Tag: William Ralston Shedden-Ralston

#MerfolkMonday: The Water Snake

Another folk-tale translated by William Ralston Shedden-Ralston in his A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore (1887). It’s grouped in Chapter III, “Miscellaneous Impersonations”, together with “The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise” I gave you last week. The scholar who collected this one is of this one is A.A. Erlenwein, in a collection called Folk […]

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev, “The Soldier and the Vampire”

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (1826–1871) was a folklorist and ethnographer who collected nearly 600 East Slavic and Russian fairy tales between 1855 and 1867. His collection is considered one of the largest folklore collections worldwide and earned him a reputation as the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. This tale, known as “The Fiend” or “The Vampire”, […]

#MerfolkMonday: The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise

Yesterday I gave you a folk-tale by Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev as translated by William Ralston Shedden-Ralston and collected in his A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore (1887). Here’s another one, called “The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise”. Incidentally, it’s the only one illustrated in the version I have. Once upon a time there lived […]

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev, “The Fiend”

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (1826–1871) was a folklorist and ethnographer who collected nearly 600 East Slavic and Russian fairy tales between 1855 and 1867. His collection is considered one of the largest folklore collections worldwide and earned him a reputation as the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. This tale, known as “The Fiend” or “The […]