Russian Folk-TalesAfanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
General
Russian Folk-Tales
Afanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
Folklore -- Russia
Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body. The
father clasped his hands, groaned as he recognised his unfortunate
daughter, saw her lying there slain, not knowing by whom she had been
buried. And all the good folks asked who had been the slayers, who had
been the murderers. Then the pipe began playing and speaking of itself.
“O my light, my father, my sisters called me to the wood: they killed me
here to get my saucer, my silver saucer, and my crystal apple. You
cannot raise me from my heavy sleep till you get water from the Tsar’s
well.”
The two envious sisters trembled, paled, and their soul was in flames.
They acknowledged their guilt. They were seized, bound, locked up in a
dark vault at the Tsar’s pleasure. But the father set out on his way to
the capital city. The road was long or short. At last he reached the
town and came up to the palace. The Tsar, the little sun, was coming
down the golden staircase. The old man bowed down to the earth and asked
for the Tsar’s mercy. Then the Tsar, the hope, said, “Take the water of
life from the Tsar’s well. When your daughter revives, bring her here
with the saucer, the apple, and the evil-doing sisters.”
The old man was overjoyed, bowed down to earth and took the phial with
the living water, ran into the wood to the flowery knoll, and took up
the body. As soon as ever he sprinkled it with the water his daughter
sprang up in front of him alive, and hung like a dove upon her father’s
neck. All the people gathered together and wept. The old man went to the
capital city. He was taken into the Tsar’s rooms. The Tsar, the little
sun, appeared, saw the old man with his three daughters, two tied by the
hands, and the third daughter like a spring flower, the light of
Paradise in her eyes, with the dawn on her face, tears flowing in her
eyes, falling like pearls.
The Tsar looked and was amazed, and was wroth with the wicked sisters.
He asked the fair maiden, “Where are your saucer and the crystal apple?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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