Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

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Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) Page 30

by Afanas'Ev, Aleksandr


  There once was a farmer

  Who had five sheep,

  A colt, and a calf—

  Seven beasts in all!

  The old woman said to the old man: “Oh, what a fine song! Give him a sheep!” The old man gave him a sheep. The wolf ate it and came again, singing the same song; and he came singing it until he had eaten the sheep, the colt, the calf, and the old woman. The old man remained alone; again the wolf came to him with the same song. The old man took a poker and began to belabor the wolf. The wolf ran away and never again came near the old man; and the old man remained alone in his wretchedness.

  THE TALE OF THE GOAT SHEDDING ON ONE SIDE

  WOULD YOU LIKE to hear the tale of the weak little goat shedding on one side? Then listen, listen! There was once a peasant who had a little hare. The peasant went to the field and there he saw a goat lying on the grass; one side of her had lost its hair, and the other not. The peasant pitied her, took her home, and put her in the shed. Having supped and rested a little, he went to his kitchen garden, and the hare went after him. Then the goat came from the shed to the house and bolted the door with a hook.

  The hare wanted to eat and ran to the door of the house; he pushed with his paw, but the door was locked. “Who is there?” asked the little hare. The goat answered: “I, the weak little goat, shedding on one side. If I come out I’ll break all your ribs!” The little hare was grieved, he went out into the road and wept. He met a wolf, who asked him: “Why are you weeping?” “There is someone in our house,” the hare said through his tears. “Come with me,” said the wolf. “I will drive him out.” They came to the door. “Who is there?” asked the wolf. The goat stamped her feet and said: “I, the weak little goat, shedding on one side. If I come out I’ll break all your ribs!” They went away from the door. The little hare again began to weep, and went out into the road, and the wolf ran away to the woods.

  Then the hare met a cock, who said: “Why are you weeping?” The hare told him, and the cock said: “Come with me, I will drive her out.” Near the door, the hare, to frighten the goat, said: “A cock has come with me; he carries a saber on his shoulder, he is coming to kill the goat and cut her head off.” They came to the door and the cock asked: “Who is there?” The goat answered as before: “I, the weak little goat, shedding on one side. If I come out I’ll break all your ribs!”

  Again the hare went into the street, weeping. A busy bee flew to him and said: “Who has hurt you? Why are you crying?” The hare told her and the bee flew to the house. She asked: “Who is there?” and the goat answered as before. The bee grew angry and began to fly around the walls. She buzzed and buzzed till she found a little hole; she crawled through it, stung the goat on her shedding side, and made a swelling there. The goat rushed out of the door as fast as she could and never came back. The little hare ran into the house, ate and drank, and lay down to sleep. When he awakens, the real tale will begin.

  THE BOLD KNIGHT, THE APPLES OF YOUTH, AND THE WATER OF LIFE

  A CERTAIN KING grew very old and his eyes began to fail. He heard that beyond the ninth land, in the tenth kingdom, there was a garden with the apples of youth, and in it a well with the water of life; if an aged man ate one of those apples, he would grow young, and if a blind man’s eyes were bathed with that water, he would see. That king had three sons. So he sent his eldest forth on horseback to find that garden and bring him the apples and the water, for he wanted to be young again and to see. The prince set out for the distant kingdom; he rode and rode and came to a pillar. On this pillar three roads were marked: if he followed the first, the marker said, his horse would be sated and he himself would be hungry; if he followed the second, it said, he would lose his own life; if he followed the third, it said, his horse would be hungry and he himself sated.

  He thought and thought and finally took the road that promised food for himself; and he rode and he rode till he saw a very beautiful house in a field. He approached it, looked all around, opened the gates, did not doff his cap nor bow his head, and galloped into the yard. The owner of the house, a widow who was not very old, called to the young man: “Welcome, dear guest!” She led him in, seated him at the table, prepared all sorts of viands, and brought him large beakers of heady drinks. The young man regaled himself and lay down to sleep on the bench. The woman said to him: “It is not fitting for a knight nor honorable for a gallant man to lie alone! Lie with my daughter, the beautiful Dunia.” He was quite pleased with this proposal. Dunia said to him: “Lie closer to me, so that we will be warmer.” He moved toward her and fell through the bed. In the cellar into which he fell he was compelled to grind raw rye all day long and he could not climb out. In vain the king waited and waited for his eldest son to come back. Finally he gave up waiting.

  Then he sent his second son to get the apples and the water. This prince took the same road and suffered the same fate as his elder brother. From long waiting for his sons, the king became very sad.

  Now the youngest son began to beg his father’s permission to go forth to seek the garden. But his father absolutely refused to let him go and said to him: “A curse is on you, little son! Your older brothers perished on this quest and you, who are still a tender youth, will perish even sooner than they.” But the young prince kept imploring his father and promised him that he would bear himself more bravely for the king’s sake than any brave knight. His father thought and thought and finally gave the boy his blessing for the journey.

  On his way to the widow’s house, the young knight passed the same pillar as his older brothers had. He too came to the widow’s house, dismounted from his horse, knocked at the gate, and asked whether he could spend the night there. The widow received him kindly just as she had his brothers, and invited him in, saying: “Welcome, unexpected guest!” She bade him sit down to table and placed all kinds of meat and drink before him, enough to stuff himself. He ate his fill, and asked whether he might lie down on the bench. The woman said to him: “It is not fitting for a knight nor honorable for a gallant man to lie alone! Lie with my beautiful Dunia.” But he answered: “No, little aunt! A visitor must not do that without first making certain preparations. Why don’t you heat up a bath for me? And let your daughter lead me to the bathhouse.”

  So the widow prepared a very, very hot bath and led him to the bathhouse with the beautiful Dunia. Dunia was just as wicked as her mother; she made him go in first, locked the door to the bath, and stood in the hall. But the bold knight pushed open the door and dragged Dunia with him into the bathroom. He had three rods—one of iron, one of lead, and one of cast iron—and with these rods he began to belabor the young girl. She wept and implored him to stop. But he said: “Tell me, wicked Dunia, what you have done with my brothers!” She said that they were in the cellar grinding raw grain. Then only did he let her go. They came back to the main room, tied one ladder to another, and freed his brothers. He told them to go home; but they were ashamed to appear before their father, because they had lain down with Dunia and had failed in their mission. So they wandered about in the fields and woods.

  The knight went on; he rode and rode till he came to a farmhouse. He entered; there sat a pretty young girl weaving towels. He said: “God bless you, pretty maiden!” And she answered: “Thank you! What are you doing, good knight? Are you running away from an adventure or are you trying to find one?” “I am trying to carry out a mission, pretty maiden,” said the knight. “I am going beyond the ninth land, to the tenth kingdom, to a certain garden, where I hope to find the apples of youth and the water of life for my aged, blind father.” She said to him: “It will be hard, very hard, for you to reach that garden. However, continue on your way; soon you will come to the house of my second sister. Go in to see her; she knows better than I how to find the garden and will tell you what to do.”

  So he rode and rode till he came to the house of the second sister. He greeted her just as he had the first, and told her who he was and where he was going. She bade him leave his horse with her
and ride on her own two-winged horse to the house of her older sister, who would tell him what to do—how to reach the garden and how to get the apples and the water. So he rode and rode till he came to the house of the third sister. She gave him her four-winged horse and told him: “Be careful. In that garden lives our aunt, a terrible witch. When you come to the garden, do not spare my horse. Spur him strongly, so that he clears the wall in one bound; for if he touches the wall, the strings with bells that are tied to it will sing out, the bells will ring, the witch will awaken, and you won’t be able to get away from her! She has a horse with six wings; cut the tendons under his wings so that she cannot overtake you.”

  He did as she bade him. He flew over the wall on his horse, but his horse lightly touched one string with his tail; all the strings sang and the bells rang, but softly. The witch awoke but did not clearly distinguish the voice of the strings and the bells, so she yawned and fell asleep again. And the bold knight galloped away with the apples of youth and the water of life. He stopped at the houses of the sisters, where he changed horses, and darted off to his own kingdom on his own horse. Early next morning the terrible witch discovered that the apples and the water had been stolen from her garden. At once she mounted her six-winged horse, galloped to the house of her first niece, and asked her: “Has someone passed by here?” The niece answered: “A bold knight went by here, but that was long ago.” The witch galloped on farther and asked her second and her third niece the same question, and they gave her the same answer. She rode on and almost overtook the bold knight, but he had reached his own land and no longer feared her: there she dared not enter. She only looked at him and in a voice hoarse with spite said: “You are a fine little thief! You have succeeded very well in your mission! You got away from me, but nothing will save you from your own brothers.” Having thus foretold his fate, she returned home.

  Our bold knight went on his way in his own land, and found his vagabond brothers sleeping in a field. He set his horse loose, did not awaken his brothers, but lay down beside them and fell asleep. The brothers awoke, saw that their brother had returned to his own land, softly took the apples of youth out of his breast pocket, and threw him, still sleeping, over a precipice. He fell for three days, till he reached the dark kingdom where people do everything by firelight. Wherever he went, he found the people sad and weeping. He asked the cause of their sorrow and was told that their king’s only daughter, the beautiful princess Paliusha, was to be given the next day to a terrible dragon, who would eat her up. In that kingdom, they explained, a maiden was given to the seven-headed dragon every month; that was the law! And now it was the turn of the king’s daughter. When our bold knight heard this, he went straightway to the king, and said to him: “King, I will save your daughter from the dragon, but later you must do for me whatever I ask of you.” The king was overjoyed, promised to do anything for him, and to give the princess to him in marriage.

  The next day came. The beautiful princess Paliusha was led to a three-walled fortress on the edge of the sea and the knight went with her. He took with him an iron rod that weighed about two hundred pounds. He and the princess waited there for the dragon; they waited and waited, and while they waited they conversed. He told her about his adventures and said that he had the water of life with him. Then the bold knight said to the beautiful princess Paliusha: “Pick the lice out of my head, and should I fall asleep before the dragon comes, waken me with my rod—otherwise you will not arouse me!” And he laid his head in her lap. She began to look for lice in his hair; he fell asleep.

  The dragon flew inshore and circled above the princess. She tried to waken the knight by shaking him, but did not hit him with his rod as he had asked her to do, for she did not wish to hurt him. She could not waken him and began to weep; a tear dropped on his face, and he woke up and exclaimed: “Oh, you have burned me with something pleasant!” Meanwhile the dragon had begun to swoop down on them. The knight took up his two-hundred pound rod, swung it, and at one stroke knocked off five of the dragon’s heads. He swung back a second time, and knocked off the remaining two. He gathered up all the heads, put them under the wall, and cast the monster’s trunk into the sea.

  An envious fellow saw all this, stole lightly around the other side of the wall, cut off the knight’s head, cast it into the sea, and bade the beautiful princess Paliusha tell her father, the king, that he had saved her. He swore that if she did not say this, he would strangle her. There was nothing to be done; Paliusha wept and wept as they went to her father, the king. The king came out to meet them. She told him that this fellow had saved her. The king was enormously happy and at once set about the preparations for the wedding feast. Guests arrived from foreign lands, kings, tsars, and princes, and all of them drank and amused themselves. The princess alone was sad; she would go into a corner behind the barn and shed burning tears for her bold knight.

  It occurred to her to ask her father to send fishermen to catch fish in the sea, and she herself went with them. They cast a net and drew out fish, an enormous quantity! She examined them and said: “No, that is not the fish I want!” They cast another net and dragged out the head and trunk of the bold knight. Paliusha rushed to him, found a phial with the water of life in his breast pocket, placed the head on the body, and wet it with the water from the phial, and he came to life. She told him how she loathed the man who wanted to take her. The knight comforted her and told her to go home; later he would come himself and set things right.

  So the knight came to the royal palace and found all the guests drunk, sporting and dancing. He declared that he could sing songs in various modes. The guests were pleased at this idea and asked him to sing. First he sang for them a gay song, full of jests and old saws, and the guests were all charmed and praised him for singing so well; then he sang a song so sad that all the guests burst into tears. The knight asked the king: “Who saved your daughter?” The king pointed out the envious fellow. “Well, king,” said the knight, “let us go to the fortress with all your guests. If he can find the dragon’s heads there, I will believe that he saved Princess Paliusha.” All of them went to the fortress. The fellow pulled and pulled but could not pull out even one head: it was far beyond his strength. But the knight pulled them all out as soon as he tried. Then the princess told the whole truth about who saved her. Everyone realized that the bold knight had saved the king’s daughter; and the fellow was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged over a field till he died.

  The king wanted to marry the bold knight to his daughter. But the knight said: “No, king, I don’t need anything from you. Only take me back to our bright world; I have not yet finished my mission for my father—he is still waiting for me to bring him the water of life, for he is blind.” The king did not know how to take the knight up to the bright world; and his daughter did not want to part from him, she wanted to go up with him. She told her father that there was a spoonbilled bird that could take them there, provided she had enough to feed it on the way.

  So Paliusha had a whole ox killed and took it with her as a store of food for the spoonbill. She and the knight said farewell to the underground king, seated themselves on the bird’s back, and set out for God’s bright world. When they gave more food to the bird, it flew upward faster; thus they used up the whole ox to feed it. Now they were perplexed and afraid lest the bird should drop them down again. So Paliusha cut off a piece of her thigh and gave it to the spoonbill; the bird straightway brought them up to this world and said: “Throughout our journey you fed me well, but never in my life did I taste anything sweeter than that last morsel.” Paliusha showed the bird her thigh, and the bird moaned and spat out the piece; it was still whole. The knight put it on Paliusha’s thigh, wet it with the water of life, and healed the princess.

  Then they went home. The father, the king of the land in our own world, met them and was overjoyed to see them. The knight saw that his father had grown younger from having the apples, but that he was still blind. The knight at once anointed his
father’s eyes with the water of life. The king began to see; he embraced his son, the bold knight, and the princess from the dark kingdom. The knight told how his brothers had taken his apples and thrown him into the nether world. The brothers were so frightened that they jumped into the river. And the knight married the princess Paliusha and gave a most wonderful feast. I dined and drank mead with them, and their cabbage was toothsome. Even now I could eat some!

  TWO OUT OF THE SACK

  ONCE THERE WAS an old man who lived with his wife. The wife constantly abused her husband; not a day passed on which she did not beat him with a broomstick or oven fork; he had no peace with her at all! He went into the field with some traps and set them. He caught a crane and said to him: “Be like a son to me! I will take you to my home and perhaps she won’t scold me so much.” The crane answered: “Little father! Come home with me!” So they set out for the crane’s house. When they arrived the crane took a sack from the wall and said: “Two out of the sack!” At once two strong fellows climbed out of the sack, set oaken tables, spread silken cloths, and served food and drink of various kinds. The old man beheld delicacies such as he had never seen in his life, and rejoiced greatly. The crane said to him: “Take this sack and bring it to your wife.”

  The old man took the sack and went home; he went the long way, and stopped to spend the night with his godmother, who had three daughters. They made a supper for him, out of whatever they had on hand. The old man tasted it and said to his godmother: “Your fare is poor!” “It is all we have,” answered the godmother. So he said: “Remove your fare!” And he spoke to the sack as the crane had bidden him to: “Two out of the sack!” At once two men jumped out of the sack, set up oaken tables, spread silken cloths, and served food and drink of various kinds.

 

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