ead and squabble with dogs."

Well, the Spider released her. Away she flew, and everywhere
humming and buzzing about, told the flies and gnats of
what had occurred.

"Ho, ye gnats and flies! Meet here beneath this ash-tree's
roots. A spider has come, and, with waving of arms and weaving
of nets, has set his snares in all the ways to which the flies
and gnats resort. He'll catch them, every single one!"

They flew to the spot; beneath the ash-tree's roots they hid,
and lay there as though they were dead. The Spider came,
and there he found a cricket, a beetle, and a bug.

"O Cricket!" he cried, "upon this mound sit and take
snuff! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, O
Bug, the bun-like, beneath the ash, and spread abroad this news
of me, the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold--that the Spider,
the wrestler, the hero bold, no longer in the world exists; that
they have sent him to Kazan; that in Kazan, upon a block,
they've chopped his head off, and the block destroyed."

On the mound sat the Cricket and took snuff. The Beetle
smote upon the drum. The Bug crawled in among the ash-tree's
roots, and cried:--

"Why have ye fallen? Wherefore as in death do ye lie
here? Truly no longer lives the Spider, the wrestler, the hero
bold. They've sent him to Kazan and in Kazan they've chopped
his head off on a block, and afterwards destroyed the block."

The gnats and flies grew blithe and merry. Thrice they
crossed themselves, then out they flew--and straight into the
Spider's snares. Said he:--

"But seldom do ye come! I would that ye would far more
often come to visit me! to quaff my wine and beer, and pay me
tribute!"[68]

This story is specially interesting in the original, inasmuch as it
is rhymed throughout, although printed as prose. A kind of lilt is
perceptible in many of the Skazkas, and traces of rhyme are often to
be detected in them, but "The Mizgir's" mould is different from
theirs. Many stories also exist in an artificially versified form, but
their movement differs entirely from that of the naturally cadenced
periods of the ordinary Skazka, or of such rhymed prose as that of
"The Mizgir."

The following legend is not altogether new in "motive," but a certain
freshness is lent to it by its simple style, its unstrained humor, and
its genial tone.

THE SMITH AND THE DEMON.[69]

Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had o