The two friends

A Ghost Story from Russia

In the days of old there lived in a certain village two young
men. They were great friends, went to _besyedas_ together, in
fact, regarded each other as brothers. And they made this
mutual agreement. Whichever of the two should marry first
was to invite his comrade to his wedding. And it was not to
make any difference whether he was alive or dead.

About a year after this one of the young men fell ill and
died. A few months later his comrade took it into his head to
get married. So he collected all his kinsmen, and set off to
fetch his bride. Now it happened that they drove past the
graveyard, and the bridegroom recalled his friend to mind, and
remembered his old agreement. So he had the horses stopped,
saying:

"I'm going to my comrade's grave. I shall ask him to come
and enjoy himself at my wedding. A right trusty friend was
he to me."

So he went to the grave and began to call aloud:

"Comrade dear! I invite thee to my wedding."

Suddenly the grave yawned, the dead man arose, and said:

"Thanks be to thee, brother, that thou hast fulfilled thy
promise. And now, that we may profit by this happy chance,
enter my abode. Let us quaff a glass apiece of grateful drink."

"I'd have gone, only the marriage procession is stopping
outside; all the folks are waiting for me."

"Eh, brother!" replied the dead man, "surely it won't take
long to toss off a glass!"

The bridegroom jumped into the grave. The dead man
poured him out a cup of liquor. He drank it off--and a hundred
years passed away.

"Quaff another cup, dear friend!" said the dead man.

He drank a second cup--two hundred years passed away.

"Now, comrade dear, quaff a third cup!" said the dead
man, "and then go, in God's name, and celebrate thy marriage!"

He drank the third cup--three hundred years passed away.

The dead man took leave of his comrade. The coffin lid fell;
the grave closed.

The bridegroom looked around. Where the graveyard had
been, was now a piece of waste ground. No road was to be
seen, no kinsmen, no horses. All around grew nettles and tall
grass.

He ran to the village--but the village was not what it used
to be. The houses were different; the people were all strangers
to him. He went to the priest's--but the priest was not the one
who used to be there--and told him about everything that had
happened. The priest searched through the church-books, and
found that, three hundred years before, this occurrence had
taken place: a bridegroom had gone to the graveyard on his
wedding-day, and had disappeared. And his bride, after some
time had passed by, had married another man.

[The "Rip van Winkle" story is too well known to
require more than a passing allusion. It was doubtless
founded on one of the numerous folk-tales which
correspond to the Christian legend of "The Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus"--itself an echo of an older tale
(see Baring Gould, "Curious Myths," 1872, pp. 93-112,
and Cox, "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," i.
413)--and to that of the monk who listens to a bird
singing in the convent garden, and remains entranced
for the space of many years: of which latter legend a
Russian version occurs in Chudinsky's collection (No.
17, pp. 92-4). Very close indeed is the resemblance
between the Russian story of "The Two Friends," and
the Norse "Friends in Life and Death" (Asbjoernsen's
New Series, No. 62, pp. 5-7). In the latter the
bridegroom knocks hard and long on his dead friend's
grave. At length its occupant appears, and accounts
for his delay by saying he had been far away when the
first knocks came, and so had not heard them. Then he
follows the bridegroom to church and from church, and
afterwards the bridegroom sees him back to his tomb.
On the way the living man expresses a desire to see
something of the world beyond the grave, and the
corpse fulfils his wish, having first placed on his
head a sod cut in the graveyard. After witnessing many
strange sights, the bridegroom is told to sit down and
wait till his guide returns. When he rises to his
feet, he is all overgrown with mosses and shrub (var
han overvoxen med Mose og Busker), and when he reaches
the outer world he finds all things changed.]

But from these dim sketches of a life beyond, or rather within the
grave, in which memories of old days and old friendships are preserved
by ghosts of an almost genial and entirely harmless disposition, we
will now turn to those more elaborate pictures in which the dead are
represented under an altogether terrific aspect. It is not as an
incorporeal being that the visitor from the other world is represented
in the Skazkas. He comes not as a mere phantom, intangible,
impalpable, incapable of physical exertion, haunting the dwelling
which once was his home, or the spot to which he is drawn by the
memory of some unexpiated crime. It is as a vitalized corpse that he
comes to trouble mankind, often subject to human appetites, constantly
endowed with more than human strength and malignity. His apparel is
generally that of the grave, and he cannot endure to part with it, as
may be seen from the following story--

THE SHROUD

A Russian Folktale and Ghost Story

In a certain village there was a girl who was lazy and slothful,
hated working but would gossip and chatter away like anything.
Well, she took it into her head to invite the other girls to a spinning
party. For in the villages, as every one knows, it is the
lazybones who gives the spinning-feast, and the sweet-toothed
are those who go to it.

Well, on the appointed night she got her spinners together.
They span for her, and she fed them and feasted them. Among
other things they chatted about was this--which of them all was
the boldest?

Says the lazybones (_lezhaka_):

"I'm not afraid of anything!"

"Well then," say the spinners, "if you're not afraid, go
past the graveyard to the church, take down the holy picture
from the door, and bring it here."

"Good, I'll bring it; only each of you must spin me a distaff-ful."

That was just her sort of notion: to do nothing herself, but
to get others to do it for her. Well, she went, took down the
picture, and brought it home with her. Her friends all saw that
sure enough it was the picture from the church. But the picture
had to be taken back again, and it was now the midnight hour.
Who was to take it? At length the lazybones said:

"You girls go on spinning. I'll take it back myself. I'm
not afraid of anything!"

So she went and put the picture back in its place. As she
was passing the graveyard on her return, she saw a corpse in a
white shroud, seated on a tomb. It was a moonlight night;
everything was visible. She went up to the corpse, and drew
away its shroud from it. The corpse held its peace, not uttering
a word; no doubt the time for it to speak had not come yet.
Well, she took the shroud and went home.

"There!" says she, "I've taken back the picture and put
it in its place; and, what's more, here's a shroud I took away
from a corpse."

Some of the girls were horrified; others didn't believe what
she said, and laughed at her.

But after they had supped and lain down to sleep, all of a
sudden the corpse tapped at the window and said:

"Give me my shroud! Give me my shroud!"

The girls were so frightened they didn't know whether they
were alive or dead. But the lazybones took the shroud, went to
the window, opened it, and said:

"There, take it."

"No," replied the corpse, "restore it to the place you took
it from."

Just then the cocks suddenly began to crow. The corpse
disappeared.

Next night, when the spinners had all gone home to their
own houses, at the very same hour as before, the corpse came,
tapped at the window, and cried:

"Give me my shroud!"

Well, the girl's father and mother opened the window and
offered him his shroud.

"No," says he, "let her take it back to the place she took
it from."

"Really now, how could one go to a graveyard with a corpse?
What a horrible idea!" she replied.

Just then the cocks crew. The corpse disappeared.

Next day the girl's father and mother sent for the priest,
told him the whole story, and entreated him to help them in their
trouble.

"Couldn't a service[405] be performed?" they said.

The priest reflected awhile; then he replied:

"Please to tell her to come to church to-morrow."

Next day the lazybones went to church. The service began,
numbers of people came to it. But just as they were going
to sing the cherubim song,[406] there suddenly arose, goodness
knows whence, so terrible a whirlwind that all the congregation
fell flat on their faces. And it caught up that girl, and then flung
her down on the ground. The girl disappeared from sight;
nothing was left of her but her back hair.[407]

They are generally the corpses of wizards, or of other sinners who
have led specially unholy lives, which leave their graves by night and
wander abroad. Into such bodies, it is held, demons enter, and the
combination of fiend and corpse goes forth as the terrible Vampire
thirsting for blood. Of the proceedings of such a being the next story
gives a detailed account, from which, among other things, may be
learnt the fact that Slavonic corpses attach great importance to their
coffin-lids as well as to their shrouds.

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