KidLit Forum

Vasilisa the Beautiful – A Russian Fairy tale

A. Context
It is a Russian fairy tale. Its was first collected by Alexander Afanasyev and included in the collrction of folklofe tales called Narodnye russkie skazki. This first collection of fairy tales was published in eight volumes between the years 1855 – 1867, his author earning the reputation as being the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. A. Afansyev was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk tales, one of the largest collections of folklore in the world.
I consulted the English 1966 translation intitled Vasilisa the Beautiful-Russian Fairy Tales, Edited by Irina Zheleznova, at Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966.
B. Summary
By his first wife, a merchant had a single daughter, bright and beautiful. Her name was Vasilisa. But, unfortunately, when she was eight, her mother died. On her deathbed, she gave Vasilisa a little wooden doll with magical powers. Her father remarried a woman who had two daughters. The three proved to be very cruel relatives for the young and beautiful Vasilisa.
One day, the merchant had to leave home with business. His wife decided to move to a gloomy hut by the forest. One night she gave the three girls some tasks and left them in a room with one single candle. But the bad sisters put out the fire and sent Vasilisa to fetch fire from Baba Yaga’s hut. While staying at her house, Vasilisa had to preform some tasks and the help of her doll vas very precious. In the end Vasilisa gets the fire from baba yaga but the old woman asks her which was the secret of her success. The girl told her that she succeeded due to her mother’s blessing. Then the baba yag threw Vasilisa out of her house, as she was in fact the embodiment of the devil, she used to eat people who couldn’t perform all her tasks and she wanbted nobody with any kind of blessing in her presence.
On her return home, the coals brought in the skull-lantern burned Vasilisa’s stepmother and stepsisters to ashes as a punishment for all their evil deeds. The girl’s life became happier as she later lived with an old city-woman who fetched fine flax for making clothes. She became so skilled at her work that the Tsat himself noticed her skill and married her.
C. Position in the Aarne-Thomson-Uther Index
This tale fits the category of Tales of Magic (300-749), more specifically the subclass of Supernatural Adversaries (300-399) since Vasilisa’s enemy, Baba Yaga is an evil woman who wants to eat her. But the other important enemy in Vasilisa’s life is her stepmother so the tale also enters in the category of Religious Tales (750-849), the subclass God Rewards and Punishes(750-779) as the three enemies (stepmother and stepsisters) are turned to ashes whereas the beautiful and benevolent girl is rewarded with the king’s acceptance. It is about Realistic Tales(850-999) too, the subcategory of The Woman who Marries the Prince(870-879).
D. Characters and functions according to Vladimir Propp
The heroine: Vasilisa, the only daughter of a merchant and of his wife; she has to perform a series of tasks both from the part of her stepmother and of the evil Baba Yaga; Vasilisa is also the victim of her enemies in the tale.
The parents: the merchant and the ill wife, who gives her daughter a magical object, the doll that can eat, drink, talk and performs difficult tasks;
The Donor: Vasilisa’s mother who gives her the powerful doll
The Villains: the evil stepmother and stepsisters;
The Helper: Baba Yaga who is regarded both as an rvil character and a helper. Clarissa Pinkola Estes interprets Baba Yaga as the „wild feminine” principle.

-The initial situation: There was a merchant and his only child. But the mother is ill, she dies and gives her daughter a magical instrument, the doll.
-The Absentation: Vasilisa’s father has to go away.
-The Villainy: the two stepsistres try to do harm to the other girl by sending her into the woods, to Baba Yaga, hoping she would die or she would be eaten.
-The Lack: there is no light so Vasilisa the Beautiful has to go and search for the fire.
-The Difficult tasks: Baba Yaga requires the girl to separate grains of rotten corn from sound corn, and separate poppy seeds from grains of soil.
-The Tasks are solved
-The Guidance and confort got from the magical instrument, the tiny wooden doll.
-The Solution: all the tasks are solves the girl being helped by he magic doll
-The Punishment: the three evil women are turned to ashes.
-The Wedding: The Tsar himself asks the girl to sew shirts from the fine cloth and after that he marries the skillful and beaufiful girl.

E. Similarities with other known tales
From the beginning we notice that Vasilisa is the Russian variant of Cinderella and of Snow White. Other similar paths: the Swedish tale of The Twelve Swans. This tale resembles the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk as one tiny thing is of great help; the doll and the magical bean seeds.There is also the bad ogre and the bad Baba Yaga. We’ve also met The Tale of the Ogre in Basile’s collection of Italian tales.
Interpretation: In common with many folklorists of his time, Alexander Afanasyev regarded many tales as primitive ways of viewing nature. So he regardes his tale as depicting the conflict between the sunlight(Vasilisa), the storm (her stepmother) and the dark clouds (her stepsisters).
F. Modern-day editions in English and Romanian
This tale is known today and is still read as it was translated in many European languages including Romanian. There are some Romanian translations among which the one typed in 1986 under the title The Feather of Finist the Falcon, edited by Editura Raduga, Moscow and Editura Ion Creanga, Bucharest.
The author Edith Hodgetts included an English translation of this story in her 1890 collection Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.
Vasilisa appears in the 2007 comic book Hellboy Darkness Calls to assist Hellboy against Koschei the Deathless with her usual story of the Baba Yaga . The book also includes other characters of Slavic folklore, such as a Domovoi making an appearance.
The novel Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter is based on this folktale with a modern twist.
The book Vasilisa the Terrible: A Baba Yaga Story flips the script by painting Vasilisa as a villain and Baba Yaga as an elderly woman who is framed by the young girl.

Student : Ardelean Dan Maria