 Ivan Bilibin's illustration of the red rider from Vasilissa the Beautiful. Vasilissa the Beautiful is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki. Image File history File links Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942). ...
Image File history File links Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942). ...
Ivan Ya. ...
A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ...
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (11 July 1826 — 23 October 1871) was a Russian folklorist best known for his pioneering study and publication of Russian folktales. ...
Illustration by Ivan Bilibin to Vasilissa the Beautiful Narodnye russkie skazki, or Russian Fairy Tales, is a collection of Russian fairy tales, collected by Alexander Afanasyev and published by him between 1855 and 1863. ...
Another of the many versions of the tale also appears in A Book of Enchantments and Curses (under the title Vasilissa Most Lovely), by Ruth Manning-Sanders. A Book of Enchantments and Curses is a 1977 anthology of 13 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. ...
Ruth Manning-Sanders (born 1895 in Swansea, Wales; died October 12, 1988, in Penzance, England) was a poet and author who was perhaps best known for her series of childrens books in which she collected and retold fairy tales from all over the world. ...
Synopsis
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. A merchant had, by his first wife, a single daughter, who was known as Vasilissa the Beautiful. When she was eight years old, her mother died. On her deathbed, she gave Vasilissa a tiny wooden doll with instructions to give it a little to eat and a little to drink if she were in need, and then it would help her. As soon as her mother died, Vasilissa gave it a little to drink and a little to eat, and it comforted her.
After a time, her father remarried, to a woman with two daughters. Her stepmother was very cruel to her, but with the help of the doll, Vasilissa was able to perform all the tasks imposed on her. When young men came wooing, the stepmother rejected them all because it was not proper for the younger to marry before the older, and no one would look at her ugly daughters. Traditionally, a stepfamily is the family one acquires when a parent enters a new marriage, whether the parent was widowed or divorced. ...
One day the merchant had to go on a journey. His wife sold the house and moved them all to a gloomy hut by the forest. One day she gave the girls all a task and put out all the fires except a candle. Then her older daughter put out the candle, and the two sisters sent Vasilissa to fetch fire from Baba Yaga's hut. The doll advised her to go, and she went. While she was walking, a feathered gargoyle rode by her, dressed in white, riding a white horse whose equipment was all white; then a similar rider in red, and the sun rose. She came to a house that stood on chicken legs, and was walled by human bones. A black rider, like the white and red rider, rode past her, and night fell, but the eyes of the skulls lit up. Vasilissa was too frightened to run away, and so Baba Yaga found her when she arrived in her mortar. Yaga can refer to: Yajna (Hindu mythology) Baba Yaga (Russian mythology) Yaga (clothing company) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
Baba Yaga said that she must perform tasks to earn the fire, or she would eat her. For the first task, she must clean the house and yard, cook supper, and pick out black grains and wild peas from a quarter measure of wheat. The next morning the white rider and the red rider rode through the house. Baba Yaga left, and the doll did all the work except cooking the supper. When the black rider rode through the house, Baba Yaga returned and could complain of nothing. She had three pairs of hands seize the grain to grind it, and set Vasilissa the same tasks for the next day, with the addition of cleaning poppy seeds that had been mixed with dirt. Again, the doll did all except cooking the meal. Baba Yaga set the three pairs of hands to press the oil from the poppy seeds. Baba Yaga, by Ivan Bilibin File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Baba Yaga, by Ivan Bilibin File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Ivan Ya. ...
Vasilissa asked about the riders and was told that the white one was Day, the red one the Sun, and the black one Night, but Baba Yaga having cautioned her about too many questions, she did not ask about the hands, which, Baba Yaga informed her, would have meant she would have been seized by them like the wheat and the poppy seeds, for food. Baba Yaga asked how she performed the tasks, and Vasilissa said, With her mother's blessing. Baba Yaga wanted no one with a blessing in her house and drove her out, but gave her a skull with burning eyes as the fire she had asked for. The skull told her to bring it home.
She arrived home to find that her stepmother and stepsisters had been unable to light a fire since she left. The skull soon burned them up, and Vasilissa stayed alone, waiting for her father. She wove linen and gave it to the Tsar, but it was too fine for other women to sew, and so Vasilissa came to sew it, and the Tsar fell in love with her and married her.
Variants In some versions, the tale ends with the death of the stepmother and stepsisters, and Vasilissa lives peacefully with her father after their removal. Spoilers end here. Commentary The white, red, and black riders appear in other tales of Baba Yaga and are often interpreted to give her a mythological significance. Yaga can refer to: Yajna (Hindu mythology) Baba Yaga (Russian mythology) Yaga (clothing company) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
See also Gustave Dorés illustration for Cendrillon For other uses, see Cinderella (disambiguation). ...
Bawang Putih Bawang Merah is one of the more famous of old Malay folktales, passed down orally through the generations. ...
Rushen Coatie or Rashin-Coatie is a Scottish fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his More English Fairy Tales. ...
Gretel tricks the witch Hansel and Gretel (German: Hänsel und Gretel) is a fairy tale of Germanic origin, collected by the Brothers Grimm. ...
Frau Trude is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 43. ...
The Witch is a Russian fairy tale. ...
The Two Caskets is a Scandinavian fairy tale included by Benjamin Thorpe in his Yule-Tide Stories: A Collection of Scandinavian and North German Popular Tales and Traditions. ...
Buttercup or Butterball is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. ...
Udea and her Seven Brothers is a Northern African fairy tale collected by Hans von Stumme in Märchen und Gedichte aus der Stadt Tripolis. ...
External links - SurLaLune Fairy Tale site Vasilissa the Beautiful
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