Part 23 (1/2)

BLUEBEARD.

(KREUTZWALD.)

The Esthonian version of ”Bluebeard” (the Wife-Murderer) is very similar to the usual story. A rich lord, reported to have vast treasure-vaults under his castle, lost his wives very fast, and married, as his twelfth wife, the youngest of the three daughters of a reduced gentleman in the neighbourhood. An orphan boy had been brought up in the household, and had served first as gooseherd, and then as page; but he was always known as ”Goose-Tony.” He was nearly of the same age as the young lady, who had been his playmate, and he declared that the rich suitor was a murderer; his heart told him so, and his presentiments had never yet deceived him. The boy was scolded and threatened, but his warnings made so much impression that he was allowed to accompany the bride to her new home.

Three weeks afterwards, the husband set out on a journey, leaving his keys with his wife, among which was the gold key of the forbidden chamber. He warned her that if she even looked in, he would be forced to behead her with his own hand. She begged him in vain to take charge of it himself; but he refused, and left it with her.

Next morning one of the lady's sisters came to stay with her; but a day or two afterwards the page gave her another warning, after which he suddenly disappeared, and no trace of him could be found. The two sisters looked over the house, and at last encouraged each other to enter the secret chamber. In the middle stood an oaken block with a broad axe upon it, and the floor was splashed with blood. In the background against the wall stood a table, with the b.l.o.o.d.y heads of the squire's former wives ranged upon it. The lady dropped the key in her horror, and on picking it up found it covered with blood-stains, which nothing could remove, while the door stood a handbreadth open, as if an invisible wedge had fallen between the door and the door-post.

The squire was not expected to return for a week, but he came back next morning, and rushed upstairs in a frenzied rage, dragged his wife to the block by her hair, and was just lifting the axe, when he was struck down by Goose-Tony with a heavy cudgel, and bound. He was brought to justice, and sentenced to death, and his property was adjudged to his widow, who shortly after married the page who had saved her life.

CINDERELLA.

(KREUTZWALD.)

The Esthonian story of Tuhka-Triinu (Ash-Katie[1]), as given by Kreutzwald, is more on the lines of the German _Aschenputtel_ than on those of the French _Cendrillon_.

Once upon a time there lived a rich man with his wife and an only daughter. When the mother dies, she directs her daughter to plant a tree on her grave, where the birds can find food and shelter.[2] The father marries a widow with two daughters, who ill-treat the motherless girl, declaring that she shall be their slave-girl. A magpie cries from the summit of the tree, ”Poor child, poor child! why do you not go and complain to the rowan-tree? Ask for counsel, when your hard life will be lightened.”

She goes to the grave at night, and a voice asks her to whom she should appeal, and in whom she should trust, and she answers, ”G.o.d.” Then the voice tells her to call the c.o.c.k and hen to help her, when she has work to do which she cannot perform by herself.

When the king's ball is announced, Cinderella has to dress her sisters, after which the eldest throws lentils into the ashes, telling her to pick them up; but this is done by the c.o.c.k and hen. She is left at home weeping, and a voice tells her to go and shake the rowan-tree. When she had done so, a light appeared in the darkness, and she saw a woman sitting on the summit of the tree. She was an ell high, and clothed in golden raiment, and she held a small basket and a gold wand in her hands. She took a hen's egg from her basket, which she turned into a coach; six mice formed the horses, a black beetle[3] formed the coachman, and two speckled b.u.t.terflies the footmen.

The little witch-maiden then dressed Tuhka Triinu as magnificently as a Saxon lady. She then sent her to the ball, warning her to leave before the c.o.c.k crows for the third time, as everything will then resume its original shape. On the second night Tuhka Triinu took to flight, and lost one of her little gold shoes, which the prince found next morning.

When it came to be tried on, Tuhka Triinu's sisters, who thought they had small feet, tugged and squeezed without success. But the shoe fitted Tuhka Triinu. Her guardian again robed her magnificently, and she married the prince.[4]

[Footnote 1: Here Cinderella's real name is Katrina; in Finnish she is sometimes called Kristina (see Miss c.o.x, _Cinderella_, p. 552), while in Slavonic tales she is called Marya, and in some German adaptations Aennchen.]

[Footnote 2: When Vainamoinen cleared the forest, he left a birch-tree standing for the same purpose (_Kalevala_, Runo ii.).]

[Footnote 3: A black dung-beetle (_Geotrupes_) is meant, not a c.o.c.kroach.]

[Footnote 4: This story is one of those which Lowe has pa.s.sed over, and it is also omitted by Miss c.o.x.]

THE DRAGON-SLAYER.

We find this story in a familiar form in that of ”The Lucky Rouble”

(Kreutzwald). The father of three sons, before his death, gives Peter,[5] the youngest, a magic silver rouble, which always returns to the pocket of its possessor. Peter afterwards meets a one-eyed old man, who sells him three black dogs, named Run-for-Food, Tear-Down, and Break-Iron. Afterwards, when pa.s.sing through a forest, he meets a grand coach, in which a princess, who has been chosen by lot to be delivered over to a monster, is being conveyed to her doom. Peter abides the issue, and encounters the monster, which is described as like a bear, but much bigger than a horse, covered with scales instead of hair, with two crooked horns on the head, two long wings, long boars' tusks, and long legs and claws.[6] With the a.s.sistance of the dog Tear-Down, Peter kills the monster, cuts off his horns and tusks, and leaves the princess with the coachman, promising to return in three years. The coachman compels the princess by threats to say that he killed the dragon; but the princess contrives to delay her marriage with the coachman, and on the wedding-day Peter returns, is imprisoned by order of the king, but released by Break-Iron. Then he sends Run-for-Food to the princess, who recognises him, and reveals the secret to her father. The coachman is condemned to death, and Peter produces the horns and claws of the dragon, and marries the princess, when the dogs, whose mission is accomplished, a.s.sume the forms of swans, and fly away.

[Footnote 5: Peeter.]