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Russian fairy tale

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The Wicked Sisters (Russian: По колена ноги в золоте, по локоть руки в серебре) is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.

Ruth Manning-Sanders included it, as "The Queen's Children", in A Book of Kings and Queens.

Synopsis

Prince Ivan hears three beautiful sisters talking. The older two say that if he married them, they would sew him a marvelous shirt; the youngest says she would bear him three sons with the sun on the forehead, the moon on the back of their heads, and stars to each side. The older sisters envied her and bribed her servants; when she bore the sons she had said, they stole them and hid them an arbor in the garden; then they presented the prince with first a puppy, then a kitten, then an ordinary child. The prince finally repudiated and demanded justice for her deceiving him. The chief justice decreed she should be blinded, put in a barrel with the ordinary child, and thrown out to sea; if she were guilty, she would die, but if she were innocent, she would emerge. This was done, and Prince Ivan married her oldest sister.

The substituted child grew by the hour, became reasonable, and commanded the barrel to come ashore and burst, then commanded a bathhouse to appear, in which he restored the princess's sight, and then a palace to appear. The arbor from the palace was in it. He had the princess bake three cakes. The three princes appeared and said that whoever brought them those cakes and told them of their mother would be their brother. The princess lived there with her sons and the child. One day they gave hospitality to monks, who went on to Prince Ivan's kingdom and told him of them. He immediately went to the palace and knew them for his wife and sons.

The oldest sister was thrown into the sea, and this time the barrel sank.

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".

In the East Slavic Folktale Classification (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS), the tale is classified as type SUS 707, Russian: Чудесные дети, romanized: Chudesnyye deti, lit. 'The Wonderful or Miraculous Children'. Folklorist Lev Barag [ru] noted the commonest form of East Slavic variants is the following: the mother of the wonder children is cast in the sea in a barrel.

Motifs

This tale was collected by Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev, along with six other variants, and comprises a subtype named Up to the Knee in Gold, Up to the Elbow in Silver.

The tale is part of a very widespread set of tales under the banner The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird, distributed throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa and Americas. However, the characteristics of this specific version veer close to the Tale of Tsar Saltan story type, a tale attested in Russian and Slavic sources.

The plot is as follows: the mother is cast out with the babies into the sea in a box or barrel, after the king is tricked into thinking his wife did not deliver her promised wonder children. The box eventually washes ashore on the beaches of an island or another country. There, the child (or children) magically grows up in hours or days and builds an enchanted castle or house that attracts the attention of the common folk (or merchants, or travellers). Word reaches the ears of the despondent king, who hears about the mysterious owners of such fantastic abode, who just happen to look like the children he would have had. In some variants, the castaway boy sets a trap to rescue his brothers and release them from a transformation curse, or the boy asks his mother for a meal made with her "breast milk" to give to his brothers when he sets out to rescue his siblings from the place where they have been kept as prisoners.

Russian tale collections attest to the presence of Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore, as the antagonist in many of the stories.

The tale can also be found in Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and Baltic folktale collections.

References

Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 242–243.
Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. pp. 381–383. ISBN 978-951-41-0963-8.
Barag, Lev. "Сравнительный указатель сюжетов. Восточнославянская сказка". Leningrad: НАУКА, 1979. p. 177.
Barag, Lev. "Сравнительный указатель сюжетов. Восточнославянская сказка". Leningrad: НАУКА, 1979. p. 177.
По колена ноги в золоте, по локоть руки в серебре. In: Alexander Afanasyev. Народные Русские Сказки. Vol. 2. Tale Numbers 283-287.
The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev, Volume II, Volume 2. Edited by Jack V. Haney. University Press of Mississippi. 2015. ISBN 978-1-62846-094-0
Joseph Jacobs, European Folk and Fairy Tales, "The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird". Note 10.
Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Zweiter Band (NR. 61-120). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 380-394.
Braga, Teófilo. Contos Tradicionais do Povo Português. Vol. I. Edições Vercial. 1914. pp. 119-120. Notes on tales 39-40.
Власов, С. В. (2013). НЕКОТОРЫЕ ФРАНЦУЗСКИЕ И ИТАЛЬЯНСКИЕ ПАРАЛЛЕЛИ К «СКАЗКЕ О ЦАРЕ САЛТАНЕ» А. С. ПУШКИНА ВО «ВСЕОБЩЕЙ БИБЛИОТЕКЕ РОМАНОВ» (BIBLIOTHèQUE UNIVERSELLE DES ROMANS) (1775-1789). Мир русского слова, (3), 67-74.
эмлет, Т. Ю. (2013). Описание сказочного сюжета 707 Чудесные дети в международных, национальных и региональных указателях сказочных сюжетов: сравнительный анализ. Научный диалог, (5 (17)), 198-219.
Хэмлет, Т. Ю. (2013). Описание сказочного сюжета 707 Чудесные дети в международных, национальных и региональных указателях сказочных сюжетов: сравнительный анализ: часть 2. Научный диалог, (10 (22)), 61-75.
Хэмлет, Т. Ю. (2014). Описание сказочного сюжета 707 Чудесные дети в международных, национальных и региональных указателях сказочных сюжетов: сравнительный анализ: часть 3. Научный диалог, (4 (28)), 100-114.
Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang. 2010. pp. 244-246. ISBN 978-0-8204-6769-6
Löwis of Menar, August von. Finnische und estnische Volksmärchen. Jena: Eugen Diederichs. 1922. pp. 53-59.
Юрий Евгеньевич Березкин (2019). «СКАЗКА О ЦАРЕ САЛТАНЕ» (СЮЖЕТ ATU 707) И ЕВРАЗИЙСКО-АМЕРИКАНСКИЕ ПАРАЛЛЕЛИ. Антропологический форум, (43), 89-110. doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2019-15-43-89-110

v t e Russian fairy tales
Key articles	Skazka Bylina Folklore of Russia Alexander Afanasyev Alexander Pushkin
Tales in Narodnye russkie skazki collected by Afanasyev	"Koschei the Immortal" "Vasilisa the Beautiful" "Vasilisa the Priest's Daughter" "Father Frost" "Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka" "The Frog Princess" "Vasilii the Unlucky" "The White Duck" "The Princess Who Never Smiled" "The Wicked Sisters" "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" "The Magic Swan Geese" "The Feather of Finist the Falcon" "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" "The Bold Knight, the Apples of Youth, and the Water of Life" "Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What" "The Golden Slipper" "The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa" "The Wise Little Girl" "The Armless Maiden" "The Gigantic Turnip" "Storm-Bogatyr, Ivan the Cow's Son" "Emelya the Simpleton/At the Pike's Behest" "The Fiend" "The Lute Player" "The Language of the Birds" "The Maiden Tsar" "The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise" "The Norka" "Dawn, Midnight and Twilight" "Verlioka" "Sivko-Burko" "Donotknow"
Tales by Pushkin	"Ruslan and Ludmila" "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"
Other	"The Little Humpbacked Horse" "The Scarlet Flower" "The Snow Maiden" "The Hairy Man" "King Kojata" "The Tale About Baba-Yaga" "The Wonderful Birch" "The Girl as Soldier" "Green-Vanka"

"The Three Golden Children"

Literary tales

Variants

Europe	The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird The Three Little Birds The Bird of Truth The Wicked Sisters The Tale of Tsar Saltan The Boys with the Golden Stars A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers The Story of The Farmer's Three Daughters The Golden Fish, The Wonder-working Tree and the Golden Bird The Hedgehog, the Merchant, the King and the Poor Man Silver Hair and Golden Curls Sun, Moon and Morning Star Two Pieces of Nuts The Children with the Golden Locks The Youth and the Maiden with Stars on their Foreheads and Crescents on their Breasts Mielikki and Her Nine Sons
Middle East	The Golden-Haired Children Little Nightingale the Crier
Asia	The Story of Lalpila The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead Saat Bhai Champa Kiranmala Maria The Pretty Little Calf The Crown Prince Replaced by a Cat The Rich Khan Badma Zarlik and Munglik Molla Badji
Africa	The Story of Arab-Zandiq The Bird from the Land of Gabour The Golden Bird (Berber folktale) King Ravohimena and the Magic Grains The Child with a Moon on his Chest (Sotho) Dog, and His Human Speech
America	Les Princes et la Princesse de Marinca The Bird that Spoke the Truth

Adaptations

The Green Bird (Opera)
The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Opera)

Related tales

Categories:

Synopsis

Analysis

Tale type

Motifs

See also

References