Elya Yelnats is Stanley’s “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather” who is blamed for everything bad that happens to future generations of his family. Although he never actually steals a pig, his actions cause Madame Zeroni to put a curse on him and all his descendants.
When Elya is 15 years old, living in Latvia, he falls in love with Myra Menke and wants to marry her. Igor, a pig farmer, also wants to marry Myra and offers a pig for her hand in marriage. Not knowing what to do, Elya goes to see Madame Zeroni. Madame Zeroni gives Elya a piglet along with specific instructions. He is to take the pig up the mountain each day and sing a lullaby to the pig as it drinks from the stream. On the last day, he is to take the pig up the mountain before taking it to Myra’s father and then carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain, too, singing the lullaby to her as she drinks from the stream.
Because he is vain and doesn’t want to smell like a pig when he goes to Myra’s house to try to win her hand in marriage, Elya doesn’t take the pig up the mountain the last day, nor does he take Madame Zeroni up the mountain. When he realizes that Myra doesn’t love him, Elya gives her father the pig anyway and leaves on a ship for the United States, where he meets and marries Sarah Miller. Elya and Sarah have a good marriage, despite the fact that they suffer from much bad luck. Elya never gives up looking for Madame Zeroni’s son, who was also in the United States, because he feels guilty about not fulfilling his promise to her.
