Russian tales

Alexander Afanasyev published Russian Folk Tales in eight parts between 1855 and 1863. Most of the stories came from other collectors’ notes, and where he had several tellings of one tale, he printed them side by side instead of fusing them into one.

Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Beautiful both come from that collection, and in both a girl who lives with a cruel stepmother is sent to the witch. Vasilisa gets through every task with the help of a doll her dying mother gave her, then carries a skull home as a light.

Konstantin Ushinsky was a teacher, and Rodnoye slovo, his reader for the youngest children, first came out in 1864. Generations of Russian children learned to read from it. Kolobok and The Enormous Turnip are two of the short folk tales he retold for that book.

The Enormous Turnip takes about two minutes to read, and Kolobok only a little longer. The Afanasyev tales run longer and darker: in The Frog Princess, Prince Ivan burns his wife’s frog skin too soon and has to find the needle that holds the death of Koschei the Deathless.