The Tcheremisses have similar ideas, and are afraid of knocking the icicles off their houses, thinking that, if they do so, Frost will wax wroth and freeze them to death. In one of the Skazkas, a peasant goes out one day to a field of buckwheat, and finds it all broken down. He goes home, and tells the bad news to his wife, who says, "It is Frost who has done this. Go and find him, and make him pay for the damage!" So the peasant goes into the forest and, after wandering about for some time, lights upon a path which leads him to a cottage made of ice, covered with snow, and hung with icicles. He knocks at the door, and out comes an old man--"all white." This is Frost, who presents him with the magic cudgel and table-cloth which work wonders in so many of the tales.[285] In another story, a peasant meets the Sun, the Wind, and the Frost. He bows to all three, but adds an extra salutation to the Wind. This enrages the two others, and the Sun cries out that he will burn up the peasant. But the Wind says, "I will blow cold, and temper the heat." Then the Frost threatens to freeze the peasant to death, but the Wind comforts him, saying, "I will blow warm, and will not let you be hurt."[286] Sometimes the Frost is described by the people as a mighty smith who forges strong chains with which to bind the earth and the waters--as in the saying "The Old One has built a bridge without axe and without knife," _i.e._, the river is frozen over. Sometimes Moroz-Treskun, the Crackling Frost, is spoken of without disguise as the preserver of the hero who is ordered to enter a bath which has been heated red-hot. Frost goes into the bath, and breathes with so icy a breath that the heat of the building turns at once to cold.[287] The story in which Frost so singularly figures is one which is known in many lands, and of which many variants are current in Russia. The jealous hatred of a stepmother, who exposes her stepdaughter to some great peril, has been made the theme of countless tales. What gives its special importance, as well as its poetical charm, to the skazka which has been quoted, is the introduction of Frost as the power to which the stepmother has recourse for the furtherance of her murderous plans, and by which she, in the persons of her own daughters, is ultimately punished. We have already dealt with one specimen of the skazkas of this class, the story of Vasilissa, who is sent to the Baba Yaga's for a light. Another, still more closely connected with that of "Frost," occurs in Khudyakof's collection.[288] A certain woman ordered her husband (says the story) to make away with his daughter by a previous marriage. So he took the girl into the forest, and left her in a kind of hut, telling her to prepare some soup while he was cutting wood. "At that time there was a gale blowing. The old man tied a log to a tree; when the wind blew, the log rattled. She thought the old man was going on cutting wood, but in reality he had gone away home."