. I. m. 10. SONGS OP THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 79 (3) Axt TM ciii I MaTH, MyHH I ny, neKH | nnporn ; Kt Te6i 6y AJTt ro | cth ne'ia | jiHHwe : Kt. Te6* 6y I fl,yTh Bt ^lanTax-B | ko mh4 bx canorax'L, Akh tui cyey | mati, muchi | tsu, peki | pirogi : K tebye bu dut go | sti necha ] yannuie : K tebye bu | dut v laptyakh | ko mnye v sapogakh. Ah [do] thou sift | mother, flour, | bake | pies : To thee will be guests [ not | expected : To thee will be | in lapti | to me in boots. (4) H a 30.10TO XOpOHK), XOpOHIO, Hhcto cepe6po XOpOHH), XOpOHK). I ya zoloto khoronyu. khoronyu. Chisto serebro khoronyu, khoronyu. And I gold bury, bury, Pure silver bury, bury. (5) SKsMiyxtHHa OKaTHaa, fl,o lero Te6i AOKaTHTHCa ? Zhemchuzhina okatnaya. Do chego tebye Dokatitisya ? Pearl round [and able to roll.] AVhither to thee to roll thyself. CHAPTER IT. MYTHOLOGY. SECTION I. — THE OLD GODS. At some remote period, of wticli very little is known with certainty, but when, it may be supposed, what are now the various Slavonic peoples spoke the same tongue and worshipped the same gods, some kind of mythological system, in all probability, prevailed among them, of which only a few fragments have come down to the present day. Among these relics of an almost forgotten past, by no means the least important are the songs which have been preserved by the people in their different dialects, handed down as a precious heirloom from one generation to another, and watched over with a jealous care which has prevented them from entirely losing their original characteristics. In ancient times they seem to have belonged to some great mass of national poetry, some collection of Slavonic Yedas, in which the religious teaching of the day was embodied. Of it, as a whole, there can now be formed only a dim conception, but of several of its separate features it is possible to gain at least some idea by studying and piecing together the fragments of popular poetry THE OLD tGODS. 81 ■wMch exist, more or less abundantly, in every land that is inhabited by a Slavonic population. Each land has its own songs now, but there is such a strong family hkeness between all these memorials of old times as clearly points to a common origin, whether they come from the shores of the Baltic or of the Adriatic, whether they form the heritage of the " Orthodox " Russian or Servian, or of the " Catholic " Poje or Czekh. It is mainly with the songs which are still current in modern Russia that it is proposed to deal at present, but almost every in- ference that may be deduced from their testimony, with reference to the old days of heathenism, can be supported also by that of their kin among the Sla- vonic brethren of the Russians, as well as among their Lettic cousins. Before entering upon the subject of these songs it will be as well to say a few prefatory words about the mythological system which they illustrate — to attempt to sketch the principal features of the reh- gious worship of the old Slavonians, and to convey some idea of the process by which the venerable deities whom they adored have, in the course of time, become transformed into the capricious and often grotesque beings with whom the superstition of the Russian peasant peoples the spiritual world. The task is not one which can be completed in a satis- factory manner, for there is a lack of precise infor- mation on the subject, and the writers who claim to pronounce upon it with authority not seldom differ among themselves. But it is to be hoped that the 82 MYTHOLOGY. remarks wliich are about to be made tare will, at least, help to render intelligible the fragmentary- songs wbich are to follow them. The Slavonians — says Solovief, in the introduction to his " History of Russia " — remember nothing about their arrival in Europe, though tradition still speaks — even if history be silent — of their early sojourn along the banks of the Danube, and of their being compelled to move thence, under the pressure of some hostile force, apparently towards the north-east. So thick are the clouds which hang over this period of their history, that it is difficult to obtain any thing like a clear view of what was happening before some of their number built Novgorod on the shores of Lake Ilmen, and others founded, near the conflux of the Dyesna and the Dnieper, what was to become the chief city of South Eussia, and gave it the name of Kief. About the time of the foundation of that city, the country adjacent to the Dnieper seems to have been inhabited chiefly by two great tribes, the Drevlyane, or Foresters \_Drevo = a tree], and the Polyane, or Field-people [PoZe = a field], of whom the latter were, as might be supposed from their name, the milder and more civilized. Of the Drevlyane the old chroniclers have spoken with great harshness, but those writers may have been somewhat biassed by their theological hatred of stiff"-necked idolators. The religion of the Eastern Slavonians — among whom may fairly be included the ancestors of at least a great part of the present Russians — appears THE OLD GODS. 83 to have been founded, like that of all the other Aryan races, upon the reverence paid, on the one hand to the forces of nature, on the other to the spirits of the dead. They seem to have worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars, the elements, and the spirits whom they connected with the phenomena of the storm, personifying the powers of nature under various forms, and thus creating a certain number of deities, among whom the supremacy was, sooner or later, attributed to the Thunder-God, Perun. These Eastern Slavonians seem to have built no regular temples, and — in striking contrast with the Lithuanians, not to speak of some of the "Western Slavonians — they appear not to have acknowledged any regular class of priests. Their sacrifices were ojQTered up under a tree — generally an oak — or beside running water, and the sacred rites were performed by the Elders, or heads of family communities. The modern Russian word for "family," Sem'ya— it should be observed — originally had the same meaning as Suprugi, man and wife. The word which supplied its place was Bod, which meant family in its widest sense, including the whole of a man's relatives, his Clan, as it were, or Gens'^. The chief of the Bod exercised the functions of priest, king, and judge. Prophets seem to have existed in the persons of certain wizards — Yollihvui — of whom very little is known, but who probably resembled to a considerable degree the Finnish Conjurors. ' Solovief, Istoriya JRossii, t. 317. G 2 84 MYTHOLOGY. The cultus of ancestors formed an important part of the religious system of the old Slavonians, who attributed to the souls of the dead passions and appetites like to those which sway the living, and who attached great importance to the manifestation of respect for the spirits of their forefathers, and especially for that of the original founder of the family. The worship of the Slavonic Lares and Penates, who were, as in other lands, intimately connected with the fire burning on the domestic hearth, retained a strong hold on the affections of the people, even after Christianity had driven out the great gods of old ; but the spiritual beings to whom reverence was paid gradually lost their original dig- nity, until at last the majestic form of the household divinity became degraded into that of the Domovoy — the house-spirit in whom the Russian peasant still firmly believes, the Brownie, or Hobgoblin, who once haunted our own firesides. Such are the most salient points of the old Slavonic mythology. We will now examine it a little more in detail, commencing with the ideas attached by the early inhabitants of Eussia to those solar gods who are supposed by many eminent scholars to have originally held higher rank than the wielder of the Thunderbolt, Perun ^. ^ The following extract from Mr. Talboys Wheeler's description of the religion of the " Vedic people " (" History of India," i. 8) seems to be perfectly applicable to the primitive Slavonians. " Their Gods appear to have been mere abstractions : personifica- tions of those powers of nature on whom they relied for good THE OLD GODS. 85 The most ancient among these deities is said to have been Svarog, apparently the Slavonic counter- part of the Vedic Varuna and the Hellenic Ouranos. His name is deduced by Russian philologists from a root corresponding with the Sanskrit 8ur — to shine, and is compared by some of them Vith the Vedic Svar, and the later -word Svarga, heaven. The Sun and the Fire are spoken of as his chil- dren; the former under the name of Dazhbog, the latter under that of Ogon'. According to an old saying, Svarog is given to repose, deputing to his children the work of creation and the task of ruling the universe '. That Dazhbog was the Sun seems clear, and it appears to be proved that he was identical with Khors, who is sometimes spoken of as a different personage. The word Dazh is said to be the adjec- tival form of Bag [Gothic, Dags, German, Tag^, so that Dazhbog is equivalent to Day-God. That the harvests. Bat from the very first there appears to have been some confusion in these personifications, which led both to a multiplicity of deities, and the confounding together of difierent deities." ' Buslaef, " On the Iniluence of Christianity on the Slavonic Language," p. 50. Afanasief, " Poetic Views of the Slavonians about Nature," i. 6i-, 6a. Solovief decidedly identifies Perun with Svarog. See his "History of Kussia," i. 82, 322. Buslaef, in his " Historical Sketches," says " The epoch of Perun and Volos . . . was preceded by another, one common to all the Slavonians — the epoch of Svarozhich, who among us in the East received the name of Dazhbog." — 1st. Oeh. i. 364. I shall not refer in this chapter to the celebrated epic " On the Expedition of Igor," as I wish to reserve that poem for a future occasion. 86 MYTHOLOGY. word JBbg stands for God is already well known, as also that it "reappears among us in the form of Puck, Bogy, and Bug *." 'That Ogon', Fire, [pronounced Agdn,=:Agni], was considered the son of Svarog, the Heaven, is supposed to be proved by the evidence of a thirteenth century writer, who says^ of the Slavonians, " They pray to Ogon', whom they call Svarozhich," or Svarog's son — the " Zuarasici " mentioned by Diet- mar. We shall see, a little farther on, how many traces still appear to exist, in the speech and the customs of the modern Russians, of the worship once paid to Ogon', and on his account to the domestic hearth, or to the stove which eventually took its place — a worship which was closely connected with that of which the spirits of ancestors were the objects. We now come to the deity who ultimately became the supreme god of the Slavonians — Perun, the Thun- derer. In dealing with him we shall by no means be treading upon certain ground, but we shall at least have escaped from the limbo to which the lapse of time has assigned the dimly-seen form of Svarog. Russian mythologists identify the name of Perun with that of the Vedic Parjanya. Whether the latter was an independent deity, or whether his name was merely an epithet of Indra, does not appear to be certain, nor are philologists agreed as to whether * G. W. Cox's "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," ii. 364. ° In the Slovo nyekoego Khristolyultsa. THE OLD GODS. 87 Parjanya means " the rain " or " the thunderer ;" but "it is very probable that our ancestors adored, previously to the separation of the Aryan race, a god called Parjana, or Pargana, the personification of the thundering cloud, whoni they behoved to rouse the thunder-storm, to be armed with the lightning, to send the rain, to be the procreator of plants, and the upholder of justice. Afterwards the Grseco- Itahan nation, bent on the adoration of Dyaus, forgot him entirely ; the Aryans of India and the Teutonic tribes continued to worship him as a subordinate member of the family of the gods, but the Letto- Slavonians raised him to the dignity of a supreme leader of all other deities ^" In the hymns addressed to Parjanya in the Rig Veda he is called " the thunderer, the showerer, the bountiful, who impregnates the plants with rain," and it is said that " Earth becomes (fit) for all creatures when Parjanya fertiLi2;es the soil with showei's '." Sometimes " he strikes down the trees" and destroys " the wicked (clouds)," at others he " speaks a wonderful gleam-accompanied word which brings refreshment ^" and gives birth " to plants for man's enjoyment." The description of Parjanya is in aU respects • Dr. G. Biihler, in an excellent article " On the Hindu God ' Parjanya,' " contained in the " Transactions of the Philological Society," 1859, pt. 2, pp. 154 — 168. See also his essay on the same subject in vol. i. of Benfey's Orient und Occident. ' " Eig Veda," t. 83. Prof Wilson's translation. » " Eig Veda," v. 63. Dr. Biihler's translation. 88 MYTHOLOGY. applicable to the deity worshipped by the different branches of the Slavo-Lettic family under various names, such as the Lithuanian Perlcunas, the Lettish Perkons, the Old Prussian Perhunos, the Polish Piorun, the Bohemian Peraun, and the Russian Perun^. According to a Lithuanian legend, known also to other Indo-European nations, the Thunder-God created the universe by the action of warmth — Perlcunas wis'iszperieje. The verb perieti (present form periu) means to produce by means of warmth, to hatch, to bear, being akin to the Latin pario, and the Russian parW '. In Lithuania Perkunas, as the God of Thunder, was worshipped with great reverence. His statue is said to have held in its hand " a precious stone like fire," shaped " in the image of the hghtning," and before it constantly burnt an oak-wood fire. If the fire by any chance went out, it was rekindled by means of sparks struck from the stone. His name is not • According to Dr. Biihler the word Ferhima is " exactly equi- valent to a Sanskrit Parjcma, to which the affix ya was added without change of signification." "With respect to the absence of the k in the Slavonic forms of the name he says, " This elision may perhaps be attributed to the position of the r. As a group of consonants formed by rh or rg would be in disharmony with the phonetic rules established in the Slavonic languages, and the usual transposition of the liquid was not effected, an unusual remedy only could hinder the violation of the laws of the language." — Phil. Soo. Trans. 1859, p. 164. See also the Deutsche Mytho- logie, 156. ' Afanasief, P. V. S. I. 249. THE OLD GODS. 89 yet forgotten by the people, who say, when the thun- , der rolls, PerTcuns grumena, and who stiU sing dainos'^ in which he is mentioned. In one of these a girl who is mourning for the loss of her flowers is asked, — Did the north wind blow. Or did Perkanas thunder or send hghtnings ? In another it is told how when The Morning Star held a wedding-feast, Perkunas rode through the doorway. Struck down the green oak. And in a third the following myth is related about the marriage of the Moon, a male deity in the Slavo- Lettic languages : — The Moon wedded the Sun In the first spring. The Sun arose early The Moon departed from her. The Moon wandered alone. Courted the Morning Star. Perkunas greatly wroth Cleft him with a sword. " Wherefore dost thou depart from the Sun ? Wandering by night alone ? Courting the Morning Star ? " FuU of sorrow [was Ms] hearts Among the kindred Livonians a feast used to be celebrated at the beginning of Spring, during which ^ Dama (plur. Dainos) is a Lithuanian word for a song. It is not used, however, in the case of a song of a serious or religious cast, which hears a special name. ' Nesselmann's Littauische VblksUeder, No. 2. 90 MYTHOLOGY. the foUowmg prayer is said to have been uttered by the officiating priest : — " Perkons ! father ! thy children lead this faultless victim to thy altar. Bestow, father, thy blessing on the plough and on the corn. May golden straw with great well-filled ears rise abundantly as rushes. Drive away all black haily clouds to the great moors, forests, and large deserts, where they will not frighten mankind ; and give sunshine and rain, gentle falling rain, in order that the crops may thrive * ! " Among many of the "Western Slavonians the name of this thunder-god is stiU preserved under various forms in the speech of the people. The White-Rus- sian peasant to this day uses such expressions in his wrath as " Perun smite thee ! " and the Slovaks have retained a curse, " May Parom show thee his teeth! " that is to say, " May the lightning strike thee* ! " In a most valuable collection of Lettish songs recently published at "Wilna, in Lett and Russian, there occur several allusions to Perkons, either re- garded as the thunder-god or as the thunder itself. In one we are told that — Father Perkons Has nine Sons : Three strike, three thunder, Three Ughten. Another states that — Perkons drove across the sea. In order to marry beyond the sea : * Quoted by Dr. Biihler from Lasicius, Be Biis Samogitarum I have not as yet succeeded in verifying the quotation. ' Afanasief, P.V. S. I. 251. THE OLD GODS. 91 Him tlie Sun followed with a dowry Bestowing gifts on all the woods : To the Oak a golden girdle, To the Maple motley gloves. And a third addresses the Thunderer as follows : — Strike, Perkons, the spring To the very depths — In it the Sun's daughter yesterday was drowned While washing golden goblets °. According to a Polish tradition, the mother of the thunder is called Percunatele, a name which is ap- plied in part of Russian Lithuania as an epithet of the Yirgin Mary, who is called Panna [Lady] Maria Percunatele. In the Grovernment of Vilna the second of February is devoted to the Presvyataya Mariya Gromnitsa, the Very Holy Mary the Thunderer, and during service on that day the faithful stand in church holding lighted tapers, the remains of which they keep by them during the rest of the year, lighting them before their holy pictures from time to time when storms impend'. In " Great-Russia," or Russia proper, the name of Perun has disappeared from the memory of the common people, and it has left scarcely any traces behind. Only two Russian localities, says Schopping, bear names which seem to be derived from his, and one of them is in Kief, and the other in the Govern- ° Pamvyatnihi LatwishsTcago Narodnago TvorcTiestva, etc., p. 315, 316 (" Memorials of Lettish Popular Poetry," collected and edited by Ivan Sprogis), Wilna, 1868. ' Schopping's E. N. p. 195. 92 MYTHOLOGY. ment of Novgorod, botli places directly under Varan- gian influence — Ms theory being tliat the Scandi- navian rulers of Russia were the chief promoters of the worship of Perun *. In their treaties with the