The Death of Koschei the Deathless or Marya Morevna () is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki and included by Andrew Lang in The Red Fairy Book.Andrew Lang, The Red Fairy Book, "The Death of Koschei the Deathless" The character Koschei is an evil immortal man who menaces young women with his magic.
Plot
Ivan Tsarevich had three sisters, the first was Princess Maria, the second was Princess Olga, the third was Princess Anna. After his parents died and his sisters marry three wizards, he leaves his home in search of his sisters. He meets Marya Morevna, a beautiful warrior princess, and marries her. After a while she announces she is going to go to war and tells Ivan not to open the door of the dungeon in the castle they live in while she will be away.
Overcome by the desire to know what the dungeon holds, he opens the door soon after her departure and finds the sorcerer Koschei, chained and emaciated. Koschei asks Ivan to bring him some water; Ivan does so. After Koschei drinks twelve buckets of water, his magic powers return to him, he breaks his chains and disappears. Ivan soon finds out that Koschei has captured Marya Morevna, and pursues him. When Ivan catches up with Koschei, Koschei tells Ivan to let him go, but Ivan does not give in, and Koschei kills him, puts his remains into a barrel and throws it into the sea.
Ivan is then revived by his sisters' husbands – powerful wizards who can transform into birds of prey. They tell him that Koschei has a magic horse and that Ivan should go to Baba Yaga to get one too, or else he will not be able to defeat Koschei. After Ivan survives Yaga's tests and gets the horse, he fights with Koschei, kills him and burns his body. Marya Morevna returns to Ivan, and they celebrate his victory with his sisters and their husbands.
Translations A translation of the tale by Irina Zheleznova was Marya Morevna The Lovely Tsarevna.
Analysis Tale types The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 552 (The Girls who Married Animals),Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 55-56. with an episode of type ATU 302 (The Giant/Ogre who had no heart in his body). In fact, this tale, also known as The Death of Koschei in the Egg, is one of "the most popular Russian folktales".Anglickienė, Laima. Slavic Folklore: DIDACTICAL GUIDELINES. Kaunas: Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Cultural Studies and Ethnology. 2013. p. 125. .
On the other hand, slavicist Karel Horálek cited that a 1959 Russian edition of Afanasyev's Russian Fairy Tales indicated that the tale "Mar'ja Morevna" was a combination of types: AaTh 552, 400 ("The Quest for the Lost Wife") and 554 ("The Grateful Animals"). In the same vein, professor Jack Haney also stated that the sequence of tale types AT 552A, AT 400/1, AT 554 and AT 302/2 was "the traditional combination of tale types" for the story. Likewise, according to Russian folklorist , a contamination between tale types 552 and 302 is "typical". In addition, the East Slavic folktale corpus - especially the Russian one - is marked by complex tales akin to Marya Morevna, which is a combination of types (552, 518, 302 and 554).
Motifs The animal suitors The tale of Marya Morevna and Koschei the Deathless (both in the same variant) is considered the most representative version of the ATU 552 tale type in Russia.Haney, Jack, V. An Anthology of Russian Folktales. London and New York: Routledge. 2015 . pp. 119-126. . The tale type is characterized by the hero's sisters marrying animals. In some versions, the suitors are wizards or anthropomorphizations of forces of nature, like Wind, Thunder and Rain, or natural features, like the Sun and the Moon.Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang. 2010 . p. 190. Horálek, Karel. "Der Märchentypus AaTh 302 (302 C*) in Mittel- und Osteuropa". In: Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 13 (1967), pp. 265. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins also noted that in some variants, the suitors are "persons of great and magical potency", but appear to court the princesses under shaggy and ragged disguises.Dawkins, Richard McGillivray. Modern Greek folktales. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1953. p. 121. Similarly, according to Walter Scherf, in Lexikon der Zaubermärchen, the animal brothers-in-law are masters of earth, air and water realms.
Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev, based on comparative analysis of Slavic folkloric traditions, stated that the eagle, the falcon and the raven (or crow) are connected to weather phenomena, like storm, rain, wind. He also saw a parallel between the avian suitors from the tale Marya Morevna with the suitors from other Slavic folktales, where they are the Sun, the Moon, the Thunder and the Wind.Афанасьев, А.Н. Поэтические воззрения славян на природу: Опыт сравнительного изучения славянских преданий и верований в связи с мифическими сказаниями других родственных народов. Том 1. Moskva: Izd. K. Soldatenkova 1865. pp. 506-508. (In Russian) In a comparative study, Karelian scholarship noted that, in Russian variants, there are three brothers-in-law, the most common are three ornitomorphic characters: the eagle (named Orel Orlovich), the falcon (named Sokol Sokolovich) and the raven (almost always the third suitor, called Voron Voronovich). They sometimes may be replaced - depending on the location - by another bird (the dove or the magpie) or by a mammal (the bear, the wolf, the seal or the deer).Дюжев, Ю. И. "Зооморфные персонажи – похитители женщин в русских и прибалтийско-финских волшебных сказках". In: Межкультурные взаимодействия в полиэтничном пространстве пограничного региона: Сборник материалов международной научной конференции. Петрозаводск, 2005. pp. 202-205. . Similarly, tales from Russian oral tradition alternate real ornitomorphic characters, like the eagle, the falcon, the raven, the hawk, and even a dove, a swan, a sparrow or a duck, with fictional birds, like a "Tsar Bird", an iron-nosed bird, a bird named Agey or "Magovey Magoveyevich", alongside mammals (a bear, a lion, a wolf, a hare, or a cat) and fishes like a ruffe or a pike.
In Sámi tales, the animal suitors are a raven, a seal, and reindeer Myandash, while in Bashkir tales they are a bear, a golden eagle and a vulture, and three magpies in a Karelian story.
It has been suggested that the tale type ATU 552 may have been derived from an original form that closely resembles ATU 554, "The Grateful Animals", and, in turn, ATU 554 and ATU 302, "Devil's Heart in the Egg", would show a deeper connection due to the presence of animal helpers. Further relations are seen between both tale types, type ATU 301 and its subtypes, "Three Stolen Princesses" and "Jean de l'Ours", and ATU 650, "Strong Hans"/"Strong John".
The forbidden room Czech scholar mentioned that tale type AaTh 552 ("specially in Slavic variants") shows the motif of the hero opening, against his wife's orders, a door or the dungeon and liberating a Giant or Ogre that kills him.
According to professor Andreas Johns, scholar Carl Wilhelm von Sydow distinguished a Slavic oikotype of the narrative (also present in Hungarian variants): the hero is warned against opening a door, which he does anyway. The hero sees an imprisoned ogre to whom he gives water and releases him. The ogre's next act is to kidnap the hero's wife.
The hero's horse helper In several variants, the hero manages to defeat the villain with the help of a magical horse he tamed while working for Baba Yaga or other supernatural creature. As such, these tales can also be classified as ATU 302C, "The Magical Horse".Eesti Muinajutud 1:2 Imemuinasjutud. Koostanud Risto Järv, Mairi Kaasik, Kärri Toomeosorglaan. Eesti, Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi Teadus Kirjastus. 2009. p. 591. The episode of taming the horse of the wizard/sorcerer fits tale type ATU 556F*, "Herding the Wizard’s Horses".Eesti Muinajutud 1:2 Imemuinasjutud. Koostanud Risto Järv, Mairi Kaasik, Kärri Toomeosorglaan. Eesti, Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi Teadus Kirjastus. 2014. p. 719. . The tale is classified as subtype AaTh 302C because in the international index of folktypes both subtypes AaTh 302A and AaTh 302B were previously occupied by other stories.Horálek, Karel. "Der Märchentypus AaTh 302 (302 C*) in Mittel- und Osteuropa". In: Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 13 (1967), pp. 262.
Hungarian-American scholar Linda Degh stated that the tale type 302 was "extended ... through addition" of the type 556F*, a combination she claimed was "little known in Europe ... except in mostly Slavic, Rumanian, and Hungarian language areas".Degh, Linda. Folktales and Society: Story-telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community. Translated by Emily M. Schossberger. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1989. p. 352. . Professor Andreas Johns corroborates Degh's analysis. He states that this subtype 302/2, "Koschei's Death from a Horse", occurs in the "Slavic and Hungarian folk repertoire": after the hero acquires the powerful horse, it either tramples the sorcerer with its hooves or influences Koschei's mount to drop its rider to his death.
Estonian scholarship also locates type 302 with the witch's magical horse in Central and Eastern Europe.Järv, Risto; Kaasik, Mairi; Toomeos-Orglaan, Kärri. Monumenta Estoniae antiquae V. Eesti muinasjutud. I: 1. Imemuinasjutud. Tekstid redigeerinud: Paul Hagu, Kanni Labi. Tartu Ülikooli eesti ja võrdleva rahvaluule osakond, Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi Eesti Rahvaluule Arhiiv, 2009. p. 526. .
The Life (Heart) in the Egg
The tale type ATU 302, "The Giant (Ogre) who had no heart in his body" or "Ogre's Heart in the Egg", is a "world folklore tale type". These stories tell of a villain who hides his life force or "heart" in a place outside his body, in a box or inside a series of animals, like a Russian matryoshka. The hero must seek and destroy the heart to vanquish the villain. With the help of the villain's wife or female prisoner (a princess), he locates the ogre's weakness and, aided by grateful animals or his animal brothers-in-law,Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang. 2010 . p. 191. destroys the heart.Sherman, Josepha (2008). Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. Sharpe Reference. p. 218.
According to professor Stith Thompson, the tale is very popular "in the whole area from Ireland to India", with different locations of the giant's heart: in Asian variants, it is hidden in a bird or insect, while in European tales it is guarded in an egg.Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 35.
Scholarship acknowledges the considerable antiquity and wide diffusion of the motif of the "external soul" (or life, "death", heart). For instance, folklorist Sir James George Frazer, in his book The Golden Bough, listed and compared several stories found across Eurasia and North Africa where the villain of the tale (ogres, witches and giants) willingly extracts their soul, hides it in an animal or in a box (casket) and therefore becomes unkillable, unless the hero destroys the recipient of their soul.Frazer, James George, Sir. The Golden Bough: a Study In Comparative Religion. Vol. II. London: Macmillan, 1890. pp. 296-326.
According to Andreas Johns, Carl von Sydow estimated that the tale type 302 dated back thousand years BCE. Although the earliest printed version appears in a 1702 Swedish manuscript, Johns admitted that the oral tale may be, in fact, quite old.
Variants
Eastern Europe