[249] Everyone knows how frequent are the allusions to good and bad fortune in Oriental fiction, so that there is no occasion to do more than allude to the stories in which they occur--one of the most interesting of which is that of Víra-vara in the "Hitopadesa" (chap. iii. Fable 9), who finds one night a young and beautiful woman, richly decked with jewels, weeping outside the city in which dwells his royal master Sudraka, and asks her who she is, and why she weeps. To which (in Mr. Johnson's translation) she replies "I am the Fortune of this King Sudraka, beneath the shadow of whose arm I have long reposed very happily. Through the fault of the queen the king will die on the third day. I shall be without a protector, and shall stay no longer; therefore do I weep." On the variants of this story, see Benfey's "Panchatantra," i. pp. 415-16. [250] From _pyat_ = five, Friday being the fifth working day. Similarly Tuesday is called _Vtornik_, from _vtoroi_ = second; Wednesday is _Sereda_, "the middle;" Thursday _Chetverg_, from _chetverty_ = fourth. But Saturday is _Subbòta_. [251] _P.V.S._, i. 230. See also Buslaef, "Ist. Och." pp. 323, 503-4. [252] A tradition of our own relates that the Lords of the Admiralty, wishing to prove the absurdity of the English sailor's horror of Friday, commenced a ship on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, named her "The Friday," procured a Captain Friday to command her, and sent her to sea on a Friday, and--she was never heard of again. [253] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 13. From the Tambof Government. [254] For an account of various similar superstitions connected with Wednesday and Thursday, see Mannhardt's "Germanische Mythen," p. 15, 16, and W. Schmidt's "Das Jahr und seine Tage," p. 19. [255] Khudyakof, No. 166. From the Orel Government. [256] Doubtful. The Russian word is "Svarit," properly "to cook." [257] Compare the English nursery rhyme addressed to the lady-bird: "Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, Your house is a-fire, your children at home."