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ariel-seagull-wings · 1 year

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STAVER AND VASSILISA

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(A russian folktale)

Grand Duke Vladimir sat banqueting in the hall of his castle, surrounded by princes and warlords and all the heroes of his realm. The feasting continued for many hours, with plenty to eat and drink, and music to lighten the saddest heart.

After the heroes had eaten and drunk their fill, they began to boast, and no one boasted louder than the grand duke himself. Nowhere, he insisted, was there more gold, nowhere more silver, nowhere greater heaps of pearls than here in his fine palace. And where could one find a woman more beautiful than his own wife, the lovely Apraksiya? This was too much for young Prince Staver.

“Listen to him boasting,” he murmured to his neighbor. “He thinks this stone box of his should be called a castle. My own castle is so large, it’s better to ride through it on horseback than to walk. The floors are paved with silver, and the walls are built from bricks of gold. I have so many chests of pearls and diamonds and rubies, they could fill a room as big as this hall. But my greatest treasure of all is my wife, Vassilissa. Her hair is like that of a fox, her eyes as sharp as a falcon's eyes. Not only is she a superb housekeeper, she’s also stronger than any man in this hall.” While Staver was speaking, the hall grew quiet, and he looked up to see the grand dulce’s eyes upon him. His face was red with anger, and he bellowed like a wild boar, “So, Staver Godinovitch, you thinly you can insult me and humiliate me here in my own hall? Enough of your empty talk, you blithering idiot. Throw him in the dungeon! Then ride to his castle, seal it up with all his treasure chests within, and bring me the beautiful Vassilissa. Bring her to me, Grand Duke Vladimir!” Staver was seized and thrown into the dungeon. Then ten of Vladimir's warlords rode off to seal up his castle and bring back Vassilissa, but Staver’s friend Mikhail rode ahead of the others to warn Vassilissa of the grand duke’s order.

Vassilissa tucked her long red hair under her helmet and dressed herself as a man. She tools a stout sword from Staver’s armory and sharpened her quiverful of arrows. Then she mounted her black stallion and, with twelve other men, set out for the grand duke’s castle. Halfway there, she met the warlords who had been ordered to take her prisoner. They didn’t recognize her and asked her where she was going.

“I’ve come in the name of the Khan of the Golden hordes,” Vassilissa answered. “My men and I are here to remind brand Duke Vladimir that he owes the khan tribute for the last twelve years. We have orders to tame many chests of gold back to the khan. And where are you riding?”

“We’re going to Staver’s castle, to seal it up and carry his wife, Vassilissa, to the grand duke,” said one of the warlords.

“We have just passed Staver’s castle. Vassilissa is not there. She has hidden away,” she told them.

So the band of warlords galloped back to the grand dulce’s castle and reported that Vassilissa was missing and that the ambassador from the wan of the Golden Hordes was on his way to exact tribute. When Vassilissa arrived at the castle, everyone assumed she was the ambassador and treated her with great courtesy. But Vladimir’s wife, Apraksiya, was watching the new arrival carefully.

“That’s not the ambassador from the Khan,” she whispered to her husband.

“Can’t you tell that it’s a woman? I think that's Staver’s wife, Vassilissa. Loom at how he walks!”

The duke observed the young ambassador carefully. Perhaps his wife was right. He decided to hold a wrestling contest to test the ambassador’s strength. II this was a woman, she would surely lose.

“In this country, it is our custom that all visitors be given the opportunity to test their strength against my warlords,” Vladimir told the ambassador.

“If it pleases your excellency, we shall now hold a wrestling contest.”

Seven of his warlords immediately rose from the banqueting tables to challenge the disguised Vassilissa. The first man stepped forth. Vassilissa threw him so hard that he had to be carried from the hall. The second had seven of his ribs broken by a single blow of her fist. The third had three of his vertebrae dislocated and had to crawl from the hall on his hands and knees. The rest of the challengers fled, not wishing to be humiliated before all their comrades. Vladimir trembled with frustration and spat on the floor.

“Your hair may be long,” he muttered to his wife, “but you haven’t a brain in your head. Why did you tell me he was a woman? My court has never seen a hero with such strength!”

Apraksiya raised her eyebrows.

“Look at that skin,” she urged her husband.

“Is that the skin of a man? And why does she always wear a helmet? Could she be hiding her long hair beneath it?”

Vladimir glared at his wife angrily. He blamed her for making him look like a fool. But he couldn’t help wondering if she might be right, and he decided to put the khan’s envoy to another test.

“I see you are very strong,” he congratulated Vassilissa, slapping her heartily on the back.

“Now perhaps you would like to prove your skill at archery.”

With these words, he led his court to an open meadow behind the castle. All of Vladimir’s men shot their arrows into an old oak that stood at the far end of the field. Each time it was hit, the oak tree swayed as if it were caught in a gust of wind. But when Vassilisa shot her arrow, the bowstring sang and the mighty oak shattered into a thousand pieces.

The men were dumbfounded. Vladimir spat for the second time.

“Look at that oak tree,” he hissed at Apraksiya.

“We’ve never seen such an archer before, and you believe he’s a woman. I shall challenge him myself and see if he’s also supreme at chess.”

Vladimir and Vassilissa now sat at the grand duke's chess table and played chess with chessmen carved from the finest marble. Vassilissa won the first game, and also the second, and the third. She laughed, for the duke had played for high stakes.

Then she pushed the chessboard aside.

“Enough of this foolishness,” she declared.

“I didn’t come here to waste my time playing games. What about the tribute you owe the great khan? You haven’t paid for twelve whole years. I demand two chests of gold every year. Produce them here and now! The Khan of the Golden Hordes refuses to wait any longer.”

Then Vladimir began to whine.

“Times are hard, you know. The harvest was poor this year and last. Merchants are doing little business, trade is slow, and we haven’t collected much in taxes. How can I pay? Couldn’t the great khan wait another year?”

Vassilissa tapped her fingers impatiently on the chess table.

“He’s already waited twelve years. I can’t go back empty-handed. If you don’t have gold, you must send something else.”

“Perhaps he’d like my wife, Apraksiya,” the grand duke suggested jokingly.

“What use would she be to the Khan of the Golden Hordes? He has many beautiful women. Is there someone who plays the lute?”

Suddenly Vladimir remembered that Staver was an excellent lute player.

“Indeed there is,” he replied promptly, “the finest lute player in the land. His name is Staver, one of my favorite princes. You are welcome to take him as a present to the great khan.”

So Vladimir had Staver brought out of the dungeon, and Staver rode back to his castle with Vassilissa, where they lived happily ever after. As for the grand duke, he was pleased as could be that he’d managed to avoid paying tribute to the Ithan of the Golden Hordes for yet another year.

#fairy tales #folk tales #folktales #folklore #fantasy #literature #inspiration station

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adarkrainbow · 1 year

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The Yaga journal: Trade in cannibalism

The next article of the journal is called “A trade in devouring: cannibalism as a way fo exchanging and transforming for Baba Yaga”, by Jane Sinnett-Smith.

Baba Yaga as depicted in the Hellboy (2019) movie

Just like her jumping mortar and her chicken-legged isba, cannibalism as an integral part of the typical portrait of Baba Yaga: she is in people’s mind a ferocious witch that devours the children that get too close to her domain. The cannibalistic tales of Baba Yaga are found to be extremely rich in transformations - if meeting Baba Yaga is perceived as a moment of initiation, where the protagonist turns from a child into an adult, cannibalism itself operates numerous transformations that blur the line between subject and object, human and animal, inside and outside. In this article, the Baba Yaga’s devouring will be linked to the transformation of the hero - with a context the complex web of exchanges and gifts inside the fairytale world.

The studied texts for this article can be vaguely placed into two categories. On one side, the fairytales where the hero has to run away from the oven of the Baba Yaga, who in turn tries to cook and devour the hero: it is the group of “The Baba Yaga and the Smart One”, “The Baba Yaga and Filiouchka”, “Ivachko and the witch”, “Small-Tomas”, and a variant of “Prince Daniel,words of honey”. It is in essence the story of how Baba Yaga kidnaps a little boy away from his family to devour him, and how the hero vanquishes her and returns to his home. He escapes through cunning: when the daughter of Baba Yaga tries to have him climb into the oven, he pretends that he does not understand how to do it - and as soon as the daughters shows him the proper way, he pushes her in the oven. The Baba Yaga eats her own daughter unwillingly, and the boy escapes - in some variations the hero actually tricks and burn Baba Yaga instead of her daughter. The motif of the oven is also found in the variation of “Prince Daniel, words of honey” mentioned earlier, but in a deformed way: it is the only tale of this category (all come from Afanassiev’s fairytales) where the protagonist is a girl. This tale is an hybrid mixing elements of other fairytales: the hero is here a princess trying to escape from her brother, who wants to marry her. She flees in the hut of the Baba Yaga, but Baba Yaga’s daughter, instead of trying to cook her, rather helps her escape, helpng the princess trick the Baba Yaga, and the two girls flee together as the Baba Yaga burns in her oven. (People have identified this fairytale as probably a literary invention rather than an actual folktale).

The second group of tales is centered around a kind young girl who can escape thanks to a series of exchanges with the creatures she meets in her adventures, or with the Baba Yaga herself. This is a group made of “The Wild Geese”, “The Baba Yaga and Vassilissa the Beautiful”. The kindness of the protagonist and her desire to help the strangers she meets is rewarded by them helping her in return, and this help allows the the girl to escape Baba Yaga. In “The Wild Geese”, the heroine tries to help her little brother snatched away by Baba Yaga because she was neglectful. On her way to Baba Yaga’s house, she meets numerous animated objects - a bread oven, an apple tree, a river of milk, who hide her from Baba Yaga’s fury after asking her for things. In the fairytale simply called “The Baba Yaga”, it is the girl, sent to the isba of the Baba Yaga by her wicked stepmother, that must give services to the servants of Baba Yaga so that they will let her flee. Vassilissa the Beautiful doesn’t enter easily into one or the other of these two categories, even though it is very similar to “The Baba Yaga”. Vassilissa is sent by her evil stepmother, who wants to get rid of her, seek fire in the witch’s house. Baba Yaga promises to help if she accomplishes impossible tasks, which she manages thanks to the help of a magical doll, a gift of her deceased mother. Baba Yaga allows her to leave with the fire, fire which will burn her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, before Vassilissa marries a prince and lives happily ever after.

Eating is by its very nature an act of transformation: the external food becomes an internal element, part of the eater’s body. From the exterior to the inside, from an individual to a part of a greater body. When this transformative eating becomes a cannibal eating, there are even more transformations - sinister ones. With Baba Yaga, cannibalism threatens the limits between human and animal, living and unliving.

The tale of Vassilissa the Beautiful describes the witch eating humans “like chickens”. Eating a person turns a human (aka an eater, a predator) into a chicken (an animal, an eaten one, a prey). The Baba Yaga threatens the superiority of the humanity in the natural world, animalizing humans. In fact, through this transformation we are even reminded that humans are nothing more than a superior category of animals.

The Baba Yaga seems to only recognize other beings from a culinary perspective: she only perceives people as meals or food. In “The Baba Yaga”, upon seeing the protagonist she immediately claims she wants to make them her lunch ; in “Prince Daniel, words of honey”, the daughter of the Baba Yaga lets a group of passerby leave because they were “too old” and thus “too old for her mother’s teeth”. This objectification of people into food takes its most drastic turn in “Baba Yaga and Filiouchka”, where the daughter of the Baba Yaga is locked in the oven and roasted. In this tale, the daughter of “the brown Yaga” is tricked by Filiouchka into climbing on the oven’s shovel, and Filiouchka promptly throws her in the oven. Once she is roasted, he takes her out, covers her in fat, places her on a plate, covers the whole with a cloth and puts everything in the cupboard. When “the brown Yaga” arrives, she immediately fetches the roast. .The active agent of the tale that is the daughter of the Baba Yaga, this character who has dialogues and appears as an independant agent with thought and actions, is reduced to a mere ingredient in a recipe, and her too is victim of her mother’s appetite.

In many studies of cannibalism, there is something highlighted: cannibalism has the purpose of transforming the cannibal. It is an initiation to reach maturity, or it is a way to be incorporated in a community - the most extreme example possibly being the eucharisty of Christianity. Baba Yaga however does not change, no matter how much she eats people - her cannibalism does not transform her. Cannibalism is rather her defining trait - be her benevolent or malevolent, she stays the Baba Yaga. But the rest of the article wants to prove that, even if the Baba Yaga is not transformed by her cannibalism, she is still influenced by it - as by devouring her victim, she absorbs it in her own body, and thus her body is made of the sum of all those she killed - in the fairytales, the identity of the Baba Yaga and her victim end up looking a lot like each other.

It is important to note that, despite the numerous threats and references of cannibalism, the farytales rarely depict the Baba Yaga actually satisfying her cannibal appetites. Usually, the threat of the Baba Yaga stays a threat - it is a challenge the protagonist must overcome. And the victory over the witch and her cannibalism is ensured by exchanges. Each tale showing Baba Yaga as a devourer in Afanassiev’s collection also depict a form of exchange, mercantile or symbolic. Of course, exchange are not exclusive to the cannibalism tales, but their omnipresence in these tales cannot be denied.

The Baba Yaga rarely starts the exchange herself. In “Vassilissa the Beautiful” or “Ivachko and the witch”, she uses cannibalism as a threat to make sure the terms of exchange are respected. She tells Vassilissa that if she works hard for her, she will give her fire, else she will eat her. The exchange here determines Vassilissa’s position: if she does the chores of the Baba Yaga, she is allowed to take part in the exchange, by exchanging a service for the fire. If she fails however, she becomes the exchange object, or rather the taken object, reduced to a meal. This exchange is clearly unfair, since the chores of the Baba Yaga are impossible. Baba Yaga breaks the regular nature of the exchange by imposing an injustice that favorizes her - she tries to benefit from all of Vassilissa’s work without giving anything in exchange. This unfair trade is even more obvious in Ivachko and the witch: when she asks the smith to make her a sweet voice, she treatens to eat him ; and she reuses the threat when she asks him to make her iron teeth. Cannibalism is a threat that allows her to escape the world of trade - since the blacksmith is paid not by earning something, but by a lack - being safe from the devouring. Is it even an exchange? Baba Yaga receives something without giving anything in exchange. While in many other fairytales she is a giver of advice, or a purveyor of magical gifts, as a cannibal she stays outside of all trades, she refuses to perform exchanges, she only exists as a being of demands and taking. But since this trade and exchanges unite society, she clearly places herself as outside of society, outside of the community.

If these two tales depict her isolated and “closed” nature, whose world is separated from the normal one, the fairytales of “the kind girl and her exchanges” form a great contrast. In these tales there are fair trades: the girl gives, and in return receives help. In The Wild Geese, the importance of this fair trade is highlighted: the first time the hero [Note: I just realized now that the female “heroine” does not exist in the English language, or at least isn’t used regularly, and normally I should write “hero” all along... so sorry for that] is on her way to the isba of Baba Yaga, she meets entities she refuses to help. Each time the being tells her it will reveal where the geese are carrying her brother, in exchange for a service: the oven wants her to eat her bread, the apple tree wants her to eat an apple, the river of milk wants her to drink from it... But she refuses, and merely demands the information for free. That is to say, she is acting just like the Baba Yaga. It is only when she meets them again, fleeing away from Baba Yaga, that she agrees to the demands, and in doing so ensures her survival. This tale dramatizes the topic of trade and exchange as the cement of all communities and societies - the girl recognizes the importance of her giving or helping in order to receive, and so her action of eating acts as a trade. The threat of the cannibal turns the female hero, from an egoistical character, into a character understanding the notion of debts and the obligation to give in order to receive (or give back after receiving). So this tale is a lesson in how to become part of society: the girl rejects the world of selfish consumption (the Baba Yaga) and removes the trait that makes her similar to the witch ; she becomes a social character involved in a system of obligations that ultimately gives her what she wants. What saves her is the act of eating - or rather the act of sharing food, one of the strongest gestures that build a community. By exchanging food and services, the girl gains help, forms links, and creates her own community.

So, the encounter between Baba Yaga and the protagonist is a confrontation between one world and another. In Vassilissa the Beautiful, this encounter not only confronts two models (taking vs sharing), but also two types of consumption. Vassilissa is sure to not be eaten by Baba Yaga because she gives food to her magical doll, who in exchange helps her. Vassilissa escapes one form of devouring (the Baba Yaga’s devouring) through another (the meals of the doll). Baba Yaga exists in a world of solitary consumption, selfish consumption; she eats enough to feed ten people, a food that has been cooked by Vassilissa, and in exchange she leaves the girl a few crumbs. But by feeding the dool, Vassilissa makes a trade, receiving something in return. It is even more interesting to note that Vassilissa often deprives herself of meals to feed her doll. She sacrifices her share of food to have it eaten by her doll, sacrifices herself for the doll - but we should note that it isn’t a selfless action. She sacrifices herself, but in exchange of a true and clear reward. This is very typical of the system of exchanges in societies - even when an object is given under the appearance of a gift, the very act of giving implies obligations and demands, and refunds.

The tale “The Baba Yaga” confirms the fact that the trades of the protagonist are out of pure interest: just like in the topos of the kind little girl, the female hero’s exchanges with the community ensures the success of her flight, but it is the hero herself that proposes those exchanges to the servants of Baba Yaga - she gives a scarf to the servant to have the logs covered in water, she gives ham to the cat so he doesn’t scratch her eyes out, she gives bread to the dogs so they won’t rip her to pieces, she gives oil to the gate to let her pass without creaking, she gives a ribbon to the birch tree so it doesn’t scratch her. The gift is key here: just like with Vassilissa, the young girl here transforms the selfish consumption of Baba Yaga, and replaces it by a shared consumption. When Baba Yaga asks her servants why they betrayed her, they complain that she never paid them for their services, while the girl was ready to do so. If “The Wild Geese” teaches that you can’t receive without giving, “The Baba Yaga” implies that nobody can give without having a reward. Even the generosity of the girl has obligations, since she gives the scarf to the servant in the same sentence where she gives her orders - she gives her gifts in the hope of a remuneration. So it isn’t just a selfless sharing, it is clearly a mercantile action, a selling and buying of services. Meeting the Baba Yaga teaches the protagonist (and the other members of her community) that services have a mercantile value. By acting like a merchant, not only does the girl transforms the nature of the system around her, but also changes her own status: from a victim of cannibalism, from an object traded (she was sent by her stepmother to Baba Yaga to be devoured), she becomes the vanquisher of Baba Yaga, and the acting party of the exchange, giving and receiving.By changing her place in the trading process, she escapes the cannibalism of Baba Yaga - but given how easily she imposes orders to the creatures that surround her, and given how easily they serve her rather than their original mistress, we could say that somehow the victim and Baba Yaga end up looking alike...

The tales with an oven explore further the similarity between Baba Yaga and her victim: the victim is exchanged with the daughter of the witch, and it is one of the rare cases where Baba Yaga is actually seen devouring, as the ignorant hag eats her own child. If the devouring of the hero was refused by the logic of the fairytale, where Good must vanquish Evil and not the reversed ; the devouring of the daughter maintains this moral system. Even more; the fact that Baba Yaga devours her daughter keeps the transgressive devouring inside a familial community - so it doesn’t “spread out” and corrupt the rest of human society. And in the most extreme tales, “Baba Yaga and the Smart One” or “Prince Daniel”, it is Baba Yaga herself who is locked up in her oven - the threat is destroyed, she will not endanger society again. So, Baba Yaga switch place with the victim, and the victim becomes a vanquisher - from an innocent child, the victim becomes a clever protagonist. From vulnerability we reach power - and it confirms that the hero is now accepted in society. This confirms the encounter of Baba Yaga as an initiation. Most of the protagonists are little boys, and Andreas Johns considered that the hero’s refusal to enter the oven, meant breaking off ties with the mother (of which Baba Yaga is a double), by refusing to enter her oven/belly. The hero suddenly understands that he can do trades and exchanges just like adults, and thus grows into a member of society. But, at the same time, the fact that he gleefully burns Baba Yaga and her daughters in the oven indicates that he matches her: he adopts very quickly the role of Baba Yaga, and blurs the line between the two worlds. To prove and make triump the values of society, the protagonist must lock Baba Yaga in her own system.

The tale of Prince Daniel points out how the removal of the unpleasantness embodied by Baba Yaga is an ambiguous process. Instead of tricking and burning the daughter of Baba Yaga, the female hero creates a community with the daughter of the witch. The daughter steals the protagonist away from Baba Yaga by turning her into a needle, then they lock together Baba Yaga in the oven, and the daughter of the witch ends up marrying the brother of the protagonist. Even though she helps the hero, this relative of Baba Yaga still has worrying elements. By turning the hero into a needle, she makes her undergo the same process of objectification that Baba Yaga does by eating people. The fact this child of Baba Yaga joins society through a wedding suggest that the clear frontier between the cannibalistic/antisocial/selfish world of Baba Yaga and the world of exchange and trades of the community, maybe isn’t as closed and certain as it seems: the threat of the “selfish cannibalism” is still possible inside the sharing community. Even more worryingly... It is said that the female protagonist and the daughter of Baba Yaga looks identical, which suggests that maybe the values supported by the tale and the “corruption” of the Baba Yaga don’t really look that different...

In conclusion, we see that Baba Yaga’s cannibalism can be useful to create a society. The trades the protagonist must undergo to escape her threat allows them to enter the community, and defines its limits. A clear wall is built between the world of Baba Yaga, where you take without paying and where you never share, and the world of the hero, where trades are fair and cause a mutual profit. We have here both idealism and mercantilism: these tales teach a responsability towards the community (you have to receive and give back) as well as a feeling of rights (you awaits to be rewarded for your actions). But cannibalism is by nature an act that breaks frontiers, blurs the line between human and animal, between animate and inanimate, between the accepted and the excluded - and despite their best efforts, the fairytales cannot ultimately destroy all of Baba Yaga’s cannibalism, they cannot build a strong and clear limit between her world and ours. This results in an ambiguity which teaches the community to always be vigilant. As the protagonists trade away to escape the clutches of the hag, they can end up becoming like her instead of splitting away from her. It is the paradox of the fairytales.

#russian fairytales #russian folklore #baba yaga #analysis #afanassiev fairytales #fairytale analysis #the yaga journal

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