Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by DavidPrice, . Many thanks to Norfolk andNorwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the imagesfrom which this transcription was made.
THE STORY
of
YVASHKA WITH THE BEAR’S EAR
Translated from theRussian
by
GEORGE BORROW
London:
printed for private circulation
1913
p.7INTRODUCTION
The tale of Yvashka; or, Jack with theBear’s Ear, is a great favourite in Russia. Itsmain interest depends not so much on him of the Bear’s Ear,or even his comrade, Moustacho, who angles for trout with hismoustaches, as on Baba Yaga. This personage is the grandmythological demon of the Russians, and frequently makes herappearance in their popular tales, but perhaps in none plays soremarkable a part as in the story of Yvashka. A littleinformation with respect to her will perhaps not be unacceptableto the reader before entering upon the story. She is saidto be a huge female who goes driving about the p. 8steppes in amortar, which she forces onward by pounding lustily with apestle, though of course, being in a mortar, she cannot wield thepestle without hurting herself. As she hurries along shedraws with her tongue, which is at least three yards long, a markupon the dust, and with it seizes every living thing comingwithin her reach, which she swallows for the gratification of herever-raging appetite. She has several young and handsomedaughters whom she keeps in a deep well beneath her izbushka orcabin, which has neither door nor window, and stands upon thewildest part of the steppe upon crow’s feet and iscontinually turning round. Whenever Baba Yaga meets aperson she is in the habit of screaming out:—
“Oho,Oho!
I ne’er saw Russian wight till now;
But now the flesh of a Russian wight
I smell with nose and see with sight.”
p.9Such is the Russian tradition about Baba Yaga, who isunlike in every respect any of the goblins and mythologicalmonsters of Western Europe, except perhaps in her cry, which putsone in mind of the exclamation of the giant in the Englishnursery tale of Jack the Giant killer:—
“Fee,Fi, Fo, Fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
In the demon lore of the Turks, however, there is a ghostlybeing with which she seems to have considerable affinity. This goblin is called Kara Conjulos. Kara Conjulos is afemale, and lives at the bottom of a well in a certain part ofConstantinople, from which she emerges every night and drivesabout the city in a cart drawn by two buffaloes. She ismuch in the habit of stopping at caravansaries, going into thestables and breeding a confusion and a panic amongst thehorses. She has several daughters, who p. 10occasionallyaccompany her in her expeditions and assist her in the commissionof her pranks. A certain learned effendi, in a most curiousTurkish book which he wrote about Cons