Vasilisa the Beautiful

There was once a merchant whose wife died young. Before she died, she called her only daughter Vasilisa to her bed, and gave her a small wooden doll. "Keep this with you always. Tell no one about it. When you are in trouble, give the doll a little to eat and ask her what to do, and she will help you." She blessed the girl and died.

The merchant married again. The new wife brought two daughters of her own, and they all hated Vasilisa from the first day. They gave her the hardest work, hoping the wind and the sun would burn her beauty away. But Vasilisa was beautiful no matter what they did. The doll did the hardest of the work for her in secret, while she ate or rested. Every night Vasilisa fed the doll a few crumbs and told her her troubles, and the doll listened with bright eyes.

The merchant went away on a long journey. With the father gone, the stepmother grew bolder. She moved the family to a small house at the edge of a deep forest, near the hut of Baba Yaga, the witch who lived on chicken legs and ate human bones.

One evening she put out all the candles in the house except a single one in the corner where her own daughters were sewing. She gave each of them a different task. To Vasilisa she gave nothing. Then she had her own daughter knock the candle over so the light went out. The first daughter said, "I cannot stop my work to go for fire. The pin will lose its place." The second said, "I cannot go either, the needle will not see my stitches." The stepmother said, "Vasilisa, go to Baba Yaga and ask for fire. Hurry."

Vasilisa knew this was meant to kill her. She went to her room. She fed her doll. "Doll, I am sent to Baba Yaga for fire. What shall I do?" The doll said, "Don't be afraid. Take me with you. While I am with you, no harm will come."

Vasilisa walked into the forest. She walked all night. As the sun rose, a horseman in white rode past her, and the woods became white with morning. Later a horseman in red rode past, and the sun came fully up. Late in the afternoon she came to a clearing.

There stood a fence of bones, with skulls on each post, and a hut on great chicken legs that turned slowly to follow the light. As she stood looking, a horseman in black rode past, and night came down. The skulls' eyes lit up.

Baba Yaga came home in her great mortar, paddling through the air with a pestle, sweeping her tracks behind her with a broom. She landed and sniffed the air. "I smell Russian flesh." She saw Vasilisa. "Why have you come?"

"Grandmother," said Vasilisa, "my stepmother has sent me for a light."

"I know that family," said the witch. "If you can serve me, perhaps. If not, I will eat you. Come in."

She gave Vasilisa work for two days. Each day she set her three impossible tasks: clean the hut, sort wheat from chaff, sort poppy seeds from soil. Each night, while the witch slept, Vasilisa fed the doll, and the doll did the work. In the morning Baba Yaga came home and the work was done. She was angry that she could find no fault.

On the third evening she said: "Ask me a question. Any question. But choose carefully. Some questions are dangerous."

Vasilisa asked about the white horseman, the red horseman, the black horseman. The witch answered: "The white is my Bright Day. The red is my Red Sun. The black is my Dark Night. They are my faithful servants." Vasilisa wanted to ask about the hands without bodies that did the witch's work, but the doll trembled in her pocket and Vasilisa stopped.

The witch said: "Now ask me how you have done the work I gave you."

"My mother's blessing has helped me," said Vasilisa.

The witch jumped up. "A blessed person under my roof? Out, out, you blessed thing." She took down a skull from the fence, with eyes burning inside it, and put it on a stick, and pushed it into Vasilisa's hands. "Here is your fire. Go."

Vasilisa walked back through the forest, holding the skull on the stick. Its eyes lit her way home. She thought several times of throwing it away, because the burning eyes followed her, but the doll said: "Hold on to it."

When she came to her stepmother's house, she meant to leave the skull at the door. The doll said: "Take it inside." She did. She set it on the table. The stepmother and her two daughters tried to mock it. The skull's eyes turned to them and burned them where they stood. By morning there was nothing left of them but ash on the floor.

Vasilisa buried the skull in the garden. She left the house. She walked to the city and was taken in by an old woman who lived alone. She asked to spin and weave for her. The doll helped her at night. She wove cloth so fine you could hardly see it, and the old woman took it to the king.

The king saw the cloth and asked who had made it. He sent for Vasilisa. He saw her face. He married her in a month. Her father came back from his journey to find her queen.

She kept the doll with her in a small wooden box for the rest of her life. She fed it every evening. The doll listened to her, even after there was no need.