Mikula Selyaninovich- Slavic HeroHero"The Peasant Hero"

The Bag of Earth's Weight

Svyatogor, the colossal giant-bogatyr, was riding when he saw a small peasant walking ahead of him on the road, carrying a simple bag. He spurred his horse but could not catch up. When he finally reached the bag, lying on the ground where the peasant had set it down, he bent to lift it. He could not budge it. He strained with both hands and sank into the earth to his knees.

Mikula picked the bag up with one hand. It held the tyaga zemnaya, the whole weight of the earth. Svyatogor, who could uproot mountains, could not carry what a plowman shouldered without effort.

Mikula and Volga Svyatoslavich

Prince Volga Svyatoslavich, a warrior gifted with shape-shifting, rode out with his druzhina of thirty men and heard a sound in the distance: a plow blade cutting the earth. They rode for three days before they reached the plowman.

Mikula was turning his field. Volga's entire druzhina seized the plow and could not pull it from the furrow. Mikula lifted it out with a flick of his wrist and tossed it behind a bush. Volga, impressed, invited him along. On the road, Mikula's mare, a peasant's horse, left Volga's finest warhorse behind. At every turn the plowman's quiet strength made the prince's company look like children playing at war.