Russian Folk Tales

This book is based on Russian Fairy Tales (1901), translated and compiled by the Englishman R. N. Bain. However, both the Chinese and English titles are liable to cause misunderstanding and are not entirely suitable. The Chinese title seems to suggest that these are children's stories, but they are not. The English word fairy originally refers to the tales of fairies, and such fairies do not appear outside Western Europe. Bain's source was P. N. Polevoi's Russian Folk Tales, so I have used that title here instead, as it is more accurate and immediately clear. Russian folk tales were collected during the previous century and edited by Afanasiev, whose work became famous throughout the world. Polevoi selected thirty-six tales from the collection and published them in a single volume in 1874, making them easier to read. Bain then selected twenty-four tales from Polevoi's book, and the twelve included here make up half of those. A third of the tales in Polevoi's book have never been translated into English, so I cannot say what they are like. But as far as Bain's book is concerned, the twelve translated here can be considered the finest, and are enough to represent the charms of this kind of tale. Bain once remarked that scholars familiar with both German Märchen and Russian Skazki unanimously consider the latter far superior to the former in their imaginative richness and humor. He was quite right. Folk tales are products of an older age and society, and religious and feudal elements often remain in them. Yet the gods in these stories are often little more than figures of speech, easily replaced by justice or fairness. Nobles and wealthy merchants are always targets to be overthrown, while tsars are almost invariably so vulgar as to be laughable. Even without the polishing and embellishment of literary scholars, folk tales retain their soundness, and this is all the more evident in Slavic tales.