of human bones and skulls. With the aid of her doll and some common
sense Vasilisa survives the visit, and in the end it is her sisters who suffer
rather than Vasilisa. Often in Russian fairy tales the youngest girl or boy,
who is considered stupid or is picked on in some other way by older siblings,
ends up successful. In these stories having to work hard is not necessarily a
virtue; being able to get the work done without lifting a finger was no doubt
much more attractive to the hardworking people who invented the stories.

Russians know many other stories, like the one about the Frog Princess
or the one about the Seven Semyons. Russian children grow up with these
stories, as well as many more modern children's works by authors such as
Samuel Marshak or Korney Chukovsky, part of nearly every child's upbring-
ing, and a link with the far distant Russian past when fairy tales were first
told.

Afanas'ev Aleksandr. Russian Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.

Mirsky, D. S. A History of Russian Literature. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.

Moser, Charles, ed. The Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996.

Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1991.

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