o
death, but the Wind comforts him, saying, "I will blow warm, and will
not let you be hurt."[286]

Sometimes the Frost is described by the people as a mighty smith who
forges strong chains with which to bind the earth and the waters--as
in the saying "The Old One has built a bridge without axe and without
knife," _i.e._, the river is frozen over. Sometimes Moroz-Treskun, the
Crackling Frost, is spoken of without disguise as the preserver of the
hero who is ordered to enter a bath which has been heated red-hot.
Frost goes into the bath, and breathes with so icy a breath that the
heat of the building turns at once to cold.[287]

The story in which Frost so singularly figures is one which is known
in many lands, and of which many variants are current in Russia. The
jealous hatred of a stepmother, who exposes her stepdaughter to some
great peril, has been made the theme of countless tales. What gives
its special importance, as well as its poetical charm, to the skazka
which has been quoted, is the introduction of Frost as the power to
which the stepmother has recourse for the furtherance of her murderous
plans, and by which she, in the persons of her own daughters, is
ultimately punished. We have already dealt with one specimen of the
skazkas of this class, the story of Vasilissa, who is sent to the Baba
Yaga's for a light. Another, still more closely connected with that of
"Frost," occurs in Khudyakof's collection.[288]

A certain woman ordered her husband (says the story) to make away with
his daughter by a previous marriage. So he took the girl into the
forest, and left her in a kind of hut, telling her to prepare some
soup while he was cutting wood. "At that time there was a gale
blowing. The old man tied a log to a tree; when the wind blew, the log
rattled. She thought the old man was going on cutting wood, but in
reality he had gone away home."

When the soup was ready, she called out to her father to come to
dinner. No reply came from him, "but there was a human head in the
forest, and it replied, 'I'm coming immediately!' And when the Head
arrived, it cried, 'Maiden, open the door!' She opened it. 'Maiden,
Maiden! lift me over the threshold!' She lifted it over. 'Maiden,
Maiden! put the dinner on the table!' She did so, and she and the Head
sat down to dinner. When they had dined, 'Maiden, Maiden!' said the
Head, 'take me off the bench!' She took it off the bench, and cleared
the table. It lay down to sleep on