Russia has had a hard history its cold and dark climate mixed with an abundance of enemy invaders from the Mongol's to the French made this one of the most difficult places in the world in which to attempt to make a living. So terrifying was the life of the common people in early Russia that like much of the rest of Europe they chose to give up their freedom for serfdom. In Russia however many of these serfs where virtual slaves, able to be bought and sold, and so it was that the largest block of people in Russia where in essence slaves. These poorest of peoples had a huge impact on the stories of Russia, altering its thinking even in stories of tradesmen.
The Russian people also had great difficulty is sorting through the many beliefs of their land, in such a large country with so many peoples there where a number of belief systems present when Christianity was introduce. However in many aspects Christianity was as shaped by the local beliefs as they where by it. The prevalence of certain types of ghost stories in Russian fairy tale stories is a good example of this. For the Russians peasants it seemed as common that the spirit of the dead resided in the coffin, in a building from their life, as that they went to heaven. This spirit could at times bring itself back to life, especially through revenge on the one who had brought about its down fall. So killing a witch or a vampire was not enough, for after words the protagonists of the fairy tale story would likely have to face the dead as in the fairy tale story "The Headless Princess." The story of a boy who inadvertently causes a witches death, and so is forced to deal with her haunting and attempts to destroy him so that she may rise again. Luckily for the boy he is friends with an elderly lady who tells him how to protect himself from the witch's ghost.
The wise elder is an important feature of the Russian fairy tale story for it is these characters who know how to defeat evil. This character type not only knows how to defeat evil but how to bring the protagonist back from the dead in "The Fiend" the story of a girl who unknowingly engages her self to a fiend which eats corpses and kills off her family as will as her. Unknowingly flirting with a manifestation of evil is a common theme in Russian folktales "The Soldiers Midnight Watch" tells the story of a soldier who flirts with a witch who then sets out to ride him to death. Luckily for him he too knows an elder who can tell him how to defeat the girl.
It is not always the elders who tell the protagonist how to defeat evil however; sometimes it is the monster itself. In "The Soldier and the Vampire" a soldier briefly and unknowingly makes friends with a vampire who tells the soldier how to kill him. When the vampire realizes he has compromised his secret he attempts to kill the soldier. Death does not come easy to the vampire even with knowledge of how to defeat it however, for as the vampire is burned it will try to escape as a swarm of vermin, if a single worm gets into the ground and away then the vampire will rise again.
Evil in the Russian fairy tale is difficult to defeat, able to rise even after it dies. This feature of evil can be found again in Welsh tales among others. For the peasants and peoples of the past it surely seemed that the hardships and evils of life where never ending, and so it was that their stories made Evil can not be beat.
Tags : discount new amerykah part two return of the ankh songs : review and comparison discount the big valley review discount terminator review
