the stranger and cries, "Stop, brother! that field
isn't mine, but my niece Militsa's," whereupon the fire goes out and
the crop is saved.[243]

On this idea of a personal Fortune is founded the quaint opening of
one of the Russian stories. A certain peasant, known as Ivan the
Unlucky, in despair at his constant want of success, goes to the king
for advice. The king lays the matter before "his nobles and generals,"
but they can make nothing of it. At last the king's daughter enters
the council chamber and says, "This is my opinion, my father. If he
were to be married, the Lord might allot him another sort of Fortune."
The king flies into a passion and exclaims:

"Since you've settled the question better than all of us, go and marry
him yourself!"

The marriage takes place, and brings Ivan good luck along with
it.[244]

Similar references to a man's good or bad luck frequently occur in
the skazkas. Thus in one of them (from the Grodno Government) a poor
man meets "two ladies (_pannui_), and those ladies are--the one
Fortune and the other Misfortune."[245] He tells them how poor he is,
and they agree that it will be well to bestow something on him. "Since
he is one of yours," says Luck, "do you make him a present." At length
they take out ten roubles and give them to him. He hides the money in
a pot, and his wife gives it away to a neighbor. Again they assist
him, giving him twenty roubles, and again his wife gives them away
unwittingly. Then the ladies bestow on him two farthings (_groshi_),
telling him to give them to fishermen, and bid them make a cast "for
his luck." He obeys, and the result is the capture of a fish which
brings him in wealth.[246]

In another story[247] a young man, the son of a wealthy merchant, is
so unlucky that nothing will prosper with him. Having lost all that
his father has left him, he hires himself out, first as a laborer,
then as a herdsman. But as, in each capacity, he involves his masters
in heavy losses, he soon finds himself without employment. Then he
tries another country, in which the king gives him a post as a sort of
stoker in the royal distillery, which he soon all but burns down. The
king is at first bent upon punishing him, but pardons him after
hearing his sad tale. "He bestowed on him the name of Luckless,[248]
and gave orders that a stamp should be set on his forehead, that no
tolls or taxes should be demanded from him, and that wherever he
appeared he should be given