But villains and wicked persons in general are subject not only to the revenge of those whom they have plotted against. There is also a higher justice. From his seat in the heavens, God looks down and bestows his blessings on the righteous and metes out stern justice on all trespassers of the Divine Will. The ways of the Almighty often seem dark, but a real insight into his activities will always show perfect justice. So it is in The Angel and the Hermit (Type 759), where the angel takes the hermit along with him and does many seemingly unjust things. He repays hospitality by stealing a cup, inhospitality by giving a cup, hospitality again by throwing his host's servant from a bridge and by killing the host's son. Later the angel demonstrates to the hermit how, in the light of a full knowledge of each case, all these acts were just. This was one of the most popular of the exemplary tales used by the priests in the Middle Ages, and it is still frequently told as a folk story, particularly in Ireland, Spain, and the Baltic states.

Such mysterious divine punishments are sometimes manifested in a dream. In a tale known in the Baltic countries and in Russia, The Punishments of Men (Type 840), [184] a man and his son pass the night in a strange house. The [p. 131] son is unable to sleep and observes queer things happening all about him. A snake creeps from the sleeping man's mouth into his wife's mouth. Or a snake is lying between the man and his wife. The details of these mysterious manifestations vary considerably, and sometimes they are seen in a dream rather than in a waking state. In any case, the master of the house explains the next morning the justice of each of the appearances.

The literature of the medieval exemplum is filled with stories of people punished in hell. Only a few of these have become known to folktale tellers. The Estonians and Finns tell a story of a cruel rich man who has to serve as the devil's horse (Type 761). He sends his son a letter warning him against a similar fate.

This story is seldom heard, but another tale of punishments meted out by the devil in hell has great popularity with European story-tellers and has been used as a subject by a number of writers of Russian short stories. This tale, which we may call The Three Green Twigs (Type 756), appears in three special forms. The first of these is The Self-righteous Hermit (Type 756A), known, but not very popular, in various parts of Europe. As a man is being taken to the gallows a hermit remarks that he has been punished justly. For his self-righteousness the hermit is assigned penance: he must wander as a beggar until three twigs appear on a dry branch. In the course of his wanderings he tells the story of his misfortunes to a band of robbers and so impresses them that they are converted. Thereupon the green twigs appear, and his penance is over. This is the least well-known of the three forms of the story.

With the second tale of this group, The Devil's Contract (Type 756B), sometimes called The Legend of the Robber Madej, we pass to one of the most popular tales of eastern Europe. It has been reported in not fewer than twenty-five versions from Germany, fifty-four from Poland, sixty from Russia, forty-eight from Lithuania, and twenty-one from Bohemia, not to speak of scattering occurrences far out into Siberia and as far west as Ireland and Spain. The general outline of the tale is as follows: A boy has been sold to the devil before his birth. When he grows up he takes a journey to hell in order to recover the contract. On his way he sees a hermit from whom he inquires as to the direction to hell. The hermit sends him on to his brother, who is a famous robber. The robber takes the boy down to hell. There the young man obtains his contract and observes the fiery bed or chair already waiting for the robber. On his return the boy tells the robber what he has seen. His brother the hermit now assigns the robber penance, which he must continue until his staff puts forth fresh blooms and fruit. Eventually this happens, and the robber, assured of forgiveness, dies happy. His brother the hermit is astonished at this manifestation of God's justice. In some versions he reconciles himself, but in others he blasphemes God and is damned. [p. 132]

In his investigation of this story, Andrejev [185] considers that we have here a combination of three different stories of the kinds which were popular in legendary literature of the Middle Ages: a tale of the boy who is given over to the devil, a story of a miraculous penance, and a tale of a self-righteous hermit. In the self-righteousness of the hermit this story resembles the first tale of this group. In spite of the fact that the principal distribution of The Robber Madej is nowadays in eastern Europe, Andrejev is convinced that it was constructed in the late Middle Ages in western Europe and spread from there. It has interested the eastern Europeans so much that today it has the appearance of belonging primarily in that area.

The third tale of this group, which we may call The Greater Sinner (Type 756C), also deals with a severe penance. In some versions the sinner has murdered ninety-nine men, in some he has killed his parents, and in some he has shot at a consecrated wafer. He vainly seeks a confessor and only after a long wandering does he succeed in getting penance assigned. He must plant a firebrand and water it daily with water brought from a distance in his mouth. And he must plant a garden and offer free hospitality to everybody. In some versions he must carry a bag of stones on his back, a stone for each murder. Or he must wear an iron hoop on his head till it falls off. Or he must pasture black sheep until they become white. After many years of penance he intercepts a man who is about to commit a great crime. To prevent this greater crime, he kills the man. Thereupon he is shown divine favor, for his firebrand blooms, or the stones or the hoop fall off, or the sheep turn white. His confessor tells him that in payment for the last murder all his sins have been forgiven.

Andrejev has also studied this tale, [186] which has an entirely different distribution from The Robber Madej. In spite of the resemblance of the two stories, the author is convinced that they have no organic relationship and that the analogies are purely casual. Especially noteworthy is the fact that The Robber Madej is entirely unknown in the Balkan countries, whereas Andrejev's evidence points to the south Slavic countries as the original home of The Greater Sinner. The tale seems to be essentially oral, though it has received frequent modern literary treatment in Russia.

The pious literature of the Middle Ages is filled with cases of mysterious punishment, but these have not generally entered into folklore. Where they have, the Baltic states have seemed most receptive. For example, the Legend of Polycarp (Type 836), who boasts that God has not power to make him poor and who returns home from church to find that his house has burned and that he is reduced to poverty, has become a legendary tale in Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland. Apparently confined to Estonia is a story of retribution, How the Wicked Lord was Punished (Type 837). The lord puts [p. 133] poison into the beggar's bread. As the beggar is spending the night at an inn, a traveler arrives and since no other bread is convenient, the beggar gives the stranger his bread. The traveler is the lord's son. He dies of the poison.

Several other tales of mysterious punishment are also found in the Baltic states, where story-tellers seem to be fond of such moralistic legends. [187] One such story, The Punishment of a Bad Woman (Type 473), tells how the man is kind to a beggar but the wife unkind. The beggar later invites the man to him and shows him many mysterious things, among them his wife transformed into a cow. Another tale is The Dishonest Priest (Type 831) in which a priest tries to frighten a poor man out of his money by masking in a goat skin. When he gets home the skin has grown to him. Something like Polycarp is The Boastful Deer-slayer (Type 830) who shoots a stag but denies that God has given it to him and insists that he shot it himself. The wounded stag jumps up and flees. Finally, in this small group of tales, is one which preaches against greed, The Disappointed Fisher (Type 832). The fisher, his wife, and his child always catch three fishes. From greed, they kill the child in order to have more fish for themselves. But from then on they never catch more than two.

Similarly popular in the Baltic states, but known also in most other parts of Europe, is the story of The Rose from the Stone Table (Type 755). [188] The preacher's wife magically prevents the birth of her children. Since she therefore throws no shadow, her husband casts her forth as a sinner until a rose shall grow from a stone table. Another churchman takes the woman at night into a church. The children appear and forgive their mother. They go back home and the rose springs forth. [189]

In the eyes of the story-teller, the woman who prevents the birth of her children is looked upon as wicked and joins the ranks of the other evil mothers in fairy tales. Of such, we have had sufficient example in a number of complex stories. [190] One simple tale in which this is the principal motif appears among the Estonians, the Finns, and the Lapps, The Mother Who Wants to Kill Her Children (Type 765). The father succeeds in rescuing them, and hides them away, though the mother thinks that they have been killed. After many years they come forth and the mother dies of fright.

Such are some of the tales of divine justice which have appealed to oral story-tellers enough to become a part of folklore. It is certain that if all collectors [p. 134] had been interested in recording this kind of material, the number of such stories would be much greater. While in Ireland several years ago I heard a story recorded by a Connemara peasant on phonographic records. The telling consumed more than half an hour and consisted entirely of an account of the unfortunate results of losing one's rosary. So far as I know, this story has not been published, but is in the archives of the Irish Folklore Commission.