Episode Details

Four works from the collection in one sitting. A wife who will take in no lodger who cannot tell tales is cured of her passion by a frozen traveller whose whole tale, all night long, is an owl that flew past a garden, sat on a log, and drank some water. A peasant gives a night ride to a stranger in a red shirt who passes the houses whose gates bear burned crosses, drinks the blood of an old man and a lad, and vanishes from the graveyard at cockcrow. An old tall-tale song strings wonder on wonder — a barn burning in the middle of the sea, a ship running across the field, a bear flying through the sky, a cow coming down a hill on skis. And Alyosha Popovich, the priest's son who grew by the hour and played too roughly with the village children, rides to Prince Vladimir's court, mocks the glutton Tugarin from the top of the brick stove, prays down the rain that wets Tugarin's paper wings, and brings his head back to Kiev on the point of a spear.

The tales «Как муж отучил жену от сказок» (№ 448), «Рассказ о мертвеце» (№ 577), «Байка про старину стародавнюю» (№ 428) and «Алёша Попович» (№ 312) — from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, in new English translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.

Afanasyev.

Intermission: "2-27" — instrumental.

KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.