ed as a male being.

[240] Afanasief, v. p. 237.

[241] _Spasibo_ is the word in popular use as an expression of thanks,
and it now means nothing more than "thank you!" But it is really a
contraction of _spasi Bog!_ "God save (you)!" as our "Good-bye!" is of
"God be with you!"

[242] Maksimovich, "Tri Skazki" (quoted by Afanasief, viii. p. 406).

[243] Vuk Karajich, No. 13.

[244] Afanasief, viii. No. 21.

[245] _Schastie_ and _Neschastie_--Luck and Bad-luck--the exact
counterparts of the Indian Lakshmi and Alakshmi.

[246] Afanasief, iii. No. 9.

[247] Afanasief viii. pp. 32-4.

[248] _Bezdolny_ (_bez_ = without; _dolya_ = lot, share, etc.).

[249] Everyone knows how frequent are the allusions to good and bad
fortune in Oriental fiction, so that there is no occasion to do more
than allude to the stories in which they occur--one of the most
interesting of which is that of Vira-vara in the "Hitopadesa" (chap.
iii. Fable 9), who finds one night a young and beautiful woman, richly
decked with jewels, weeping outside the city in which dwells his royal
master Sudraka, and asks her who she is, and why she weeps. To which
(in Mr. Johnson's translation) she replies "I am the Fortune of this
King Sudraka, beneath the shadow of whose arm I have long reposed very
happily. Through the fault of the queen the king will die on the third
day. I shall be without a protector, and shall stay no longer;
therefore do I weep." On the variants of this story, see Benfey's
"Panchatantra," i. pp. 415-16.

[250] From _pyat_ = five, Friday being the fifth working day.
Similarly Tuesday is called _Vtornik_, from _vtoroi_ = second;
Wednesday is _Sereda_, "the middle;" Thursday _Chetverg_, from
_chetverty_ = fourth. But Saturday is _Subbota_.

[251] _P.V.S._, i. 230. See also Buslaef, "Ist. Och." pp. 323, 503-4.

[252] A tradition of our own relates that the Lords of the Admiralty,
wishing to prove the absurdity of the English sailor's horror of
Friday, commenced a ship on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, named
her "The Friday," procured a Captain Friday to command her, and sent
her to sea on a Friday, and--she was never heard of again.

[253] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 13. From the Tambof Government.

[254] For an account of various similar superstitions connected with
Wednesday and Thursday, see Mannhardt's "Germanische Mythen," p. 15,
16, and W. Schmidt's "Das Jahr und seine Tage," p. 19.

[255] Khudyakof, No. 166. From the