Russian Folktales
1. The Dead Mother - That was such a sad and heart breaking story... first everything is all nice and happy and then the mother is dead, leaving the father all alone with this newborn baby. He tried to care for it and have an older woman help him so that he could bring it up the best he could. If the town had just not been so nosy and left the child alone at night, I wonder if the baby would have stayed alive. I also wonder why the baby died. If it was actually because the towns people saw the dead mother or if the child died of different causes.
2. The Treasure - This was such a cool story! It made me so happy that the old man got to have a proper burial for his wife! Even if all of the towns folk were just greedy. And I am even happier that the pope was punished for being such a horrible person! When I was reading it I thought that the Devil might show up to the pope and reprimand him for pretending to be the devil, but I think being forever stuck in the goat skin works too!
3. The Bad Wife - I am actually really surprised that the peasant came out victorious! I am used to the hero having some serious problems along the way but he actually managed to have a happy life after sending his wife to hell. I am also surprised he survived the imp! I was worried it would do something to exact revenge on the peasant for tricking him! Great story!
4. The Three Copecks - This story was a little odd. I enjoyed it, but it was still odd. It was all very disjointed. The only thing it had in common was the boy. It did make me happy that he saved the kitten! I thought it was sweet and something very good came out of it! And the kitty gets to live and eat rats and mice all the time!
5. The Miser - So i'm not sure if the miser ended up getting a lot of money because they scared the wits out of the robbers and the Rich man still did pay him a single copeck, or what... This was a little confusing. I did find it funny that the miser basically tortured Marko as he pretended to be dead just to get a single copeck.
6. The Water Snake - This was an interesting story. I liked it but there wasn't very much to it. I understand where the mother was coming from to save her daughter and kill the snake, but the daughter was happy and so it was really sad that she killed him!
7. Friday - Moral of the story? Don't piss off mother friday. I wonder if they have deities for all of the days of the week.
8. Wednesday - I'm not sure what the point of this story was... I wonder why the days of the week are so mean... I can understand Monday, because I generally dislike mondays... but why the others? I'm not sure I entirely understand when they are even. Are they deities or demons or what?
9. The Leshy - Again, odd story but entertaining. It would be nice to know what a Léshy was going into the story but it was still entertaining! I am happy the girl made it back to her family after three years even if she didn't remember them...
10. Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina - Creation story!!! I don't know anything about Russian history or culture, my roommate is majoring in Russian so I thought it would be cool to learn a little about it. I love reading stories like this because I learn a little about the culture. Like, now I know that there are three rivers called the Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina and that the first one runs faster than the other two and the second two run to the bottom of the sea where the first one remains closer to the top!
11. Emilian the Fool - I wonder why the fool wanted red things so much. And why he kept lying on the stove... I'm happy that he got some good luck in his life since everyone seemed to tease him. It would be pretty cool to have inanimate objects do your bidding just by asking them!
12. The Witch Girl - I liked this story! It was really short but I was really pulled into! I thought it was really smart how the person figured out who the witch was really was. I wonder how he thought of that...
13. The Headless Princess - I am impressed that the little boy was able to stick to what his granny told him and not look behind him. I am starting to notice the the woman either dies or is the cause of the problem. I wonder what that has to say about how the Russians of this time think of women.
14. The Warlock - I think this is one of the first stories I have read so far where the woman saves the day! Well, she doesn't really save the day, just her life and she got some money. But this was a good story! It was interesting, and engaging.
15. The Fox Physicians - I feel like there is usually a moral to most stories, but i'm not sure what the moral to this story was...
16. The Fiddler in Hell - I liked this story! I could see a clear moral in it. I thought it was cool how the pots of money kept refilling even if someone took so much money out of them. I bet the poor who got some money from it were very happy about that. I keep forgetting these are Russian folktales. They really just seem like most of the other folktales I have read before.
17. The Two Friends - Some friend the dead guy was! He made the first guy lose his wife and live three hundred years so that all of his friends and family and everyone he ever knew was dead! That is horrible!
18. The Shroud - If she had just put the shroud back, she would have been fine! I'm not saying she deserved to be taken off by the corpse, but she kind of deserved it...
19. The Coffin-Lid - Well that would be an interesting day. Seeing a corpse running around, saving two boys with that corpse's shroud, handing over a dead man to the authorities, and then being rewarded greatly all in one day pretty much! I find it interesting that they always use an aspen stake to nail down the corpses that keep rising. There are also a lot of stories with rising, evil corpses.
20. The Two Corpses - I thought this story was hilarious. Granted, if I was actually in that situation, I would have probably soiled myself at the sight of the first corpse and just passed out after seeing the two corpses fight each other until they were no more.
21. The Dog and the Corpse - I really want to know what is the fascination of Russians with death or corpses at least. The larger portion of these stories is about corpses... If I was that dog I would have been pissed too! The master just left him there to fight, not caring whether he lived or died! I really liked this story though. I wasn't sure what was wrong with the dog and I thought it was interesting that they gave the dog such passionate emotions because of what happened to him.
22. The Soldier and the Vampire - This was a really good story! I loved how the soldier tried to befriend the warlock a little so that he could figure out his secrets and save the people! But again, I want to know about the Russians' fascination with corpses and dead people coming back to life.
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