is glove, and it disappears, leaving behind it the bags,
which turn out to be full of gold. This he gathers up, and then goes
indoors. After finding out from his wife where she has taken up her
quarters for the night, he says:

"And where are you, Need?"

"In the pitcher which stands on the stove."

After a time the moujik asks his wife if she is asleep. "Not yet,"
she replies. Then he puts the same question to Need, who gives no
answer, having gone to sleep. So he takes his wife's last sarafan,
wraps up the pitcher in it, and flings the bundle into an
ice-hole.[237]

In one of the "chap-book" stories (a _lubochnaya skazka_), a poor man
"obtained a crust of bread and took it home to provide his wife and
boy with a meal, but just as he was beginning to cut it, suddenly out
from behind the stove jumped Kruchina,[238] snatched the crust from
his hands, and fled back again behind the stove. Then the old man
began to bow down before Kruchina and to beseech him[239] to give back
the bread, seeing that he and his had nothing to eat. Thereupon
Kruchina replied, "I will not give you back your crust, but in return
for it I will make you a present of a duck which will lay a golden egg
every day," and kept his word.[240]

In Little-Russia the peasantry believe in the existence of small
beings, of vaguely defined form, called _Zluidni_ who bring _zlo_ or
evil to every habitation in which they take up their quarters. "May
the Zluidni strike him!" is a Little-Russian curse, and "The Zluidni
have got leave for three days; not in three years will you get rid of
them!" is a White-Russian proverb. In a Little-Russian skazka a poor
man catches a fish and takes it as a present to his rich brother, who
says, "A splendid fish! thank you, brother, thank you!" but evinces no
other sign of gratitude. On his way home the poor man meets an old
stranger and tells him his story--how he had taken his brother a fish
and had got nothing in return but a "thank ye."

"How!" cries the old man. "A _spasibo_[241] is no small thing. Sell it
to me!"

"How can one sell it?" replies the moujik. "Take it pray, as a
present!"

"So the _spasibo_ is mine!" says the old man, and disappears, leaving
in the peasant's hands a purse full of gold.

The peasant grows rich, and moves into another house. After a time his
wife says to him--

"We've been wrong, Ivan, in leaving our mill-stones in the old house.
They nourished us, you see, when we were poor; but