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THE BROWNIE, OR HOUSE-SPIRIT.

(FROM THE BOHEMIAN.)

I.

Ar Behary lived a peasant whose name was Palichka. One day as he was walking to market at Kopidlno, he found in the field under a pear-tree a black hen, wet, trembling with cold, and crying. Palichka took the hen under his cloak, and having brought her home, put her behind the oven, so that she might dry herself, and then let her go into the yard among his other fowls.

At night, when everybody was asleep, the peasant heard a strange noise in his storeroom, and now and then a piercing voice, half human and half like that of a fowl, crying, "Master, I have brought you some potatoes!" Palichka jumped out of bed, rushed into the storeroom, and there saw a flaming hen and three heaps of potatoes; the hen was flying from heap to heap.

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"Fie, you unclean thing," cried the terrified peasant, and having violently shut the door he went to bed again; but he could not sleep from fear at the thought of what a terrible creature he had brought home. In the morning he removed all these potatoes to a dunghill.

On the following night Palichka again heard the same voice, crying, "Master, I have brought you some wheat, rye, and barley!" Palichka did not go to see what it was, but trembling with fear like a leaf, he prayed continually: "Deliver us from evil." In the morning he took up a spade and a besom, and having carefully swept the room, he removed all this corn away, so that not even a grain was left behind.

This event gave him a great deal of anxiety; he did not know what to do, and was greatly alarmed lest any of his neighbours should hear about it. But his neighbours soon knew all about the matter; they saw at night something flying to Palichka's house, looking like a burning wisp of straw, and yet it did not set the house on fire; in the day-time they observed a black hen in the yard among the other fowls. Soon a report was spread in the village that gossip Palichka had sold himself to the demon. Some of the more sober of his neighbours shook their heads doubtfully, as from his youth they knew Palichka to be both pious and honest,

and they agreed among themselves to go and speak to him about the rumour. Accordingly they called upon Palichka, and he told them candidly everything that had happened, and asked them to advise him what to do.

"My advice is to kill this monster," cried a young peasant, and having caught hold of a piece of wood he threw it at the black hen. But in the same moment the hen flew up on to his shoulders and began to beat him as if with a cane, and at every blow she cried, “I am Rarash! Rarash! Rarash!"*

Afterwards some of the neighbours advised Palichka to sell all he had and remove from thence, as Rarash would, doubtless, remain in the house. The peasant readily seized this idea, and searched for a buyer; but no one would buy a house with a Rarash in it. Palichka, however, was determined to get rid of Rarash at any price. Accordingly he sold all his corn, cattle, and all that he did not absolutely want, bought a new hut in a neighbouring village, and removed there. Having arrived for the last time with a cart and loaded it with sheep troughs, household utensils, harrows, and other implements, he set his straw-covered hut on fire; it stood alone and could not hurt any other building..

*The brownie, or house-spirit.

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