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Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (11 July 1826 – 23 October 1871) was a Russian Empire Slavist who published nearly 600 Russian folktales and fairytales—one of the largest folktale collections in the world. The first edition of his collection was published in eight fascicules from 1855–67, earning him the reputation of the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm.
He owes his prominent place in the history of Slavonic philology chiefly to these Russian Fairy Tales: eight fascicules, published between 1855 and 1863, and inspired by the famous collection of the Brothers Grimm. From the scientific point of view, his collection goes further. He had at his disposal a lot of contributors, he tried to give the source and place where the tale was told, he never tried to give any definitive version of a folktale: so, if he gathered 7 versions of one folk type, he edited them all (this is the case for The FireBird for instance). His collection was ahead of his time.
Afanasyev edited a compilation of his collection for children comprising a set of animal, magic and humorous tales; Russian Folk Religious Legends which was banned due to the harsh censorship in the Russian Empire (the church thought the collection was blasphemous); and Russian Forbidden Tales, an assortment of unprintable tales that had to be published in Switzerland anonymously. Their obscene and anticlerical subject matter made their publication in Imperial Russia unthinkable

The Three Kingdoms: Russian Folk Tales from Alexander Afanasiev's Collection

Published in Moscow, in 1985, by Raduga Publishers, 158 pages.
Thirty-four of the six hundred fascinating stories from the collection that it took talented ethnographer Alexander Afanasiev (1826-1871) fifteen years to compile. He collected one of the finest private libraries in Moscow. In the middle of the nineteenth century Russian folklore, which for many centuries had been passed down traditionally from generation to generation, entered into a period of crisis. Disturbed by new social processes, creative thought turned to new subjects and the art of story-telling went into decline. Afanasiev's collection has saved the best of Russian folk tales from oblivion and preserved for posterity his fine collection. Also in this series see "The Magic Ring:Russian Folk Tales from Alexander Afanasiev's Collection". Gloss paper pages with beautiful full colour illustrations by Alexander Mikhailovich Kurkin. Kurkin was born in 1916 in Sibliev in the Rostov region. he studied at the Palekh Art School from 1935 to 1940 and worked at the Palekh Art Workshop until 1976, except for the period 1941- 1945, when he served at the front in the War.

This book is identical in format and close in substance to another book in the collection from the same publisher and representing the same art collection: Words of Wisdom: Russian Folk Tales from Alexander Afanasiev's Collection from Raduga in 1998. This book contains thirty-four stories. He collected the tales from both print and oral tradition and was in trouble during his life for refusing to tone down his work to meet the demands of the Russian censors.


The greedy old woman

The story is about an old man and an old woman, both peasants. One day the old man found a magic tree who granted his wish with the condition not to kill it. At first, the old man wanted to be rich. That wasn’t enough for the old woman, she wanted more – she wanted respect, so the old man went back and requested the tree to be a steward. When the old woman saw what it means to be a steward she didn’t like it anymore and she insisted that the old man goes back to the tree and wish to be something even greater than a steward, he should wish to become a landlord. After a while the old man being a landlord wasn’t enough. The old woman wanted the people envy them so she sent back the old man to the tree to make him become a colonel. After a while the old woman said that “being a colonel isn’t all that much”, so again she sent the old man to the tree to make him a general. Some time passed and the old woman was no longer content with being a general’s wife so she sent the old man back to the three to ask to make him a king and make her a queen. The old woman and the old man had not reigned very long when the old woman decided that it wasn’t enough to be a queen so she sent the old man again at the old tree, this time she wanted to die and become gods. When the tree heard their request the tree said “no gods shall you be, but bears”. So they both became bears and they ran away into the deep of the forest.
The morale of the story is that you shouldn't be greedy. The old woman's greediness eventually backfired on her.You must be happy in life with what you have.

In the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk tales “The greedy old woman” would classify in the:
Anecdotes and Jokes class - The foolish wife and her husband – 1380-1404
or
Tales of Magic class – Magic Objects – 560-649

Concerning the characters and functions according to Vladimir Propp the fairy tale could have the following functions:
VIII - One member of a family either lacks something or desires something (Definition: lack)
or
XIV - The hero acquires the use of a magical agent.
Magical agent: the tree
The agent falls into the hands of the hero by chance - is found by the hero.

Great anecdote about the escalation of human greed! Funny that the punishment for so much arrogance is to be "downgraded" to the status of a bear (which are after all, impressive totemic animals...)!

Massive introduction to Afanassjev's work and his method.