Russian Folk-TalesAfanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
General
Russian Folk-Tales
Afanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
Folklore -- Russia
Zamorýshek then went and sat under the hayrick and waited. At midnight a
sudden storm rose and the sea raged, and a strange nag rose out of the
sea, ran up to the rick and began to eat it. Zamorýshek bound the neck
round with chains and mounted her. The mare began to gallop over the
valleys and over the hills, and she reared, but she could not dislodge
the rider; and at last she stopped and said in a human voice: “Now, good
youth, now you can mount me, you may become master of my foals.” Then
she ran under the sea and neighed, and the sea opened and up ran
forty-one foals; and they were such fine foals, every single horse was
better than every other horse. You might go round the entire earth and
never see any horses as good.
Next morning the old man heard neighing outside his door, and wondered
what the noise was, and there was his son Zamorýshek with the entire
drove. “Good!” he said. “Now, my sons, ye had better go and hunt for
brides.” So off they went. The mother and father blessed them, and the
brothers set forth on their distant way and road.
They rode far in the white world in order to seek their brides. For they
would not marry separately, and what mother could they find who should
boast of having forty-one daughters?
And they went across thirteen countries, and they then saw a steep
mountain which they ascended, and there there stood a white stone palace
with high walls round and iron columns and gates where they counted
forty-one columns. So they tied their knightly horses to each of the
stakes, and they entered.
Then the Bába Yagá met them and said: “O ye unlooked-for, uninvited
guests, how did you dare without leave to tie your horses to my stakes?”
“Come, old lady, what are you complaining of? First of all give us food
and drink, take us into the bath, and thereafter ask us for our news,
and question us.”
So the Bába Yagá served them with food and drink, conducted them to the
bath, and then afterwards she asked them: “Have ye come to do deeds,
doughty youths, or to flee from deeds?”
“We have come to do deeds, grandmother,” they said.
“What have ye come to seek?”
“We are seeking brides.”
Then she replied, “I have daughters.” And she burst into the lofty rooms
and brought out her forty-one daughters.
They were then betrothed, and began to feast together and celebrate the
marriage.
When the evening came Zamorýshek went to look at his horse, and the good
horse saw him and spoke with a human voice. “See to this, my master:
when you lie down with your young wives, dress them in your clothes, and
put on your wives’ clothes, otherwise you will all be killed.”
Then they all went and lay down, and they all went to sleep, only
Zamorýshek took care to keep his eyes open.
And at midnight Bába Yagá cried out in a loud voice: “Ho, ye my faithful
servants! Will ye cut off the heads of my insolent and uninvited
guests?” And so the servants ran and cut off the daughters’ heads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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