Episode Details

Afanasyev — Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf, Part One

A Firebird with feathers of gold and eyes like eastern crystal comes night after night to Tsar Vyslav's garden and strips his beloved apple tree of its golden apples. Two elder brothers keep watch and sleep; the youngest, Ivan-tsarevich, stays awake and comes away with a single feather that lights a dark room like a multitude of candles. Sent to fetch the bird alive, Ivan reads the warning on a pillar in the open field, loses his horse to a great gray wolf — and gains the wolf himself as a helper swifter than any horse. In Tsar Dolmat's garden he takes the Firebird but cannot resist its golden cage, and is caught; in Tsar Afron's white-stone stables he takes the horse with the golden mane but cannot resist the golden bridle, and is caught again. Each captivity is forgiven only for a harder errand — and Part One ends with Ivan walking out of Afron's palace in bitter tears, bound now to fetch Elena the Beautiful.

The Tale of Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf (Сказка об Иване-царевиче, жар-птице и о сером волке, № 168) — from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, in a new English translation made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.

Afanasyev.

Intermission: "Calm After the Current" — instrumental.

KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.