Old Peters Russian Tales

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Old Peter's Russian Tales

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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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PETER'S RUSSIAN TALES ***

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[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