Old Peters Russian Tales

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Old Peter's Russian Tales

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Peter's Russian Tales, by Arthur Ransome This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Old Peter's Russian Tales
Author: Arthur Ransome
Illustrator: Dmitri Mitrokhin
Release Date: November 2, 2005 [EBook #16981]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: They sailed away once more over the blue sea.]
OLD PETER'S RUSSIAN TALES

BY ARTHUR RANSOME

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, COVER DESIGN, AND DECORATIONS BY DMITRI MITROKHIN

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

TO MISS BARBARA COLLINGWOOD

NOTE
The stories in this book are those that Russian peasants tell their children and each other. In Russia hardly anybody is too old for fairy stories, and I have even heard soldiers on their way to the war talking of very wise and very beautiful princesses as they drank their tea by the side of the road. I think there must be more fairy stories told in Russia than anywhere else in the world. In this book are a few of those I like best. I have taken my own way with them more or less, writing them mostly from memory. They, or versions like them, are to be found in the coloured chap-books, in Afanasiev's great collection, or in solemn, serious volumes of folklorists writing for the learned. My book is not for the learned, or indeed for grown-up people at all. No people who really like fairy stories ever grow up altogether. This is a book written far away in Russia, for English children who play in deep lanes with wild roses above them in the high hedges, or by the small singing becks that dance down the gray fells at home. Russian fairyland is quite different. Under my windows the wavelets of the Volkhov (which has its part in one of the stories) are beating quietly in the dusk. A gold light burns on a timber raft floating down the river. Beyond the river in the blue midsummer twilight are the broad Russian plain and the distant forest. Somewhere in that forest of great trees--a forest so big that the forests of England are little woods beside it--is the hut where old Peter sits at night and tells these stories to his grandchildren.
A.R.
VERGEZHA.

CONTENTS
THE HUT IN THE FOREST
THE TALE OF THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE TRANSPARENT APPLE
SADKO
FROST
THE FOOL OF THE WORLD AND THE FLYING SHIP
BABA YAGA
THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER
SPRING IN THE FOREST
THE LITTLE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW
PRINCE IVAN, THE WITCH BABY, AND THE LITTLE SISTER OF THE SUN
THE STOLEN TURNIPS, THE MAGIC TABLECLOTH, THE SNEEZING GOAT, AND THE WOODEN WHISTLE
LITTLE MASTER MISERY
A CHAPTER OF FISH
THE GOLDEN FISH
WHO LIVED IN THE SKULL?
ALENOUSHKA AND HER BROTHER
THE FIRE-BIRD, THE HORSE OF POWER, AND THE PRINCESS VASILISSA
THE HUNTER AND HIS WIFE
THE THREE MEN OF POWER--EVENING, MIDNIGHT, AND SUNRISE
SALT
THE CHRISTENING IN THE VILLAGE

LIST OF COLOUR PLATES
They sailed away once more over the blue sea. Frontispiece There she was, a good fur cloak about her shoulders and costly blankets round her feet.
There she was, beating with the pestle and sweeping with the besom.
Misery seated himself firmly on his shoulders and pulled out handfuls of his hair.
"Head in air and tail in sea, Fish, fish, listen to me."
He stepped on one of its fiery wings and pressed it to the ground.
It caught up the three lovely princesses and carried them up into the air.

OLD PETER'S RUSSIAN TALES.

THE HUT IN THE FOREST.
Outside in the forest there was deep snow. The white snow had crusted the branches of the pine trees, and piled itself up them till they bent under its weight. Now and then a snow-laden branch would bend too far, and huge lumps of snow fell crashing to the ground under the trees. Then the branch would swing up, and the snow covered it again with a cold white burden. Sitting in the hut you could hear the crashing again and again out in the forest, as the tired branches flung down their loads of snow. Yes, and now and then there was the howling of wolves far away.
Little Maroosia heard them, and thought of them out there in the dark as they galloped over the snow. She sat closer to Vanya, her brother, and they were both as near as they could get to the door of the stove, where they could see the red fire burning busily, keeping the whole hut warm. The stove filled a quarter of the hut, but that was because it was a bed as well.