5. Maryushka (‘Finist, the Bright Falcon')
Ivan Bilibin / Public Domain
This story revolves around a young and pretty village girl named Maryushka, who receives Finist the Falcon’s magic feather as a gift from her father. The feather helps her to summon Finist the Falcon, a handsome prince, who turns into a falcon and visits Maryushka every night through the window.
When her jealous sisters put sharp knives in the window, the falcon gets injured and flies off faraway, telling Mariyushka to go find him. So, Maryushka sets off on a difficult journey to find her love. She gets the help of different animals and witches along the way and, eventually, finds her one and only, bewitched by a sleeping potion and married to a queen. Yet, it’s too late to stop now - and Maryushka perseveres, outsmarts the queen and manages to wake the prince and break the spell. Happy end!
4. Marja Morevna
Ivan Bilibin / Public Domain
This character is quite a feminist one. Marja Morevna (from the tale of the same name) is basically the Warrior Queen that takes a liking to Prince Ivan Tsarevich, who stumbles upon her army’s camp. They fall for each other and he becomes a “stay at home” husband, while his wife goes on another war mission. He is left in charge of running the household, but is forbidden to enter the cellar where, where it turns out, the evil Koschei is locked up.
Of course, Ivan’s curiosity gets the better of him and he takes pity on Koschei, giving him some water. This, in turn, gives the evil character enough energy to break out and flee, taking Marja with him to his faraway kingdom. One wonders if it was Marja who locked up Koshei in the first place? And, if so, she could probably do it again, being a warrior queen? Well, in any case, Ivan doesn’t disappoint his wife - he manages to win her back and kill her ex, ensuring their peaceful and happy future.
3. The Princess Swan (‘The Tale of Tsar Saltan’)
The Tale of Tsar Saltan. 1913. A drawing by V.N. Kurgyumov / Public Domain
Another beauty that, at first, presents herself in an animal form is the Princess Swan from ‘The Tale of Tsar Saltan’. During the course of the story, the main hero, the kind-hearted Prince Gvidon, saves the swan from a kite bird, thus winning her gratitude (as it was, in fact, an evil sorcerer).
She then helps the Prince in every way imaginable: building a whole city on an uninhabited island, giving him a magical squirrel and an army of 33 “sea knights” that turn out to be her brothers. Eventually, she reveals her real human form as a beautiful princess and marries Gvidon.
2. Vasilisa The Beautiful
Ivan Bilibin / Public Domain
Vasilisa The Beautiful (from the tale of the same name) has quite a different story. As a child, her dying mother gives her a magic doll that protects and helps Vasilisa in every way. After her father remarries, Vasilisa gets a classic package of an evil stepmother and stepsisters, who do their best to ruin her pretty looks with hard work, but to no avail.
Eventually, they send her straight to the evil, child-eating Baba Yaga, in the hopes that the witch will get rid of the pretty young woman. But, with the help of her magic doll, Vasilisa manages to outsmart the Baba Yaga and leaves not only unharmed, but with a present - an enchanted human skull with a fire within. The latter then basically “burns” Vasilisa’s black-hearted step relatives overnight.
After that, everything goes smoothly: she finds a nice old lady to live with, begins making the most exquisite linen for the tsar, who then falls in love and marries her! Another happy end!
1. Vasilisa The Wise ('The Frog Princess')
V. Vasnetsov. The Frog Princess. 1918 / Vasnetsov Memorial Museum Moscow / Public Domain
Who’d want to marry a frog? No one, right? Yet, in the popular Russian fairy tale ‘The Frog Princess" a frog turns out to be nothing less than a beautiful and smart princess that can also do magical things.
The story starts when the tsar commands his three sons to find their future wives by shooting an arrow in a random direction and seeing where it lands. The youngest prince, Ivan Tsarevich, is “lucky” enough to send his arrow right into a swamp where a frog lives. Ivan is close to going back without a bride, but the frog tells him to marry it anyway. “You won’t regret it,” she says. Apparently, a speaking frog was a thing in ancient Russia!
Anyway, the frog doesn’t disappoint. Every night, she would turn into the beautiful and young woman Vasilisa the Wise and win every task that the three wives were asked to do to impress the tsar: she baked the best karavai bread, weaved the most beautiful rug and performed the best dance in her human form.
Everything is going well until Ivan decides to burn his wife’s frog skin. Vasilisa can’t stay without it, so she turns into a swan and flies away, telling Ivan to find her in the kingdom of the Koschei (who is, apparently, responsible for the spell).
All ends well, of course: Ivan beats the evil sorcerer and brings Vasilisa back home.
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