KOSHCHEI THE DEATHLESS 297 
Aryan tales, but in none more forcibly than in the 
Bohemian story of “ Yanechek * and the Water Demon.” 
A poor widow’s mischievous boy having been drowned, 
the mother some time after succeeds in capturing the 
water demon while he is out of his element, roaming 
about on land. She drags him home to her hut, 
and ties him tight with a rope nine times plaited, and 
builds a fearful fire in the oven, which so scorches and 
torments the fiend that he is prevailed upon to tell her 
how to get down into the water kingdom and release 
her Yanechek. Everything succeeds until Yanechek 
is restored to the dry land, and learns how his enemy 
is tied hand and foot in the hut. Overcome with a 
silly desire for revenge, he runs home, picks up a sharp 
hatchet, and throws it at the water demon, thinking to 
split his head open and finish him. But the horrible 
fiend, changing suddenly into a huge black dog, jumps 
aside as the axe descends, and the sharp edge falls on 
the ninefold plaited rope and severs it. The dog, freed 
from his fetters, springs to the empty water-jug stand- 
ing on the table, and thrusting in his paw succeeds in 
touching one wet drop that remained at the bottom. 
Instantly, then, the demon recovered his strength, and 
the drop of water became an overwhelming torrent, 
that swallowed up Yanechek, and his mother, and the 
house, and the region round about, and went off roar- 
ing down the hillside, leaving nothing but a dark and 
gloomy pool, which is there to this day, at that self- 
same spot in Bohemia, with the legend still hovering 
about it. 
1 The diminutive Vanechek means “Johnny.” The name of the grand 
Bohemian actress, Fanny /anauschek, would seem to be equivalent to the 
English name “ Johnson.” 
