"I have been on the earth," says St. Nicholas, whose clothes were all covered with mud. "I went along that same road, and I helped the moujik to get his cart free." Then the Lord says, "Listen, Kasian! Because thou didst not assist the moujik, therefore shall men honor thee by thanksgiving once only every four years. But to thee, Nicholas, because thou didst assist the moujik to set free his cart, shall men twice every year offer up thanksgiving." "Ever since that time," says the story, "it has been customary to offer prayers and thanksgiving (_molebnui_) to Nicholas twice a year, but to Kasian only once every leap-year."[452] In another story St. Nicholas comes to the aid of an adventurer who watches beside the coffin of a bewitched princess. There were two moujiks in a certain village, we are told, one of whom was very rich and the other very poor. One day the poor man, who was in great distress, went to the house of the rich man and begged for a loan. "I will repay it, on my word. Here is Nicholas as a surety," he cried, pointing to a picture of St. Nicholas. Thereupon the rich man lent him twenty roubles. The day for repayment came, but the poor man had not a single copeck. Furious at his loss, the rich man rushed to the picture of St. Nicholas, crying-- "Why don't you pay up for that pauper? You stood surety for him, didn't you?" And as the picture made no reply, he tore it down from the wall, set it on a cart and drove it away, flogging it as he went, and crying-- "Pay me my money! Pay me my money!" As he drove past the inn a young merchant saw him, and cried-- "What are you doing, you infidel!" The moujik explained that as he could not get his money back from a man who was in his debt, he was proceeding against a surety; whereupon the merchant paid the debt, and thereby ransomed the picture, which he hung up in a place of honor, and kept a lamp burning before it. Soon afterwards an old man offered his services to the merchant, who appointed him his manager; and from that time all things went well with the merchant. But after a while a misfortune befell the land in which he lived, for "an evil witch enchanted the king's daughter, who lay dead all day long, but at night got up and ate people." So she was shut up in a coffin and placed in a church, and her hand, with half the kingdom as her dowry, was offered to any one who could disenchant her. The merchant, in accordance with his old manager's instructions, undertook the task, and after a series of adventures succeeded in accomplishing it. The last words of one of the narrators of the story are, "Now this old one was no mere man. He was Nicholas himself, the saint of God."[453] With one more legend about this favorite saint, I will conclude this section of the present chapter. In some of its incidents it closely resembles the story of "The Smith and the Demon," which was quoted in the first chapter. THE PRIEST WITH THE GREEDY EYES.[454]