Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics)

by Unknown

  They say there was a hunter among the Bashkirs who went by the name of Aylyp. There was no man stronger or more daring. He could kill a bear with a single arrow or grab an elk by the antlers and throw it over his shoulder – and that would be the end of the creature. As for wolves and the like, it was the same story. Once Aylyp had set eyes on a beast, it never got away.

  One time Aylyp was riding through open country when he spotted a fox. For a hunter like him, a fox was a paltry catch. All the same, he said to himself, ‘I’ll have some fun, I’ll strike her down with my whip.’ Aylyp kicked the horse into a gallop, but he couldn’t catch up with the fox. He got ready to draw his bow, but the fox had vanished. Well, what of it? If she had escaped, then good luck to her! Barely had he thought this when there was the fox again, standing behind a tree stump. She even yapped a little, as if to say: ‘Can’t catch me!’

  Aylyp got ready to loose an arrow – again the fox had gone. He lowered his bow – and there was the fox again, yapping: ‘Can’t catch me!’

  This roused Aylyp’s spirit: ‘We’ll see about that, ginger!’

  The broad glades ended; from here on, it was dense forest. But this did not stop Aylyp. He dismounted and chased after the fox on foot – but still he had no luck. He knew the fox was somewhere near, but still he couldn’t shoot her. Nor was he about to give up. A fine hunter like he was – and unable to kill a fox! In the end Aylyp found himself in a part of the forest he didn’t know at all. And the fox had vanished. Aylyp searched and searched, but there was no sign of her.

  ‘Might as well see where I am,’ he said to himself.

  He found a tall larch and climbed to its very top. He looked around: not far away was a little river gushing down the side of a mountain. The river was babbling merrily away to the stones and in one place it was shining so brightly that it hurt his eyes. ‘Whatever can that be?’ he wondered. And then he saw: behind a bush, sitting on a white stone, was a maiden of the most unimaginable beauty. She had tossed her plait over her shoulder and the end of the plait was floating in the current. She had golden hair and her plait was ten fathoms long. The river was almost ablaze from this plait; it was more than his eyes could bear.

  Aylyp stared in wonder at the maiden, and she looked up and said, ‘Hello, Aylyp. I’ve been hearing about you for a long time from my nanny the fox. So, it seems that you’re the biggest and the handsomest, the strongest and the luckiest of all. Will you take me for your wife?’

  ‘What is your bride price?’ he asked.1

  ‘How could anyone pay for me,’ she answered, ‘when my papa owns all the gold in the world? Anyway, he won’t give me away willingly. You’ll have to kidnap me, if you are bold and smart enough.’

  Aylyp was overjoyed. He climbed down from the larch, ran to where the girl was sitting, and said, ‘If this is your desire, then I’m more than willing. I’ll carry you off in my arms, I won’t let anyone snatch you away.’

  Just then the fox gave a yap. She was right there by the stone. She struck her snout against the ground, turned into a wizened little old woman, stood up and said, ‘Oh, Aylyp, Aylyp, you speak idle words! You boast of your great strength and luck, but you couldn’t hit me with one of your arrows!’

  ‘You speak the truth,’ he answered. ‘But it’s the first time I’ve slipped up like that.’

  ‘Indeed. But the task ahead is going to be a good deal harder. This maiden is the daughter of Poloz the Snake. Her name is Golden Hair. Her hair is of pure gold – it chains her to the spot. She sits here washing her plait in the river, but its weight never lessens. Here, try lifting her plait – you’ll see if you’re strong enough to carry her away.’

  Aylyp – who was indeed a man apart – hauled her plait out of the water and began winding it around his own body. He wound it round several times, then said to the maiden, ‘Now, my bride, my dear Golden Hair, we are closely bound by your plait. No one can separate us!’

  With these words, he lifted the maiden up in his arms and was on his way. The little old woman chased after him and pressed a pair of scissors into his hands: ‘Do at least take these with you, O Nimble-Wits.’

  ‘What do I want scissors for? I’ve got a knife, haven’t I?’ And Aylyp would have refused the scissors. But his bride, Golden Hair, said, ‘Take them, they’ll come in useful. You may not need them, but I will.’

  So Aylyp set off through the forest. From the top of the larch, he had worked out roughly which way to go. At first he walked at a good pace, but after a while he began to find it hard going, for all his matchless strength. His bride saw that he was growing tired, and she said, ‘I’ll walk, and you can carry my plait. That will be easier. We must get further away, or else Papa will notice I’m gone and quick as a flash he’ll pull me in.’

  ‘What do you mean – pull you in?’ asked Aylyp.

  ‘He has the power to pull down into the earth any gold he desires. If he wants to take my hair, no one can stand in his way,’ she replied.

  ‘That remains to be seen!’ said Aylyp. Golden Hair just smiled wryly.

  And talking away in this manner, they walked on and on. Golden Hair kept repeating, ‘We must get further away. Perhaps we can get beyond the reach of Papa’s power.’

  They walked and walked until they were ready to drop.

  ‘Let’s rest a little,’ said Aylyp. But the moment they sat on the grass, the earth began to pull them in. Golden Hair managed to grab the scissors and cut through the hair that Aylyp had wound around him. That is what saved him. Her hair disappeared into the ground, while he remained up above. He had been pulled into the ground, but only a little way. As for his bride, she had vanished. Vanished as though she had never been. Aylyp pulled himself up out of the hollow, and thought, ‘What in the world is this? My bride has been snatched from my arms and I don’t even know by whom. Shame on me! No, I can’t let this happen! I’ll find her even if it costs me my life.’

  And he began to dig where Golden Hair had been sitting. He dug for a day, and he dug for a second day, but to little avail. Aylyp had strength aplenty, but his only tools were a knife and a cap. It was hard to get much done with those!

  ‘I’d better mark the spot and go back home for a spade.’

  No sooner had he thought this than there was the fox – the fox who had lured him into the forest. She struck her snout against the ground, turned into a wizened old woman, stood up and said, ‘Hey, Nimble-Wits! Decided to mine for gold or something?’

  ‘No,’ he answered. ‘I’m looking for my bride.’

  ‘Your bride,’ she said, ‘has been sitting for a long time in the same place as before, weeping away and washing her plait in the river. Her plait has grown. Now it’s twenty fathoms long. Not even you have the strength to lift it now.’

  ‘What should I do, Auntie?’ asked Aylyp.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘First ask, then act. Now here’s what you must do. You must go back home and live as you did before. When three years are up, if you have not forgotten your beloved Golden Hair, I’ll be back for you. But if you go in search of her on your own, you’ll never see her again.’

  Aylyp wasn’t a man who was used to waiting – he was used to getting what he wanted then and there – but this time it seemed there was nothing for it. Down at heart, he set off back home.

  Oh, how those three years dragged! One spring came after another, and Aylyp took no joy in them – he just wanted them to be over. People began to wonder what was the matter; they could see that their Aylyp was no longer his usual self. His kinsfolk began asking him straight out, ‘Are you ill?’

  In response, Aylyp would grab five strapping men with one hand, lift them up into the air, spin them around and say, ‘Ask me again and I’ll hurl you the far side of that hill!’

  Not once did he stop thinking about Golden Hair. She was always there in his mind. How he yearned to catch even a distant glimpse of her, but then he would remember the old woman’s instructions and he dared not disobey.

>   But one day during the third year a girl caught Aylyp’s eye. She was a young little thing, black-haired, cheerful as a blue tit. She too would gladly have done nothing but hop about and waggle her tail. This lass barged in on Aylyp’s thoughts. ‘Everyone else my age has wives and families by now,’ he began telling himself. ‘But what about me? I found a bride and let her slip through my fingers. It’s a good thing no one knows about it: I’d be a laughing stock! Perhaps I should marry this black-haired lass? I can’t be sure of getting that other one, while with this one I need only to pay the bride money and she’s mine. Her father and mother will be more than happy, and by the look of it, she won’t be shedding tears either.’

  He would muse like this for some time. Then he’d remember his Golden Hair, but in a different way. It was no longer so much a matter of feeling sorry for her, more a matter of feeling galled that she’d been snatched from his arms. No, that was more than he could bear!

  As soon as the third year was up, Aylyp caught sight of the fox. This time, instead of readying an arrow, he followed the fox, taking care to leave signs behind him: notches in trees, marks chiselled on stones, and the like. They came to the same little river. There he saw Golden Hair. Her plait was now twice as long. Aylyp walked up and bowed: ‘Hello, my bride, my sweet Golden Hair!’

  ‘Hello Aylyp!’ she answered. ‘Don’t be upset that my plait has grown longer. It’s much lighter now. You were clearly thinking about me very hard. Every day I could feel it becoming lighter and lighter. It was only towards the end that something seemed to go wrong. Could it be that you started forgetting? Or was there someone else who got in the way?’

  And she smiled wryly as though she already knew. At first Aylyp felt ashamed. Then he made up his mind and told her everything: how his eye had been caught by the black-haired girl, how he had thought about marrying her.

  Golden Hair replied, ‘It is good that you’ve been honest with me. I believe you. We’d better leave straight away. Perhaps this time we really will manage to get beyond the reach of my father’s power.’

  Aylyp hauled the plait out of the river, wound it around himself and took the scissors from the nanny fox. They set off through the forest. Following the signs Aylyp had left, they made swift progress. They walked on and on until evening. When it was quite dark, Aylyp said, ‘Let’s climb up a tree. Maybe your father’s power won’t be able to reach us there.’

  ‘You may be right,’ replied Golden Hair. But how could the two of them climb the tree when they were bound together as if by a cord? ‘We must cut off my plait,’ said Golden Hair. ‘There’s no point in dragging all this weight about. It’ll be plenty long enough if we leave it down to my heels.’

  Aylyp was loath to. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Better to leave it. Your hair’s so fine and soft. It’s lovely to stroke.’

  So Aylyp unwound the plait from around his body. Golden Hair was the first to go up the tree. But she was a woman and she wasn’t used to climbing trees … Aylyp helped her as best he could, and in the end she managed to get up into the lower branches. Aylyp quickly went up after her and hauled the whole of her plait off the ground. They climbed a little higher to where the branches were densest and settled down for the night.

  ‘We’ll stay here till dawn,’ said Aylyp, and he tied his bride’s plait to the branches so that she wouldn’t fall to the ground if she dozed off.

  ‘That’s a good tight knot!’ he said. ‘Now get some sleep, and I’ll keep watch. I’ll wake you at dawn.’

  Golden Hair, sure enough, soon fell asleep, and Aylyp began to drift off too. Then he felt so very, very sleepy that he was unable to shake it off. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head, twisted and turned, but there was nothing he could do about it. And so he nodded off. An eagle owl started flying about the tree they were in, hooting uneasily, ‘Wuwhoo! Wuwhoo!’ as if telling him to be on guard. But Aylyp slept on, oblivious to the world, snoring gently and dreaming that he was riding towards his tent and that his wife Golden Hair was coming out of the tent to welcome him. She was the fairest and loveliest of all – and her plait was like a golden snake, rippling as if it were alive.

  At the stroke of midnight, with a sudden crackle, the branches they were lying on caught fire. Aylyp was scorched and flung to the ground. All he saw was an enormous ring of fire shining out of the earth and his bride turning into a cloud of tiny golden sparks. The sparks flew towards the ring and then were extinguished. Aylyp rushed over – but there was nothing there. And everywhere was pitch dark. He fumbled about on the ground … There was grass, small stones, forest debris. Then he felt the end of the plait. It was two fathoms long, perhaps more. Aylyp cheered up a little: ‘She’s left me a keepsake. It’s a sign from her. So it seems her father’s power over the plait can be broken.’

  No sooner had he thought this than there was the fox, yapping at his feet. She struck her snout against the ground, turned into a wizened old woman, stood up and said, ‘Hey, Nimble-Wits! What do you want most, the plait or the bride?’

  ‘I want my bride with the golden plait that’s twenty fathoms long,’ he replied.

  ‘Too late,’ she said. ‘It’s thirty fathoms now.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Aylyp. ‘All I want is to get her back.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so? Here are my last words of advice. Go home and wait three years. I won’t come for you any more, you can find the way by yourself. See that you come exactly on time, not a moment early or late. And go and bow down to Grandfather Eagle Owl. Perhaps he’ll sharpen your wits for you.’

  With these words she vanished. When it became light, Aylyp set off back home, thinking to himself: ‘Which eagle owl did she mean? There are any number of them in the forest! Which one is it I should bow to?’

  He thought and thought, then he remembered: while they were in the tree, an eagle owl had been flying about very close to them and calling, ‘Wuwhoo! Wuwhoo!’ as if telling him to be on guard.

  ‘She must have meant that one,’ Aylyp decided, and he turned and went back to the tree. He sat there till evening, then called out, ‘Grandfather Eagle Owl! Sharpen my wits! Show me the way.’

  He called and he called, but nobody answered. But by then Aylyp had learned patience. He waited a second day, then called out again. And again there was no answer. Aylyp waited a third day. In the evening he called out, ‘Grandfather Eagle Owl!’

  And at that very moment he heard a voice from up in the tree: ‘Wuwhoo! Here I am. Who’s looking for me?’

  Aylyp told him about what had happened and asked for his help. Eagle Owl replied, ‘Wuwhoo! It will be hard, my son!’

  ‘That doesn’t matter to me,’ Aylyp answered. ‘I’ll give it all the strength and patience I have, if only I can win back my bride.’

  ‘Wuwhoo! I’ll show you the way. Listen carefully!’

  And Eagle Owl gave him instructions, step by step: ‘In these parts, Poloz the Snake possesses great power. Here he is master of all the gold: he can take it away from anyone at whim. And any place which bears gold, Poloz can encircle with his ring. You can ride for three whole days, but you still won’t be able to escape. There is only one place in our parts where Poloz’s power has no effect. If you know how, you can flee from Poloz with your gold. But the price is high, and there’s no road back.’

  Aylyp began to beg him: ‘Be kind. Please show me this place.’

  ‘I cannot show you,’ he answered, ‘because you and I have different sight: my eyes see nothing by day, whereas yours will not see where I fly by night.’

  ‘What can I do then?’ asked Aylyp.

  Grandfather Eagle Owl said, ‘I’ll tell you a clear sign to look out for. Make your way to the lakes. In the middle of one lake you’ll see a rock that juts up like a hill. On one side there are pine trees growing, but the other three sides are entirely bare, like walls. This is the place. Whosoever reaches this rock carrying gold will find a passage leading down below the lake. And there they will be beyond Poloz’s rea
ch.’

  Aylyp turned this all over in his mind – and suddenly he realized: it was Lake Itkul. He was overjoyed, and he called out, ‘I know that place!’

  The eagle owl said, ‘Well, be on your way, and take care not to slip up.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I’ll be careful.’

  The eagle owl added in parting, ‘Wuwhoo! Remember, once you have escaped from Poloz, there is no road back.’

  Aylyp thanked Grandfather Eagle Owl and made his way home. He soon found the lake with the stone in the middle. Then he thought: ‘We’ll never run all that way in a day. I’ll have to make a trail we can ride down.’

  So Aylyp set to work clearing a trail. It is no easy task to cut your way through dense wood singlehanded, and over sixty miles of it! There were moments when he could barely keep going. Then he’d take out the plait end – at least he still had that – he’d gaze at it admiringly and stroke it, and his strength would return and he’d get back to work. The three years went by in a flash, and he only just managed to get everything ready in time.

  The appointed hour came and Aylyp set out for his bride. He hauled her plait out of the river, wound it around his body – and away they ran. They reached the trail Aylyp had made, where he had left six horses ready and waiting. Aylyp mounted one horse, placed his bride on another and took the reins of the other four. They rode off at a swift gallop. Whenever their horses tired, they mounted another pair and galloped on. Ahead of them ran the fox. She sped on and on, skimming the ground, spurring the horses on, as if to say, ‘Can’t catch up with me!’ By evening they had reached the lake. Aylyp climbed straight into a canoe and ferried his bride and the fox to the rock in the lake. As they reached the shore, a passage opened in the rock; and just as they went down into the passage, the sun sank below the horizon.