H6c3. The Stork and the Other World. .16.28.29.31.

Large birds flying in a wedge (storks, cranes, swans, geese - German Zugvögel) are associated with the other world (they bring children from there, take children to the non-human world, own living and dead water, etc.).

Germans (Schleswig, Hesse, Pomerania, Rügen), Czechs, Poles, Kashubians, Lusatians, Hutsuls (?), Belarusians, Russians (North – Olonetsk?, Vologda, Ryazan, Kursk), Ingush (and Chechens?), Livs, Estonians.

Western Europe. Germans (Schleswig) [Adebar to Neste, / Bring me a little sister or brother. / Adebar, or / Bring me a little brother (Stork, bring me a little sister or brother)]: Müllenhoff 1845: 491; Germans (Hesse) [a stork brings children from springs; such springs, believed to be associated with the birth of children, are numerous throughout Hesse (no. 117)]: Lyncjer 1854, no. 191: 123; Germans(Pomerania) [a farm laborer has 23 sons; when another one is born, he cannot find a godfather; the farm laborer goes looking; soon he meets a girl; she says that she is God and is ready to be a godmother; the farm laborer refuses: God is unfair; he meets the devil - the same thing; then an old man; this is Death; the farm laborer is glad; the son is named Hans; the godfather gave the pastor a key and told him to give it to G. when he grows up; G., having received the key, went wandering; there is a castle in the forest; the key fits the gate; there is much light in the palace; the godfather comes out - an old man - Death; the light from the lamps, each burns as long as a person lives; G. sees that his father has a couple of days left to live; he asks to light a new lamp for him; G.'s own lamp should burn for a long time; G. went on; again the house, the key fits again, a white horse is behind the door; the horse: if you opened the door, then are you Death? G. asked him to feed him; horse: here is food and wine, and then let's run, this is a den of robbers; G. mounted the horse, it rose to the clouds and flew away; G. sees a bird with shining plumage; the horse advises not to touch it; but G. turned the key into a gun, fired, the bullet hit the bird and G., contrary to the horse's advice, picked up a feather; near the city, the horse orders that the bridle be taken off him: if you shake it, he will appear; and let G. hire himself out as a groom; the king has forbidden lighting a fire at night; G. lives in a stable; at night he took out a feather and the stable was illuminated; servants came running, found the feather, brought G. to the king; he demands that the bird itself be obtained in three days; horse: ask the ship for three ships with provisions to sail to the princess, on whose table the bird is; After six months they swam to the shore, and G. released three carps that had found themselves on the sand into the sea; they promised to help; in another place three giants are fighting; a storm has destroyed all their property, only an ox remains; whoever kills the other two will eat the ox, and then he himself will die; G. gives the giants cattle and grain seeds, etc., which he brought with him; the giants promised to help; on another island there is a storks' nest in a pine tree; a black cloud with hail is approaching; G. covered the storks with branches; adult storks flew in, the chicks told them everything; for the first time they will be able to raise the chicks; the storks promised to help G.; they swam to the castle, the key unlocked the door; the princess is sleeping in the bedroom; there is a golden and an iron cage on the table; as the horse taught, G. put the golden bird in an iron cage and carried it away; brought it to the king; Having learned how it all happened, he orders to get the princess; the horse teaches to swim to the princess, taking a hundred trumpets; at 50, blow under the window of the castle; if she wants to hear another 50, let her go up on the ship; when she got up, G. took her away; she threw all the keys to the rooms of her palace into the sea; she tells the king that she will not marry him until she has a palace better than her previous one; horse: giants will help you; giants gave you an iron ring, it created a palace; princess: let them bring my keys from the sea; horse: ask for carp; carp are the kings of the sea, they called all the fish; the last to arrive was an old pike; she found the golden keys, decided to deliver them; but since they are heavy, she was delayed; the princess demands the water of life, the water of beauty and the water of death; horse: ask the storks; G. swam to them; this blue storks; they say that the water of life and the water of beauty are with them, and the water of death must be asked from the white storks; they flew to them, defeated them, brought a vessel with the water of death ; G. gave all three vessels to the princess; she pierced him with a dagger, sprinkled him with the water of beauty and revived him with the water of life; the king wanted the same, but she sprinkled him with the water of death; G. became king and married the princess; the horse orders to slaughter him, and then wash him with the water of beauty and the water of life; the horse became a princess; G.: I already have a wife, but become the wife of one of my brothers; she chose the youngest; from among the remaining 22, 11 began to serve G., and the others - the brother who married the princess; and if G. did not die, then he is still alive]: Jahn 1891, No. 9: 48-61; Germans (Rügen Island) [the Germanized Slavs of the island of Rügen knew of the “stork stone,” on which the stork dries its children taken from the sea]: Gura, Stakhov 1995: 99.

Balkans. Bulgarians [children put a martenitsa under a stone, believing that in return a stork will bring them a brother or sister]: Gura, Starkov 1995: 99.

Central Europe. Czechs : Grohmann 2015, no. 436 [a stork steals children and takes them to other houses, to other families], 747-752 [before birth, children are kept in the mountains under rocks; when the time comes for birth, a crow flies in for the child, carries it away and places it on the window sill; the children sit in a deep pond, from where the stork brings them; or it brings the children, having taken them out from under a granite boulder; the stork or the crow throws the children through a chimney, under which a midwife stands and catches them]: 92, 144; Czechs , Poles , Lusatians , Kashubians , Belarusians [the idea that the stork brings children is most widespread among the Western Slavs (Czechs, Poles, Lusatians), and is also found in the west of the South Slavic area and less often among the Southern Slavs; The stork pulls children out of the swamp (Poles), brings them in a basket, tub, trough (Luzhatians), throws them into the house through the chimney (Belarusian Polesie, Poles); among the Kashubians, the stork throws frogs into the chimney, which, having passed through the chimney, acquire human form; peasants come from frogs found in a meadow or field, and fishermen from those found on the shore]: Gura, Strakhov 1995: 98; Russian : Karnaukhova 1948 (Sever - Olonetskaya?) [Masha is hard-working, her sister Dasha is lazy; when leaving for the fair, her parents tell them to look after their youngest son Ivanushka; geese-swans carry him away on their wings; Dasha runs after him, refuses to eat a rye pie from the Stove, a sour apple from the Apple Tree, to taste milk and jelly from the Milk River with its jelly banks; the Hedgehog points out where Baba Yaga's hut is, where Ivanushka is playing with golden apples; Dasha grabs him and runs, the River, the Apple Tree, and the Stove refuse to hide, the geese-swans take Ivanushka away; Masha eats a pie, an apple, and jelly; the River, the Apple Tree, and the Stove hide her, the geese-swans stop pursuing her]: 78-83; Russian (Vologda) [(the narrator remembers the tale very poorly); the parents went to the city, left the boy Ivan with his older sister; he was kidnapped by the geese-swans; the sister asked the apple tree, the river, tried the apple; returned her little brother], 56 (Vologda) [the parents went to the city, leaving the boy with the older sister; she came to her senses – the geese had carried him away; the girl ran, refused to eat the pie from the oven, to sip the jelly by the river, to try the apples from the apple tree; Baba Ega went for berries, the girl took her little brother and ran; this time she tried everything, so the apple tree, the river, the oven hid them]: Kuzmina 2008, No. 55: 135, 135-137; Russian(Ryazanskaya) [Alyonushka's parents told her to watch her little brother Tereshechka (or Ivanushka - the informant gets confused); her friends came, A. forgot, the geese-swans carried off T.; A. followed, refusing to eat a sour apple from the apple tree, to eat oatmeal jelly from the river, to take bread out of the oven (her parents have everything better); Baba Yaga tries to put T. in the oven, he spread his arms, asked to show, put her in himself, A. carried away her little brother; BYa got out, told the geese to catch up; this time A. fulfills the requests of the apple tree, the stove, the river, they hide her, the geese did not find her, A. brought her little brother to her parents]: Samodelova 2013, No. 72: 82-84; Russian: Russians (Kursk) [as they leave, the parents tell their daughter to take care of her little brother; she gets carried away playing, the geese-swans carry off Ivashechka, the sister runs to catch up; the stove asks to eat its pie, the apple tree asks for its wild apple, the milk river with its jelly banks asks for milk and jelly; the girl answers each time that her father doesn’t eat wheat, or garden, or cream; they don’t show the way; the hedgehog shows; the sister grabs her little brother, the geese-swans follow; she has to try what they offer, the river, the apple tree, and the stove hide; the sister and her little brother run home, the parents return]: Afanasyev 1984, No. 113: 185-186.

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Ingush [(reported by S.M. Khasieva); in Checheno-Ingushetia in the spring, with the arrival of cranes, children were taken outside; when the cranes flew away for the winter, small children were hidden from them; during the circumcision ritual, the formula “the cranes are flying” is pronounced, pointing to the sky]: Stahl 1982: 201.

Baltoscandia. Estonians [toonekurg (from Toonela, the afterlife, kurg – crane) – stork (originally, perhaps, only the black stork)]; see Holmberg 1927 [Finn. Tuonela, “home of Tuoni”; Norwegian Lapps: Duodna, "the dead one", later also “death” and “the life beyond”; probably a Scandinavian loan-word (Swedish dana-arf , “an inheritance falling to the State”]: 54; Shkunaev 1982 [Irish Tuatha De Danann, a founded group of gods; arrived from the mysterious northern islands, having defeated the Fomorian demons; Anu, Middle Irish anae, "wealth", "prosperity; Welsh Don - the mother of the gods; in Welsh genealogies Danu - Don turns into Anna; in the Breton tradition Anna rules over the people of the dead, phaphon (cf. the Welsh name for the other world - annon]: 317; livas [a stork brings children from Egypt and gives them to good women so that they give birth to them; one day a poor man saw a piglet in the stork's beak and began to ask for it to be given to him]: Loorits 1926, No. 238: 74 (=2000(1): 89).