# Vasilisa the Beautiful _Alexander Afanasyev_ · 10 min read · ages 7-12 Sent to Baba Yaga for a light, Vasilisa survives every task with the doll her dying mother gave her, and the skull she carries home burns her stepmother and stepsisters to cinders. Vasilisa then weaves linen so fine that it reaches the king, who marries her, and the doll stays in her pocket for the rest of her life. --- Once upon a time there lived a merchant whose only child was a daughter, Vasilisa the Beautiful. When the girl was eight, her mother lay dying, and she called Vasilisa to her bed and gave her a little doll. “Vasilisa, dear, remember my last words,” she said. “Together with my blessing, I leave you this doll. Keep it with you always and show it to no one. When trouble comes, feed it and ask its advice, and it will tell you what to do.” Then she kissed her daughter, and she died. The merchant married a widow with two daughters of Vasilisa’s age, but she was no kind mother to his child. Vasilisa was the prettiest girl in town, and her jealous stepmother and stepsisters loaded her with hard work to make her thin and rough. Yet Vasilisa grew prettier every day, while the other three sat idle and grew thin and sour with spite. It was the doll that helped her. At every meal Vasilisa saved the best bite for it, and at night, alone in her room, she fed it and said, “Now, dolly, eat, and listen to my need. I live in my father’s house, but I never know a happy day. Tell me how to stay alive and what I should do.” The doll would eat and comfort her, and the next day it did all her work while Vasilisa picked flowers in the shade. When Vasilisa grew old enough to marry, every young man in town asked for her hand, and nobody looked at the stepmother’s daughters. The stepmother sent every suitor away, saying the youngest could not marry before the older girls, and afterward she beat Vasilisa to get even. One day the merchant went away on business, and the stepmother moved the family to a house beside a thick forest. In a clearing in that forest lived Baba Yaga, who ate people as if they were chickens. The stepmother kept sending Vasilisa into the forest on errands, but the doll always showed her the way home and never let her near the hut. One autumn evening the stepmother set the girls to work, one stepsister at lace, one at socks, and Vasilisa at the loom. She left a single candle burning and went to bed, and one of the stepsisters, as her mother had told her, put it out as if by accident. “Now there isn’t a spark of fire in the house,” said the girls. “Someone has to go to Baba Yaga’s for a light!” “My pins shine enough for me,” said the one who made lace. “I’m not going.” “My needles shine enough for me,” said the one who knitted socks. “I’m not going either.” “Vasilisa, you go!” they both cried, and they pushed her out of the room. Vasilisa set out the doll’s supper. “Now, dolly, eat, and listen to my need,” she said. “They’re sending me to Baba Yaga for a light, and Baba Yaga will eat me!” The doll ate, and its eyes glowed like two candles. “Don’t be afraid, Vasilisa dear,” it said. “Go where they send you. While I’m with you, no harm will come to you.” Vasilisa put the doll in her pocket and set off, trembling, into the dark forest. All at once a horseman galloped past. He was white, dressed in white, on a white horse, and the day began to break. A little farther on, a second rider galloped by. He was red, dressed in red, on a red horse, and the sun came up. She walked on all day, and toward evening she reached Baba Yaga’s clearing. The fence around the hut was made of dead men’s bones, with skulls along the top. The gateposts were men’s legs, the bolts were arms, and the lock was a mouth full of sharp teeth. Vasilisa stood rooted to the spot. Then a third horseman, black, dressed in black, on a black horse, galloped up to the gate and vanished as if the ground had swallowed him, and night fell. At once the skulls’ eyes began to shine, and the clearing grew as bright as midday. Soon the trees creaked, the dry leaves rustled, and out came Baba Yaga, riding in a mortar, pushing it along with a pestle and sweeping away her tracks with a broom. She stopped at the gate, sniffed the air, and cried, “Phoo! Phoo! I smell Russian flesh! Who’s there?” Vasilisa bowed low. “It’s me, Granny. My stepsisters sent me to you for a light.” “I know them,” said Baba Yaga. “Stay and work for me, and I’ll give you a light. If you don’t, I’ll eat you!” Then she turned to the gate and called out: Strong fence of mine, stand apart! Wide gates of mine, fly open! The gates swung open, and Vasilisa followed her in. Inside, Vasilisa served her enough meat for a dozen people and wine from the cellar. Baba Yaga ate and drank it all and left Vasilisa only a crust of bread. Then she lay down to sleep. “Tomorrow, when I go out,” she said, “sweep the yard, cook the dinner, and pick every weed seed out of four sacks of wheat. If it isn’t all done, I’ll eat you!” As soon as the old hag was snoring, Vasilisa set the scraps before the doll and burst into tears. “Now, dolly, eat, and listen to my need,” she said. “Baba Yaga will eat me if I don’t finish her work. Please help me!” “Don’t be afraid, Vasilisa the Beautiful,” said the doll. “Eat your supper, say your prayers, and go to sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening.” At dawn the white horseman rode by, then the red one, and Baba Yaga flew off in her mortar. Before Vasilisa could decide which job to start with, the doll had swept the yard and picked the wheat clean to the last grain. “Oh, you’ve saved me!” cried Vasilisa. “Now you only have to cook the dinner,” said the doll, slipping back into her pocket. At dusk the black horseman flashed past the gate, and Baba Yaga drove up. “Is everything done?” she asked. “See for yourself, Granny,” said Vasilisa. Baba Yaga was annoyed to find nothing to be angry about, but she only said, “Well, well. Very good.” Then she called out, “My trusty servants, faithful friends, grind my wheat!” Three pairs of hands appeared, gathered up the wheat, and carried it out of sight. “Do the same tomorrow,” Baba Yaga said after supper, “and besides that, clean the earth off the poppy seed in the bin, grain by grain.” When Baba Yaga was snoring, Vasilisa fed the doll. “Say your prayers and go to sleep,” it told her. “The morning is wiser than the evening.” The next day the doll did all the work again, and that evening Baba Yaga called out, “My trusty servants, faithful friends, press the oil from my poppy seed!” Three pairs of hands appeared, gathered up the poppy seed, and carried it out of sight. Baba Yaga sat down to dinner, and Vasilisa stood by without a word. “Why don’t you talk to me?” asked Baba Yaga. “You stand there as if you’d lost your tongue.” “I didn’t dare,” said Vasilisa. “But I’d like to ask you something.” “Ask, then. But not every question is a good one to ask. Learn too much and you’ll soon grow old.” “On my way here, Granny, a rider passed me, white and dressed in white, on a white horse. Who was he?” “That was my bright Day.” “Then a rider passed me, red and dressed in red, on a red horse. Who was he?” “That was my red Sun.” “And who is the black rider who passed me at your gate?” “That was my dark Night. They are all my trusty servants.” Vasilisa thought of the three pairs of hands, but she said nothing. “Why don’t you ask me anything more?” asked Baba Yaga. “That’s enough for me, Granny. You said yourself, ‘Learn too much and you’ll soon grow old.’” “Just as well,” said Baba Yaga. “You asked only about what you saw outside, not in here. I eat people who are too curious. Now you tell me: how do you manage all my work?” “My mother’s blessing helps me,” said Vasilisa. “What’s that? Out of my house, you blessed daughter! I don’t want blessed people here.” Baba Yaga pushed Vasilisa out through the gate. Then she took a skull with blazing eyes from the fence, stuck it on a stick, and handed it to her. “There’s your light,” she said. “That’s what they sent you for.” Vasilisa ran home by the skull’s light. At her stepmother’s gate she thought that by now they must have found a light of their own, and she was about to throw the skull away. But a hollow voice spoke from it. “Don’t throw me away. Carry me to your stepmother!” There was no light in any window, so Vasilisa took the skull inside. For the first time in her life, her stepmother and stepsisters welcomed her. Since she had left, they said, every light they brought in had gone out the moment it came through the door. “Maybe yours will stay lit,” said the stepmother. But once the skull was inside, its eyes glared at the stepmother and her daughters and shot out flames. Wherever they ran to hide, the eyes followed them, and by morning all three had burned to cinders. Only Vasilisa was unharmed. Vasilisa buried the skull, locked up the house, and went to live in the nearest town with an old woman. The doll made her a wonderful loom, and by spring Vasilisa had woven linen so fine that it could be pulled through the eye of a needle. She gave it to the old woman as a present. The old woman took the linen to the king. He wanted shirts made from it, but no seamstress could sew such fine cloth, so it came back to Vasilisa. When a dozen shirts were ready, she sent them to the king, then washed her face, combed her hair, and sat down by the window. Soon she was called to court, and when the king saw her, he fell deeply in love. “My beauty,” he said, “I will never let you go. You shall be my wife.” So the king married her. By and by her father came home and went to live with her. Vasilisa took the old woman into her household, and as for the doll, she carried it in her pocket for the rest of her life. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/vasilisa-the-beautiful - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2618351 - Source: Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, translated by W. R. S. Ralston (New York: Hurst & Co., first published London 1873 as Russian Folk-Tales; Project Gutenberg #22373) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22373) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, translated by W. R. S. Ralston (New York: Hurst & Co., first published London 1873 as Russian Folk-Tales; Project Gutenberg #22373) — translation: author died 1871 (+70 passed); translator W. R. S. Ralston died 1889 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)