The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear, by Anonymous, Edited by Thomas Wise, Translated by George Borrow
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Title: The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear
Release Date: May 16, 2009 [eBook #28834]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF YVASHKA WITH THE BEAR'S EAR
***Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email [email protected]. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was made.
[Picture: Manuscript of Yvashka with the Bear’s ear]
_Translated from the Russian_ BY GEORGE BORROW
LONDON: PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 1913
The tale of _Yvashka_; _or_, _Jack with the Bear’s Ear_, is a great favourite in Russia. Its main interest depends not so much on him of the Bear’s Ear, or even his comrade, Moustacho, who angles for trout with his moustaches, as on Baba Yaga. This personage is the grand mythological demon of the Russians, and frequently makes her appearance in their popular tales, but perhaps in none plays so remarkable a part as in the story of Yvashka. A little information with respect to her will perhaps not be unacceptable to the reader before entering upon the story. She is said to be a huge female who goes driving about the steppes in a mortar, which she forces onward by pounding lustily with a pestle, though of course, being in a mortar, she cannot wield the pestle without hurting herself. As she hurries along she draws with her tongue, which is at least three yards long, a mark upon the dust, and with it seizes every living thing coming within her reach, which she swallows for the gratification of her ever-raging appetite. She has several young and handsome daughters whom she keeps in a deep well beneath her izbushka or cabin, which has neither door nor window, and stands upon the wildest part of the steppe upon crow’s feet and is continually turning round. Whenever Baba Yaga meets a person she is in the habit of screaming out:—