The existence of the Russian Skazki or Märchen was first made
generally known to the British Public some twenty years ago by
Mr. W. R. S. Ralston in his Russian Folk Tales. That excellent
and most engrossing volume was, primarily, a treatise on Slavonic
Folk-Lore, illustrated with admirable skill and judgment, by stories,
mainly selected from the vast collection of Afanasiev, who did for
the Russian what Asbjörnsen has done for the Norwegian Folk-Tale. A
year after the appearance of Mr. Ralston's book, the eminent Russian
historian and archæologist, Peter Nikolaevich Polevoi (well known,
too, as an able and ardent Shaksperian scholar), selected from the
inexhaustible stores of Afanasiev some three dozen of the Skazki most
suitable for children, and worked them up into a fairy tale book
which was published at St. Petersburg in 1874, under the title of
Narodnuiya Russkiya Skazki (Popular Russian Märchen). To manipulate
these quaintly vigorous old-world stories for nursery purposes was,
as may well be imagined, no easy task, but, on the whole, M. Polevoi
did his work excellently well, and while softening the crudities and
smoothing out the occasional roughness of these charming stories,
neither injured their simple texture nor overlaid the original pattern.
It is from the first Russian edition of M. Polevoi's book that the
following selection has been made. With the single exception of
"Morozko," a variant of which will be familiar to those who know
Mr. Ralston's volume, none of these tales has seen the light in an
English dress before; for though both Ralston and Polevoi drew, for
the most part, from the same copious stock, their purposes were so
different that their selections naturally proved to be different also.
As to the merits of these Skazki, they must be left to speak for
themselves. It is a significant fact, however, that all those
scholars who are equally familiar with the Russian Skazki and the
German Märchen, unhesitatingly give the palm, both for fun and fancy,
to the former.