These stories have provided inpiration for poems, plays, and operas. Russian children of today still enjoy listening to the tales of magic and wonder--the stories once told to pass the hours during the cold, dark Russian winters. Supernatural figures--witches, demons, and the like--are important in Russian folklore and appear often in this book. One of the most vivid of these characters is ugly Baba Yaga, the witch who lives in the forest. Children will enjoy reading of the way she is outwitted by beautiful Vasilisa.Several of the tales included in Stories from Old Russia have become world-famous. Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet, turned the story of the golden cock into a long poem. This same story is the basis of Rimshki-Korsakov's opera, The Golden Cockerel. Rimski-Korsakov also told, in operatic form, the take of Sadko of Novgorod, who sang while he played the gusli.These stories and many more are in this selection of Russian folktales. They have long delighted Russian children, and will charm American boys and girls.

    a form of children’s literature; they are, like fables, legends, and ballads, among the many forms of adult literature that children have adopted...The apparent artlessness of these simple stories is not easily achieved. It is, in fact, the product of an art perhaps older than the art of writing.”Thus write Alfred David and Mary Elizabeth Meek in their thoughtful introduction to a collection that ranges from the Grimm brothers' inimitable recreations of archetypal folktales to the modern prose charm of James Thurber's Many Moons. The appeal of the stories is wide and varied: the refined intelligence of Perrault, the wondrous imagination of Andersen, the descriptive power of Ruskin, the bittersweet melancholy of Wilde. These are but a few of the artists represented in this remarkably inclusive selection of works from Germany, Russia, France, Scandinavia, England, and America. Many are in new translations in the modern idiom and all testify eloquently to the unceasing vitality of this literary genre.

    

    

    

    AmbrusAll the stories in this book were told by gypsies. A few of them ("Brian and the Fox" and "The Little Bull-Calf," for example), were told in English. But most of the stories were told by the gypsies in their own language, which is Romani, and were taken down and translated by scholars. The stories came from many different countries; for the gypsies, who are believed to have lived originally in India, have wandered all over the world. And, as they wandered, they picked up more stories from whatever country they happened to be in, as well as repeating to the people of that country the stories they had brought with them.Through the years, as they were told and retold, the stories became altered, sometimes not very much, sometimes greatly. It all depended on the particular fancies of the narrator: an ogre might become a dragon, a prince might be put in the place of a princess, or a poor boy in the place of a poor girl; but the idea at the back of the story would remain. For instance, you all know the story of "Cinderella," but you may not know "The Tale of a Foolish Brother and of a Wonderful Bush," which is just a Polish gypsy's version of the same idea.And now, since it may interest you to see what the gypsy language looks like, here is a familiar fairy tale ending in Romani:"T'a doi jivena kano misto."(And they live there happily to this day.)