Reading Notes: Russian Tales, Part B

 Important things to remember:

• The Witch Girl
• A horseman road into a village and asked if he could stay the night, which he was answered with "If you don't fear death"
• He then saw many people crying and he asked why, they said that death comes around at night and if it looks on your house you will be in a coffin the next day
• The horseman stayed awake that night, and right at midnight the window opened and a witch dressed in all white came in
• She snuck towards him and he surprised her and cut her arm off
• She fled and he hid her arm in his cloak and went to sleep
• The next morning the villagers were so excited to see no one had died
• One of the villagers was saddened, because her daughter had become ill in the night and lost her arm
• The horseman showed the arm of the witch he had cut off, and the girl was ordered to be drowned
• The Warlock
•  A man with 3 sons was about to die, so he told his 3 daughter-in-laws that the first 3 nights after his death one of them would have to look over him and spin wool
• The first daughter-in-law did this, and the man in the coffin talked to her then strangled her to death
• This happened again with the second daughter-in-law the next night
• The third night the daughter-in-law wore a hidden cross
• When the man went to strangle her she laid the cross upon him and he died, and all that was left in the coffin was a lot of money

Witch in the night, via source

Russian Tales via http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-russian-fairy-tales.html