Aylyp began to beg him: ‘Be kind. Please show me this place.’
‘I cannot show you,’ he answered, ‘because you and I have different sight: my eyes see nothing by day, whereas yours will not see where I fly by night.’
‘What can I do then?’ asked Aylyp.
Grandfather Eagle Owl said, ‘I’ll tell you a clear sign to look out for. Make your way to the lakes. In the middle of one lake
you’ll see a rock that juts up like a hill. On one side there are pine trees growing, but the other three sides are entirely bare, like walls. This is the place. Whosoever reaches this rock carrying gold will find a passage leading down below the lake. And there they will be beyond Poloz’s reach.’
Aylyp turned this all over in his mind – and suddenly he realized: it was Lake Itkul. He was overjoyed, and he called out, ‘I know that place!’
The eagle owl said, ‘Well, be on your way, and take care not to slip up.’
‘Don’t worry – I’ll be careful.’
The eagle owl added in parting, ‘Wuwhoo! Remember, once you have escaped from Poloz, there is no road back.’
Aylyp thanked Grandfather Eagle Owl and made his way home. He soon found the lake with the stone in the middle. Then he thought: ‘We’ll never run all that way in a day. I’ll have to make a trail we can ride down.’
So Aylyp set to work clearing a trail. It is no easy task to cut your way through dense wood singlehanded, and over sixty miles of it! There were moments when he could barely keep going. Then he’d take out the plait end – at least he still had that – he’d gaze at it admiringly and stroke it, and his strength would return and he’d get back to work. The three years went by in a flash, and he only just managed to get everything ready in time.
The appointed hour came and Aylyp set out for his bride. He hauled her plait out of the river, wound it around his body – and away they ran. They reached the trail Aylyp had made, where he had left six horses ready and waiting. Aylyp mounted one horse, placed his bride on another and took the reins of the other four. They rode off at a swift gallop. Whenever their horses tired, they mounted another pair and galloped on. Ahead of them ran the fox. She sped on and on, skimming the ground, spurring the horses on, as if to say, ‘Can’t catch up with me!’ By evening they had reached the lake. Aylyp climbed straight into a canoe and ferried his bride and the fox to the rock in the lake. As they reached the shore, a passage opened in the rock; and just as they went down into the passage, the sun sank below the horizon.
And what happened next was truly extraordinary!
No sooner had the sun set than Poloz the Snake encircled the entire lake with a triple band of fiery rings. Golden sparks skittered across the water in all directions, yet Poloz was unable to drag his daughter back up to the surface. And the eagle owl was doing what he could to make things harder for him. He perched on the rock in the lake and began hooting over and over: ‘Wuwhoo! Wuwhoo! Wuwhoo!’
He would hoot like this three times, and the fiery rings would dim a little and seem to cool. And when the rings flared up again and golden sparks began skittering across the water, the eagle owl would start up his cry again.
Night after night Poloz went on trying, but to no avail. His power had no effect.
Ever since then, gold has washed up on the shore of the lake. Even in places where there are no traces of old rivers, people find gold. It only comes in little flakes and threads, never in nuggets – let alone in nuggets of any size. So how did the gold get there? Well, they say that Poloz pulled it from his daughter’s plait. And there is certainly a great amount of this gold. Later, within my memory – oh, the number of quarrels over these shores that broke out between the Bashkirs and the Russians from the Kasli foundry!
And so Aylyp and his wife remained under the lake. There they had meadows, herds of horses and flocks of sheep. In other words, a life of freedom.
They say that every so often Golden Hair comes out onto the rock. People have seen her. It seems she appears at daybreak and sits there with her plait coiled around the rock like a golden snake. They say it’s a wondrous sight!
Not that I’ve ever seen it myself. Not even once. I wouldn’t want to lie to you.
During the ten years immediately after the Revolution, different approaches to the study of folklore were allowed to exist side by side. Members of the ‘historical school’ analysed the heroic songs known as
byliny
primarily as reflections of historical reality. Members of the ‘Finnish school’ tried to reconstruct the history of individual tales by considering both historical and geographical factors and comparing all available versions in different languages; it was a member of this school, N. P. Andreyev, who first translated Antti Aarne’s index of tale-types into Russian. Still more important than the historical or Finnish schools were the Formalists, who, as their name implies, were concerned primarily with matters of form. Vladimir Propp’s
Morphology of the Folktale
is the one work of Soviet folktale scholarship to have been widely translated and have been incorporated into international literary discourse.
From the mid 1930s, however, official Soviet attitudes towards folklore grew ominously contradictory. On the one hand, in his keynote speech at the first Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, no less a figure than Maksim Gorky stressed both the artistic value and the ‘life optimism’ of folk art and literature. This led to massive official support for the collection of folklore. In the words of Felix J. Oinas, ‘the executive committee of the Moscow Oblast organized wide collecting of folklore in all of its area in 1934–35. Local centers of folklore were founded in numerous districts [ … ] The local intelligentsia, university students, and students of trade schools were mobilized for active collecting. The influential party papers, such as Pravda and others, published both appeals for collecting and
samples of collected materials.’
1
On the other hand, a great deal of folk literature was, in reality, unacceptable to the Soviet authorities. Some was obscene, some religious, and some simply frivolous. Just as, during the nineteenth century, Afanasyev was held responsible for the anti-clerical humour that imbues many of his tales, so Soviet folklorists ran into difficulties because of the genuinely spiritual attitudes underlying much of the art and literature they collected.
2
We have already seen that both Onchukov and Zelenin were able to publish only a little of what they collected after the 1917 Revolution. It is clear that some of the later, probably no less gifted, collectors did not even dare to note down ideologically suspect material. Nevertheless, if only because of Russia’s size and backwardness, peasant culture survived tenaciously. Great resources were allocated to the collection of folklore, and many folklorists were extremely dedicated. In spite of everything, they collected many interesting tales.
(1899–1980)
During a career that lasted more than five decades, Pomerantseva published over 300 books and articles. She taught in various higher education institutes in Moscow and continued to lead folklore-collecting expeditions until her final years.
Well then, once upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman, and they had three daughters. And there, in that forest beyond the mountain, lived a bear, and the bear had a cat with a golden tail. And one day the bear said, ‘O cat with a golden tail, find me a bride!’
So the cat with the golden tail set off to search for a bride. He began walking about the garden outside these people’s hut, wandering about among their cabbages. One of the girls caught sight of him through the window. ‘Papa!’ she shouted. ‘There’s a cat with a golden tail! He’s running about the kitchen garden!’
‘Run and catch him! Run and catch him!’
The girl rushed off after him. The cat ran down between two rows of vegetables; the girl ran after him. The cat ran along a path; the girl ran along the path, too. The cat jumped over a ditch; the girl jumped over the ditch after him. The cat ran into a hut; the girl ran into the hut after him.
The bear was lying on a bed. ‘What a fine wife you’ve brought me!’ he said. ‘Now we can live well! You, my dear mistress, can give me food and water, and I’ll bring you firewood. And here are some keys for you. You may go into
this
barn, and you may go into
this
barn, too – but don’t go into
that
barn or I’ll kill you.’
So the girl went into the first barn and into the second barn. The first barn was full of grain, and the second was full of meat, fatback and honey. She really wanted to go into the third barn, just for a look. She went in and found three big barrels. She opened the first barrel and dipped a finger inside to see what was there. She looked at her finger and saw it had turned
to gold. The vat was full of gold – golden water. The girl felt frightened. She tied a piece of rag round her finger and sat down to do some sewing. Then Misha the bear came home. He saw her bandaged finger and asked, ‘Why, mistress, have you bandaged your finger?’
‘I cut it. I was slicing noodles and I cut my finger.’
‘Let me have a look at it!’
‘Ow, it hurts! It hurts!’
‘Let me have a look at it!’
He pulled off the bandage and saw her gold finger. ‘So you went into the third barn, did you?’ He cut her up straight away, then threw her into the third barn, just behind the vat.
Now the bear was on his own again. ‘O cat with a golden tail, find me a bride! O cat with a golden tail, find me a bride!’
‘Stop killing the brides. I won’t look for you unless you stop.’
‘O cat with a golden tail, find me a bride!’
‘Oh, all right then.’
So the cat began walking about the old man’s vegetable garden, wandering about among the cabbages. One of the girls caught sight of him through the window. ‘Papa! Mama!’ she shouted. ‘It’s the cat with the golden tail!’
‘Run and catch him! Run and catch him!’
The girl rushed off after the cat. The cat ran down between two rows of vegetables; the girl ran after him. The cat ran along a path; the girl ran along the path, too. The cat jumped over a ditch; the girl jumped over the ditch after him. The cat ran into a hut; the girl ran into the hut after him.
The bear was lying on a bed. ‘What a fine wife you’ve brought me!’ he said. ‘Now we can live well! You, my dear mistress, can give me food and water, and I’ll bring you firewood. And here are some keys for you. You may go into
this
barn, and you may go into
this
barn too – but don’t go into
that
barn or I’ll kill you.’
So the girl went into the first barn and into the second barn. The first barn was full of grain, and the second was full of meat, fatback and honey. She really wanted to go into the third barn, just for a look. She went in and found three big barrels. She opened the first barrel and dipped a finger inside to see
what was there. She looked at her finger and saw it had turned to gold. The vat was full of gold – golden water. The girl felt frightened. She tied a piece of rag round her finger and sat down to do some sewing. Then Misha the bear came home. He saw her bandaged finger and asked, ‘Why, mistress, have you bandaged your finger?’
‘I cut it. I was slicing noodles and I cut my finger.’
‘Let me have a look at it!’
‘Ow, it hurts! It hurts!’
‘Let me have a look at it!’
He pulled off the bandage and saw her gold finger. ‘So you went into the third barn, did you?’ He cut her up straight away, then threw her into the third barn, just behind the vat.
Now the bear was a widower again. He felt lonely. ‘O cat with a golden tail, find me a wife! O cat with a golden tail, find me a bride!’
‘No, I’m not going. Why do you keep killing them?’
‘I won’t do it any more. I’ll even love them and cherish them.’
The cat went off to the old man’s garden and began wandering about among the carrots. The third daughter saw him and shouted out, ‘Papa! Mama! It’s the cat with the golden tail!’
‘Run and catch him! Run and catch him!’
The girl rushed off after the cat. The cat ran down between two rows of vegetables; the girl ran after him. The cat ran along a path; the girl ran along the path, too. The cat ran down a furrow; the girl ran down the furrow, too. The cat jumped over a ditch; the girl jumped over the ditch after him. The cat ran into a hut; the girl ran into the hut after him.
The bear was lying on a bed. ‘What a fine wife you’ve brought me!’ he said. ‘Now we can live well! You, my dear mistress, can keep the stove going and cook for me, and I’ll bring you firewood. And here are some keys for you. You may go into
this
barn, and you may go into
this
barn too – but don’t go into
that
barn or I’ll kill you.’ And the bear went off to collect firewood.
The girl went into the first barn and into the second barn. The first barn was full of grain, and the second was full of meat, fatback and honey. After that, she wanted very much to
go into the third barn, to see what was there. She turned the key in the lock and saw the vats. She dipped a stick into one vat and it turned to gold in her hand. She dipped a stick into the second vat and saw that it had turned to silver. She dipped a stick into the third vat and it began to move. Then she looked behind the vat. ‘Oh,’ she thought, ‘there are my sisters. They’ve been killed.’ She dipped the stick into the fourth vat and it stopped moving – the water in this vat was the water of death. And so the girl went to one of her sisters, put her head back on her neck and sprinkled her with the water of death. Her sister’s head grew back on, but she was still dead. Then she sprinkled her with the water of life – and her sister came to life again.
‘One way or another, I’m going to rescue you. I’ll bake some pancakes and put you in the basket with them. I’ll get the bear to take the basket to our home and put it down in the garden. I’ll tell him our Mama’s died and that the pancakes are for the wake.’