He can’t take her from me! I don’t care if he’s Koschei the Deathless! He can cut me to pieces, I don’t care. I will go back for her. I can’t live without Marya Morevna!

As it happened, he did chop me to pieces. He put the pieces of me in a barrel, smeared it with pitch, bound it in iron hoops and flung it into the deep blue sea.

But I’m here to tell the tale.

Who is deathless now?

Ivan Who is Cut to Pieces in Marya Morevna, Russian Fairy Tales Collected by W.R.S. Ralston. Painting by Hippolyte Flandrin.