With the dawn of a new year, there is this expectation of good things to come, that with the ring of a bell or the drop of a ball our lives have the possibility of changing for the better. We’re often told that those good things come to those who wait. I would expand that idea to include those who work towards them. With this in mind, I thought it fitting to tell a tale that is a beautiful example of working towards a better future, no matter how uncertain it may seem.
We’ve all heard of the Brothers Grimm. Wilhelm and Jacob were renowned for their collection of German folktales and how they traveled around the countryside to listen to new stories to add to their book. I’ve even written about a couple of their folktales on Book Gnome before.
The story I’m going to tell today is from their Russian contemporary, Aleksandr Afanasyev (1826-1871), who also collected folktales in and around his home country in the early to mid 19th Century. Afanasyev’s first collection of folktales, published in eight volumes from 1855 to 1867, contained over 600 tales from Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus. Just to give you an idea how many that is, the final edition of the Brothers Grimm’s Children and Household Tales, published in 1857, contained a mere 211 folktales and legends.
There have been many different versions of this tale, including translations and modern retellings, but I will be focusing on the version found in Afanasyev’s Russian Fairy Tales (Narodnye russkie skazki).
The story begins with an archer named Fedot going hunting and shooting a dove in the wing, breaking it. The dove begs the archer not to kill her, but to take her home and to strike her with the back of his hand when she falls asleep.
The archer takes the bird at her word, and when she is sleeping he strikes her lightly with the back of his hand. The dove falls to the ground and turns into the most beautiful woman Fedot had ever seen. The woman wakes up and declares that she has chosen him to be her husband.
For a time, their lives are happy. Fedot still hunts for the king, but his wife sees that he no longer wants to live as a hunter. She tells him to go around to his friends and borrow some money and she will “change [their] lot.” Fedot does as his wife says until he has two hundred rubles to give to her. She then tells him to buy silk, which he does. When Fedot goes to sleep that night, she goes outside, opens her magic book and starts talking to two spirits. She orders the spirits to turn the silk into a carpet (or tapestry) “so wonderful that the world has never seen its equal.” The spirits finish the carpet in ten minutes.
In the morning, Fedot’s wife hands the carpet to him, saying he should sell it to the merchants at the bazaar, but not to set the price himself. ”Take whatever they give you.”
Fedot takes the carpet to the merchants, who are unable to come up with a proper price for such an item. The whole group of merchants gather around the carpet, trying to figure out how much it is worth. The king’s steward sees the crowd and joins them. He sees the carpet and immediately asks Fedot where he got it and how much he wanted for it. When Fedot answers that his wife made it and that he was to accept whatever he is given, the steward hands him ten thousand rubles.
The steward immediately takes the carpet to the king, who, without asking, gives the steward twenty-five thousand rubles in exchange for the carpet. The steward goes back to the archer’s house to order a better carpet for himself, only to find himself in the company of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He forgets about the carpet and just stares. He is so distracted that he cannot sleep, eat, or drink. All of his thoughts are on the archer’s wife.
The king notices his steward’s absentmindedness and asks him what has happened. The steward tells the king about the archer’s wife and that she is so beautiful that he cannot stop thinking of her. The king, in a rush to see this beauty for himself, orders a carriage to take him to the archer’s house, where he sees Fedot’s wife. The king is so taken by the beauty that he starts to plan a way to marry her himself.
He orders the steward to find a way to destroy the archer, who wanders through “waste places and back alleys” until he comes across Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga, who knows what the steward is thinking about, tells him to send Fedot to an island that would take three years to reach. The steward returns to the king, who commissions an ancient ship to be sent to the island, with fifty of the most degenerate sailors, to take Fedot to this island on the quest to find a stag with golden horns. If Fedot refuses to go, he will lose his head.
- Sidenote: Baba Yaga has a rich history in Slavic folklore. Some stories depict her as an old hag, others as a motherly figure who helps the hero win the quest. In the case of this story, she seems to be a grandmotherly woman who can read the thoughts of others. In one version of this tale, she is depicted as the mother of the archer’s wife, who is misleading the king and steward. As for Afanasyev’s telling, it is unclear if Baba Yaga is on the side of the king or is working behind the scenes to help the archer.
Fedot gets his orders from the king, then goes home to his wife. She asks him what is wrong and he answers. She replies, “This is child’s play, not a task. Pray to God and go to sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening; everything will be done.”
When he is asleep, his wife opens her magic book and tells her spirits to go to the island and bring back the stag with the golden horns. By dawn, the stag was standing in their front yard. The wife tells her husband to take the stage onto the ship, to sail out for five days and to turn back on the sixth.
- Just a quick thought. I find the fact that Fedot’s wife tries to keep her magic a secret from her husband interesting. He already knows she is a magical being and obviously doesn’t have a problem with it, or he wouldn’t have married her. This could be a way for the storyteller to separate a Christian belief system from the more pagan rituals that were still very much prevalent at the time of the story’s origin. In other words, having Fedot fall asleep kept him innocent of the sin of consorting with witches. This is an old trick many storytellers used in order to keep their stories from being banned by the Church, or worse, have the storyteller be executed as a heretic.
- Maybe not so quick. One of the most famous examples of this is The Prose Edda, where Snorri Sturluson actually wrote an introduction to his collection of Norse myths, stating that he himself did not believe the stories and that he was a practicing Christian. He merely wanted to keep the practice of Norse storytelling from disappearing. It is hard to know for certain, but Sturluson probably followed both Christian and Norse religious practices.
After much fanfare, the archer sails off with fifty drunken sailors on an ancient and rickety ship. On the fifth day, he opens up all the casks of wine and tells the sailors to drink as much as they can. The sailors get so drunk they fall asleep where they stand. Fedot takes the helm and turns the ship back towards the shore, keeping the sailors drunk so they don’t know what is going on.
On the eleventh day, the ship announces its return by hoisting its flag and firing its guns. The king immediately goes to the port and when he sees the archer standing there, he angrily says, ”How dare you return before time?” Fedot replies that he completed the quest in ten days, rather than the six years it was supposed to take (or the thirty days it would take for the rickety old ship to sink as Baba Yaga said it would.) Fedot shows the king the stag with the golden horns and the king begrudgingly allows the archer to return home to his wife.
The king once again orders his steward to find a way to destroy the archer, who goes back to Baba Yaga and begs for help. Baba Yaga tells the steward that the archer is a simple man. It is his wife who they must fool. She tells the steward to “send the archer I know not whither, and let him bring back I know not what.”
The steward runs to the king, who orders Fedot to “go I know not whither and bring back I know not what.” If Fedot fails to complete the quest, he will lose his head.
Fedot goes home to his wife, who asks him what is wrong. The archer tells his wife, who tells him, “Yes, this is no little task! To get there takes nine years, and it takes nine years to return.” She tells him to go to sleep and when he does, she opens her magic book and asks her spirits if they “know how to go I know not whither and bring back I know not what?” They reply that they do not know.
In the morning, she tells her husband to ask the king for money for the journey and to return home to say goodbye to her. Fedot does as his wife says. She hands him a handkerchief and a ball and says, “When you are outside the town, throw this ball before you and follow it wherever it goes. Wherever you find yourself – when you wash, wipe your face with this handkerchief.” Fedot says goodbye to his wife and leaves the town, throwing the ball, following wherever it rolls.
A month passes and the king orders his steward to bring him the archer’s wife. She comes to the palace and the king asks her if she wants to be his queen.
“Where has it been seen, where has it been heard of, to take a wife from her living husband?” she said. ”Although he is a simple archer, he is my lawful husband.”
The king threatens to force the woman to become his queen, but Fedot’s wife smiles, strikes the floor and turns into a dove, flying through the window.
- Sidenote: Many fairy tales borrowed themes from religious sources; usually biblical. For instance, it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that the king trying to force Fedot’s wife to become his queen was taken from the biblical story of King David, who sees Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, taking a bath. David takes advantage of Bathsheba, getting her pregnant. In response to Uriah’s refusal to give up his wife, David had Uriah killed and took Bathsheba as his own wife, effectively making her his queen. The baby she carried became King Solomon the Wise.
Fedot follows the ball through many kingdoms, until it stops in front of a large palace and vanishes. Fedot goes inside, only to be greeted by three beautiful maidens. They ask him why he has come to their house and after a time, he tells them.
He wipes his face with his wife’s handkerchief and the three maidens recognize it as belonging to their sister. They call for their mother, who asks the archer why he is there. He tells her and she says, “Of that marvel even I have not heard!” She goes and consults with the animals of the forest, who have not heard of “how to go to I know not whither and how to bring back I know not what.”
She orders her spirits to take her and her son-in-law to the middle of the ocean. She asks all the fish and reptiles if they have heard of this place, to which they all reply no, they haven’t. After a time, an old frog speaks up. ”Qua! Qua! I know where such a marvel can be found.”
They return to the palace with the frog and Fedot’s mother-in-law asks the frog where they need to go. The frog says the place they need to go to is a palace at the end of the world, but the frog is too old to make the journey by herself. The mother-in-law places the frog in a jar with some milk and hands it to Fedot, telling him to let the frog show him the way.
He comes to a river of fire which leads to a high mountain with a door. The frog tells Fedot to let her out of the jar, so they can cross the river. Fedot lets her out and she grows large enough for him to sit on her back. In one jump, they leap over the river of fire. The frog tells Fedot to go through the door and to hide himself. ”Two men will come. Listen to what they say and watch what they do; after they have left, speak and do as they did.”
He does as the frog says, watching as the two old men come into the cave and call out, “Shmat Razum, feed us!” Inside the cave, chandeliers are suddenly lighted, dishes clatter, and food appears on a table. The men order everything to be removed and it is done.
When the old men leave, Fedot creeps out of his hiding place and calls out to Shmat Razum. He orders food and asks the invisible servant to eat with him. Shmat Razum declares that he has never been asked to join the two men for a meal. Fedot watches as food and drink disappears in front of him. After they both eat their fill, Fedot asks the invisible servant if he would like to serve him. Shmat Razum replies that he would like it very much and the two of them leave the cave.
Fedot returns to the frog and they start their journey back home. His mother-in-law rewards the frog for her services and Fedot starts his long journey back to his home. Along the way, he gets so tired, he tells Shmat Razum and the invisible servant picks him up and in the work of a moment, they are flying over the land.
They stop on an arbor that Shmat Razum makes in the middle of the ocean, which gains the attention of three merchant ships. Fedot invites the merchants to eat with him and to show him their greatest treasures.
One merchant shows him a small box that, when opened, allows a garden to fill the island. The second merchant shows him an ax that, when it is struck, produces a ship. With each new strike, a new ship appears. The third merchant shows him a horn that, when blown, an army appears, including infantry and cavalry.
In exchange for all three items, Fedot gives the merchants Shmat Razum. For one night, the invisible servant gives the merchants and all of their men all of the food and drink they can consume. In the morning, when they ask him for breakfast, they find that the invisible man is gone.
Fedot flies to his own country and lands at a deserted place near the sea. He asks Shmat Razum to build him a castle where they land, which is done. Now a palace twice as good as the royal palace stands on the shore. The archer opens the small box and a marvelous garden grows around the palace.
Suddenly a dove flies in the window, strikes the floor, and turns into his wife. They both greet each other warmly and tell each other what has happened to them.
The next morning, the king looks out from his balcony and sees a new castle on the seashore. Angry that someone dares to build a castle on his lands without permission, he sends a messenger to find out who it was. When he learns it is the archer, the king orders an army to be sent to the castle to destroy the castle and the garden and to kill the archer and his wife.
The archer, when he sees the army coming, seizes the axe and raps it one hundred times, making one hundred ships. Then he blows the horn twice. The infantry and cavalry appears. He orders them all to battle against the king’s army, who flees at the sight of a magical army and navy bearing down on them. Within half an hour, the battle is over and the king is dead.
The people of the country come to the archer and ask him to rule in the king’s place. He agrees, making him king and his wife the queen.
- This story reminds me a little bit of Homer’s The Odyssey, with Fedot desperately trying to get back home to his wife and the wife holding off the king’s advances. The only thing missing are the sirens.
Before I leave you, I wanted to say one more thing about Afanasyev’s Go I Know Not Whither and Bring Back I Know Not What. In the same vein as other fairy tales, even those told by the Brothers Grimm, this folktale sends our hero on a quest with three parts. In many ways, this tale could be compared to the coming-of-age story of Iron Hans, or even Snow White, with the hero needing to overcome three tests of bravery or skill or faith. It would certainly be an act of faith to follow all of the commands Fedot’s wife gives him. But in believing in the ability of his wife, Fedot is given a chance to better his situation, and after what was certainly years, he is rewarded for his faith by being crowned king.
Thank you for taking this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did. For me, it’s a reminder that you can achieve anything as long as you believe. It’s also a beautiful example of how life can seem bleak, but with a little faith and no end of hard work, you can better your situation.
Have a happy new year and may the road you are on be free of potholes.
Book Gnome 