Week 14 Story: The Live Mother

Once there was a very happy couple that lived in a small village.  After a few years, they bore a child.  Shortly after the child was born, the mother got sick and died.  The father was quite and distraught and did not know how he as going to take care of the baby or feed it.  He decided to hire an old woman to care for the baby. 

Nothing the old woman did could calm the baby down.  It cried all day and night and refused to eat.  However, one night the baby stopped crying as if it was being fed.  The old woman thought this was very strange so she stayed up one night to see what it was that was happening.  That night she saw someone come into the house after midnight and go up to the baby's room where the baby would immediately stop crying. 

The next day, the old woman told the baby's father about this and he decided to gather other people in the village to stay up one night to try and figure out who it was sneaking into their house every night.  That night when the mysterious figure went into the baby's room, the villagers shined a light in it's face.  They gasped in terror as they saw that it was the dead mother. 

What happened next was quite magical.  After the mother saw that she had been seen, she looked down at her baby, and life suddenly consumed her and she became living once again.  The mother, father, and baby lived happily until the baby was grown. 

Happy Mother and Baby.  Web Source. 

Author's Note: My inspiration for this story comes from the Russian Folktales Unit.  The story was called The Dead Mother.  I kept the majority of the story the same except for the ending.  In the original, when the mother saw that she had been seen, she looked down at the baby and then disappeared.  They then saw that the baby had died.  I thought this was a very dark ending so I wanted to make it happier by having the mother coming back to life and living happily with her husband and baby. 

Bibliography: Russian Folk Tales by W.R.S. Ralston. 

Reading Notes, Russian Fairy Tales: Part B

These notes are from a few stories in the Russian Fairy Tales reading part B.

(The Witch Girl)
In a village there was a witch that came in a different house and killed all its members.  One day a coassack asked to stay the night in a families home and they said he could only if he did not fear death.  He was not afraid and kept watch while the family slept.  At midnight  a witch dressed in white climbed in the window and as she was about to sprinkle death the cossack chopped off her arm and she ran away.  The next day the family was overjoyed to find that they were all still alive.  They went around to the other houses to check on the families and one family's daughter was ill.  The cossack saw the sick girl was missing an arm and knew immediately that she was the witch.  He told them what happened, was awarded a great sum of honey, and the witch girl was drowned. 

(The Two Friends)
There were two friends who were so close they regarded themselves as brothers.  They made a pact that whoever got married first would invite the other to his wedding whether they were alive or dead.  One day, one of the friends fell ill and died.  When it was time for the other friend to get married he went to his friends grave to invite him to his wedding.  When he invited him, the dead friend came out from his grave and asked him to have a drink with him.  At first he resisted  but finally gave in.  While drinking the first drink, 100 years passed.  After the second drink,  200 years passed.  And then after the 3rd drink 300 years had passed and the friend said that was enough and it was time to go marry his bride.  However, when he came out of the grave, he found that everything was different.  He ran to the village, and it too was different and he knew no one.  He went to the priest and told what happened and the priest checked the records and sure enough 300 years ago a groom disappeared into a graveyard and his wife to be eventually married someone else. 

Graveyards and Death. A common theme in the Russian Folk Stories.  Web Source.

Bibliography: Russian Folk Tales by W.R.S Ralston.   

Reading Notes: Russian Folktales: Part A

This weeks notes are from the Russian Folktales Unit.  There were a lot of different stories in Part A, and these notes consist of a few that I found most interesting and that I could see myself using for my story this week. 

(The Dead Mother)
There was a couple that had a baby.  Shortly after, the mother died and the husband was at loss how he was going to take care of, and nourish the baby.  So he hired an older woman to take care of it.  However, nothing she could do would calm the baby and it cried all day and did not eat.  One night, the baby suddenly stopped crying and the old woman found this quite odd.  It continued to happen and so she began to watch and found that someone was coming into the house at night and going to the baby's room.  She alerted the husband of this and so he brought in others to stake out one night and see who it was that was coming every night and calming the baby.  That night when the person came in, they shown a light and saw that it was the dead mother.  They were terrified and when the mother saw that she had been seen she looked down at the baby and disappeared.  They then saw that the baby was dead. 

(The Water Snake)
There was a girl bathing in a pond.  While she was bathing a snake laid upon her robes and would not get off of them unless she agreed to marry him.  She agreed knowing it was not possible for her to marry a snake and she went home and forgot about it.  A few weeks later, tons of snakes went to her cottage and drug the girl back into the pond.  When they reached the water they all turned into men and women.  She lived down there for three years and had two children.  One day she went to visit her mother and said that when she came back she would cry out for her husband to come and get her.  That night while the girl was sleeping, her mother went to the pond and cried out for her daughter's husband and when he came out she chopped off his head.  The daughter found out about this and was very distraught.  She sent her daughter to be a wren, her son to be a nightengale, and herself a cuckoo. 

Water Snake.  Web Source. 

Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by Ralston.