Russian Folk-Tales

These are Russian folk tales collected by A. N. Afanas'ev and translated by Leonard A. Magnus, who added an introduction and notes. The edition is dated 1915, and a transcriber's note says the cover image was made by the transcriber. The first tale is Egóri the Brave and the Gipsy.

That tale opens in a certain kingdom with a gipsy who has a wife and seven children and so little to eat that nothing is left in the house. He is too idle to work and too much of a coward to steal, and he stands pondering on the road when Egóri the Brave passes by. Another tale has a youth named Petrúsha who is offered money and a fine horse by devils but asks instead for the sorry nag that carries their wood and water, and a maiden tells him to pass his cross round it three times. In another, Iván Tsarévich meets a figure named Vertodúb, throws down a comb that becomes a thick oak forest, gives apples to old women who grow young, and receives a handkerchief that makes a lake. One passage describes the Russian peasant hut, with its stove, bench and loft.