The Russian people have handed down three categories of records. First of all, the Chronicles, which are very full, very accurate, and, within the limits of the temporary concepts of possibility and science, absolutely true. Secondly, the ballads or bylíny; epic songs in an ancient metre, narrating historical episodes as they occur; and also comprising a cycle of heroic romance, comparable with the chansons de geste of Charlemagne, the cycles of Finn and Cuchúlain of the Irish, and possibly with the little minor epics out of which it is supposed that some supreme Greek genius built up the artistic epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These bylíny may be ranked as fiction: i.e. as facts of real life (as then understood), applied to nonexistent, unvouched, or legendary individuals. They are not bare records of fact, like the Chronicles; imagination enters into their scope; nonhuman, miraculous incidents are allowable; their content is not a matter for faith or factual record; they may be called historical fiction, which, broadly taken, corresponded to actual events, and typified the national strivings and ideals. The traditional ceremonial songs, magical incantations and popular melodies are of the same date and in the same style.
Thirdly, the folktales. In their matter, these differ little, if at all, from the common Aryan stock. In their treatment, there are well-marked divergencies. They are, in the first place, characterized by the so-called realism that tinges all Russian literature; a better word would be factualism, as realism is associated with the anti-romanticism that accentuates material facts and seeks to obliterate moral factors.
This attitude of mind is rather like that of a careful observer, who has become callous, because he is helpless—an attitude of those who serve and stand and wait.
From the earliest Chronicles to the most modern fiction, this factualism characterizes Russian work. It has reacted on the Folktales in several ways; all the more observable as we have them fresh and ungarnished, as the tellers told them.
The stories are not, like the German Märchen, neatly rounded off into consequential and purposive stories. The incidents follow almost haphazard; and at the end, the persons mentioned at the beginning may be forgotten; the stories are often almost as casual as real life.
The stories relate experiences in succession, attempt no judgment, do not even affirm their own credibility. Things simply happen; our exertions may sometimes be some good; we can only be quietly resigned. But, unlike the Arabian Nights, there is no positive fatalism; for that would imply a judgment; a warping of facts to suit a theory.
Equally, there is none of the artistic grace of Greek legend, nor the exuberance of Celtic fantasy; both of these are departures from the crude, unilluded, unexpectant observation.
This unconsciously involves a perfect art with regard to detail; so much is told as a man would remember of an experience; there is no striving after impressionism, nor meticulous detail.
The prevailing tone is sadness; but there is no absence of humour; yet fun merely happens, and is inherent; there is no broad, boisterous fun.
In them, unlike other Aryan folktales, there are no fairies, nor giants, nor gnomes, nor personifications of nature. As in his Pagan myths, the Slav never advanced beyond inchoate conceptions of Nature, he neither philosophized like the Hindu, nor created types of pure grace like the Greek, nor beautiful fancies, like the Celt. Where the river-gods,1 or the wood-sprites,2 have human form, it is to a certain extent because they have been contaminated with the Christian Devil.
To sum up, these undiluted products of the Russian people are a faithful mirroring of life, as it appeared, casual; for the most part unfortunate, and inscrutable.
There are some very frequent supernatural beings. The Witch who lives in the forest, rides the winds in a mortar, devours human flesh, lives in a hut on cocks’ legs, is one of the commonest. The great baleful magician is Koshchéy the Deathless, whose soul, in some stories, is contained in an egg far away, fearsomely guarded. Historically, his ancestry is the dread Tatar, in which figure all the previous Turanian tribes that overran medieval Russia have been confounded.
Notes will be found dealing with all such specific persons and places.
The folktales are very various; some classes of them can be distinguished.
The bestiary, or animal story, is common, and the parts which the beasts enact are similar to the Teutonic fairytales.
The semi-sacred legends of the days when Christ and his Apostles walked the earth, superficially may be compared with Grimm’s stories. But the spirit is very different. To a very slight extent they are based on the Gospel. But the Russian Christ of the folktales is a good, just, honest peasant, with democratic sympathies, and plenty of humour. His justice is unwavering, but tempered with sound common sense. He is kind, charitable and thoroughly human.
The Saints also walk the earth. Saint George3 has taken over many Pagan legends; in one of the semi-sacred bylíny,4 he turns round the oaks and the mountains, like Vertodúb and Vertogór, and in other bylíny of the same class the miraculous incidents of the birth of Ilyá Múromets are attributed to him. Saint Nicholas is the worker of miracles; and Saint Elias has had some of the powers of the thunder god transferred to him.
Other stories are prose adaptations of the ballads, and must be considered as such.
There are two personifications, which call for special attention, those of Death and of Sorrow. Both are borrowed from ballad cycles. Both figures appear as ghostly spirits, who persecute man, but yet can be very efficaciously and roughly handled.
There are some few satires; but the large majority cannot be readily classified. They contain the usual incidents of transformations,
