Volume 1 of this set was reviewed here in May 2015.[1] Rather than extend those remarks about the great importance of the Afanas’ev collection for folktale research, the present review will concentrate on why and how the tales, particularly those here in Volume 2, will appeal to readers.
By definition, traditional tales exist in variants. This characteristic is the basis of comparative folktale research but it remains extremely difficult to convey to readers. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas’ev is, of any English-language folktale book I know, the most suited to this purpose. Texts are presented adjacent to other variants of the same tale type, sometimes in groups of four or five. Although the sequence of events in several texts will thus be similar, their style is varied enough that each version can be distinctly remembered.
Volume 2 starts out with tales that feature a splendid, magic horse (comparable to the Hungarian táltos horse) who helps an unpromising hero win his bride. In tales 179 and 180, the youngest brother takes the place of his two elder siblings watching overnight at their father’s grave, and thereby wins a spectacular horse that lets him win the hand of a princess. He goes incognito to three balls and is recognized at last (the story arc is quite similar to that of Cinderella). All the sections are trebled: the grave watch, the jumping contest, and the balls. In tale 181 the three brothers each watch for one night at the grave; there are three jumps but only one feast. In tale 182 the youngest brother watches at the grave for all three nights, there are three jumps but only one feast.
Tales 182 through 184 add a second section. After the hero and the princess are married, the hero and his brothers-in-law are sent on quests for wonderful game animals. The brothers-in-law claim to have hunted the animals but, because they actually bought them from the hero in exchange for joints from their fingers, they are shown to be liars. In tale 184, the youngest brother watches on all three nights and receives magic bridles that allow him to control three horses which help him win the princess; in the quest part of the tale, he uses the same bridles to energize three nags. The horse’s name in tales 179, 182, and 183 is Sivko-Burko or something similar. The princess recognizes the winner of the jumping contest by a mark on his forehead (no. 184), the brilliant forehead that is exposed when he removes a covering cloth (no. 182), or a piece of cloth he grabbed when his horse made the winning jump (no. 179). In tale 183, Sivka-Burka first appears only in the middle, but we can use the grave-watch episode of the other variants to understand why such a horse would want to assist the hero. Tales 295 and 296 present another unpromising hero who, with the help of a magic horse, successfully fights a war.
Such descriptions may seem uninteresting or even confusing, but when a careful reader visualizes what happens in each variant, the different possibilities—longer or shorter descriptions, another way to cover an episode, a different beginning or ending, etc.—reverberate to produce an ideal or mental form of the tale type(s), with numerous possibilities for different elaborations or for succinctness, that is much more interesting than any single variant. Among the 140 texts in Volume 2, there are at least eighteen such clusters of three or more interrelated variants, plus many more tale types represented by a pair of variants. Volume 1, with eight variants of the firebird tale ATU 551, resonates in the same way. Because of the arrangement of the whole collection—animal tales, then wondertales, then non-magical tales and humorous anecdotes—there are more magic tales in Volume 2.
Characters prominent in Volume 2 include various magicians, helpful magical animals, and beautiful women whose accomplishments save their sweethearts or husbands from danger. There are treacherous women—sisters or stepsisters and stepmothers who scheme to do in the protagonist (male or female)—and many female victims who have been cast out, maimed, turned into animals, or otherwise abused. Beginning around tale no. 300, the flamboyant magic fades out, and most of the remaining tales are about good and bad luck, fate, or trickery.
In addition to identifying AT type numbers and sometimes Grimm KHM analogs, Jack Haney’s brief notes are packed with useful information about the geographic extent of the tale types represented, important printed sources, and influence from other genres such as epic songs (byliny). The notes to tales 283 to 289, for example, reveal two or three different forms of AT 707, The Three Golden Sons. In two variants, similar to those throughout Europe, the mother, falsely accused of having given birth to animals, is immured in a building and her children are sent on life-threatening quests. Four other variants represent an East Slavic form in which the unfortunate mother is set adrift with one of her sons in a barrel and the marvelous children set up an impressive establishment that comes to the attention of their royal father. And in one variant, the sons, buried, return in the form of trees, then of lambs, and finally are reborn from their mother, as themselves.
Volume 3 is scheduled to complete the set. Sadly, Jack Haney, the editor and translator, also the editor and translator of The Complete Russian Folktale (7 vols., 1998-2007), passed away last year.
Note
[1] See http://www.indiana.edu/~jfr/review.php?id=1864.
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[Review length: 912 words • Review posted on March 16, 2016]