[That part of this story which relates to the baking and eating of the witch's daughter is well known in many lands. It is found in the German "Hänsel und Grethel" (Grimm. _KM._ No. 15, and iii. p. 25, where a number of parallels are mentioned); in the Norse "Askelad" (Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 1. Dasent, "Boots and the Troll," No. 32), where a Troll's daughter is baked; and "Smörbuk" (Asb. and Moe, No. 52. Dasent, "Buttercup," No. 18), in which the victim is daughter of a "Haugkjœrring," another name for a Troll-wife; in the Servian story of "The Stepmother," &c. (Vuk Karajich, No. 35, pp. 174-5) in which two _Chivuti_, or Jews, are tricked into eating their baked mother; in the Modern Greek stories (Hahn, No. 3 and ii. p. 181), in which the hero bakes (1) a _Drakäna_, while her husband, the _Drakos_, is at church, (2) a _Lamiopula_, during the absence of the _Lamia_, her mother; and in the Albanian story of "Augenhündin" (Hahn, No. 95), in which the heroine gets rid in a similar manner of Maro, the daughter of that four eyed συκιένεζα. (See note, ii, 309.) Afanasief also refers (i. p. 121) to Haltrich, No. 37, and Haupt and Schmaler, ii. pp. 172-4. He also mentions a similar tale about a giantess existing among the Baltic Kashoubes. See also the end of the song of Tardanak, showing how he killed "the Seven Headed Jelbegen," Radloff, i. p. 31.] A variant of this story (from the Chernigof Government)[211] begins by telling how two old people were childless for a long time. At last the husband went into the forest, felled wood, and made a cradle. Into this his wife laid one of the logs he had cut, and began swinging it, crooning the while a rune beginning Swing, blockie dear, swing. After a little time "behold! the block already had legs. The old woman rejoiced greatly and began singing anew, and went on singing until the block became a babe." In this variant the boy rows a silver boat with a golden oar; in another South Russian variant[212] the boat is golden, the oar of silver. In a White-Russian variant quoted by Afanasief (i. p. 118), the place of the witch's daughter is filled by her son, who had been in the habit of alluring to her den by gifts of toys, and there devouring, the children from the adjacent villages. Buslaef's "Historical Essays," (i. pp. 313-321) contain a valuable investigation of Kulish's version of this story, which he compares with the romance of "The Knight of the Swan."