Then all the tsars and all kinds of other people gathered together to look at Bronze Brow, but he was not to be found. The tsar sternly ordered his men to find out how Bronze Brow had been able to get out of the fortress. When the tsar discovered that it was thanks to the tsarevich and his tutor, he ordered the tutor to be imprisoned in the fortress and the tsarevich to be sent to the border, under guard, and banished from the tsardom forever.
And so the tutor remained in the fortress and the tsarevich wandered off where his eyes looked. He began to feel bored and sad, and so he made a horn for himself and learned to play. He came to a city and found lodgings there with an old man who was a herder, in charge of the royal horses and cattle. For a modest wage, the tsarevich began to work for the old man, going with him into the forest and playing on his horn. The old herder played well, but his new assistant played still better. And after a while he was playing so beautifully that people would gather together to listen to him and the tsar’s daughter even asked her father to make sure that this young herder continued to come and play on his horn every morning. She and her mother used to sit together and listen.
The old herder died and the tsarevich took over his work. He took the horses into the forest on his own for the first time and said to himself, ‘Look at me now – a mere herder! Bronze Brow must be around somewhere. If only he’d help me a little and tell me what to do!’ Deep in the forest he saw the horses
tossing their heads about. ‘What’s up with the horses?’ he said to himself, but he had no idea what it could be. And then one day, when he was playing on his horn with great feeling, the horses all lay down on the ground. And that very evening, when he set off back home, he saw a marvellous wonder: the horses had all grown silver manes. Everyone was amazed and the tsar wondered, ‘What does this mean? What kind of man is this herder of mine?’
The tsar ordered his new herder to pasture his cattle: ‘You’ve done a splendid job with the horses. Now look after the cows!’ And the tsar ordered his wages to be doubled. The herder pastured the cows and kept thinking about Bronze Brow. The cows grew fatter and fatter, and then one evening he noticed that they were growing bronze hooves and horns. He brought the cows back with their bronze hooves and horns and everyone was amazed.
The tsar ordered his new herder to look after the swine and ordered him to be paid three times his former wages. ‘Now they’re making me herd swine,’ the tsarevich said to himself. ‘What will it be next?’ He remembered Bronze Brow. He went on herding the swine. And then one day everyone was filled with wonder. He brought the swine back – and each of them had grown a pearl on every bristle, and the bristles had turned to gold. Everyone was amazed, and the tsar wondered more and more. He called the herder and asked, ‘What kind of man are you?’ The herder replied, ‘I’m the son of a tsar, but my father banished me from his tsardom when I let Bronze Brow out of the fortress.’ ‘I’ve heard tell of that,’ said the tsar. The tsar told his wife and daughter, and he guessed that his daughter loved the herder. To test this, he suggested she marry him – and she agreed with joy. The tsar realized this was a dangerous business and, secretly from his wife and daughter, he ordered the herder to be taken under strict guard to the border and for guards to be posted there to make sure he never came back. His orders were carried out, but as soon as the herder crossed the border, the horses, cows and swine all became ordinary once more, just as before. When they were brought back in the evening, the tsar felt sad, and he told his wife and daughter
that he had banished the herder because he was the son of a tsar and his father might declare war on him if he kept him at court.
The tsarevich walked on further. The path led through a forest. He walked on through the forest until he came to a large house. He went inside, but the house was empty. Night fell. At midnight the tsarevich heard someone at the door. He felt frightened, but what could he do? In came a young devillet. ‘You’re young,’ he said to the tsarevich. ‘And I’m young too. Together we can have a good time!’ The tsarevich remembered about Bronze Brow and at once felt something appear in his pocket. He felt it with his fingers and thought it might be a snuffbox. He took it out: yes, it was a snuffbox – and it was full of tobacco. The devillet looked at it and asked what it was. ‘Tobacco,’ said the tsarevich. ‘That’s something I’ve never tried,’ said the devillet. ‘Have a sniff then!’ The devillet had a sniff and began to sneeze. ‘That’s splendid stuff!’ he said. ‘Let’s play cards. We’ll play three hands. If I win the third hand, you can give me your snuffbox. But if you win, I’ll give you whatever you want.’ And he offered the tsarevich a great many wonderful things, but the tsarevich said he would take a purse that had nothing in it at all – but when you opened it, the purse was full of gold. You could give away all the gold you liked – there would always be more in the purse. The devillet dealt. They played one hand; the tsarevich lost. They played a second hand; the tsarevich lost. The devillet dealt a third hand. This time the tsarevich thought about Bronze Brow and asked him to help. The devillet led; the tsarevich played a higher card. Twice more the tsarevich played higher cards. Then the tsarevich began playing clubs, and he won several more tricks. And so he defeated the devillet and won the purse. He let the devillet have another sniff of tobacco. Then the devillet left.
The tsarevich continued on his way. He came to a city. He went to a market and bought something. He took gold coins from his purse, but there were always more left. He decided to stay in this city. He played cards with the merchants and lords, and after a while found himself playing cards with the tsar. The tsar liked playing cards and his daughter often played, too. In
the end the tsarevich was playing cards with the tsar’s daughter every evening – and every time he played with her, he lost. The tsarevna began to wonder where all his money was coming from, and she realized he must have a purse that never grew empty. And then one day she gave the tsarevich a sleeping potion and took his purse. The tsarevich was left with nothing at all. And when the tsarevna told her father the tsar what she had done, he ordered the tsarevich to be taken under strict guard to the border and banished forever from his tsardom.
The tsarevich was taken to the border, and he went on his way. ‘Well now,’ he said to himself, ‘it seems I’ve been left with nothing at all. Help me, Bronze Brow, to get out of this trouble. Then I shall make my home in one place and make no more mistakes.’ He walked straight on and he came to a sea. There on the shore were some apple trees, and the apples on them were already ripe. He picked some. He ate one apple; a horn grew on his brow, but he didn’t notice it. He ate another apple – and another horn grew on his brow. He ate a third apple and saw something moving by his feet. He grabbed at it and realized that he had grown a tail. Then he wanted to rub his eyes, but his hand caught on one of his horns. Then he felt the other: yes, he really did have two horns on his brow. The tsarevich took fright. He remembered Bronze Brow, but the horns and the tail remained where they were. He wandered about the shore, then went on further. He walked on for several more days, looking at himself in the water and seeing his horns. Then he came to a place where there was a thicket of thorns, and in between the thorns were some small trees, and on them were some red fruits that looked quite like apples. He picked one of these fruits and thought, ‘Well, it was apples that made the horns and the tail grow. Maybe these fruits will make something else grow. Then I can be a real marvel – maybe that’s the way it has to be!’ He ate one fruit and felt one horn fall off him. He ate a second fruit – and his second horn disappeared. Then he ate a third fruit – and his tail fell off too. He looked at himself in the water and saw it was true: his horns and his tail really had disappeared now. The tsarevich was overjoyed and he picked more of these fruits, thinking, ‘I’ll eat some more.
Maybe it will end up even better.’ He ate one more fruit, looked in the water and no longer knew himself at all; he had become more beautiful than pen can portray or storyteller can say. ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘I can go back home now. I’ve become another man and no one will know who I am.’
He set off. On the way he picked some of the apples that had made him grow horns and a tail. He reached the border. No one stopped him. He went on till he came to the royal palace. There he began selling apples. Two servant girls slipped out of the palace and he sold them some of the other fruits. They ate these fruits and became so beautiful that they could no longer recognize each other. They talked for a moment, then went to the tsar’s daughter. She didn’t recognize them either; but when they told her their story, she gave them some money and told them to go and buy some more apples. One of the servant girls ran after the tsarevich and asked to buy three more apples, for the tsar’s daughter. The tsarevich took the money and gave her three apples. The servant girl ran back with the apples; the tsarevna went to her room and ate all three of them. She got up to go to the mirror and felt something trailing along behind her; then she looked at herself in the mirror and saw horns growing from her brow. The tsarevna was horrified, and she sent at once for the apple-seller. Along he came. She asked him to cure her. The apple-seller waited there till evening, and the tsarevna strictly forbade her servant girls to say anything to anyone about what had happened. When everyone had gone to bed, the apple-seller took a hammer and struck one of the horns. This hurt the tsarevna, but she endured the pain: anything to remedy her misfortune! Then the apple-seller gave her one of his fruits; she ate it and the horn fell off. Then he gave her another of his fruits, and the other horn fell off too. ‘Well, tsarevna, now we must settle up – and then, tomorrow night your tail will fall off too.’ ‘What shall I give you?’ ‘I love gold. You can pay me in gold.’ The tsarevna took out her purse and took out some gold coins, but the apple-seller saw that it was his own purse and he asked if he could keep it till the following night, since he had nowhere to put all the gold. For a long time the tsarevna refused, but then she gave in; she was thinking he
wouldn’t realize it was a magic purse. She handed it to him and asked him to be sure to bring it back the next evening. The apple-seller left the city that night, taking his purse with him and leaving the tsarevna her tail. After a while, he came to the city where he had herded the tsar’s livestock; there he sat down by the palace and began selling apples. The tsarevna came out, bought one of his fruits, ate it and became a great beauty. She invited him into the palace and he told her everything: where he had gone after being banished and all that had befallen him. He went on living at the palace, and the tsarevna asked her father the tsar to make him the palace steward. The steward was open-handed with his gold and he made friends with everyone. The tsar died and the steward became tsar in his place. He and the tsarevna were married. And so he ruled the tsardom, and nowhere was there anyone richer.
(1874–1931)
Olga Ozarovskaya was the daughter of an artillery officer. Endowed with a love of travel and a gift for storytelling, she lived a rich and varied life. She herself compared her fate to the ‘diligent’ ball of thread that serves as both guide and path to many folktale heroes and heroines: ‘the ball rolled tirelessly along the ground, tormented by curiosity. It chose unexpected little paths. It rolled safely up to aristocratic mansions. It would rest, curling up into a little grey ball, and then it would unwind again, rolling away, its thread glittering, towards the home of a peasant.’
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In 1898, a year after completing a degree in mathematics, Ozarovskaya started work in the Chamber of Weights and Measures; the director was Dmitry Mendeleyev, the discoverer of the Periodic Table. Ozarovskaya was the first woman in Petersburg to be offered work in a major scientific institution.
Ozarovskaya had long been admired as an amateur actress and reciter. After Mendeleyev’s death in 1907, she began to work in this field as a professional, giving public recitals of poems and stories. Her repertoire included humorous stories by Chekhov and Averchenko, Kipling’s
Just-So Stories
, poems by Balmont and Tyutchev, scenes from novels by Dostoevsky and Hamsun – and folktales. In 1911 she moved to Moscow, where she taught acting and declamation in her Studio of the Living Word.
She especially loved the folktales and heroic epics of the Russian north and between 1915 and 1925 she visited the region four times. She herself played the role of fairy godmother to Mariya Dmitrevna Krivopolyonova, a gifted singer
and storyteller whom Ozarovskaya met during the first of these trips. Krivopolyonova, then aged seventy-one, had been orphaned at the age of ten and had lived much of her life as a beggar. Ozarovskaya not only transcribed Krivopolyonova’s songs and stories but also arranged for her to perform, to great acclaim, in most of the main cities of European Russia. In 1921 Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Bolshevik Commissar of Enlightenment, invited Krivopolyonova to his Kremlin apartment and went to fetch her in his own car. Krivopolyonova, however, was unimpressed. What moved her, it seems, was not the wonders of a modern city but the spirit of the legendary past that she could still sense in Moscow – a past that had been a living present to her in the songs she had been singing throughout her life.
In 1916 Ozarovskaya published
A Grandmother’s Past (Babushkiny stariny)
, a collection of some of the folksongs and tales that Ozarovskaya had recorded from Krivopolyonova, together with an account of their meetings. During the Soviet period Ozarovskaya continued to work both as a performer and as a teacher. In 1929 she published a memoir about Mendeleyev, and in 1931 she published
Five Rivers (Pyatirechiye)
, a collection of folktales, one of which is included here. She died that same year.
Ozarovskaya’s tact and sensitivity in her dealings with peasant singers and storytellers enabled her to win their trust. ‘I never ask for a particular tale,’ she wrote. ‘I wait for the storyteller himself to choose the first story. An artist always begins with something he can perform with confidence. Later he will tell the story that means most to his soul, and this will be clear from a particular excitement in his voice.
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