Wednesday

A Russian Fairy Tale Story

A young housewife was spinning late one evening. It was during
the night between a Tuesday and a Wednesday. She had
been left alone for a long time, and after midnight, when the
first cock crew, she began to think about going to bed, only she
would have liked to finish spinning what she had in hand. " Well, "
thinks she, " I'll get up a bit earlier in the morning, but just
now I want to go to sleep." So she laid down her hatchel--but
without crossing herself--and said:

" Now then, Mother Wednesday, lend me thy aid, that I may
get up early in the morning and finish my spinning." And then
she went to sleep.

Well, very early in the morning, long before it was light, she
heard some one moving, bustling about the room. She opened
her eyes and looked. The room was lighted up. A splinter of
fir was burning in the cresset, and the fire was lighted in the
stove. A woman, no longer young, wearing a white towel by
way of head-dress, was moving about the cottage, going to and
fro, supplying the stove with firewood, getting everything ready.
Presently she came up to the young woman, and roused her, saying,
" Get up! " The young woman got up, full of wonder, saying:

" But who art thou? What hast thou come here for? "

" I am she on whom thou didst call. I have come to thy aid."

" But who art thou? On whom did I call? "

" I am Wednesday. On Wednesday surely thou didst call.
See, I have spun thy linen and woven thy web: now let us bleach
it and set it in the oven. The oven is heated and the irons are
ready; do thou go down to the brook and draw water."

The woman was frightened, and thought: " What manner of
thing is this? " (or, " How can that be? ") but Wednesday glared
at her angrily; her eyes just did sparkle!

So the woman took a couple of pails and went for water. As
soon as she was outside the door she thought: " Mayn't something
terrible happen to me? I'd better go to my neighbor's instead
of fetching the water." So she set off. The night was
dark. In the village all were still asleep. She reached a neighbor's
house, and rapped away at the window until at last she
made herself heard. An aged woman let her in.

" Why, child! " says the old crone; " whatever hast thou got
up so early for? What's the matter? "

" Oh, granny, this is how it was. Wednesday has come to me,
and has sent me for water to buck my linen with."

" That doesn't look well, " says the old crone. " On that linen
she will either strangle thee or scald thee."

The old woman was evidently well acquainted with Wednesday's
ways.

" What am I to do? " says the young woman. " How can I
escape from this danger? "

" Well, this is what thou must do. Go and beat thy pails together
in front of the house, and cry, 'Wednesday's children
have been burnt at sea! ' She will run out of the house, and
do thou be sure to seize the opportunity to get into it before she
comes back, and immediately slam the door to, and make the
sign of the cross over it. Then don't let her in, however much
she may threaten you or implore you, but sign a cross with your
hands, and draw one with a piece of chalk, and utter a prayer.
The Unclean Spirit will have to disappear."

Well, the young woman ran home, beat the pails together,
and cried out beneath the window:

" Wednesday's children have been burnt at sea! "

Wednesday rushed out of the house and ran to look, and the
woman sprang inside, shut the door, and set a cross upon it.
Wednesday came running back, and began crying: " Let me in,
my dear! I have spun thy linen; now will I bleach it." But the
woman would not listen to her, so Wednesday went on knocking
at the door until cock-crow. As soon as the cocks crew, she
uttered a shrill cry and disappeared. But the linen remained
where it was.

In one of the numerous legends which the Russian peasants hold in
reverence, St. Petka or Friday appears among the other saints, and
together with her is mentioned another canonized day, St. Nedelya or
Sunday, answering to the Greek St. Anastasia, to _Der heilige
Sonntag_ of German peasant-hagiology. In some respects she resembles
both Friday and Wednesday, sharing their views about spinning and
weaving at unfitting seasons. Thus in Little-Russia she assures
untimely spinners that it is not flax they are spinning, but her hair,
and in proof of this she shows them her dishevelled _kosa_, or long
back plait.

In one of the Wallachian tales the hero is assisted in his
search after the dragon-stolen heroine by three supernatural
females--the holy Mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday. They replace
the three benignant Baba Yagas of Russian stories. In another,
the same three beings assist the Wallachian Psyche when she is
wandering in quest of her lost husband. Mother Sunday rules the animal
world, and can collect her subjects by playing on a magic flute. She
is represented as exercising authority over both birds and beasts, and
in a Slovak story she bestows on the hero a magic horse. He has been
sent by an unnatural mother in search of various things hard to be
obtained, but he is assisted in the quest by St. Ned[)e]lka, who
provides him with various magical implements, and lends him her own
steed Tatoschik, and so enables him four times to escape from the
perils to which he has been exposed by his mother, whose mind has been
entirely corrupted by an insidious dragon. But after he has returned
home in safety, his mother binds him as if in sport, and the dragon
chops off his head and cuts his body to pieces. His mother retains his
heart, but ties up the rest of him in a bundle, and sets it on
Tatoschik's back. The steed carries its ghastly burden to St.
Ned[)e]lka, who soon reanimates it, and the youth becomes as sound and
vigorous as a young man without a heart can be. Then the saint sends
him, under the disguise of a begging piper, to the castle in which his
mother dwells, and instructs him how to get his heart back again. He
succeeds, and carries it in his hand to St. Ned[)e]lka. She gives it
to " the bird Pelekan (no mere Pelican, but a magic fowl with a very
long and slim neck), which puts its head down the youth's throat, and
restores his heart to its right place." [262]

St. Friday and St. Wednesday appear to belong to that class of
spiritual beings, sometimes of a demoniacal disposition, with which
the imagination of the old Slavonians peopled the elements. Of several
of these--such as the Domovoy or House-Spirit, the Rusalka or Naiad,
and the Vodyany or Water-Sprite--I have written at some length
elsewhere, and therefore I will not at present quote any of the
stories in which they figure. But, as a specimen of the class to which
such tales as these belong, here is a skazka about one of the
wood-sprites or Slavonic Satyrs, who are still believed by the
peasants to haunt the forests of Russia. In it we see reduced to a
vulgar form, and brought into accordance with everyday peasant-life,
the myth which appears to have given rise to the endless stories about
the theft and recovery of queens and princesses. The leading idea of
the story is the same, but the Snake or Koshchei has become a paltry
wood-demon, the hero is a mere hunter, and the princely heroine has
sunk to the low estate of a priest's daughter.