unger
brother went there too, but on foot, meekly and modestly, just
as if he hadn't kissed the Princess, and seated himself in a
distant corner. The Princess Helena asked for her bridegroom,
wanted to show him to the world at large, wanted to give him
half her kingdom; but the bridegroom did not put in an appearance!
Search was made for him among the boyars, among
the generals; everyone was examined in his turn--but with no
result! Meanwhile, Vanya looked on, smiling and chuckling,
and waiting till the bride should come to him herself.

"I pleased her then," says he, "when I appeared as a gay
gallant; now let her fall in love with me in my plain caftan."

Then up she rose, looked around with bright eyes that shed
a radiance on all who stood there, and saw and knew her bridegroom,
and made him take his seat by her side, and speedily was
wedded to him. And he--good heavens! how clever he turned
out, and how brave, and what a handsome fellow! Only see
him mount his flying steed, give his cap a cock, and stick his
elbows akimbo! why, you'd say he was a king, a born king!
you'd never suspect he once was only Vanyusha.

The incident of the midnight watch by a father's grave, kept by a son
to whom the dead man appears and gives a magic horse, often occurs in
the Skazkas. It is thoroughly in accordance with Slavonic ideas about
the residence of the dead in their tombs, and their ability to assist
their descendants in time of trouble. Appeals for aid to a dead parent
are of frequent occurrence in the songs still sung by the Russian
peasantry at funerals or over graves; especially in those in which
orphans express their grief, calling upon the grave to open, and the
dead to appear and listen and help.[336] So in the Indian story of
Punchkin, the seven hungry stepmother-persecuted princesses go out
every day and sit by their dead mother's tomb, and cry, and say, "Oh,
mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children, how unhappy we
are," etc., until a tree grows up out of the grave laden with fruits
for their relief.[337] So in the German tale,[338] Cinderella is aided
by the white bird, which dwells in the hazel tree growing out of her
mother's grave.

In one of the Skazkas[339] a stepdaughter is assisted by her cow. The
girl, following its instructions, gets in at one ear and out of the
other, and finds all her tasks performed, all her difficulties
removed. When it is killed, there sp