One winter evening, I put my seven children to bed and tucked them in warmly. Then I went to join my husband in the next room. The charcoal glowed in the hibachi and all the doors of the house were tightly shut, for it was bitterly cold outside, and the first big...
What am I to do? My wife, the mother of my sons, has been taken away by Koschei the Deathless. My two elder sons have gone off to search for her and they haven’t returned. And now my youngest, Ivan, is asking for my blessing to go on his own search. How can I...
Everyone was terrified for me because I had been promised to a snake. But I couldn’t wait to meet my destiny. The snake slithered into the garden and as soon as I saw him, I loved him. He wound around me and kissed me, and then I followed him to a room in the...
I hid my unhappiness from my husband, but when he was not with me, I often wept. I didn’t seem able to conceive. One day, when the king had gone to war, I couldn’t bear being in the castle. The air was suffocating me. I went out, wandered in the garden, and came...
When I was out hunting a boar one day, I ran down a hill in my sandals and caught a thorn in my foot. The thorn festered and my foot became so swollen and sore than I couldn’t put any weight on it. I heard about an illustrious physician, and I summoned him to my...
