Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen

Twenty tales from Slavic peasants and herdsmen, collected by the Polish scholar Alexander Chodzko and published in French in 1864 as Contes des paysans et des pâtres slaves. Emily J. Harding brought the book into English in 1896 and illustrated it herself. The stories keep the old motifs of Slavic oral tradition: the twelve months around a fire on a mountain peak, who pity a bullied stepdaughter and pass the wand to March so violets bloom in the snow; Ohnivak, the bird of fire, raiding a king’s orchard; three golden hairs taken from the head of Old Man Vsévède; the name-guessing riddle of Kinkach Martinko. Chodzko spent fourteen years in Persia recording oral poetry before turning back to his own region’s folklore. The publisher’s note invites older readers to trace the kinship between these stories and tales of the East.