In another story,[151] the being who obtains a child from one of the incautious fathers of the Jephthah type who abound in popular fiction, is of a very singular nature. A merchant is flying across a river on the back of an eagle, when he drops a magic "snuff-box," which had been entrusted to his charge by that bird, and it disappears beneath the waters. At the eagle's command, the crayfish search for it, and bring back word that it is lying "on the knees of an Idol." The eagle summons the Idol, and demands the snuff box. Thereupon the Idol says to the merchant--"Give me what you do not know of at home?" The merchant agrees and the Idol gives him back his snuff-box. In some of the variants of the story, the influence of ideas connected with Christianity makes itself apparent in the names given to the actors. Thus in the "Moujik and Anastasia Adovna,"[152] it is no longer a king of the waters, but a devil's imp,[153] who bargains with the thirsting father for his child, and the swan-maiden whose shift the devoted youth steals bears the name of Adovna, the daughter of Ad or Hades. In "The Youth,"[154] a moujik, who has lost his way in a forest makes the rash promise to a man who enables him to cross a great river; "and that man (says the story) was a devil."[155] We shall meet with other instances further on of parents whose "hasty words" condemn their children to captivity among evil spirits. In one of the stories of this class,[156] the father is a hunter who is perishing with cold one night, and who makes the usual promise as the condition of his being allowed to warm himself at a fire guarded by a devil. Being in consequence of this deprived of a son, he becomes very sad, and drinks himself to death. "The priest will not bury his sinful body, so it is thrust into a hole at a crossway," and he falls into the power of "that very same devil," who turns him into a horse, and uses him as a beast of burden. At last he is released by his son, who has forced the devil to free him after several adventures--one of them being a fight with the evil spirit in the shape of a three-headed snake. In the Hindoo story of "Brave Seventee Bai,"[157] that heroine kills "a very large Cobra" which comes out of a lake. Touching the waters with a magic diamond taken from the snake, she sees them roll back "in a wall on either hand," between which she passes into a splendid garden. In it she finds a lovely girl who proves to be the Cobra's daughter and who is delighted to hear of her serpent-father's death.