Fairy Tales.
For an account of the fairy tales see the chapter on Folklore. The following works, of which Ralston’s is still the best, give a large number of such stories: Russian Popular Tales, from the German version of Anton Dietrich, London, 1857; W. R. S. Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales, London, 1873; J. T. Naake, Slavonic Fairy Tales, London, 1874; E. M. S. Hodgetts, Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar, London, 1890; Jeremiah Curtin, Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars, Boston, 1890; A. Gerber, Great Russian Animal Tales (vol. vi, No. 2 of the Publications of the Modern Language Association), Baltimore, 1891; R. Nisbet Bain, Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of Polevoi, Chicago, 1895. There are also some articles in periodicals: Household Tales of the Sclavonians and Hungarians, and The Household Fictions of Esthonia and Russia, in Dublin University Magazine, 1867 (vol. lxx); Russian Popular Legends (by Ralston), in Fortnightly Review, 1869; Russian Songs and Folktales, in Quarterly Review, 1874 (vol. cxxxvi).
FROST
There was once an old man who had a wife and three daughters. The wife had no love for the eldest of the three, who was a step-daughter, but was always scolding her. Moreover, she used to make her get up ever so early in the morning, and gave her all the work of the house to do. Before daybreak the girl would feed the cattle and give them to drink, fetch wood and water indoors, light the fire in the stove, give the room a wash, mend the dress and set everything in order. Even then her step-mother was never satisfied, but grumbled away at Márfa, exclaiming:
“What a lazybones! What a slut! Why, here is a brush not in its place, and there is something put wrong, and she has left the muck inside the house!”
The girl held her peace, and wept; she tried in every way to accommodate herself to her step-mother, and to be of service to her step-sisters. But they, taking pattern by their mother, were always insulting Márfa, quarrelling with her, and making her cry: that was even a pleasure to them! As for them, they lay in bed late, washed themselves in water got ready for them, dried themselves with a clean towel and did not sit down to work till after dinner.
Well, our girls grew and grew, until they grew up and were old enough to be married. The old man felt sorry for his eldest daughter, whom he loved because she was industrious and obedient, never was obstinate, always did as she was bid and never uttered a word of contradiction. But he did not know how to help her in her trouble. He was feeble, his wife was a scold and his daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent.
Well, the old folks set to work to consider—the husband how he could get his daughter settled, the wife how she could get rid of the eldest one. One day she says to him:
“I say, old man! Let’s get Márfa married.”
“Gladly,” says he, slinking off (to the sleeping-place) above the stove. But his wife called after him:
“Get up early to-morrow, old man, harness the mare to the sledge and drive away with Márfa. And, Márfa, get your things together in a basket, and put on a clean shift; you are going away to-morrow on a visit.”
Poor Márfa was delighted to hear of such a piece of good luck as being invited on a visit, and she slept comfortably all night. Early next morning she got up, washed herself, prayed to God, got all her things together, packed them away in proper order, dressed herself (in her best things) and looked something like a lass! a bride fit for any place whatsoever!
Now it was winter-time, and out of doors there was a rattling frost. Early in the morning, between daybreak and sunrise, the old man harnessed the mare to the sledge, and led it up to the steps, then he went indoors, sat down in the window-sill, and said:
“Now then! I have got everything ready.”
“Sit down to table and swallow your victuals!” replied the old woman.
The old man sat down to table, and made his daughter sit by his side. On the table stood a pannier; he took out a loaf, and cut bread for himself and his daughter. Meantime his wife served up a dish of old cabbage soup and said:
“There, my pigeon, eat and be off; I have looked at you quite enough! Drive Márfa to her bridegroom, old man. And look here, old greybeard! drive straight along the road at first, and then turn off from the road to the right, you know, into the forest—right up to the big pine that stands on the hill, and there hand Márfa to Morózko (Frost).”
The old man opened his eyes wide, also his mouth, and stopped eating, and the girl began lamenting.
“Now then, what are you hanging your chaps and squealing about?” said her step-mother. “Surely your bridegroom is a beauty, and he is that rich! Why, just see what a lot of things belong to him: the firs, the pine-tops and the birches, all in their robes of down—ways and means anyone might envy; and he himself a bogatýr!”
The old man silently placed the things on the sledge, made his daughter put on her warm pelisse and set off on the journey. After a time, he reached the forest, turned off the road and drove across the frozen snow. When he got into the depths of the forest, he stopped, made his daughter get out, laid her basket under the tall pine and said:
“Sit here, and await the bridegroom. And mind you receive him as pleasantly as you can!”
Then he turned his horse round and drove off homewards.
The girl sat and shivered. The cold pierced her through. She would fain have cried aloud, but she had not strength enough; only her teeth chattered. Suddenly she heard a sound. Not far off, Frost was cracking away on a fir. From fir to fir was he leaping and snapping his fingers. Presently he appeared on that very pine under which the maiden was sitting, and from above her head he cried:
“Art thou warm, maiden?”
“Warm, warm am I, dear father Frost,” she replied.
Frost began to descend lower, all the more cracking and snapping his fingers. To the maiden said Frost:
“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, fair one?”
The girl could scarcely draw her breath, but still she replied:
“Warm am I, Frost dear; warm am I, father dear!”
Frost began cracking more than ever, and more loudly did he snap his fingers, and to the maiden he said:
“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, pretty one? Art thou warm, my darling?”
The girl was by this time numbed with cold, and she could scarcely make herself heard as she replied:
“Oh! Quite warm, Frost dearest!”
Then Frost took pity on the girl, wrapped her up in furs and warmed her with blankets.
Next morning the old woman said to her husband:
“Drive out, old greybeard, and wake the young people!”
The old man harnessed his horse and drove off. When he came to where his daughter was, he found she was alive and had got a good pelisse, a costly bridal veil and a pannier with rich gifts. He stowed everything away on the sledge without saying a word, took a seat on it with his daughter, and drove back. They reached home, and the daughter fell at her step-mother’s feet. The old woman was thunderstruck when she saw the girl alive, and the new pelisse and the basket of linen.
“Ah, you wretch!” she cries, “But you sha’n’t trick me!”
Well, a little later the old woman says to her husband:
“Take my daughters, too, to their bridegroom. The presents he’s made are nothing to what he’ll give them.”
Well, early next morning the old woman gave her girls their breakfast, dressed them as befitted brides and sent them off on their journey. In the same way as before the old man left the girls under the pine.
There the girls sat, and kept laughing and saying:
“Whatever is mother thinking of? All of a sudden to marry both of us off! As if there were no lads in our village, forsooth! Some rubbishy fellow may come, and goodness knows who he may be!”
The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they felt the cold.
“I say, Praskóvya! The Frost’s skinning me alive. Well, if our bridegroom doesn’t come quick, we shall be frozen to death here!”
“Don’t go talking nonsense, Máshka; as if suitors turned up in the forenoon! Why, it’s hardly dinner-time yet!”
“But I say, Praskóvya! If only one comes, which of us will he take?”
“Not you, you stupid goose!”
“Then it will be you, I suppose!”
“Of course, it will be me!”
“You, indeed! There now, have done talking stuff and treating people like fools!”
Meanwhile, Frost had numbed the girls’ hands, so our damsels folded them under their dresses, and then went on quarrelling as before.
“What, you fright! You sleepy face! You abominable shrew! Why, you don’t know so much as how to begin weaving; and as to going on with it, you haven’t an idea!”
“Aha, boaster! And what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out merrymaking and lick your lips there. We’ll soon see which he’ll take first!”
While the girls went on scolding like that, they began to freeze in downright earnest. Suddenly they both cried out at once:
“Whyever is he so long coming? You know, you have turned quite blue!”
Now, a good way off, Frost had begun cracking, snapping his fingers and leaping from fir to fir. To the girls it sounded as if someone were coming.
“Listen, Praskóvya! He’s coming at last, with bells, too!”
“Get along with you! I won’t listen; my skin is pealing with cold.”
“And yet you’re still expecting to get married!”
Then they began blowing their fingers.
Nearer and nearer came Frost. At length he appeared on the pine, above the heads of the girls, and said to them:
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones? Are ye warm, my darlings?”
“Oh, Frost, it’s awfully cold! We are utterly perished! We’re expecting a bridegroom, but the confounded fellow has disappeared.”
Frost slid lower down the tree, cracked away more, snapped his fingers oftener than before.
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones?”
“Get along with you! Are you blind, that you can’t see our hands and feet are quite dead?”
Still lower descended Frost, still more put forth his might and said:
“Are ye warm, maidens?”
“Into the bottomless pit with you! Out of my sight, accursed one!” cried the girls—and became lifeless forms.
Next morning the old woman said to her husband:
“Old man, go and get the sledge harnessed; put an armful of hay in it, and take some sheepskin wraps. I dare say the girls are half dead with cold. There is a terrible frost outside! And, mind you, old greybeard, do it quickly!”
Before the old man could manage to get a bite, he was out of doors and on his way. When he came to where his daughters were, he found them dead. So he lifted the girls on the sledge, wrapped a blanket round them and covered them up with a bark mat. The old woman saw him from afar, ran out to meet him and called out ever so loud:
“Where are my girls?”
“In the sledge.”
The old woman lifted the mat, undid the blanket and found the girls both dead.
Then, like a thunder-storm, she broke out against her husband, abusing him and saying:
“What have you done, you old wretch? You have destroyed my daughters, the children of my own flesh, my never-to-be-gazed-on seedlings, my beautiful berries! I will thrash you with the tongs; I will give it you with the stove-rake.”
“That’s enough, you old goose! You flattered yourself you were going to get riches, but your daughters were too stiff-necked. How was I to blame? It was you yourself would have it.”
The old woman was in a rage at first, and used bad language; but afterwards she made it up with her step-daughter, and they all lived together peaceably, and thrived, and bore no malice. A neighbour made an offer of marriage, the wedding was celebrated and Márfa is now living happily. The old man frightens his grandchildren with (stories about) Frost, and does not let them have their own way.—From W. R. S. Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales.
THE CAT, THE GOAT AND THE RAM
Once upon a time there lived in a yard a Goat and a Ram, and they lived in great friendship with each other: say there was but a bunch of hay—even that they divided in two equal halves. If there was anyone to be punched in his sides, it was only Tom-Cat Váska; he was such a thief and robber,—always on the lookout for prey, and let there be anything not under lock, his stomach immediately growled for it.
The Goat and the Ram were once lying quietly and having a friendly chat, when who should turn up but grey-browed, Purring Váska, and he was whining pitifully. So the Goat and Ram asked him:
“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat, why are you whining so, and why do you hop about on three legs?”
“How can I help crying? The old woman has beaten me; she struck me hard, almost pulled my ears out, nearly broke my legs, and came very near choking my life out of me.”
“What have you been guilty of, to deserve such a fate?”
“All the trouble was, I was hungry, and lapped up the cream.” And the Purring Cat once more began to whine.
“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat! What are you whining about?”
“How can I help crying? As the old woman was beating me, she kept on saying: ‘Where shall I get the cream when my son-in-law will come to-morrow? I’ll have to butcher the Goat and the Ram!’”
The Goat and the Ram howled loud: “O you grey Cat, senseless head! Why have you ruined us? We’ll butt you to death!”
Then Purring Váska humbly confessed his guilt and begged forgiveness. They forgave him, and the three held a council of how matters stood and what was to be done.
“Well, middle brother Ram,” asked Purring Cat, “have you a tough head? Just try it against the gate!”
The Ram took a run and hit the gate with his head: the gate shook, but did not open. Then rose the elder brother Billy-Goat, took a run, hit the gate and it flew open.
The dust rose in a cloud, the grass bent to the ground, while the Goat and Ram were running, and the grey-browed Cat was hopping after them on three legs. He grew tired, and he begged his plighted brothers: “Elder brother and middle brother! Don’t abandon your younger brother a prey to the wild beasts!”
So the Goat stopped and took him on his back, and again they raced over hills, and vales, and drifting sands. And they came to a steep hill and a standstill. Under that steep hill was a mowed meadow, and on that meadow there was a whole town of haystacks. The Goat, and Ram, and Cat stopped to take a rest; it was a cold autumn night. Where were they to get some fire? The Goat and the Ram were still thinking about it, when the Purring Cat got some twigs with which he tied the Goat’s horns, and he told the Goat and the Ram to strike each other’s heads. They hit each other with such a might that sparks flew from their eyes: the twigs crackled.
“That’ll do,” said the grey Cat. “Now we will warm ourselves.” No sooner said than he put a haystack on fire.
They had not yet gotten warm, when lo! there was an uncalled guest, a Peasant-in-gabardine, Mikháylo Ivánovich. “Let me,” he said, “warm myself and take a rest; I don’t feel well.”
“You are welcome, Peasant-in-gabardine, Ant-eater! Good fellow, where do you come from?”
“I went to the beehives and had a fight with the peasants; so I am sick now, and I am on my way to the Fox to get cured.”
They passed the dark night together: the Bear under a haystack, Purring Váska on the haystack, and the Goat and the Ram by the fire.
“Ugh, ugh!” said the White Wolf, “it is not Russian flesh I smell. What manner of people may they be? I must find out!”
The Goat and the Ram bleated with fright, and Purring Váska held such discourse: “Listen, White Wolf, Prince of all the wolves! Don’t anger our eldest one, for if he should get at you, it will be your end. Don’t you see his beard? that’s where his strength lies. With his beard he strikes down the animals, but with his horns he only flays them. You had better ask him with due respect to let you have your fun with your younger brother that is lying under the haystack.”
So the wolves bowed to the Goat, and surrounded Míshka, and began to tease him. He got up, waxed angry and just grabbed a wolf with each paw; they howled their “Lazarus,” but somehow managed to get away with drooping tails, and they raced as fast as their feet would carry them.
In the meanwhile the Goat and the Ram seized the Cat, and ran into the woods, where they once more met some grey wolves. The Cat crawled up to the top of a pine-tree, and the Goat and the Ram got hold of a branch of the pine-tree with their fore legs, and hung down from it. The wolves stood under the tree, grinned and howled, watching the Goat and the Ram. The grey-browed Cat saw that things were very bad, so he began to throw down pine cones upon the wolves, and kept saying: “One wolf! Two wolves! Three wolves! Just a wolf apiece. It is not so long ago I, Purring Váska, ate up two wolves with all their bones, so I am not hungry yet; but you, big brother, have been out a-hunting bears, and you did not get any, so you may have my share!”
Just as he said that, the Goat could not hold on any longer, and dropped with his horns straight down on a wolf. But Purring Váska yelled out: “Hold him, catch him!” The wolves were so frightened that they started on a run, and did not dare look back. That was the last of them.
THE FOX AND THE PEASANT
Once upon an evening the Fox, feeling grieved, took a walk to divert herself and breathe the fresh air. Though she had not expected it, there presented itself an opportunity to have her revenge, for whom should she see but Vúkol in his cart! As she scented some fish, she decided to steal them. The question now was how to steal them out of Vúkol’s cart. Of course, it was too risky to crawl in, for Vúkol would lay on his whip, or, catching her by her tail, would kill her altogether. So Lísa Patrikyéevna softly ran all around the Peasant, who was hastening home, lay down on the ground and barely breathed. The rogue lay there as if she really were dead: her mouth open, her teeth grinning, her snout turned upwards, her nose flabby; she neither moved, nor heaved, nor wagged her tail.
Vúkol was travelling at a slow pace, when suddenly his nag neighed. “What’s the matter?” spoke Vúkol, rose and looked down the road. “Oh, I see! God has sent me a nice gift. I’ll pick it up; it will be a fine thing for my wife, for its fur is as soft as a shawl.” Having very wisely discussed thus, Vúkol took the Fox by the tail and put her on the fish, and went over the bridge. But Lísa Patrikyéevna was very happy and, to carry out the first part of her program, quietly devoured a good-sized tench; then she started dropping one fish after another on the road, until she had emptied the whole cart. Then she stealthily dropped down from the cart herself and started on a run without turning back, so that the dust flew up.
It grew dark, and murky night was near; Vúkol Sílych pulled his reins, and the horse raced faster. He reached his house, without discovering the theft, and, smiling to his wife, he said with a merry voice to her: “Woman, just look into the cart and see what I have brought you! I found it in the road, near the bridge, by the pines and birches.”
His wife Dárya rummaged in the hay, tossed it to and fro, hoping to find her present. “Where is it? What a shame!” She turned everything upside down, shook the fish bag, but she only got her hands dirty,—the present she did not find. Put out about such a deception, she said to her husband, Vúkol: “What a stupid you are!”
In the meantime Patrikyéevna carried all the fish to her lair, and she had an easy time of it all autumn, and even winter. But this revenge is insignificant: her greater revenge is still ahead. Things are bad for you, Vúkol Sílych! Be prepared for the worst.