One night a man rode into a village and asked a man if he could stay in his cottage. The man told him to come in if he didn't fear death. The people inside the cottage were all crying, and the man asked why. The master of the house told him that in the village at night a witch comes around and causes death. She picks a house and the next morning everyone inside is dead. Tonight she is visiting their house. That night everyone went to sleep except for the traveling man. The witch put her arm in the cottage, and the man cut it off with his sword. The witch fled. The man hid the arm under his cloak. The next morning the man told the master that he can show him death if he wants. They gather everyone and go around looking for her, but they can't find her. They go home and they see that the house masters daughter is missing an arm. They drown the witch.
A man had three sons. When he was about to die he told his sons wives to watch over his body for one night each. He ordered that no cross was put on him. The first night the man sat up in his coffin and asked the first wife if she was there. Terrified, she told him she was. He asked again and she told him the same thing. He asked one more time and then he strangled her. He did the same thing with the second wife. The third wife was smarter. She waited for him to ask her the third time and as he lunged at her she put a cross on him. He died and when she looked in the coffin there was tons of money.
Bibliography:
Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).
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