#Slavic Fairy Tales

[roncheg]

SKAZ | Sirin's Song | Animated Film

Omg that's a good one😍

[countbars-mainblog]

SKAZ | Sirin's Song | Award Winning Animation | ENGLISH DUB

[vintage-russia]

Russian fairytale "The Frog Princess" (1914)

[zu-is-here]

The Frog Princess ✧ Your Culture Day

Dream & Nightmare by jokublog

Cross from xtaleunderverse by jakei95

[inkyami]

I’ve made a deck for the slavic themed Mafia game — each character is from classic fairytales and epics. Part 2 of ? (Not really supposed to reveal the whole deck)

𖧷 Tugarin Zmeevich (Tugarin the Serpent) 𖧷 Finist the Falcon 𖧷 Tsarevna Nesmeyana (the Unsmiling) 𖧷 Kikimora

[Part I]

Twitter | VK | INPRNT | Leave a tip

[entnoot]

Baba Yaga’s hut, my beloved 🐓🏠

[khaarl-i]

WTF is a “čert”

-a guide from a bilingual Czech

while English has words like devil and demon, čert is a slavic mythical creature, that doesn’t have an accurate name in other languages

Czech has three (common) words:

Ďábel - THE devil, ruler of hell, usually interchangeable with Lucifer

Démon - demon, used when talking about other creatures from other mythologies

(and the enigma) Čert

Čerti (plural) are the devil's minions. They either work directly in hell or are sent on earth (often as a punishment) to make deals with sinners and drag them into hell. However they’re commonly depicted as silly idiots or playful, mischievous tricksters. And selling them one’s soul is seen as confirmation of their own foolishness (make stupid choices, win stupid prizes).

They look like humans (mostly men, but you can come across a lady here and there), with added goat features- horns, tails and sometimes even hooves. Their clothes are haggard, often featuring furs, they’re covered in soot and other dirt.

While in old tales are seen as an actual threat, nowadays (in mostly atheistic czech society) they’re depicted as pathetic little meow meows- comedic relief characters, laughable villains and even love interests for princesses (turned into humans for their good behavior)

They can be found in basically every other czech TV fairy tale. While I have seen people suggest to just use the word krampus in english, because of the surface level similarities between the two creatures, I wouldn’t recommend it. Because A)they have widely different vibes B)some czech (and other slavic) might punch you in a fit of patriotism

Disclaimer: while creatures like this are in many (if not all) slavic folklores, under varying names, this post is centered around the czechoslovak version, because that’s what I’m familiar with

[lauras-whimsy-nook]

Credit to @/ Astrid Sheckels Art

[burningpinkcandle]

Фильм: Алиса в Зазеркалье

[madcat-world]

Mavka - IrenHorrors

[catkindness]

разрыв-трава

[bedlamart]

✨️Rusalka sittin🍃on the tree🌙

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Shapeshifting Dragons

I sometimes see people wonder if the idea of a dragon that can take on a fully human appearance is a modern fantasy invention. Or solely inspired by (East) Asian dragons, which are almost invariably noble and frequently appear human. Because European folklore is more well known for “dragon slayer tales”, in which the dragons are purely beastly. But! Slavic folklore absolutely has dragons who are capable of transforming themselves into (beautiful) humans!

The dragons from Slavic fairy tales still have typical “western” dragon characteristics (wings, scales, claws, maw), but they often act far more human than animalistic. They frequently live in castles, use weapons, sometimes even ride horses, write letters, or get married to humans. And some are described as fully shapeshifting into humans:

Dawn, Evening, and Midnight (Afanasev, 1866, trans. Guterman, 1946)

Three princesses are abducted by a whirlwind and three brave brothers Evening, Midnight and Dawn set out to find them. Dawn finds the youngest princess in an underground realm in a castle. She greets him, feeds him, gives him strengthening magic water and then: “At this moment a wild wind arose, and the princess was frightened. ‘Presently,’ she said, ‘my dragon will come.’ And she took Dawn by the hand and hid him in the adjoining room. A three-headed dragon came flying, struck the damp earth, turned into a youth.” The princess puts sleeping potion in the dragon’s wine, picks the lice from his hair (implies he is still human) until he falls asleep. She calls Dawn and he cuts off the dragon’s three heads (implies he’s full dragon again) and burns the body. He then rescues her sisters from a six- and twelve-headed dragon. The three princesses marry the three brothers.

The Footless Champion and the Handless Champion (Afanasev, trans. Guterman)

Two champions, Marko and Ivan, decide to steal a priest’s daughter to be their sister and housekeeper. Once they go on a week long hunt and when they return the girl looks ill and thin. “She told them that a dragon had flown to her every day and that she had grown thin because of him. ‘We will catch him,’ said the champions. (…) About half an hour later, the trees in the forest suddenly began to rustle and the roof of the hut shook: the dragon came, struck the damp earth, turned into a goodly youth, sat at table, and asked for food.” Ivan and Marko seize him and thrash him until he begs for mercy, promising to show them the water of life and the water of death. He tries to trick them into jumping into the lake of death, so they throw him in “and only smoke was left of him.” They do bring the priest’s daughter back home before carrying on with their other adventures. [The concept that a dragon’s presence can drain a maiden of her life force shows up in other stories too, but in this particular context it almost seems like the dragon is just? eating her portion of the food? Also the fact that she was abducted from her home by the two supposed heroes and the dragon is only visiting and asking for lunch really puts this into a weird perspective.]

King Bear (Afanasev, trans. Guterman)

A tsar’s son and daughter are abducted by the King Bear but eventually escape with the help of a magical bullock who conjures a lake of fire that the bear cannot cross. They live by its shore for a while in a fine house and Ivan hunts for their food. “Meanwhile Princess Maria went to the lake to wash clothes. As she washed, a six-headed dragon came flying to the other shore of the lake of fire, changed into a handsome man, saw the princess, and said to her in a sweet voice: ‘Greetings, lovely maiden!’ ‘Greetings, good youth!’ ‘The old wives say that in former times this lake did not exist; if a high bridge spanned it, I would come to the other side and marry you.’ ‘Wait! A bridge will be here in a trice!’ answered Princess Maria and waved her towel. In that instant the towel spread out in an arc and hung above the lake like a high and beautiful bridge. The dragon crossed it, changed into its former shape, put Prince Ivan’s dog under lock and key, and cast the key into the lake; then he seized the princess and carried her off.” When Ivan finds his sister missing and his dog locked up he goes to ask help from Baba-Yaga, finds the dragon, kills him, and takes his sister home. [This story ends with the standard “they began to live happily and prosper”, but it really seems like Ivan should have asked Maria if she was even in need of rescuing.]

So there we are! Proper folklore roots for all our mysterious strangers with a hint of scales around their flickering eyes~

[vintage-russia]

"The Russian Story Book" illustrated by Frank C.Papé (1916)

[goblins-and-gloves]

Hey don’t cry, in Slavic folklore mermaid’s breasts are so big and heavy they sling them over the shoulder so they are out of the way, okay?

[nadziejacher]