One-Eyed Likho

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Title:     One-Eyed Likho
Author: William Ralston Shedden-Ralston [More Titles by Shedden-Ralston]

Translator: Ralston, William Ralston Shedden, 1828-1889

ONE-EYED LIKHO.[224]

Once upon a time there was a smith. "Well now," says he, "I've never set eyes on any harm. They say there's evil (likho)[225] in the world. I'll go and seek me out evil." So he went and had a goodish drink, and then started in search of evil. On the way he met a tailor.

"Good day," says the Tailor.

"Good day."

"Where are you going?" asks the Tailor.

"Well, brother, everybody says there is evil on earth. But I've never seen any, so I'm going to look for it."

"Let's go together. I'm a thriving man, too, and have seen no evil; let's go and have a hunt for some."

Well, they walked and walked till they reached a dark, dense forest. In it they found a small path, and along it they went--along the narrow path. They walked and walked along the path, and at last they saw a large cottage standing before them. It was night; there was nowhere else to go to. "Look here," they say, "let's go into that cottage." In they went. There was nobody there. All looked bare and squalid. They sat down, and remained sitting there some time. Presently in came a tall woman, lank, crooked, with only one eye.

"Ah!" says she, "I've visitors. Good day to you."

"Good day, grandmother. We've come to pass the night under your roof."

"Very good: I shall have something to sup on."

Thereupon they were greatly terrified. As for her, she went and fetched a great heap of firewood. She brought in the heap of firewood, flung it into the stove, and set it alight. Then she went up to the two men, took one of them--the Tailor--cut his throat, trussed him, and put him in the oven.

Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, "What's to be done? how's one to save one's life?" When she had finished her supper, the Smith looked at the oven and said:

"Granny, I'm a smith."

"What can you forge?"

"Anything."

"Make me an eye."

"Good," says he; "but have you got any cord? I must tie you up, or you won't keep still. I shall have to hammer your eye in."

She went and fetched two cords, one rather thin, the other thicker. Well, he bound her with the one which was thinnest.

"Now then, granny," says he, "just turn over." She turned over, and broke the cord.

"That won't do, granny," says he; "that cord doesn't suit."

He took the thick cord, and tied her up with it famously.

"Now then, turn away, granny!" says he. She turned and twisted, but didn't break the cord. Then he took an awl, heated it red-hot, and applied it to her eye--her sound one. At the same moment he caught up a hatchet, and hammered away vigorously with the back of it at the awl. She struggled like anything, and broke the cord; then she went and sat down at the threshold.

"Ah, villain!" she cried. "You sha'n't get away from me now!"

He saw that he was in an evil plight again. There he sat, thinking, "What's to be done?"

By-and-by the sheep came home from afield, and she drove them into her cottage for the night. Well, the Smith spent the night there, too. In the morning she got up to let the sheep out. He took his sheep-skin pelisse and turned it inside out so that the wool was outside, passed his arms through its sleeves, and pulled it well over him, and crept up to her as he had been a sheep. She let the flock go out one at a time, catching hold of each by the wool on its back, and shoving it out. Well, he came creeping up like the rest. She caught hold of the wool on his back and shoved him out. But as soon as she had shoved him out, he stood up and cried:

"Farewell, Likho! I have suffered much evil (likha) at your hands. Now you can do nothing to me."

"Wait a bit!" she replied; "you shall endure still more. You haven't escaped yet!"

The Smith went back through the forest along the narrow path. Presently he saw a golden-handled hatchet sticking in a tree, and he felt a strong desire to seize it. Well, he did seize that hatchet, and his hand stuck fast to it. What was to be done? There was no freeing it anyhow. He gave a look behind him. There was Likho coming after him, and crying:

"There you are, villain! you've not got off yet!"

The Smith pulled out a small knife which he had in his pocket, and began hacking away at his hand--cut it clean off and ran away. When he reached his village, he immediately began to show his arm as a proof that he had seen Likho at last.

"Look," says he, "that's the state of things. Here am I," says he, "without my hand. And as for my comrade, she's eaten him up entirely."

 

FOOTNOTES:

[224] The adjective likhoi has two opposite meanings, sometimes signifying what is evil, hurtful, malicious, &c., sometimes what is bold, vigorous, and therefore to be admired. As a substantive, likho conveys the idea of something malevolent or unfortunate. The Polish licho properly signifies uneven. But odd numbers are sometimes considered unlucky. Polish housewives, for instance, think it imprudent to allow their hens to sit on an uneven number of eggs. But the peasantry also describe by Licho an evil spirit, a sort of devil. (Wojcicki in the "Encyklopedyja Powszechna," xvii. p. 17.) "When Likho sleeps, awake it not," says a proverb common to Poland and South Russia.

[225] Afanasief, iii. No. 14. From the Voroneje Government.

[The end]
William Ralston Shedden-Ralston's short story: One-Eyed Likho

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