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Vasilisa the Beautiful
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Vasilisa the Beautiful
Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russian: Василиса Прекрасная) or Vasilisa the Fair is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
A merchant's wife dies, leaving behind an 8-year-old daughter named Vasilisa. Before her death, the merchant's wife gives Vasilisa a doll with her blessing. The doll has a secret: if it is given something to eat, it can help its owner out of trouble. The merchant eventually remarries to a widow with two daughters the same age as Vasilisa. The new wife dislikes her stepdaughter, giving her various backbreaking jobs, but the doll does all the work for Vasilisa. When Vasilisa grows up, all the suitors in the city begin to woo her. The stepmother refuses everyone, proclaiming that she would not give up her youngest before her elders.
One day the merchant leaves home for a long time on business, and during this time, at the stepmother's bidding, the family moves to live in another house, standing near a dense forest, where Baba Yaga's hut is located. The stepmother often sends Vasilisa into the forest, hoping that Baba Yaga will devour her, but Vasilisa's doll always guides her to avoid dangerous paths. Finally, the stepmother and her daughters agree to send Vasilisa directly to Baba Yaga's hut for fire, since during the autumn women's work (weaving, knitting and spinning), which is done at night, all fires excluding a single candle are deliberately extinguished. The doll, as usual, promises to take care of Vasilisa's safety, and she sets off on her journey.
On her way she is passed by three horsemen dressed in white, red and black. On Baba Yaga's fence, made of human bones, skulls are hung, the eye sockets of which illuminate the surroundings with their light like lanterns. Baba Yaga rides out of the forest in her flying mortar and heeds Vasilisa's request. Baba Yaga demands that she, under pain of death, first work as a servant. At Baba Yaga's command, the gates open and then lock themselves. Baba Yaga gives Vasilisa various tasks, but she completes everything on time with the doll's help. The colored horsemen pass by the hut, and Vasilisa discovers Baba Yaga's assistants: three pairs of hands that respond and appear at the call of her voice. Baba Yaga explains that the white, red and black horsemen are respectively Day, Sun and Night, but does not explain what the hands are, warning that she dislikes those who air her personal affairs in public, and that she eats those who are too curious.
Eventually, Baba Yaga asks Vasilisa how she managed to accomplish her work so well. When Vasilisa responds that she did so by her mother's blessing, Baba Yaga throws her out of her home, rejecting those who are blessed. However, Baba Yaga gifts Vasilisa a skull with burning eyes to use as a lamp. Vasilisa wants to get rid of it, but the skull warns her against this, asking to be taken to her stepmother's house. There, the light coming from the skull's eye sockets incinerates the stepmother and her two daughters. Vasilisa buries the skull and moves to the city, where she settles with an old woman, deciding to take up spinning and weaving while waiting for her father to return. The fabric that comes out of Vasilisa's hands is so thin that the old woman states it belongs in the royal palace and nowhere else. The king asks to sew him blouses from this fabric, which turns out to be a craft only Vasilisa herself can manage. Appreciating her skillful work, the king demands to see the young woman personally, and once that happens, charmed by her beauty, takes Vasilisa as his wife. Her father returns from his trading trip and remains to live at court. Vasilisa also brings the old woman into court, and carries the doll in her pocket for the rest of her life.
Russian scholarship classifies the tale as type SUS 480В*, "Мачеха и падчерица" ("Stepmother and Step-daughter"), of the East Slavic Folktale Classification (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS): the heroine is sent to fetch fire from Baba Yaga, and is helped by a magical doll in fulfilling the witch's tasks. Professor Jack V. Haney classified the tale as type AT 480B*, in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.
In some versions, the tale ends with the death of the stepmother and stepsisters, and Vasilisa lives peacefully with her father after their removal. This lack of a wedding is unusual in a tale with a grown heroine, although some, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, do feature it. In some versions, Baba Yaga has a daughter, who befriends Vasilisa.
According to Jiří Polívka, in a Slovak tale from West Hungary, the heroine meets a knight or lord clad in all red, riding a red horse, with a red bird on his hand and red dog by his side. She also meets two similarly dressed lords: one in all white, and the other in all black. The heroine's stepmother explains that the red lord was the Morning, the white lord the Day and the black lord the Night.
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Vasilisa the Beautiful
Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russian: Василиса Прекрасная) or Vasilisa the Fair is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
A merchant's wife dies, leaving behind an 8-year-old daughter named Vasilisa. Before her death, the merchant's wife gives Vasilisa a doll with her blessing. The doll has a secret: if it is given something to eat, it can help its owner out of trouble. The merchant eventually remarries to a widow with two daughters the same age as Vasilisa. The new wife dislikes her stepdaughter, giving her various backbreaking jobs, but the doll does all the work for Vasilisa. When Vasilisa grows up, all the suitors in the city begin to woo her. The stepmother refuses everyone, proclaiming that she would not give up her youngest before her elders.
One day the merchant leaves home for a long time on business, and during this time, at the stepmother's bidding, the family moves to live in another house, standing near a dense forest, where Baba Yaga's hut is located. The stepmother often sends Vasilisa into the forest, hoping that Baba Yaga will devour her, but Vasilisa's doll always guides her to avoid dangerous paths. Finally, the stepmother and her daughters agree to send Vasilisa directly to Baba Yaga's hut for fire, since during the autumn women's work (weaving, knitting and spinning), which is done at night, all fires excluding a single candle are deliberately extinguished. The doll, as usual, promises to take care of Vasilisa's safety, and she sets off on her journey.
On her way she is passed by three horsemen dressed in white, red and black. On Baba Yaga's fence, made of human bones, skulls are hung, the eye sockets of which illuminate the surroundings with their light like lanterns. Baba Yaga rides out of the forest in her flying mortar and heeds Vasilisa's request. Baba Yaga demands that she, under pain of death, first work as a servant. At Baba Yaga's command, the gates open and then lock themselves. Baba Yaga gives Vasilisa various tasks, but she completes everything on time with the doll's help. The colored horsemen pass by the hut, and Vasilisa discovers Baba Yaga's assistants: three pairs of hands that respond and appear at the call of her voice. Baba Yaga explains that the white, red and black horsemen are respectively Day, Sun and Night, but does not explain what the hands are, warning that she dislikes those who air her personal affairs in public, and that she eats those who are too curious.
Eventually, Baba Yaga asks Vasilisa how she managed to accomplish her work so well. When Vasilisa responds that she did so by her mother's blessing, Baba Yaga throws her out of her home, rejecting those who are blessed. However, Baba Yaga gifts Vasilisa a skull with burning eyes to use as a lamp. Vasilisa wants to get rid of it, but the skull warns her against this, asking to be taken to her stepmother's house. There, the light coming from the skull's eye sockets incinerates the stepmother and her two daughters. Vasilisa buries the skull and moves to the city, where she settles with an old woman, deciding to take up spinning and weaving while waiting for her father to return. The fabric that comes out of Vasilisa's hands is so thin that the old woman states it belongs in the royal palace and nowhere else. The king asks to sew him blouses from this fabric, which turns out to be a craft only Vasilisa herself can manage. Appreciating her skillful work, the king demands to see the young woman personally, and once that happens, charmed by her beauty, takes Vasilisa as his wife. Her father returns from his trading trip and remains to live at court. Vasilisa also brings the old woman into court, and carries the doll in her pocket for the rest of her life.
Russian scholarship classifies the tale as type SUS 480В*, "Мачеха и падчерица" ("Stepmother and Step-daughter"), of the East Slavic Folktale Classification (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS): the heroine is sent to fetch fire from Baba Yaga, and is helped by a magical doll in fulfilling the witch's tasks. Professor Jack V. Haney classified the tale as type AT 480B*, in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.
In some versions, the tale ends with the death of the stepmother and stepsisters, and Vasilisa lives peacefully with her father after their removal. This lack of a wedding is unusual in a tale with a grown heroine, although some, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, do feature it. In some versions, Baba Yaga has a daughter, who befriends Vasilisa.
According to Jiří Polívka, in a Slovak tale from West Hungary, the heroine meets a knight or lord clad in all red, riding a red horse, with a red bird on his hand and red dog by his side. She also meets two similarly dressed lords: one in all white, and the other in all black. The heroine's stepmother explains that the red lord was the Morning, the white lord the Day and the black lord the Night.
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