# The Way of a Virgin/The Pike's Head

THE PIKE'S HEAD.
ONCE there lived a peasant and his wife who had a daughter, a young virgin. The girl went forth to harrow the garden; she harrowed and she harrowed; anon they called her to the house to eat pancakes. She ran and left the horse with the harrow, saying unto the beast:
"Wait there until I return."
There was in the house of a neighbour a son, a foolish lad. For long he had desired to futter the maid; but by what means he could not conceive. Observing the horse with the harrow, he slipped through the hedge, unharnessed the horse, and led it into his garden. Leaving the harrow in its place, he passed the beam through the hedge, and harnessed the horse afresh from his side.
The young girl returned and stood astonished. What meant this? The harrow on one side of the hedge, the horse on the other? She fell to beating the horse with her whip, saying:
"Devil! How camest thou there? Thou didst know how to get there. Thou wilt know how to return. Come! Out of it!"
The lad stood near; he looked and laughed.
​"I will aid thee an thou wilt," said he, "but only if thou dost permit me……"
The maid was cunning.
"Willingly," said she.
And she armed herself with the head of an old pike, which lay about the garden, its jaws open. Picking it up, she thrust it in her sleeve and said to the lad:
"I do not wish to come to thy side of the hedge, nor do I wish thee to come to mine, lest any see thee. Do it through the hedge. Pass me thy yard and I will put it in."
The youth drew out his yard and passed it through the hedge. The girl took the pike's head, opened it, and put it 'twixt her thighs. When the youth rubbed, he scratched his yard so that it bled. Taking it in his hands, he ran to the house, sat down in a corner, and was very silent.
"Ah! woe is mine!" thought he to himself. "How her coynte biteth! If only my yard will heal, for the rest of my life I will never address another girl!"
Came the time for the youth to settle down; he was affianced to the daughter of the neighbour, and they were wedded. They dwelt together for a day, then two, then three; they dwelt together for a week, then a second, then a third; but the youth feared to touch his wife.
Constrained one day to go to the house of the young man's mother-in-law, they set out on their way. On the road the wife said to her husband:
"Listen, now, my dear little Danilka. Why hast thou married since thou dost naught with me? If thou canst do naught, why spoilest the life of another in this useless fashion?"
​And Danilka replied:
"Nay, thou wilt not trap me again. It biteth, thy coynte. My yard hath long been ill. Tis scarce cured yet."
"Thou ravest!" answered she. "At that time I did but play with thee. Have not fear now. Make trial of this dear little thing of mine. Thou wilt be enchanted with it."
And desire took the youth, and he tucked up his robe, saying:
"Wait—I am about to bind thy legs, and if thy coynte bitheth, I shall be able to leap to earth and save myself."
He let go of the reins and bound the two naked thighs of his young wife. His instrument was now of sufficient magnitude. When he rammed the girl, she cried with a loud voice; the horse, which was young, took fright and began to run away; the sleigh was thrown from side to side; the peasant fell out; and his young wife, her thighs naked, was dragged into the courtyard of the mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law gazed through the window; she perceived the horse of her son-in-law, ​and was assured that he brought her some viands for the feast; she went to meet him and found her daughter!
"Ah! little mother!" cried the latter. "Unbind me swiftly ere any see me."
The old woman unbound her and asked what it signified.
"And thy husband, where is he?" she demanded.
"The horse threw him into the road."
These two entered the house and gazed through the window. Danilka arrived, approached some small boys who were playing at knuckle-bones, stopped, and looked about him. The mother-in-law dispatched her eldest daughter to him. She drew near, saying:
"Good day, Danilka Ivanitch."
"Good-day."
"Come into the house. The feast lacketh but thee."
"Is my wife within?"
"Yea."
"And hath the blood ceased to flow?"
But the young girl spat and ran away from him.
Then the mother-in-law dispatched her daughter-in-law, who would appease him.
"Come, come, little Danilka. The blood hath ceased to flow this long time."
She led him within the house, and the mother-in-law came to meet him, saying:
"Welcome, my dear little son-in-law."
"Varvara—is she within?"
"Yea."
"And hath the blood ceased to flow?" ​"It hath ceased this long time."
Then he drew forth his yard and showed it to his mother-in-law, saying:
"See, little mother, this awl was entirely inside her body."
"Come, come," said the mother-in-law. "Sit thyself down. 'Tis time to eat."
They sat down, drank, and ate.
* ↑ Kruptadia: Heilbronn: Henninger Frères, 1883: vol 1.: Secret Stories from the Russian.
* ↑ The texxt says: ce cher petit, which may be interpreted as referring to the wife's pudenhum. C.f. Le petit je ne sais quoi ("My-little-what's-its-name"), a comon erotic term for the parts concerned. (Farmer: Slang and its Analogues; Landes: Glossaire Erotique; and Le petit Citateur: Notes Erotique et Pornographiques.} The last authority considers that the word trou (hole) would be understood in the text. Trou, of course, is a common French erotic term for the feminine pudendum. On the other hand, he word jeu (game) may be understood, which would be equally applicable. C.f. Farmers (Slang, etc, vol. 3, p. 110): "The first game ever played." i.e., copulation. Also Landes (Gloss. Erot.): "Game: employed in an obscene sense to denote the sexual act."
* ↑ Alène is the word in the text. Not an erotic term for penis in French and English slang, though we have the verb "to bore." C.f. Farmer: Slang and its Analogues, for his amazing list of synonyms denoting the sexual act under the heading "Ride." Blondeau, in his Dictionnaire Erotique (Isidore Liseux: Paris, 1885), gives no word in his collection of Latin terms for penis which approximates exactly to the sense of awl. Landes, Delvau (Dictionnaire Erotique), and Le petit Citateur (op. cit. supra) make no mention of the word. In our story Danilka, in his very primitive fashion, has used an expression which explains in the simplest way his actions in the sleigh.