O brilliant Sun! I am fairer than thou, Than thy brother, the bright Moon, Than thy sister, the moving star [Venus?]. In South-Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth. But among the Northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. "Thou askest me of what race, of what family I am," says the fair maiden of a song preserved in the Tambof Government-- My mother is--the beauteous Sun, And my father--the bright Moon; My brothers are--the many Stars, And my sisters--the white Dawns.[223] A far more detailed account might be given of the Witch and her near relation the Baba Yaga, as well as of those masculine embodiments of that spirit of evil which is personified in them, the Snake, Koshchei, and other similar beings. But the stories which have been quoted will suffice to give at least a general idea of their moral and physical attributes. We will now turn from their forms, so constantly introduced into the skazka-drama, to some of the supernatural figures which are not so often brought upon the stage--to those mythical beings of whom (numerous as may be the traditions about them) the regular "story" does not so often speak, to such personifications of abstract ideas as are less frequently employed to set its conventional machinery in motion. FOOTNOTES: [72] "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 160-185. [73] In one story (Khudyakof, No. 117) there are snakes with twenty-eight and twenty-nine heads, but this is unusual. [74] Afanasief, ii. No. 30. From the Chernigof Government. The accent falls on the second syllable of Ivan, on the first of Popyalof. [75] _Popyal_, provincial word for _pepel_ = ashes, cinders, whence the surname Popyalof. A pood is about 40lbs. [76] On slender supports. [77] _Pod mostom_, _i.e._, says Afanasief (vol. v. p. 243), under the raised flooring which, in an _izba_, serves as a sleeping place. [78] _Zatvelyef_, apparently a provincial word. [79] The Russian word _krof_ also signifies blood. [80] The last sentence of the story forms one of the conventional and meaningless "tags" frequently attached to the skazkas. In future I shall omit them. Kuzma and Demian (SS. Cosmas and Damian) figure in Russian folk-lore as saintly and supernatural smiths, frequently at war with snakes, which they maltreat in various ways. See A. de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," vol. ii. p. 397. [81] Afanasief, Skazki, vol. vii. p. 3. [82] _Chudo_ = prodigy. _Yudo_ may be a remembrance of Judas, or it may be used merely for the sake of the rhyme.