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                          RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES

                       From the Skazki of Polevoi



                                   By
                             R. NISBET BAIN

                       Illustrated by C. M. Gere



                             Third Edition

                                 London

                              A. H. Bullen
                18 Cecil Court, St. Martin's Lane, W.C.
                                  1901






PREFACE.


The existence of the Russian Skazki or Maerchen was first made
generally known to the British Public some twenty years ago by
Mr. W. R. S. Ralston in his Russian Folk Tales. That excellent
and most engrossing volume was, primarily, a treatise on Slavonic
Folk-Lore, illustrated with admirable skill and judgment, by stories,
mainly selected from the vast collection of Afanasiev, who did for
the Russian what Asbjoernsen has done for the Norwegian Folk-Tale. A
year after the appearance of Mr. Ralston's book, the eminent Russian
historian and archaeologist, Peter Nikolaevich Polevoi (well known,
too, as an able and ardent Shaksperian scholar), selected from the
inexhaustible stores of Afanasiev some three dozen of the Skazki most
suitable for children, and worked them up into a fairy tale book
which was published at St. Petersburg in 1874, under the title of
Narodnuiya Russkiya Skazki (Popular Russian Maerchen). To manipulate
these quaintly vigorous old-world stories for nursery purposes was,
as may well be imagined, no easy task, but, on the whole, M. Polevoi
did his work excellently well, and while softening the crudities and
smoothing out the occasional roughness of these charming stories,
neither injured their simple texture nor overlaid the original pattern.

It is from the first Russian edition of M. Polevoi's book that the
following selection has been made. With the single exception of
"Morozko," a variant of which will be familiar to those who know
Mr. Ralston's volume, none of these tales has seen the light in an
English dress before; for though both Ralston and Polevoi drew, for
the most part, from the same copious stock, their purposes were so
different that their selections naturally proved to be different also.

As to the merits of these Skazki, they must be left to speak for
themselves. It is a significant fact, however, that all those
scholars who are equally familiar with the Russian Skazki and the
German Maerchen, unhesitatingly give the palm, both for fun and fancy,
to the former.


    R. N. B.






CONTENTS.


                                                                 PAGE
The Golden Mountain                                                 1
Morozko                                                             8
The Flying Ship                                                    13
The Muzhichek-As-Big-As-Your-Thumb-with-Moustaches-Seven-
    Versts-Long                                                    22
The Story of the Tsarevich Ivan, and of the Harp that Harped
    Without a Harper                                               34
The Story of Gore-Gorinskoe                                        56
Go I Know Not Whither--Fetch I Know Not What                       64
Kuz'ma Skorobogaty                                                 85
The Tsarevna Loveliness-Inexhaustible                              94
Verlioka                                                          111
The Frog-Tsarevna                                                 118
The Two Sons of Ivan the Soldier                                  127
The Woman-Accuser                                                 143
Thomas Berennikov                                                 150
The White Duck                                                    159
The Tale of Little Fool Ivan                                      165
The Little Feather of Fenist the Bright Falcon                    188
The Tale of the Peasant Demyan                                    200
The Enchanted Ring                                                202
The Brave Labourer                                                220
The Sage Damsel                                                   222
The Prophetic Dream                                               229
Two Out of the Knapsack                                           245
The Story of Marko the Rich and Vasily the Luckless               252






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


The Golden Mountain                                      Frontispiece.
Morosko                                             To face page    9
The Tsarevna Loveliness-Inexhaustible              ,, ,,  ,,   103
The Princess and the Cunning Witch                 ,, ,,  ,,   160
The Damsel Went on Further, and the Road Grew
