free board and lodging, but that he should
never be allowed to stop more than twenty-four hours in any one
place." These orders are obeyed, and wherever Luckless goes, "nobody
ever asks him for his billet or his passport, but they give him food
to eat, and liquor to drink, and a place to spend the night in; and
next morning they take him by the scruff of the neck and turn him out
of doors."[249]

We will now turn from the forms under which popular fiction has
embodied some of the ideas connected with Fortune and Misfortune, to
another strange group of figures--the personifications of certain days
of the week. Of these, by far the most important is that of Friday.

The Russian name for that day, _Pyatnitsa_,[250] has no such
mythological significance as have our own Friday and the French
_Vendredi_. But the day was undoubtedly consecrated by the old
Slavonians to some goddess akin to Venus or Freyja, and her worship in
ancient times accounts for the superstitions now connected with the
name of Friday. According to Afanasief,[251] the Carinthian name for
the day, _Sibne dan_, is a clear proof that it was once holy to Siva,
the Lithuanian Seewa, the Slavonic goddess answering to Ceres. In
Christian times the personality of the goddess (by whatever name she
may have been known) to whom Friday was consecrated became merged in
that of St. Prascovia, and she is now frequently addressed by the
compound name of "Mother Pyatnitsa-Prascovia." As she is supposed to
wander about the houses of the peasants on her holy day, and to be
offended if she finds certain kinds of work going on, they are (or at
least they used to be) frequently suspended on Fridays. It is a sin,
says a time-honored tradition, for a woman to sew, or spin, or weave,
or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly for a man to plait bast
shoes, twine cord, and the like. Spinning and weaving are especially
obnoxious to "Mother Friday," for the dust and refuse thus produced
injure her eyes. When this takes place, she revenges herself by
plagues of sore-eyes, whitlows and agnails. In some places the
villagers go to bed early on Friday evening, believing that "St.
Pyatinka" will punish all whom she finds awake when she roams through
the cottage. In others they sweep their floors every Thursday evening,
that she may not be annoyed by dust or the like when she comes next
day. Sometimes, however, she has been seen, says the popular voice,
"all pricked with the needles and pi