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Arthur Ransome - Old Peter\'s Russian Tales

A >> Arthur Ransome >> Old Peter\'s Russian Tales



[Illustration: They sailed away once more over the blue sea.]

OLD PETER'S
RUSSIAN TALES



BY
ARTHUR RANSOME






WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, COVER
DESIGN, AND DECORATIONS
BY DMITRI MITROKHIN



NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS




TO
MISS BARBARA COLLINGWOOD




NOTE


The stories in this book are those that Russian peasants tell their
children and each other. In Russia hardly anybody is too old for
fairy stories, and I have even heard soldiers on their way to the war
talking of very wise and very beautiful princesses as they drank their
tea by the side of the road. I think there must be more fairy stories
told in Russia than anywhere else in the world. In this book are a few
of those I like best. I have taken my own way with them more or less,
writing them mostly from memory. They, or versions like them, are to
be found in the coloured chap-books, in Afanasiev's great collection,
or in solemn, serious volumes of folklorists writing for the learned.
My book is not for the learned, or indeed for grown-up people at all.
No people who really like fairy stories ever grow up altogether. This
is a book written far away in Russia, for English children who play in
deep lanes with wild roses above them in the high hedges, or by the
small singing becks that dance down the gray fells at home. Russian
fairyland is quite different. Under my windows the wavelets of the
Volkhov (which has its part in one of the stories) are beating quietly
in the dusk. A gold light burns on a timber raft floating down the
river. Beyond the river in the blue midsummer twilight are the broad
Russian plain and the distant forest. Somewhere in that forest of
great trees--a forest so big that the forests of England are little
woods beside it--is the hut where old Peter sits at night and tells
these stories to his grandchildren.

A.R.

VERGEZHA.




CONTENTS


THE HUT IN THE FOREST

THE TALE OF THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE
TRANSPARENT APPLE

SADKO

FROST

THE FOOL OF THE WORLD AND THE FLYING
SHIP

BABA YAGA

THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER

SPRING IN THE FOREST

THE LITTLE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW

PRINCE IVAN, THE WITCH BABY, AND THE LITTLE
SISTER OF THE SUN

THE STOLEN TURNIPS, THE MAGIC TABLECLOTH,
THE SNEEZING GOAT, AND THE WOODEN
WHISTLE

LITTLE MASTER MISERY

A CHAPTER OF FISH

THE GOLDEN FISH

WHO LIVED IN THE SKULL?

ALENOUSHKA AND HER BROTHER

THE FIRE-BIRD, THE HORSE OF POWER, AND THE
PRINCESS VASILISSA

THE HUNTER AND HIS WIFE

THE THREE MEN OF POWER--EVENING, MIDNIGHT,
AND SUNRISE

SALT

THE CHRISTENING IN THE VILLAGE




LIST OF COLOUR PLATES

They sailed away once more over the blue sea.
_Frontispiece_

There she was, a good fur cloak about her
shoulders and costly blankets round her
feet.

There she was, beating with the pestle and sweeping
with the besom.

Misery seated himself firmly on his shoulders
and pulled out handfuls of his hair.

"Head in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me."

He stepped on one of its fiery wings and pressed it to the ground.

It caught up the three lovely princesses and carried them up into the
air.




OLD PETER'S RUSSIAN TALES.




THE HUT IN THE FOREST.


Outside in the forest there was deep snow. The white snow had crusted
the branches of the pine trees, and piled itself up them till they
bent under its weight. Now and then a snow-laden branch would bend too
far, and huge lumps of snow fell crashing to the ground under the
trees. Then the branch would swing up, and the snow covered it again
with a cold white burden. Sitting in the hut you could hear the
crashing again and again out in the forest, as the tired branches
flung down their loads of snow. Yes, and now and then there was the
howling of wolves far away.

Little Maroosia heard them, and thought of them out there in the dark
as they galloped over the snow. She sat closer to Vanya, her brother,
and they were both as near as they could get to the door of the
stove, where they could see the red fire burning busily, keeping the
whole hut warm. The stove filled a quarter of the hut, but that was
because it was a bed as well. There were blankets on it, and in those
blankets Vanya and Maroosia rolled up and went to sleep at night, as
warm as little baking cakes.

The hut was made of pine logs cut from the forest. You could see the
marks of the axe. Old Peter was the grandfather of Maroosia and Vanya.
He lived alone with them in the hut in the forest, because their
father and mother were both dead. Maroosia and Vanya could hardly
remember them, and they were very happy with old Peter, who was very
kind to them and did all he could to keep them warm and well fed. He
let them help him in everything, even in stuffing the windows with
moss to keep the cold out when winter began. The moss kept the light
out too, but that did not matter. It would be all the jollier in the
spring when the sun came pouring in.

Besides old Peter and Maroosia and Vanya there were Vladimir and
Bayan. Vladimir was a cat, a big black cat, as stately as an emperor,
and just now he was lying in Vanya's arms fast asleep. Bayan was a
dog, a tall gray wolf-dog. He could jump over the table with a single
bound. When he was in the hut he usually lay underneath the table,
because that was the only place where he could lie without being in
the way. And, of course at meal times he was in the way even there.
Just now he was out with old Peter.

"I wonder what story it will be to-night?" said Maroosia.

"So do I," said Vanya. "I wish they'd be quick and come back."

Vladimir stirred suddenly in Vanya's lap, and a minute later they
heard the scrunch of boots in the snow, and the stamping of old
Peter's feet trying to get the snow off his boots. Then the door
opened, and Bayan pushed his way in and shook himself, and licked
Maroosia and Vanya and startled Vladimir, and lay down under the table
and came out again, because he was so pleased to be home. And old
Peter came in after him, with his gun on his back and a hare in his
hand. He shook himself just like Bayan, and the snow flew off like
spray. He hung up his gun, flung the hare into a corner of the hut,
and laughed.

"You are snug in here, little pigeons," he said.

Vanya and Maroosia had jumped up to welcome him, and when he opened
his big sheepskin coat, they tumbled into it together and clung to his
belt. Then he closed the big woolly coat over the top of them and they
squealed; and he opened it a little way and looked down at them over
his beard, and then closed it again for a moment before letting them
out. He did this every night, and Bayan always barked when they were
shut up inside.

Then old Peter took his big coat off and lifted down the samovar from
the shelf. The samovar is like a big tea-urn, with a red-hot fire in
the middle of it keeping the water boiling. It hums like a bee on the
tea-table, and the steam rises in a little jet from a tiny hole in the
top. The boiling water comes out of a tap at the bottom. Old Peter
threw in the lighted sticks and charcoal, and made a draught to draw
the heat, and then set the samovar on the table with the little fire
crackling in its inside. Then he cut some big lumps of black bread.
Then he took a great saucepan full of soup, that was simmering on the
stove, and emptied it into a big wooden bowl. Then he went to the wall
where, on three nails, hung three wooden spoons, deep like ladles.
There were one big spoon, for old Peter; and two little spoons, one
for Vanya and one for Maroosia.

And all the time that old Peter was getting supper ready he was
answering questions and making jokes--old ones, of course, that he
made every day--about how plump the children were, and how fat was
better to eat than butter, and what the Man in the Moon said when he
fell out, and what the wolf said who caught his own tail and ate
himself up before he found out his mistake.

And Vanya and Maroosia danced about the hut and chuckled.

Then they had supper, all three dipping their wooden spoons in the big
bowl together, and eating a tremendous lot of black bread. And, of
course, there were scraps for Vladimir and a bone for Bayan.

After that they had tea with sugar but no milk, because they were
Russians and liked it that way.

Then came the stories. Old Peter made another glass of tea for
himself, not for the children. His throat was old, he said, and took a
lot of keeping wet; and they were young, and would not sleep if they
drank tea too near bedtime. Then he threw a log of wood into the
stove. Then he lit a short little pipe, full of very strong tobacco,
called Mahorka, which has a smell like hot tin. And he puffed, and the
smoke got in his eyes, and he wiped them with the back of his big
hand.

All the time he was doing this Vanya and Maroosia were snuggling
together close by the stove, thinking what story they would ask for,
and listening to the crashing of the snow as it fell from the trees
outside. Now that old Peter was at home, the noise made them feel
comfortable and warm. Before, perhaps, it made them feel a little
frightened.

"Well, little pigeons, little hawks, little bear cubs, what is it to
be?" said old Peter.

"We don't know," said Maroosia.

"Long hair, short sense, little she-pigeon," said old Peter. "All this
time and not thought of a story? Would you like the tale of the little
Snow Girl who was not loved so much as a hen?"

"Not to-night, grandfather," said Vanya.

"We'd like that tale when the snow melts," said Maroosia.

"To-night we'd like a story we've never heard before," said Vanya.

"Well, well," said old Peter, combing his great gray beard with his
fingers, and looking out at them with twinkling eyes from under his
big bushy eyebrows. "Have I ever told you the story of 'The Silver
Saucer and the Transparent Apple'?"

"No, no, never," cried Vanya and Maroosia at once.

Old Peter took a last pull at his pipe, and Vanya and Maroosia
wriggled with excitement. Then he drank a sip of tea. Then he began.




THE TALE OF THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE TRANSPARENT APPLE.


There was once an old peasant, and he must have had more brains under
his hair than ever I had, for he was a merchant, and used to take
things every year to sell at the big fair of Nijni Novgorod. Well, I
could never do that. I could never be anything better than an old
forester.

"Never mind, grandfather," said Maroosia.

God knows best, and He makes some merchants and some foresters, and
some good and some bad, all in His own way. Anyhow this one was a
merchant, and he had three daughters. They were none of them so bad to
look at, but one of them was as pretty as Maroosia. And she was the
best of them too. The others put all the hard work on her, while they
did nothing but look at themselves in the looking-glass and complain
of what they had to eat. They called the pretty one "Little Stupid,"
because she was so good and did all their work for them. Oh, they were
real bad ones, those two. We wouldn't have them in here for a minute.

Well, the time came round for the merchant to pack up and go to the
big fair. He called his daughters, and said, "Little pigeons," just as
I say to you. "Little pigeons," says he, "what would you like me to
bring you from the fair?"

Says the eldest, "I'd like a necklace, but it must be a rich one."

Says the second, "I want a new dress with gold hems."

But the youngest, the good one, Little Stupid, said nothing at all.

"Now little one," says her father, "what is it you want? I must bring
something for you too."

Says the little one, "Could I have a silver saucer and a transparent
apple? But never mind if there are none."

The old merchant says, "Long hair, short sense," just as I say to
Maroosia; but he promised the little pretty one, who was so good that
her sisters called her stupid, that if he could get her a silver
saucer and a transparent apple she should have them.

Then they all kissed each other, and he cracked his whip, and off he
went, with the little bells jingling on the horses' harness.

The three sisters waited till he came back. The two elder ones looked
in the looking-glass, and thought how fine they would look in the new
necklace and the new dress; but the little pretty one took care of her
old mother, and scrubbed and dusted and swept and cooked, and every
day the other two said that the soup was burnt or the bread not
properly baked.

Then one day there were a jingling of bells and a clattering of
horses' hoofs, and the old merchant came driving back from the fair.

The sisters ran out.

"Where is the necklace?" asked the first.

"You haven't forgotten the dress?" asked the second.

But the little one, Little Stupid, helped her old father off with his
coat, and asked him if he was tired.

"Well, little one," says the old merchant, "and don't you want your
fairing too? I went from one end of the market to the other before I
could get what you wanted. I bought the silver saucer from an old Jew,
and the transparent apple from a Finnish hag."

"Oh, thank you, father," says the little one.

"And what will you do with them?" says he.

"I shall spin the apple in the saucer," says the little pretty one,
and at that the old merchant burst out laughing.

"They don't call you 'Little Stupid' for nothing," says he.

Well, they all had their fairings, and the two elder sisters, the bad
ones, they ran off and put on the new dress and the new necklace, and
came out and strutted about, preening themselves like herons, now on
one leg and now on the other, to see how they looked. But Little
Stupid, she just sat herself down beside the stove, and took the
transparent apple and set it in the silver saucer, and she laughed
softly to herself. And then she began spinning the apple in the
saucer.

Round and round the apple spun in the saucer, faster and faster, till
you couldn't see the apple at all, nothing but a mist like a little
whirlpool in the silver saucer. And the little good one looked at it,
and her eyes shone like yours.

Her sisters laughed at her.

"Spinning an apple in a saucer and staring at it, the little stupid,"
they said, as they strutted about the room, listening to the rustle of
the new dress and fingering the bright round stones of the necklace.

But the little pretty one did not mind them. She sat in the corner
watching the spinning apple. And as it spun she talked to it.

"Spin, spin, apple in the silver saucer." This is what she said. "Spin
so that I may see the world. Let me have a peep at the little father
Tzar on his high throne. Let me see the rivers and the ships and the
great towns far away."

And as she looked at the little glass whirlpool in the saucer, there
was the Tzar, the little father--God preserve him!--sitting on his
high throne. Ships sailed on the seas, their white sails swelling in
the wind. There was Moscow with its white stone walls and painted
churches. Why, there were the market at Nijni Novgorod, and the Arab
merchants with their camels, and the Chinese with their blue trousers
and bamboo staves. And then there was the great river Volga, with men
on the banks towing ships against the stream. Yes, and she saw a
sturgeon asleep in a deep pool.

"Oh! oh! oh!" says the little pretty one, as she saw all these things.

And the bad ones, they saw how her eyes shone, and they came and
looked over her shoulder, and saw how all the world was there, in the
spinning apple and the silver saucer. And the old father came and
looked over her shoulder too, and he saw the market at Nijni Novgorod.

"Why, there is the inn where I put up the horses," says he. "You
haven't done so badly after all, Little Stupid."

And the little pretty one, Little Stupid, went on staring into the
glass whirlpool in the saucer, spinning the apple, and seeing all the
world she had never seen before, floating there before her in the
saucer, brighter than leaves in sunlight.

The bad ones, the elder sisters, were sick with envy.

"Little Stupid," says the first, "if you will give me your silver
saucer and your transparent apple, I will give you my fine new
necklace."

"Little Stupid," says the second, "I will give you my new dress with
gold hems if you will give me your transparent apple and your silver
saucer."

"Oh, I couldn't do that," says the Little Stupid, and she goes on
spinning the apple in the saucer and seeing what was happening all
over the world.

So the bad ones put their wicked heads together and thought of a plan.
And they took their father's axe, and went into the deep forest and
hid it under a bush.

The next day they waited till afternoon, when work was done, and the
little pretty one was spinning her apple in the saucer. Then they
said,--

"Come along, Little Stupid; we are all going to gather berries in the
forest."

"Do you really want me to come too?" says the little one. She would
rather have played with her apple and saucer.

But they said, "Why, of course. You don't think we can carry all the
berries ourselves!"

So the little one jumped up, and found the baskets, and went with them
to the forest. But before she started she ran to her father, who was
counting his money, and was not too pleased to be interrupted, for
figures go quickly out of your head when you have a lot of them to
remember. She asked him to take care of the silver saucer and the
transparent apple for fear she would lose them in the forest.

"Very well, little bird," says the old man, and he put the things in a
box with a lock and key to it. He was a merchant, you know, and that
sort are always careful about things, and go clattering about with a
lot of keys at their belt. I've nothing to lock up, and never had, and
perhaps it is just as well, for I could never be bothered with keys.

So the little one picks up all three baskets and runs off after the
others, the bad ones, with black hearts under their necklaces and new
dresses.

They went deep into the forest, picking berries, and the little one
picked so fast that she soon had a basket full. She was picking and
picking, and did not see what the bad ones were doing. They were
fetching the axe.

The little one stood up to straighten her back, which ached after so
much stooping, and she saw her two sisters standing in front of her,
looking at her cruelly. Their baskets lay on the ground quite empty.
They had not picked a berry. The eldest had the axe in her hand.

The little one was frightened.

"What is it, sisters?" says she; "and why do you look at me with cruel
eyes? And what is the axe for? You are not going to cut berries with
an axe."

"No, Little Stupid," says the first, "we are not going to cut berries
with the axe."

"No, Little Stupid," says the second; "the axe is here for something
else."

The little one begged them not to frighten her.

Says the first, "Give me your transparent apple."

Says the second, "Give me your silver saucer."

"If you don't give them up at once, we shall kill you." That is what
the bad ones said.

The poor little one begged them. "O darling sisters, do not kill me! I
haven't got the saucer or the apple with me at all."

"What a lie!" say the bad ones. "You never would leave it behind."

And one caught her by the hair, and the other swung the axe, and
between them they killed the little pretty one, who was called Little
Stupid because she was so good.

Then they looked for the saucer and the apple, and could not find
them. But it was too late now. So they made a hole in the ground, and
buried the little one under a birch tree.

When the sun went down the bad ones came home, and they wailed with
false voices, and rubbed their eyes to make the tears come. They made
their eyes red and their noses too, and they did not look any prettier
for that.

"What is the matter with you, little pigeons?" said the old merchant
and his wife. I would not say "little pigeons" to such bad ones.
Black-hearted crows is what I would call them.

And they wail and lament aloud,--

"We are miserable for ever. Our poor little sister is lost. We looked
for her everywhere. We heard the wolves howling. They must have eaten
her."

The old mother and father cried like rivers in springtime, because
they loved the little pretty one, who was called Little Stupid because
she was so good.

But before their tears were dry the bad ones began to ask for the
silver saucer and the transparent apple.

"No, no," says the old man; "I shall keep them for ever, in memory of
my poor little daughter whom God has taken away."

So the bad ones did not gain by killing their little sister.

"That is one good thing," said Vanya.

"But is that all, grandfather?" said Maroosia.

"Wait a bit, little pigeons. Too much haste set his shoes on fire. You
listen, and you will hear what happened," said old Peter. He took a
pinch of snuff from a little wooden box, and then he went on with his
tale.

Time did not stop with the death of the little girl. Winter came, and
the snow with it. Everything was all white, just as it is now. And the
wolves came to the doors of the huts, even into the villages, and no
one stirred farther than he need. And then the snow melted, and the
buds broke on the trees, and the birds began singing, and the sun
shone warmer every dry. The old people had almost forgotten the little
pretty one who lay dead in the forest. The bad ones had not forgotten,
because now they had to do the work, and they did not like that at
all.

And then one day some lambs strayed away into the forest, and a young
shepherd went after them to bring them safely back to their mothers.
And as he wandered this way and that through the forest, following
their light tracks, he came to a little birch tree, bright with new
leaves, waving over a little mound of earth. And there was a reed
growing in the mound, and that, you know as well as I, is a strange
thing, one reed all by itself under a birch tree in the forest. But it
was no stranger than the flowers, for there were flowers round it,
some red as the sun at dawn and others blue as the summer sky.

Well, the shepherd looks at the reed, and he looks at those flowers,
and he thinks, "I've never seen anything like that before. I'll make a
whistle-pipe of that reed, and keep it for a memory till I grow old."

So he did. He cut the reed, and sat himself down on the mound, and
carved away at the reed with his knife, and got the pith out of it by
pushing a twig through it, and beating it gently till the bark
swelled, made holes in it, and there was his whistle-pipe. And then he
put it to his lips to see what sort of music he could make on it. But
that he never knew, for before his lips touched it the whistle-pipe
began playing by itself and reciting in a girl's sweet voice. This is
what it sang:--

"Play, play, whistle-pipe. Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the
deep forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a
transparent apple."

When he heard that the shepherd went back quickly to the village to
show it to the people. And all the way the whistle-pipe went on
playing and reciting, singing its little song. And everyone who heard
it said, "What a strange song! But who is it who was killed?"

"I know nothing about it," says the shepherd, and he tells them about
the mound and the reed and the flowers, and how he cut the reed and
made the whistle-pipe, and how the whistle-pipe does its playing by
itself.

And as he was going through the village, with all the people crowding
about him, the old merchant, that one who was the father of the two
bad ones and of the little pretty one, came along and listened with
the rest. And when he heard the words about the silver saucer and the
transparent apple, he snatched the whistle-pipe from the shepherd boy.
And still it sang:--

"Play, play, whistle-pipe! Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the
deep forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a
transparent apple."

And the old merchant remembered the little good one, and his tears
trickled over his cheeks and down his old beard. Old men love little
pigeons, you know. And he said to the shepherd,--

"Take me at once to the mound, where you say you cut the reed."

The shepherd led the way, and the old man walked beside him, crying,
while the whistle-pipe in his hand went on singing and reciting its
little song over and over again.

They came to the mound under the birch tree, and there were the
flowers, shining red and blue, and there in the middle of the mound
was the Stump of the reed which the shepherd had cut.

The whistle-pipe sang on and on.

Well, there and then they dug up the mound, and there was the little
girl lying under the dark earth as if she were asleep.

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