302 KOSHCHEI THE DEATHLESS 
respects the ugly counterpart of the more agreeable 
Kalypso and Kirke, or of the abominable Queen Labe 
in the Arabian tale of “ Beder and Johara.” The Baba 
Yaga figures very extensively in Russian folk-lore as 
a malignant fiend, and one prominent way in which 
she wreaks her malice is to turn her victims into stone. 
Herein she agrees with the Gorgon Medusa and the 
magician Punchkin. Why the fiends of darkness 
should be described as petrifying their victims is per- 
haps not obvious, until we reflect that throughout an 
immense circle of myths the powers of winter are indis- 
criminately mixed up with those of the night time, as 
being indiscriminately the foes of the sun god Zeus or 
Indra. That the demon of winter should turn its vic- 
tims into stone for a season, until they are released by 
the solar hero, is in no wise incomprehensible, even to 
our mature and prosaic style of thinking. The hero 
who successfully withstands the spell of the Gorgon, 
after many less fortunate champions have succumbed 
to it, is the indomitable Perseus, who ushers in the 
springtime. 
The malignant characteristics of Punchkin are thus, 
in the Russian tale, divided between Koshchei and 
his ally, the Baba Yaga. It is in this random, helter- 
skelter way that the materials of folk-lore are ordina- 
rily put together. But the instinct of the story-teller 
is here correct enough, for he feels that these demons 
really belong to the same family, though he cannot 
point, as the scholar can, to the associations of ideas 
which have determined what characteristics are to be 
assigned them. It cannot be too carefully borne in 
mind that the story-teller knows nothing whatever of 
the ancient mythical significance of the incidents 
