(The Dead Mother)
There was a couple that had a baby. Shortly after, the mother died and the husband was at loss how he was going to take care of, and nourish the baby. So he hired an older woman to take care of it. However, nothing she could do would calm the baby and it cried all day and did not eat. One night, the baby suddenly stopped crying and the old woman found this quite odd. It continued to happen and so she began to watch and found that someone was coming into the house at night and going to the baby's room. She alerted the husband of this and so he brought in others to stake out one night and see who it was that was coming every night and calming the baby. That night when the person came in, they shown a light and saw that it was the dead mother. They were terrified and when the mother saw that she had been seen she looked down at the baby and disappeared. They then saw that the baby was dead.
(The Water Snake)
There was a girl bathing in a pond. While she was bathing a snake laid upon her robes and would not get off of them unless she agreed to marry him. She agreed knowing it was not possible for her to marry a snake and she went home and forgot about it. A few weeks later, tons of snakes went to her cottage and drug the girl back into the pond. When they reached the water they all turned into men and women. She lived down there for three years and had two children. One day she went to visit her mother and said that when she came back she would cry out for her husband to come and get her. That night while the girl was sleeping, her mother went to the pond and cried out for her daughter's husband and when he came out she chopped off his head. The daughter found out about this and was very distraught. She sent her daughter to be a wren, her son to be a nightengale, and herself a cuckoo.
Water Snake. Web Source.
Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by Ralston.
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