Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore
General
Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore
Folklore -- Russia
The Baba Yaga rushed into the hut, saw that the girl was
gone, and took to beating the Cat, and abusing it for not having
scratched the girl's eyes out. "Long as I've served you," said
the Cat, "you've never given me so much as a bone; but she
gave me bacon." Then the Baba Yaga pounced upon the dogs,
on the doors, on the birch-tree, and on the servant-maid, and set
to work to abuse them all, and to knock them about. Then the
dogs said to her, "Long as we've served you, you've never so
much as pitched us a burnt crust; but she gave us rolls to eat."
And the doors said, "Long as we've served you, you've never
poured even a drop of water on our hinges; but she poured oil
on us." The birch-tree said, "Long as I've served you, you've
never tied a single thread round me; but she fastened a ribbon
around me." And the servant-maid said, "Long as I've served
you, you've never given me so much as a rag; but she gave me
a handkerchief."
The Baba Yaga, bony of limb, quickly jumped into her
mortar, sent it flying along with the pestle, sweeping away the
while all traces of its flight with a broom, and set off in pursuit
of the girl. Then the girl put her ear to the ground, and when
she heard that the Baba Yaga was chasing her, and was now
close at hand, she flung down the towel. And it became a wide,
such a wide river! Up came the Baba Yaga to the river, and
gnashed her teeth with spite; then she went home for her oxen,
and drove them to the river. The oxen drank up every drop of
the river, and then the Baba Yaga began the pursuit anew.
But the girl put her ear to the ground again, and when she heard
that the Baba Yaga was near, she flung down the comb, and
instantly a forest sprang up, such an awfully thick one! The
Baba Yaga began gnawing away at it, but however hard she
worked, she couldn't gnaw her way through it, so she had to go
back again.
But by this time the girl's father had returned home, and he
asked:
"Where's my daughter?"
"She's gone to her aunt's," replied her stepmother.
Soon afterwards the girl herself came running home.
"Where have you been?" asked her father.
"Ah, father!" she said, "mother sent me to aunt's to ask
for a needle and thread to make me a shift. But aunt's a Baba
Yaga, and she wanted to eat me!"
"And how did you get away, daughter?"
"Why like this," said the girl, and explained the whole
matter. As soon as her father had heard all about it, he became
wroth with his wife, and shot her. But he and his daughter
lived on and flourished, and everything went well with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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