It is a custom in Russia for the family education of a child to start with a lullaby, sung by the mother, and with a fairy tale, told by the grandmother. It is believed that a song and a fairy tale constitute the air of folk poetry and that the baby breathes this in with the music and words. These influence a child's attitude and morality. "A fairy tale is a lie, but it contains a truth, and it is a good lesson for a regular fellow" -- so goes the Russian proverb.

A folk tale is to be found in every culture. Every nation has such tales. They are amazing stories because they introduce us to what seems to be a fantastic world, one that exists independently of us and does not intrude upon us. On occasion this world reminds us of its existence, with its bright, poetic images, entering into our daily lives and surprising us with uncommon things.

Fairy tales provide us with much information about the past: stories of great antiquity, the pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs, and the heroic narratives of the defense of the fatherland against hostile nomads.

Fairy tales are poetic, honest, genuine, and unsophisticated. In fairy tales, when good and evil meet, the good always triumphs in the end. Two figures, the Simple One and the Crooked One confront one another. Though the latter achieves glory and wealth for a short period of time, and humiliates the simple-hearted fellow who is easily deceived, the truthful man always wins out in the end. However, the Simple One forgets about the offences inflicted upon him and is ever ready to help the Crooked One.

People always identify with the underdog. They sympathize more with the good stepdaughter than with the evil or unjust stepmother. They always support Ivan the Fool, the family's third and youngest son. Ivan is always lucky at the end of a story. At first he gets into a mess, then geniality, simplicity, resourcefulness, cleverness, and sympathy for people and animals help him overcome the obstacles that he faces. They rescue him from dangers in fond remembrance of his kindness. In fairy tales, Ivan the Fool is always lucky when it matters the most. He obtains wealth, the princess, and the kingdom.

A great wealth of fairy tales was collected, classified, and published in Russia by Vladimir Dahl, Ivan Sakharov, and Alexander Afanasiev. These scholars introduced the traditional fairy tales into culture, into literature, and into education. Pushkin based a number of his narrative poems on fairy tales, "Ruslan and Lyudmila" among them. Peter Ershov wrote "Hunchbacked Horse;" Alexander Ostrovsky wrote "Snow Maiden," etc. 

Fairy tales supplied the plots and characters of librettos and ballets for the great Russian composers. Artists depicted in their paintings the most popular fairy-tale heroes: Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch, Koschey the Deathless, the wicked old man, the Gray Wolf, etc. Below you will see two pictures by Viktor Vasnetsov on motifs found in Russian fairy tales. Many Russian fairy tales were made into films in the 20th century.

I invite you to read four fairy tales which I have translated from Russian. I hope you enjoy them and will read them to your children.