A To Z Challenge 2023: Myth And Folk Tales In Fiction - R Is For Russia

 I first discovered Russian fairy tales as a child, with a volume of stories about Prince Ivan, the dashing young hero who fought the likes of Koschey the Undying and the witch Baba Yaga. The magical Firebird was also a part of the stories. Ivan is usually the youngest son - in fact, he is a “Jack”, like other Jack heroes of fairy tales around the world, who are youngest sons and go on quests; “Ivan” means “John” - or Jack.

Prince Ivan - Public Domain

Koschey is immortal because he keeps his soul in an egg in a casket(or inside a bird?). I can’t help suspecting that this is what inspired Lord Voldemort, the villain of the Harry Potter novels, with his horcruxes. Like Voldemort, Koschey eventually dies when his external soul is found and destroyed.

Baba Yaga is a witch who tends to be killed off in every story in which she appears. She lives in the forest in a hut on chicken’s legs, surrounded by a fence with glowing skulls on it. She travels in a flying mortar and pestle. 

All these characters have inspired modern fiction by some top writers. 

Irish fantasy writer Peter Morwood has written the trilogy Tales Of Old Russia, consisting of the novels Prince Ivan, The Firebird and The Golden Horde. It’s a fantasy universe from the very beginning, when his sister Katya marries a prince who arrives in bird form. However, it is set in a specific historical period, because the Teutonic Knights and the historic Battle On The Ice appear, as well as Batu Khan. Ivan marries Marya Morevna, a strong and powerful woman. I loved it! 

You can get the series in Kindle.

Baba Yaga is a character in many modern stories. The prolific American writer Jane Yolen wrote a verse novel called Finding Baba Yaga - or, at least, a series of connected themed humorous poems, such as the one in which Baba Yaga sneers at the witch from Hansel And Gretel for eating the help. It’s available in ebook. I bought it in Apple Books.

Australian writer Juliet Marillier writes about Baba Yaga too. There is a story in her collection Prickle Moon, “By Bone-Light”, in which the fairy tale happens in Australia, in a modern block of flats, Woodland Gardens, where the heroine lives with her stepmother and stepsisters. Each floor is named for a tree. So, a forest, right? And the story is a retelling of the Russian fairy tale “Vasilisa The Beautiful” in which the heroine is sent by the wicked stepmother and sisters to fetch a light from Baba Yaga. In this story it’s going down to the basement to ask the concierge for light when the power goes out on their floor. The concierge is called Barbara. Barbara Jaeger. Of course. She does have a home full of bones and the light is in a tiny skull lamp - but Barbara is not evil. In fact, Baba Yaga was worshipped in her time - and modern Baba Yaga stories show her in a positive, even feminist light.

Prickle Moon is a delightful collection, published by an Australian small press, Ticonderoga Press. The good news is that it’s available in both Kindle and Apple Books, and Amazon seems to have it in print as well.

Orson Scott Card, best known for his Ender’s Game books, has also written a very entertaining fantasy novel, Enchantment. In it, the young hero finds Sleeping Beauty in a forest in Ukraine, where his family lived before moving to the US. He has returned to do his PhD thesis. She is lying on a stone ledge in the forest, guarded by the Russian Bear. When woken she urges him to propose marriage. Apparently she was left there to sleep till her marriage - and the spell was cast by our friend Baba Yaga. She takes him across the ledge to mediaeval Kiev, where she is a princess. They do return to the present and go to the US to live.

Baba Yaga follows them to make trouble - and doesn’t she love flying by plane! 

I guess it beats a mortar and pestle…