This is an allegedly-Russian fairy tale which I read in The Yellow Fairy Book; I’ve had a bit of trouble tracking down any information about the story outside of Lang’s version, so I guess we’ll just have to trust him on this.
Once there was a king who had three sons and three special fruit trees. Alas, he has never eaten the fruit of any of these trees. If one unripe fruit is picked, everything on the trees rots, so it can’t be picked early. And every year, the night before the fruit is expected to ripen, all the fruit is stripped from all three trees.
His oldest son volunteers to guard the trees, but falls asleep and fails to protect the fruit. Second son, the next year, same deal.
The third son, Iwanich, when his turn comes, doesn’t fall asleep. He catches a bird, which turns into a woman named Militza. She tells him that the seeds these trees were planted from were stolen from her mother, which caused her death. She promised her mother that she would steal their fruit each year so that no one could benefit from the stolen seeds.
Also, Militza was under a spell—presumably a turned-into-a-bird spell, which was broken by the force with which Iwanich grabbed her.
The two fall in love, but Militza can’t stay, because a witch once cut off a lock of her hair while she was sleeping, so now she’s under the witch’s power, and has to report back to her.
This poor girl has a lot going on.
She gives Iwanich a diamond to remember her by, which can also guide him to her kingdom if his really loves her and wants to find her.
The next morning, everyone is able to eat the fruit, and Iwanich lies about how he protected it. He takes some gold and a horse and leaves while everyone is celebrating.
He finds a creepy forest guarded by a tall, gaunt man, who advises him to avoid the forest, but Iwanich refuses, because the diamond ring says this is the way to go. The man gives him a bag of breadcrumbs and a live hare.
He uses the crumbs and the hare to distract all the wild animals that would otherwise have attacked them (RIP bunny).
Deeper in the forest, Iwanich meets a very short, prickly man with a very long beard, which he has used to tie up two lions. He accuses Iwanich of feeding his bodyguard? Which comes out of nowhere and is never explained. He didn’t feed the tall man at the other side of the forest. He did feed a lot of animals (RIP bunny, again), but I have literally no idea what this man is talking about.
He lends Iwanich one of his lions to thank him for this alleged bodyguard-feeding. This allows him to pass through the rest of the woods safely, and he leaves the lion at the edge as instructed.
Iwanich reaches a palace, at last, where he finds Militza, and they get married.
Bad news, guys. We’re only, like, halfway through this story.
Militza has to leave for a week to visit a relative. She tells Iwanich not to open a specific door while she’s gone.
So of course, he opens the door.
He finds a man being tortured, and gives him some water.
At which point the entire palace just vanishes, leaving Iwanich alone in a “desolate heath.”
He wanders around until he finds a little hut, occupied by the same tall man he met earlier, who invites him in, and suggests that he take a job with the local witch, Corva, since he mentions wanting to earn some money to get home.
It is unclear at this point whether “home” means his father’s kingdom or the currently-unknown location of his wife. It is also unclear whether he still has the magic wife-finding ring.
He gets a job taking care of Corva’s two horses—a mare and her foal. If he can keep track of them for a full year, she’ll give him anything he asks, but if either escapes him, she’ll kill him and put his head on a spike.
(There are a lot of heads on spikes at her house.)
He does well with the horses for quite a while, and during this time, happens to rescue a fish, and eagle, and a fox. It’s in the last three days of the year that things start going wrong.
The witch tells the horses to hide in the river. They do, and the fish collects them.
The witch tells the horses to hide in the sky. They do, and the eagle catches them.
The witch tells the horses to hide in the king’s henhouse. They do, and the fox catches them.
On the way home from the henhouse, the mare advises Iwanich to ask the witch for the foal as payment.
This—the whole hiding horses, life on the line, take the foal as payment deal—has come up several times now in the Yellow Fairy Book, though this is the first time the rest of the story has interested me enough to talk about. I think it must be a Russian story element; I don’t have a ton of previous experience with Russian folkore.
The witch gives him the foal. She also tells him that the man he found being tortured is a great magician, who has taken Militza captive. Iwanich is the only one who can kill him, and the magician has spies watching him constantly. When Iwanich finds him, he must not say a word to him, or he’ll fall under his power. He must take him by the beard and dash him to the ground.
(We get no explanation about the witch’s apparent knowledge of Iwanich’s backstory.)
He finds the magician, who greets him with the words “Thrice my fair benefactor!”
Iwanich takes him by the beard and throws him to the ground. The foal tramples him. He finds Militza and they live happily ever after.
It seems like something is missing here.
“Thrice my fair benefactor.” Okay. So one time was when Iwanich gave him water. I think the third time is right now, with the magician trying to play it like they’re friends? But that leaves one whole time unaccounted for.
The first time I read this I assumed that Torture Victim Magician was the short, prickly man with the lions, because the witch made note of the magician’s beard, but there’s actually no evidence of this—multiple people can have beards, and the illustrations clearly portray two separate men. Between “Thrice my fair benefactor” and “did you feed my bodyguard?” it seems like we’re missing some chunks of the story, or part of it was translated poorly, or something. And since I can’t find a version other than Lang’s, I have no way to investigate this further.
There is just so much going on in this story. Militza’s mother was killed by an evil magician, and she was turned into a bird by some unknown person, then she was under the power of a wicked witch—a problem which seems to have resolved itself by the time Iwanich finds her, because it never comes up again—and then another evil magician gets her. (Maybe they’re the same evil magician?) Iwanich just completely abandons his family, and he gets help from the tall guy, then the prickly guy, then the fish, eagle, and fox, and then the horses and the witch. It seems like we have multiple story’s worth of content here. Three or four villains? Maybe if you count Corva the horse witch? Three sets of helpers? This is all just a lot.
The major takeaway I have on this one is that Militza’s issue with this last evil magician is totally on her. Like, sure, she told Iwanich not to open the door, and he didn’t listen. But if your home contains a load-bearing torture victim, you need to disclose that to your husband. Generally, the people who hide torture victims in locked rooms are the bad guys. I would also have given him some water. And since he was BEING TORTURED, I don’t really blame him for going after Militza once he was free. This is what you get for torturing people.
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