I have already[383] mentioned one of
them, in which, also, the Fox plays a prominent part. Its opening
words are, "There once lived an old man and an old woman, and they had
a little daughter. One day she was eating beans, and she let one fall
on the ground. The bean grew and grew, and grew right up to heaven.
The old man climbed up to heaven, slipped in there, walked and walked,
admired and admired, and said to himself, 'I'll go and fetch the old
woman; won't she just be delighted!'" So he tries to carry his wife up
the bean stalk, but grows faint and lets her fall; she is killed, and
he calls in the Fox as Wailer.[384]

In a variant of the "Fox Physician" from the Vologda Government, it is
a pea which gives birth to the wondrous tree. "There lived an old man
and an old woman; the old man was rolling a pea about, and it fell on
the ground. They searched and searched a whole week, but they couldn't
find it. The week passed by, and the old people saw that the pea had
begun to sprout. They watered it regularly, and the pea set to work
and grew higher than the izba. When the peas ripened, the old man
climbed up to where they were, plucked a great bundle of them, and
began sliding down the stalk again. But the bundle fell out of the old
man's hands and killed the old woman."[385]

According to another variant, "There once lived a grandfather and a
grandmother, and they had a hut. The grandfather sowed a bean under
the table, and the grandmother a pea. A hen gobbled up the pea, but
the bean grew up as high as the table. They moved the table, and the
bean grew still higher. They cut away the ceiling and the roof; it
went on growing until it grew right up to the heavens (_nebo_). The
grandfather climbed up to heaven, climbed and climbed--there stood a
hut (_khatka_), its walls of pancakes, its benches of white bread, the
stove of buttered curds. He began to eat, ate his fill, and lay down
above the stove to sleep. In came twelve sister-goats. The first had
one eye, the second two eyes, the third three, and so on with the
rest, the last having twelve eyes. They saw that some one had been
meddling with their hut, so they put it to rights, and when they went
out they left the one-eyed to keep watch. Next day the grandfather
again climbed up there, saw One-Eye and began to mutter[386] 'Sleep,
eye, sleep!' The goat went to sleep. The man ate his fill and went
away. Next day the two-eyed kept watch, and after it the three-eyed
and