Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics)

by Unknown

  ‘I called by yesterday,’ she said to the tsar, ‘and you ordered my son to construct a bridge. Have a look through the window – your bridge is now ready.’

  The tsar looked out through the window.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘A real bridge – who’d have thought it? Your son certainly knows a thing or two!’

  The tsar put on his crown and his gold brocade trousers. He called the tsaritsa and went out onto the porch. He tested the railings: were they firm? He ran the palm of his hand over the crystal bricks: were they the real thing? ‘Well, well, well,’ he said to himself. ‘Goodness knows how, but the bridge has certainly been built good and proper.’

  Just then Semyon rolled up in a wonderful, self-powered carriage. He opened one of the doors and said, ‘Greetings to you, Sovereign Tsar, and to your Sovereign Tsaritsa-Wife! Please be seated. Come and be our guests!’

  ‘I’ll be only too glad,’ said the tsar, ‘but my wife may be a little timid.’

  Semyon looked at the tsaritsa. She threw up her hands in horror.

  ‘I’m not going. It’s awful. It’ll drop us down into the river.’

  Then the tsar’s courtiers and magnates appeared. The eldest pronounced, ‘You must set an example, your Highness. You have to go. The people mustn’t think you’re afraid.’

  The tsar and the tsaritsa climbed into the carriage – what else could they do? The courtiers all crowded onto the footboards or hung from the door handles.

  The bell rang. The carriage whistled, hummed and roared and began to shake. In a cloud of smoke and steam it jerked forward – and then off it went. It rocked and rolled all the way. The tsar and tsaritsa were glad there was only one bridge to cross.

  They reached Semyon’s palace. Semyon got out to open the tsar’s door, but the courtiers were there first. They were dragging the tsar and tsaritsa out of the carriage, fanning them and trying to bring them back to their senses.

  The tsaritsa was shouting and screaming. The tsar was quite silent, but you could see he felt the same as his wife.

  ‘My!’ said the tsaritsa. ‘I’ve never been so jolted and shaken in all my life. Where’s that suitor gone – the devil take him! Yes, young man, you can have the girl – do what you like with her! And we’ll be going back home on foot.’

  Everything went as Semyon wished. The tsarevna was given to him in marriage and they began to live together as man and wife. Their life began well, there was no gainsaying it.

  But then one day something happened. Semyon and his wife went for a walk in the forest. They walked a long way. They felt tired, lay down under a tree and dozed off.

  Just then Aspid, the adopted son of the snake tsar, happened to pass by. He saw the ring on Semyon’s finger and turned into a viper from envy. He had hankered after that ring for many years; he knew its magic power and had kept asking the snake tsar to give it to him. But the snake tsar had always refused, and he had never told him the secret of the magic ring’s action.

  Aspid turned himself into a beautiful maiden. He was even more beautiful than Semyon’s young wife. He woke Semyon and beckoned to him. ‘In a moment,’ Aspid was saying to himself, ‘that ring will be mine.’

  Semyon looked at the unknown beauty who was making signs to him. ‘Be off with you,’ he said. ‘Wherever you’re going, get going there! You may be comely, you may even be comelier than my wife, but my wife’s dearer to me. No, you won’t catch me going anywhere with you!’

  And Semyon went back to sleep.

  Then Aspid turned himself into a handsome young man, a prince of princes. He woke up the tsarevna, Semyon’s wife, and began strutting about in front of her.

  ‘What a man!’ thought the tsarevna. ‘Far more handsome than my husband! A pity he wasn’t around earlier – I could have done with a suitor like him!’

  Aspid went right up to Semyon’s wife and held out his hand to her. The tsarevna got to her feet and glanced down at Semyon. There was dirt on his face and he was blowing it about as he breathed.

  ‘Who are you?’ the tsarevna asked Aspid.

  ‘I’m the son of the tsar. They call me the Prince of Princes.’

  ‘And I’m a tsar’s daughter!’

  ‘Come along with me then. I’ll look after you well.’

  ‘Let’s go, my prince!’ said Semyon’s wife, and gave him her hand.

  Aspid whispered something in the tsarevna’s ear – and she nodded in agreement. Then he went off alone. What he had instructed her to do was to find out from Semyon the secret of the magic ring’s action. Then she was to bring him the ring.

  She and Semyon went back home. She took Semyon by the hand and asked if it was true that he had a magic ring on his finger. If he really loved her, he should tell her about this magic ring: how did the ring act?

  Semyon was kind and good. He told his wife everything. ‘My wife loves me,’ he thought, ‘so why shouldn’t she know about the ring? She’s not going to do me any harm.’

  And Semyon put his magic ring on his wife’s finger: after all, he could always take it back again when he needed it.

  During the night the tsarevna transferred the ring from one finger to another.

  The twelve young men appeared straight away. ‘Here we are,’ they said. ‘What can we do for you, new mistress?’

  ‘Here’s what you can do for me. Take this mansion and the crystal bridge and move them to where the Prince of Princes lives.’

  And that was that; no longer did Semyon Yegorovich have a wife.

  He and his mother awoke in the morning to find everything gone. All they had was a poor hut and an empty barn; everything was as it had been before. There were just the four of them, Semyon and his mother, and the cat and the dog – and there was nothing at all for any of them to eat.

  Semyon did not let out a word of complaint, not even a sigh. He recalled what his mother had said: ‘Don’t marry a tsarevna – it won’t bring you happiness.’ Why hadn’t he listened to his mother?

  In his sorrow Semyon looked out of the window. A carriage was approaching; inside it he could see the tsar. Just opposite Semyon’s window the carriage stopped and the tsar got out. He looked around: where had everything gone? There was no mansion and no crystal bridge. Nowhere was there anything that gleamed or glittered – only a poor old hut and Semyon watching the tsar through the window.

  ‘What’s all this?’ shouted the tsar. ‘Where’s my daughter the tsarevna? What have you done with her, you cheat and deceiver?’

  Semyon went out to the tsar and told him the truth: that the tsarevna had taken his magic ring and deceived him.

  The tsar did not believe the truth. He got into a rage and ordered Semyon to be thrown into prison until he confessed what he’d done with the tsarevna.

  Semyon’s mother was left without her son and breadwinner – and very soon she was left with nothing to eat. She called to the cat and the dog and set off begging. She would beg for a crust of bread beneath one window and eat it beneath the next. But it was turning cold and dark. Summer had grown old, too. Winter was drawing near.

  The cat said to the dog, ‘We won’t last much longer like this. We must find the tsarevna and get the magic ring back. Our master saved us from death. Now it’s our turn to save him.’

  The dog agreed. He sniffed at the ground and ran off. The cat followed.

  They had to run a long, long way. And what’s quick to say can take many a day.

  They ran and ran until they saw the crystal bridge and the mansion that had once been a home to them and Semyon.

  The dog waited outside while the cat went in. She stole into the bedchamber of the tsarevna who had deceived Semyon. The tsarevna was asleep. The cat saw the ring glittering between the tsarevna’s teeth. Yes, she was keeping it in her mouth; she must have been afraid the ring would be stolen.

  The cat caught a mouse, gave him a bite on the ear and told him what he must do to stay alive. The mouse climbed up onto the bed, crept silently over the tsarevna and tickled her in
the nostril with his tail. The tsarevna sneezed and her mouth opened. Out fell the ring – and off it rolled across the floor.

  The cat seized the ring and leaped through the window. The tsarevna awoke. But by the time she had begun searching her room, the ring was already far away and the mouse that had tickled the tsarevna’s nose was quietly gnawing a crust of bread in the kitchen: what would a little mouse know about what had just happened?

  The cat and the dog made for home. They ran and ran. They didn’t eat or sleep – there was no time. They ran over mountains and they ran through deep forests. They swam across rivers and they crossed open steppe. All the way the cat kept the magic ring under her tongue. She never once opened her mouth.

  There before them lay the very last river. Beyond it they could see their own village. They could see Semyon’s hut.

  The dog said to the cat, ‘Sit on my back and I’ll swim. And be sure to keep your teeth tight together. Don’t drop the ring.’

  They began to swim the river. They were half way across. The dog said, ‘Careful, puss. Don’t speak or you’ll drown the ring.’

  The cat didn’t say a word. They swam a little further. Then the dog said:

  ‘Don’t say a word, puss!’

  The cat hadn’t said anything at all. And then the dog spoke again:

  ‘Don’t drop the ring, puss! Keep your mouth shut!’

  ‘But my mouth is shut!’ said the cat – and dropped the ring into the river.

  As soon as they’d reached the bank, they started cursing and fighting.

  ‘It’s all your fault, you stupid chatterbox of a cat!’ whined the dog.

  ‘No, it’s all your fault, you barking blabbermouth,’ replied the cat. ‘Why did you keep talking when I wasn’t saying a word?’

  Just then some fishermen dragged in their net and began gutting their catch. They saw the cat and the dog quarrelling and thought they must be quarrelling because they were hungry. They threw them some fish guts.

  The cat and the dog caught the fish guts and started to eat. They had only eaten a little when there was a crunch. Something hard. Yes – there was the ring!

  They left their food and ran into the village. They ran up to their own hut: was their master there? No, there was no sign of Semyon – and it seemed his mother was still wandering about begging. The cat and the dog ran on into the city, to Semyon’s prison.

  The cat climbed up and began walking along the top of the outer wall. She was looking for Semyon, but she had no idea where he was. She wanted to purr or mew to him, but the ring was under her tongue and she was afraid of dropping it.

  Towards evening Semyon looked out through his prison window. He wanted a glimpse of the wide world – of the bright world outside his prison. The cat saw Semyon. She climbed down a gutter, then made her way along a wall and into his cell.

  Semyon took the cat in his arms. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘she may only be a cat, but she has a loyal, faithful heart. She hasn’t forgotten me.’

  The cat mewed and dropped the magic ring onto the floor in front of him.

  Semyon picked it up and summoned the twelve young men. They appeared straight away. ‘Greetings, dear old master!’ they said. ‘Tell us what you want done. We won’t waste time about it.’

  ‘Take my mansion from wherever it is now,’ said Semyon, ‘and bring it here. And if there’s anyone living in my mansion, bring him or her along too. I’d like to have a look at them. And you can move the crystal bridge here as well, but turn it so that the other end is in the next village instead of by the imperial hut.’

  Semyon’s orders were carried out to the letter. His mansion was back in place straight away. Inside Semyon found the young tsarevna, together with her Aspid. They left quickly and went to live with the tsarevna’s father. Where else could they go?

  When Aspid understood just what had happened, when he realized that the tsarevna had lost the ring, his rage transformed him into a viper.

  And this time he was unable to turn himself back into a young man, because this rage didn’t pass. He couldn’t get over his fury with the tsarevna. And so Aspid remained a viper. All he could do was curse and hiss at the tsarevna. This made her old father remember Semyon.

  ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘Semyon may only have been a peasant but he was a good fellow. And Aspid may be a tsarevich, but he’s a viper.’

  And Semyon and his mother, and their cat and dog, were soon all living together again in their mansion.

  Semyon now goes every day to the next village. He rides there in his self-powered carriage. With the crystal bridge it’s no distance at all.

  They say Semyon’s going to take a wife from that village – that he’s asked for the hand of a young orphan girl who’s even more beautiful than the tsarevna.

  Soon there’ll be a wedding. Semyon and the orphan girl will marry and have children. And that will be the beginning of a new tale.

  Ivan the Wonder

  All this was a long time ago; there were people living then, too. Among them were a peasant and his wife. Their life was a good life. The wife knew no harm from her husband and they had enough to eat – though not more than enough; the earth did not bear wheat and rye easily. Their land was a distant land, a forest land where people lived humbly.

  For nearly five years the husband and wife lived in harmony in every way, but they had no children and one can’t live without children; a life without children is no life at all.

  The husband began to get angry with his wife, and his wife would keep crying. She would go off to the barn, where no one could see her, and weep alone. She would weep and not tell anyone and not say a word to her husband. And what could she have said to her husband? Nothing: a childless wife is as orphaned as a motherless child.

  During the sixth year of their marriage the wife fell pregnant and conceived a child. Now the husband was still more furious. ‘This child is no child of mine,’ he said. ‘It’s from someone else. Be off with you. Never let me set eyes on you again!’

  Where was the woman to go? Not to her mother and father. In the old days a mother and father would never have allowed a married daughter back into the home. They would have ordered her to return to her husband and do as he said.

  The wife resolved, ‘I’ll go where my eyes look. I’ll go into the dark forest. There I’ll meet a fierce beast, and the beast will eat me.’ And so off into the dark forest she went. She was hungry and her hair was hanging loose, and she was thinking, ‘I’ve lived only a very little of life – but I’m still young, and in my womb I am bearing my first child to his death.’

  On she walked into the dark and boundless forest. Here and there she ate a little – a few berries, some roots and herbs that she found in the glades.

  The last of her time was coming; soon she would have to give birth. She collected some brushwood and small branches and built herself a little shack. And there she gave birth.

  She gave birth to a son, and she gave him the same name as her father: Ivan. She wrapped him in her skirt, warmed him and lifted him to her breast. Ivan drank his mother’s milk, slept a little, then stretched out to her breast again. The mother gave him her breast straight away. Ivan emptied it and stretched out to the other breast.

  A day passed, and then another day. The mother could see that her son Ivan was growing like leavened dough. By the third day Ivan was already talking to his mother. On the fourth day it was the mother’s turn to talk; she told her son everything about how people live in the world and how she herself had lived. The mother felt sad and lonely in the forest – but she could see that her son, though he had lived little, had been born with a quick understanding. And so they went on living in the forest, conversing like equals. Before his mother knew it, she and Ivan were equals no more; he had outgrown her. But very little time had passed; it was only a week or two since Ivan had first come into the world.

  Ivan got up off the ground, had a stretch, looked into the forest and saw a grey wolf running along. Ivan walked s
traight towards the wolf, seized him by the scruff of his neck, held him to the ground and pressed down on him – and that was the end of the wolf.

  The mother saw what Ivan had done.

  ‘My son is quick to understand,’ she thought. ‘And he’s strong too! But whether he’s kind and good it’s still too soon to tell.’

  The mother flayed the wolf, then laid out the skin on the floor of their shack. Ivan took the flesh of the wolf outside and threw it down on the ground, not far away.

  Two bears came up and tried to snatch the meat, each wanting it for itself, and they began to fight.

  The mother saw the bears and felt frightened.

  ‘The bears will eat us, my son.’

  ‘They won’t touch us. I’ll share out the meat for them, and they’ll quieten down.’

  Ivan went out, tore the meat in half and threw it to the bears, giving each an equal portion. Then he went back to his mother. But the bears had seen Ivan tearing the wolf’s flesh and the bones flying every which way, and they felt wary: what if Ivan began tearing them in half too? And so the bears went off into the forest, without eating any of the wolf meat at all.

  Ivan began wandering about further. To feed his own mother, he needed to gather berries and dig up sweet roots. And besides, he wished to have a look at the earth. He had been born on earth to see light, but all he had seen so far was the mother who had given birth to him and dark forest. His mother, though, had told him that not everywhere was forest, that there was also open steppe.

  Ivan went off to look for open steppe. He saw a path. ‘I’ll walk somewhere trodden,’ he thought. ‘I’ve never done that before.’ He went a little way. Then he heard a knock and a clatter. The leaves on the trees began to tremble. Ivan stopped; he didn’t know what to think.

  Wild horses were running past him on their way to a drinking place. But Ivan had never set eyes on horses before and he had no idea who these horses were. He seized one horse by the mane, so that it would stop and he could have a good look at it. The horse tried to keep going; it would have torn any other man’s arm from his shoulder – but Ivan had been born mighty strong … He gave a sharp tug to the horse’s mane that made the horse kneel on the ground before him. It looked at Ivan out of the corner of one eye and then got back onto its feet, dumbstruck.