Russian Wonder Tales

Front matter

WITH A FOREWORD ON THE RUSSIAN SKAZKI

BY

POST WHEELER, Litt. D. SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY AT ST. PETERSBURG

Foreword on the Russian Skazki

FOREWORD

The Russian skazki (skazatz = to tell) are the mass of folk-tales distributed widely throughout all the Russias. Handed down, by constant repetition, from generation to generation, a possession common to peasant's hut and Prince's palace from a time when history did not exist, they are to-day, from Archangel to the Black Sea, and from Siberia to the Baltic, almost as much a part of the life of the people as the language itself. Their adventures are linked to a hundred phrases in common parlance; their heroes peer from every page of Slavonic literature; and the delver in historic débris finds each stratum sown thick with skazka shards to the very bedrock of legend.

To the casual eye, the skazki, aside from their unfamiliar nomenclature, do not seem to differ greatly from the tales of other peoples. The wild and wonderful machinery has all the artifices which belong to the mass of folk-lore owned in common by the Indo-European group of nations. Here, however, the superficial resemblance in great measure ceases. It is seen that the true "fairy" element does not predominate. Not only are the relations between man and the spiritual world different, but that spiritual world itself is less familiar. The field of the skazki is not so much fairy-land as a natural wonderland, approaching in its variety and gorgeousness of surprise the Empire of the "Thousand Nights and a Night." Who originated these tales? In what forms did they first appear? And how can one account for the enormous number of their variants, and the hold they possess upon the millions of the Slavonic race who tell them to their children every day?

Russia was long in asking herself these questions. Until little more than a century ago she considered the skazki of small interest to the world of culture. The earlier Russian writers regarded them with mild curiosity, and had no conception of their origin. The first printed collection was not made until near the end of the eighteenth century, and the next was half gone before the "scientific" collector appeared. Active interest in them then began to be manifested, and it was not long before serious study had convinced students of the literature that not only did this submerged fiction of the people go back to the very beginnings of the Slavonic race, but that its tales were direct descendants of the primitive nature-myths and that their variants retained, in the guise of wonder stories for the child, the persisting fragments of a great original epos which at one time pictured the heathen mythology of the old Slavonians: that the presumed purposeless nursery invention, in fact, deduced its high origin from the ancient gods themselves.

These older meanings, for the teller, vanished many centuries ago. The only things the skazki picture that are common to Russian country life to-day are those things which in Russia never change—the wide, wind-swept steppe and dense forest, the love of animal life and the comradeship of the horse, the dread and terror of the long winter cold, and the passionate welcome given to the springtime sun. Whatever else they may tell the student is in a tongue now unintelligible to the peasant, who has least of all been aware that, in these centuries-old repetitions there have been handed down to a new era pictures indelible, though blurred and indistinct, of an ancient age, of times, customs, religion and deities no longer his own.

For the beginning of the skazki we must go back to the remote time when the early Slavonians, parting from the parent stock in Central Asia, reached the Russias, de there their myth-mass and setting up their hierarchy of Pagan gods. These gods, good and evil, were personifications of the forces of nature. The religion of which they were the foci was thus a nature-religion, and upon it was grafted a system of ancestor-worship not greatly different from other Oriental forms. And the race's conceptions of these gods and the material world, the soul, the birth and passing of human life, the individual's relations to the deities and his fellows, and the manifold observances in which beliefs and customs were enshrined, were embodied in a mass of myths, all more or less variations of the primal solar-myth with which all nations seem to have begun their cosmogonies.

The dawn of Christianity—late in Russia—marked the sunset of these ancient deities. The new Byzantine faith, in its irresistible progress, either crushed out wholly their memories or transferred their attributes to the keeping of Christian saints, leaving their myths to struggle for existence against an ever-increasing weight of foreign legend. And as the form of the old Pagan religion merged more and more into the new, these myths sank beneath the surface of the everyday life of the people, while the primitive mythology, with its symbolism, was forgotten.

The demiurge became first the merely supernatural being, man's henchman or servitor, and the ethereal abode of the old gods merely a mysterious upper country beyond the visible sky, inhabited by magical creatures pictured in a group of tales which are the Slavonic equivalents of the "Jack and the Beanstalk" story. In the next step these supernatural beings descended to the plane of the pseudo-historic, and finally merged into the real, becoming the old-time champions of the new faith, as, for example, the companions of Vladimir, who introduced Christianity into Russia. Lastly, these faded into the purely imaginary. By this process the Slavonic god of the thunder (Perun) sank by gradual degrees to Christian Paladin, to the conventional "Tzarevich Ivan" of the skazki, and in the last step to the friendly beast—the glowing bird, the heroic horse, the aid-giving wolf and bear—whose constant reappearance give the tales such a surprising variety of incident. The deities of evil underwent a like process, becoming the Kastchey, the Baba-Yaga, and the many malevolent beings which the skazki hero overcomes.

In lapse of time, too, the form of the myth deteriorated as had the content. The tales lost their coherency, becoming separated into episodes which in turn disintegrated to collections of mere fragments. These became localized in different versions, each of which retained or discarded detail at its provincial pleasure, the result being an incredible reduplication of variants of the same fundamental tale. An opposite process went on at the same time: similar fragments coalesced and grouped themselves about a single axis of incident, infinitely increasing the multiplication. So that the skazki, as they appear to-day, are less a cluster of individual tales than an elaborate mosaic, with whose fragments of color and incident the modern adaptor (such as Pushkin or Ershoff) produces variant and highly-tinted designs, on the kaleidoscopic principle.

Such, in brief, is the genealogy of the Russian skazki, from the poetic symbolism of a primitive religion to the despised Cinderellas of fiction, from a revered drama of the high gods to a group of peasant "Old Wives' Tales."

It is a matter of regret that the English-speaking world has had little opportunity of acquaintance with these naïve, old-world stories, although they by no means suffer in comparison with the German Märchen, upon which there exists such a formidable literature in English. Mr. W. R. S. Ralston's "Russian Folk-Tales," published in 1873, was primarily less of a collection than a treatise on Slavonic folk-lore, and perhaps for this reason its en and scholarly qualities failed to gain for the skazki a popularity they richly deserve. And beside this, so far as I am aware, but one other well-known collection is available. In 1874 Petr Nicolaevich Polevoi, the historian, published thirty-six of Afanasief's tales (with a single exception none of these was cited in Mr. Ralston's work) variously recombined and elaborated, in a volume intended for children, and of these versions twenty-five have been Englished by Mr. R. Nisbet Bain.

The twelve tales of which the present volume consists are, in part, the result of an attempt to select types of those motifs of widest distribution throughout all the Russias, taking into account the number of distinct variants and the mass of population to which each is known. The attempt has been made, also, to combine cognate variants and to reconcile detail—the result in each case being in a sense a composite—and to treat each in somewhat of the method and manner of the folk-tales of Western Europe.

A word, however brief, as to the modern skazki would be incomplete without a reference to Mr. Bilibin, whose wholly charming illustrations, used herein with his permission, have of recent years given them their peculiar artistic cachet. No decorative artist in Russia has so allied himself with the movement which has brought again into familiar use the striking and characteristic conventions of Russian art of the middle ages; and it may be said that in no way has he more endeared himself to the Russian people than by the exquisite simplicity of method and fine appreciation of artistic values which he has brought to his treatment of the skazki. In these pictures he has made the old myths glow again in the modern wonder tales which are so fresh and fair a part of the youth of the Russian child, bequeathed to him from that magical past and that enchanted land the memories of whose marvels moved Pushkin's pencil when he wrote:

There is the Russian soul! The very odour of Russia! There have I also been, and its honied drink have quaffed! I saw the green oak-tree beside the blue sea-ocean, Beneath it I sat me down, to list while the learned cat Told me its stories!

Post Wheeler.

St. Petersburg, August 20, 1911.

Prefatory Letter From Dr. L. Casso

"Dear Mr. Wheeler,

"Accept a word of congratulation upon your charming collection of 'Russian Wonder Tales,' which I have read—with your Foreword on the skazki—with much interest and attention. Your English rendition of these old, poetic stories is in all points accurate and in complete accordance with the original texts. Yours is a most attractive treatment, and I regard the book as a very valuable contribution to our Russian folk-lore.

"With my best regards, believe me, "Sincerely yours, "L. Casso, "Imperial Russian Minister of Education."

"Post Wheeler, Esquire, Chargé d'Affaires, American Embassy, St. Petersburg."

xix

Tzar Saltan

TZAR SALTAN

IN ancient days, long before our time, in a certain Tzardom of a realm far beyond the blue sea-ocean, there was a Tzar, young in years, named Saltan, who was so handsome and so clever that songs were sung and tales told of him, and beautiful maidens everywhere dreamt of him at night. Minded to rule his Tzardom well, he used to wander forth at dusk in all four directions of his capital, in order to see and hear, and thus he perceived much good and much evil and saw many strange sights. One evening, as he passed the house of a rich merchant, he saw through the window three lovely damsels, the merchant's daughters, sitting at their needlework, and drawing near he overheard their conversation.

The eldest said: "If the Tzar were to wed me,

I would grind flour so fine that the like of the bread I would bake from it could not be found in the whole world."

The Tzar, hearing, thought: "That would be good bread truly; however, the bread I eat now is not so bad."

The second said: "If the Tzar were to wed me, I would weave for him a kaftan of gold and silver thread, so that he would shine like the Glowing Bird."

"That would be good weaving, indeed," thought the Tzar; "though little enough need have I for such a splendid coat."

Then the youngest daughter, who was named Marfa, said: "As for me, if the Little Father Tzar became my husband, I know how neither to spin nor to weave, but I would bear him seven hero-sons like bright falcons, that should be the comeliest in his Tzardom; and their legs should be golden to the knee and their arms silver to the elbow, and in their hair should be little stars."

Tzar Saltan, listening, was well pleased with this speech. "Glad would I be to be the father of seven such sons," he said to himself; and returning to his Palace, he summoned his Boyars and Court Ministers, and despatched them to the house of the merchant to bring his youngest daughter, whom he purposed to make his Tzaritza. He ordered a great festival and spread tables of oak, at which all the folk of the Tzardom ate, drank and made merry.

On the third day he and the merchant's daughter were married, and slept on an ivory bed, and began to live together, soul with soul, in all joy and contentment. The two elder daughters of the merchant, however, were envious; one sulked over her oven and the other wept over her loom, and both hated their sister because the Tzar had preferred her over them.

Now there was war in those days and whether after a long time or a short time, it became necessary for Tzar Saltan to take the field. Tzaritza Marfa wept long and would not be comforted; so before he departed he sent for her two sisters to remain with her until his return. And they, although they hated their sister, pretending great love for her, came at once to the Palace. So the Tzar mounted his good horse and bidding his wife care for herself for his sake, rode away to the fight.

It befell when the Tzar had been three months absent that three babes were born to his Tzaritza—such lovely little sons that their like cannot be told or described, but can only be imagined, and each had legs golden to the knee, arms silver to the elbow, and little stars in his hair set close together. And Tzaritza Marfa sent to her husband a fleet messenger to tell him of their birth.

Her sisters, however, kept back the messenger and sent another in his place with this message: "Thy Tzaritza, our sister, who boasted that she would bear thee Princes of gold and silver, hath borne thee now neither sons nor daughters, but instead, three wretched little kittens."

Then they bribed the nurses and attending women, took from the Tzaritza, while she slept, the three boy-babies, and put in their jeweled cradles, three kittens. As for the beautiful children, they gave them to a Baba-Yaga, and the cruel old witch put them into an underground room, in a forest, under a crooked oak-tree, whose entrance was closed by a great flat stone.

When the Tzar heard the words of the messenger, he was greatly angered. He sent orders to throw the kittens into the sea-ocean, and was minded also to kill his wife. This, however, he could not bear to do, so much did he love her. "I will forgive this fault," he said to himself. "Perchance she may yet give me sons fit for a Tzar."

HE SAW, THROUGH THE WINDOW, THREE LOVELY DAMSELS.

He returned at length to his Tzardom, and lived with his wife happily as before, till there was held a great hunt on the open steppe, and he rode away to kill wild geese and swans. And scarce had he been gone three days, when two more sons were born to his wife, the Tzaritza Marfa—such lovely babes that one could not look sufficiently at them,—and each had legs golden to the knee, arms silver to the elbow, and little stars in his hair clustering close together.

The Tzaritza sent in haste for a nurse, and the servant, as it happened, met on his way the old witch. "Where dost thou haste so fast?" she asked him.

"Not far," he replied.

"Tell me instantly," said the Baba-Yaga, grinding her teeth, "or it will be the worse for thee!"

"Well," said the servant, "if thou must know, I go to fetch a nurse to the Palace, for two hero-sons have just been born to our mistress, the Tzaritza."

"Take me as nurse," commanded the witch.

"That I dare not," the servant replied, "lest the Tzar, on his return, strike my head from off my shoulders."

"Obey me," snarled the Baba-Yaga, "or meet a worse fate this instant!"

The servant, trembling for his life, returned with the old witch, who, as soon as she came in to the Tzaritza Marfa, took from her, while she slept, the two lovely babes, put in their place under the sable coverlet two blind puppies, and carried the children to the underground room in the forest. Having done this, she told the two sisters, who, hastening to the Palace, bribed the serving-women and despatched a messenger to the Tzar to say: "Our sister, thy Tzaritza, who boasted that she would bear thee Tzareviches of silver and gold, hath borne thee now neither sons nor daughters, but instead two miserable little puppies."

When the messenger brought him this message, the Tzar's anger waxed hot. He ordered the puppies to be thrown into the sea-ocean, and would have slain his wife but for his great love. However, after his anger had softened, he said to himself: "This second fault also I will pass over. Perchance even yet she will bear me sons fit for a Tzar." And, returning to his capital, he lived happily with her as before.

It happened at length that the Tzar went to a distant Tzardom to pay a visit of ceremony, and this time he set a strong guard about the Palace, with strict command to allow no one whatever to go in or out. When he had been absent six months, two more babes were born to the Tzaritza—sons of a loveliness that is known only in a tale, with legs golden to the knee, arms silver to the elbow, and with little stars in their hair. And the Tzaritza, deeming herself safe by reason of the guard about the Palace, bade them peal all the bells for joy.

Hearing the rejoicing, the sisters guessed what had occurred, and sent at once for the Baba-Yaga, who by a witch's charm caused a deep sleep to fall upon all the guardsmen so that each slumbered where he stood, and she herself entered the Palace. When the Tzaritza saw her, however, she hid one of the babes, whom she had named Guidon, in her sleeve, so that the Baba-Yaga, though she carried away the other, did not see it. In place of the babe, the old witch left a piece of wood, and the sisters, as before, bribed the attendants, and sent a messenger to the Tzar to say: "Thy Tzaritza, our sister, who boasted that she would bear thee sons of gold and silver, hath borne thee now neither son nor daughter, neither is it a frog nor a snake, but a little log of wood."

When the Tzar heard this message, he well-nigh lost his senses in the violence of his rage. After his anger had somewhat subsided, he ordered the log of wood to be thrown into the sea-ocean, and sent a letter to his Prime Minister, bidding him call together his Boyars and Princes of all the Realm to consider the matter on his return.

The messenger rode back with the royal letter, but the two wicked sisters met him on his way, and by stealth stole the letter from his pocket and put in its place another, which read: "I, Tzar Saltan, bid my Boyars without delay to seize the Tzaritza, put her into a chest bound with iron, and cast it into the deepest abyss of the sea-ocean."

The messenger delivered the letter, and at once the Boyars came to the Tzaritza and told her the cruel decree. They pitied her and wept with her, but there was nothing to be done, since the Tzar's will was law, and the same day, with the babe still hidden in her sleeve, she was put into a chest bound with iron, and it was thrown into the wide sea-ocean.

Soon after the Tzar returned, ready, so great was his love, to forgive his wife a third time. But it was then too late, and, thinking that the Tzaritza was drowned, he at length married the elder of the two sisters, and brought them both to live in his Palace.

Whether the chest floated a long time or a short time in the sea-ocean, on smooth water or rough water, the little Guidon, who had been hidden in the Tzaritza's sleeve, was growing like wheat-flour when new yeast is added to it, not by days but by hours, until at length he began to speak.

"Little mother," he said, "I have not room enough. Let me stretch myself!"

"Nay, little soul," she answered. "I hear no sound of the waves lapping on the sand. The water is deep beneath us. If thou dost stretch we shall be drowned."

The chest floated on and on, and at length its bottom began to scratch against hard pebbles. Then the little boy said: "We touch something, little mother. May I stretch myself?"

She gave him permission, and he began to stretch himself, and so strong and sturdy was he that the iron bands broke asunder and the chest fell to pieces. Looking about them, they saw that they were on an island, which had a high hill, sloping down to a green field, surrounded by a forest. The mother and her son crossed the field and entered the forest, searching for a path that should lead them to some habitation. They found none, however, and were about to return wearied to the meadow, when Tzarevich Guidon came upon a purse lying on the ground.

Opening it, they found a flint and steel, and were glad, thinking that with a fire they could protect themselves against cold and wild beasts. Tzarevich Guidon struck the flint and steel together, when instantly there appeared a sharp ax and a huge hammer.

"Here we are, Master," said the ax and hammer. "By God's blessing, by the Order of the Pike, what command wilt thou be pleased to lay upon us?"

"Build us a Palace to live in," answered Guidon, "and fetch us food and drink."

At once the ax flew at the trees and began to chop, square, and sharpen them, and the hammer to pound them into the earth for a foundation; and while the Tzaritza and the Tzarevich watched, there began to rise on the edge of the forest a Palace of white stone, with battlemented walls, more splendid than has ever been seen in any Tzardom, richer than can be guessed or imagined, whose like can neither be told in a tale nor written with a pen. They entered it, and found therein whatever the soul could ask.

Now, before many days it befell that a ship came sailing that way, and the shipmen wondered greatly to see there, on what had been an uninhabited island, a stately Palace, with golden domes and walls of white stone, and they landed to see this marvel.

The Tzaritza met them and made them her guests, giving them food and drink to their hearts' desire.

"O merchants," she said, "in what trade are ye concerned, and whither sail ye from here?"

They answered: "We have traded in the skins of sables and black foxes in foreign marts; now we sail to the east, to the Tzardom of Tzar Saltan the Glorious."

"A happy voyage to you," said the Tzaritza, "and give a greeting from me to Tzar Saltan."

The merchants re-embarked and sailed to the Tzardom of Tzar Saltan, who called them to be his guests; and they came before him, where he sat sad-faced on his golden throne, with his new wife and her sister by his side. As they sat at table the Tzar said: "O merchants and tradesmen! Have ye voyaged far, and to what lands went ye? Is it well or ill across the blue sea-ocean? And what new wonder is there in the white world?"

The shipmen replied: "O Tzar's Majesty! We traveled over all the world, and were on our way hither when we saw a new wonder more marvelous than any. There has been of old time in the sea-ocean an island, without inhabitants, save they were wizards or wild beasts. It had a great flat meadow on which grew a single oak-tree, and about it was a dense forest. So hath it always been; yet but now, as we came to it, we found there a splendid Palace, with towers whose tops were golden, and with green gardens about it. In it dwells a beautiful Tzaritza and a Tzarevich, and the Tzarevich has legs golden to the knee, and arms silver to the elbow, and in his hair are little stars. We landed there, and the Tzaritza entertained us royally, and sent a greeting to thee."

Tzar Saltan wondered greatly to hear, and said: "As God lets me live, I will visit this wonderful island and see it with my own eyes." But his wicked wife, not wishing him to go, began to sneer.

"A Palace on an island! What is that to be compared to a marvel of which I can tell thee?"

"What marvel is that?" asked the Tzar.

She answered: "Across three times nine countries, in the thirtieth Tzardom, there is a green garden, and in the garden is a mill which grinds of itself. It winnows the grain and throws the chaff a hundred versts away. By the mill stands a golden column, and up and down the column climbs a learned cat. As it goes up it sings songs, and as it comes down it tells stories."

Hearing of this new wonder, the Tzar gave up his purpose to visit the island.

The merchants, having loaded their ship with other goods, sailed on a second voyage, and, passing the Tzaritza's island, cast anchor, and were again entertained; and they recounted there how Tzar Saltan had desired to sail thither till his wife had told him of the mill, the golden column, and the story-telling cat.

As soon as they had made their farewells and sailed away, Tzarevich Guidon took from the purse the flint and steel, and struck them sharply together, and immediately the ax and the hammer appeared, saying: "Here we are, thy servants! By God's blessing, by the Order of the Pike, what dost thou bid us do?"

"I will have, near this Palace," said the Tzarevich, "a mill which grinds and winnows of itself and throws the chaff a hundred versts away. By it must be a column of gold on which climbs a cat, telling tales and singing songs."

At once the ax and hammer disappeared, and, next morning, when he went to his balcony, the Tzarevich saw that the garden, the mill, the golden column, and the clever cat had all been brought as he had commanded.

He caused his servants, the ax and hammer, to build by the column a crystal summer-house, in which the cat should live, and each day the Tzaritza and Tzarevich Guidon amused themselves by listening to its songs and stories.

Time passed, and again the ship returned from her voyage, and the merchants wondered to see the new marvels. They landed, and the Tzaritza, meeting them, bade them enter and taste of her hospitality. She gave them honey to eat and milk to drink, and treated them so handsomely that they scarce knew themselves for pleasure. "O tradesmen," she asked them, "what do ye barter, and whither sail ye from here?"

"We have bartered carpets and stallions from the Don around the whole world," they answered. "Now we sail to the eastward, to the Tzardom of Tzar Saltan the Mighty."

"A good journey to you," said the Tzaritza. "Bear to Tzar Saltan greeting from my son, Tzarevich Guidon."

The merchants spread sail and voyaged to the Tzardom of Tzar Saltan, and a second time he summoned them to bear him company. And as they ate and drank in his sumptuous hall, he asked them: "O tradesmen and mariners, doubtless ye have traversed the whole earth. What have ye seen, and what news do ye bear? And is there any new marvel in the white world?"

They answered: "O mighty Tzar Saltan! we have truly visited many countries and seen many strange things, but the most wonderful is this. When we were thy guests before, we told thee of an island on which, bare and uninhabited of old, we found a splendid Palace with a beautiful Tzaritza and a brave Tzarevich. On this sailing we passed again that way and put in at the island, and now beside the Palace of white stone there is a green garden with a mill that grinds and winnows of itself and casts the chaff a hundred versts away. Beside it is a golden column on which a cat climbs continually up and down, singing songs and telling tales. And there is a summer-house of crystal in which the cat lives. The Tzaritza showed us these wonders and her son the Tzarevich Guidon sends a greeting to thee."

When Tzar Saltan heard this, again was he seized with a desire to see the island, but, as before, his evil wife and her sister sneered and the wife said:

"A rare thing in truth! Thinkest thou the mill and cat are so wonderful? What, indeed, are they beside a marvel of which I know?"

"What is that?" asked the Tzar.

She answered: "Across three times nine lands, in the thirtieth Tzardom, there is a wood and in the wood a fir-tree. On the tree lives a squirrel, cracking nuts with his teeth. These are not ordinary nuts, for their shells are of gold and the kernels of emerald. He who owns this wonder is the richest Tzar in all the world, for his wealth never ceases to increase until it cannot be reckoned."