A merchant had a single daughter named Vasilisa. She was very beautiful, so she was known as Vasilisa the Beautiful. When she was eight years old, her mother died. Before dying, Vasilisa’s mother gave her a tiny wooden doll. She instructed Vasilisa to give the doll a little to eat and a little to drink if she was in need. The doll would, then, help her. As soon as her mother died, Vasilisa gave the doll a little to drink and a little to eat, and it comforted her. After some time, her father married again. Vasilisa now had two step-sisters. The step-mother was very cruel to her. But the doll helped Vasilisa perform all the tasks that her step-mother imposed on her. One day, the merchant had to go to another town. His wife sold the house and all of them had to move in a gloomy hut by the forest.
The Step-mother
One day, the step-mother gave each of the girls a task and put out all the fires except a single candle. Her elder daughter then put out the candle. Then, they asked Vasilisa to go and fetch light from Baba Yaga’s hut. Vasilisa asked her doll and the doll advised her to go. On her way, a strange man rode by her in the hours before dawn. He was dressed in white, riding a white horse and all his equipments were also white. A little later, a similar rider passed by but he was all in red. She reached Baba Yaga’s house that stood on chicken legs. The house was walled by a fence made of human bones. A black rider rode past her, and night fell. The eye sockets of the skulls began to glow. Vasilisa was too scared. She could not run away. So, Baba Yaga found her when she arrived in her mortar. Baba Yaga told Vasilisa to perform certain tasks to earn the fire, else she would be killed.
Vasilisa and Baba Yaga
Vasilisa had to clean the house and yard, wash Baba Yaga’s clothes and cook a meal for her. After that, Baba Yaga asked her to separate grains of rotten corn from sound corn, and separate poppy seeds from grains of soil. Saying this, Baba Yaga left, and Vasilisa kept working. She was very tired. She had lost all hope of completing the tasks. At that very moment, the doll whispered that she would complete the tasks and that the girl should sleep. At dawn, the white rider passed and at noon, the red. When the black rider rode past, Baba Yaga returned and she was surprised to see that all the tasks were completed. She asked Vasilisa if she had any questions. Vasilisa wanted to know about the riders’ identities. Baba Yaga said that the white one was Day, the red one the Sun, and the black one Night. In return, Baba Yaga wanted to know the secret of Vasilisa’s success.
The Skull-lantern
Vasilisa said that the reason of her success was, “My mother’s blessings.” Baba Yaga could not tolerate anyone with any kind of blessing in her presence. So, she threw Vasilisa out of her house, and sent her home. Baba Yaga gave her a skull-lantern full of burning coals, to provide light for her step-family. When she returned home, Vasilisa found that, after she had left the hut, her step-family had been unable to light any candle or fire in their home. The lamps and the candles could not be brought from outside as well. All of them were snuffed, the moment they were carried over the threshold. The coals of the skull-lantern burned Vasilisa’s step-mother and step-sisters to ashes. Vasilisa then buried the skull so that no one else might be harmed by it. Later, Vasilisa became an assistant to a cloth-maker in Russia’s capital-city. She became so skilled at her work that the Tsar himself noticed her skill and later married her.
