--- title: Opening, part 1 — Russian Folk-Tales · full text with trees description: Opening, part 1, «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/1/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Russian Folk-Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/) / Opening, part 1 # Opening, part 1 Opening, part 1 of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev: the whole text, 109 sentences and 2564 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/1/page/2/) RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") DEDICATED[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") TO[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") J. C.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES (TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN)[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") BY[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") LEONARD A. MAGNUS, LL.B.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") EDITOR AND TRANSLATOR OF “THE ARMAMENT OF IGOR (A.D.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") 1185)” ETC.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") LONDON[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON AND CO.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") \_First Published October 1915\_[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") \_Second Impression September 1916\_[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") INTRODUCTION[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") Any editor of Slav folk-tales starts with great advantages.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Russia is a country where artistic development began very late; where popular lore was conserved with little alteration owing to the immensities of the country, the primitiveness of the people, and the punctiliousness of the compilers.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") The principal source for Russian folk-tales is the great collection of Afanáśev, a coeval of Rybnikov, Kirěyevski, Sakharov, Bezsonov, and others who all from about 1850 to 1870 laboriously took down from the lips of the peasants of all parts of Russia what they could of the endless store of traditional song, ballad, and folk-tale.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") These great collectors were actuated only by the desire for accuracy; they appended laboriously erudite notes; but they were not literary men and did not sophisticate, or improve on their material.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") But, before venturing on a brief account of the tales, something must be premised as to the position occupied by folk-tales in the cultural development of a people.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") In Pagan times, there always existed a double religion, the ceremonial worship of the gods of nature and the tribal deities,—a realm of thought in which all current philosophy and idealism entered into a set form that symbolized the State,—and also local cults and superstitions, the adoration of the spirits of streams, wells, hills, etc. To all Aryan peoples, Nature has always been alive, but never universalized, or romanticized, as in modern days; wherever you were, the brook, the wind, the knoll, the stream were all inhabited by agencies, which could be propitiated, cajoled, threatened, but, under all conditions, were personal forces, who could not be disregarded.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") When Christianity transformed the face of the world, it necessarily left much below the surface unaffected.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") The great national divinities were proscribed and submerged; some of their features reappearing in the legendary feats of the saints.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") The local cults continued, with this difference, that they were now condemned by the Church and became clandestine magic; or else they were adopted by the Church, and the rites and sanctuaries transferred.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") The memory of them subsisted; the fear of these local gods degenerated into superstition; the magic of the folk-tales becomes half-fantastic, half-conventional, belief in which is surreptitious, usual, and optional.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") At this stage of disorganization of local custom, folk-tales arise, and into them, transmitted as they are orally and under the ban of the Church, contaminations of all sorts creep, such as mistaken etymologies, faint memories of real history, reminiscences of lost folk-songs, Christian legend and morals, etc.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") The Russian people have handed down three categories of records.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") First of all, the Chronicles, which are very full, very accurate, and, within the limits of the temporary concepts of possibility and science, absolutely true.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") Secondly, the ballads or \_bylíny\_; epic songs in an ancient metre, narrating historical episodes as they occur; and also comprising a cycle of heroic romance, comparable with the \_chansons de geste\_ of Charlemagne, the cycles of Finn and Cuchúlain of the Irish, and possibly with the little minor epics out of which it is supposed that some supreme Greek genius built up the artistic epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") These \_bylíny\_ may be ranked as fiction: i.e. as facts of real life (as then understood), applied to non-existent, unvouched, or legendary individuals.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") They are not bare records of fact, like the Chronicles; imagination enters into their scope; non-human, miraculous incidents are allowable; their content is not a matter for faith or factual record; they may be called historical fiction, which, broadly taken, corresponded to actual events, and typified the national strivings and ideals.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") The traditional ceremonial songs, magical incantations and popular melodies are of the same date and in the same style.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") Thirdly, the folk-tales.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") In their matter, these differ little, if at all, from the common Aryan stock.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") In their treatment, there are well-marked divergencies.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") They are, in the first place, characterized by the so-called realism that tinges all Russian literature; a better word would be factualism, as realism is associated with the anti-romanticism that accentuates material facts and seeks to obliterate moral factors.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") This attitude of mind is rather like that of a careful observer, who has become callous, because he is helpless—an attitude of those who serve and stand and wait.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") From the earliest Chronicles to the most modern fiction, this factualism characterizes Russian work.[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") It has reacted on the Folk-tales in several ways; all the more observable as we have them fresh and ungarnished, as the tellers told them.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") The stories are not, like the German \_Märchen\_, neatly rounded off into consequential and purposive stories.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") The incidents follow almost haphazard; and at the end, the persons mentioned at the beginning may be forgotten; the stories are often almost as casual as real life.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") The stories relate experiences in succession, attempt no judgment, do not even affirm their own credibility.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") Things simply happen; our exertions may sometimes be some good; we can only be quietly resigned.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") But, unlike the Arabian Nights, there is no positive fatalism; for that would imply a judgment; a warping of facts to suit a theory.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") Equally, there is none of the artistic grace of Greek legend, nor the exuberance of Celtic fantasy; both of these are departures from the crude, unilluded, unexpectant observation.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") This unconsciously involves a perfect art with regard to detail; so much is told as a man would remember of an experience; there is no striving after impressionism, nor meticulous detail.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") The prevailing tone is sadness; but there is no absence of humour; yet fun merely happens, and is inherent; there is no broad, boisterous fun.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") In them, unlike other Aryan folk-tales, there are no fairies, nor giants, nor gnomes, nor personifications of nature.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") As in his Pagan myths, the Slav never advanced beyond inchoate conceptions of Nature, he neither philosophized like the Hindu, nor created types of pure grace like the Greek, nor beautiful fancies, like the Celt.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") Where the river-gods \[vodyanóy\], or the wood-sprites \[lěši\], have human form, it is to a certain extent because they have been contaminated with the Christian Devil.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") To sum up, these undiluted products of the Russian people are a faithful mirroring of life, as it appeared, casual; for the most part unfortunate, and inscrutable.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") There are some very frequent supernatural beings.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") The Witch who lives in the forest, rides the winds in a mortar, devours human flesh, lives in a hut on cocks’ legs, is one of the commonest.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") The great baleful magician is Koshchéy the Deathless, whose soul, in some stories, is contained in an egg far away, fearsomely guarded.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") Historically, his ancestry is the dread Tatar, in which figure all the previous Turanian tribes that overran medieval Russia have been confounded.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") Notes will be found dealing with all such specific persons and places.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") The folk-tales are very various; some classes of them can be distinguished.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") The bestiary, or animal story, is common, and the parts which the beasts enact are similar to the Teutonic fairy-tales.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") The semi-sacred legends of the days when Christ and his Apostles walked the earth, superficially may be compared with Grimm’s stories.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") But the spirit is very different.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") To a very slight extent they are based on the Gospel.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") But the Russian Christ of the folk-tales is a good, just, honest peasant, with democratic sympathies, and plenty of humour.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") His justice is unwavering, but tempered with sound common sense.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") He is kind, charitable and thoroughly human.[64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/1/page/2/) - next →: [page 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/1/page/2/) - ↑ back to [Russian Folk-Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/)