The Fiend

The Fiend or The Vampire^[1] (Russian: Упырь Upyr) is a Russian fairy tale, collected by Alexander Afanasyev as his number 363.^[2] The tale was translated and published by William Ralston Shedden-Ralston.^[3]

Plot synopsis

A young woman named Marusia goes to a feast where she meets a kind, handsome and apparently wealthy man. They fall in love with each other and Marusia agrees to marry him. She also consents to her mother's directive that she follow the boy to discover where he lives and more about him. She follows him to the church where she sees him eating a corpse. Later the fiend asks her if she saw him at the church. When Marusia denies having followed him, he tells her that her father will die the next day. Thereafter, he continually poses the question and with each denial he causes another of her family members to die. Finally he tells her that she herself will die. At this point Marusia asks her grandmother what to do. Her grandmother explains a way by which Marusia can come back to life after she dies (a condition of which is that she cannot enter a church afterwards). On coming back to life she meets a good man whom she marries, however he does not like the fact that she will not go to church and eventually forces her to do so. Thus the Fiend discovers that she is alive and kills her husband and her son, but with the help of her grandmother, the water of life, and holy water she brings them back and kills the fiend.

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 363, "The Vampire" or "The Corpse-Eater",^[4]^[5] while in the East Slavic Folktale Classification (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS) it is indexed as type SUS 363, Russian: Жених-упыръ, romanized: Zhenikh-upyr, lit. 'Vampire Bridegroom'.^[6] These stories are about a girl who marries a mysterious man. During their way home, they stop by a church and the man enters it. Worried about his long absence, the woman follows him and sees him devouring a corpse.^[7]^[8]^[9]

The original name of the tale, Упырь, is the word for "vampire" in Slavic languages.^[10]

Variants

Scholarship states that the tale type appears in Europe and Turkey. In Turkish variants, the heroine triumphs in the end over the dervish,^[11] while in Europe the fate of the heroine may differ between regions (a Scandinavian and Baltic version, a West Slavic and Ukrainian one).^[12]

References

^ Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume III. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2021. pp. 93-98.
^ Народные русские сказки А. Н. Афанасьева. Tom 3. Лит. памятники. М.: Наука, 1984—1985.
^ Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. Russian Folk-tales. New York: R. Worthington, 1878. pp. 24-31.
^ Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 126-127.
^ Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 228. ISBN 978-951-41-0963-8.
^ Barag, Lev. "Сравнительный указатель сюжетов. Восточнославянская сказка". Leningrad: НАУКА, 1979. p. 125.
^ Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. pp. 40-41. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
^ Pavelková, Marta. "Motiv antropofágie jako součást světové mytologie a folkloru" [Anthropophagy as a part of international mythology and folklore]. In: Studia Ethnologica Pragensia 2018, Vol. 2. Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství. pp. 151-163.
^ Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume III. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2021. p. 536.
^ Andersen, Henning. 2021. „Pide. *peh2ur ‘ogenj’. Dve Slovanski Etimologiji“. In: Slovenski Jezik [Slovene Linguistic Studies] 13 (oktober). Ljubljana, Slovenija. pp. 11-12. https://doi.org/10.3986/sjsls.13.1.01.
^ Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî (1953). Typen türkischer Volksmärchen (in German). Wiesbaden: Steiner. pp. 163–165. doi:10.25673/36433.
^ Kostiukhin, E. A. 1998. “Magic Tales That End Badly”. FOLKLORICA - Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association 3 (2): 9. https://doi.org/10.17161/folklorica.v3i2.3670.

External links

[1] Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume III. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2021. pp. 93-98.

[2] Народные русские сказки А. Н. Афанасьева. Tom 3. Лит. памятники. М.: Наука, 1984—1985.

[3] Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. Russian Folk-tales. New York: R. Worthington, 1878. pp. 24-31.

[4] Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 126-127.

[5] Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 228. ISBN 978-951-41-0963-8.

[6] Barag, Lev. "Сравнительный указатель сюжетов. Восточнославянская сказка". Leningrad: НАУКА, 1979. p. 125.

[7] Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. pp. 40-41. ISBN 0-520-03537-2

[8] Pavelková, Marta. "Motiv antropofágie jako součást světové mytologie a folkloru" [Anthropophagy as a part of international mythology and folklore]. In: Studia Ethnologica Pragensia 2018, Vol. 2. Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství. pp. 151-163.

[9] Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume III. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2021. p. 536.

[10] Andersen, Henning. 2021. „Pide. *peh2ur ‘ogenj’. Dve Slovanski Etimologiji“. In: Slovenski Jezik [Slovene Linguistic Studies] 13 (oktober). Ljubljana, Slovenija. pp. 11-12. https://doi.org/10.3986/sjsls.13.1.01.

[11] Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî (1953). Typen türkischer Volksmärchen (in German). Wiesbaden: Steiner. pp. 163–165. doi:10.25673/36433.

[12] Kostiukhin, E. A. 1998. “Magic Tales That End Badly”. FOLKLORICA - Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association 3 (2): 9. https://doi.org/10.17161/folklorica.v3i2.3670.

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v t e Russian fairy tales
Key articles	Skazka Bylina Folklore of Russia Alexander Afanasyev Alexander Pushkin
Tales in Narodnye russkie skazki collected by Afanasyev	"Koschei the Immortal" "Vasilisa the Beautiful" "Vasilisa the Priest's Daughter" "Father Frost" "Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka" "The Frog Princess" "Vasilii the Unlucky" "The White Duck" "The Princess Who Never Smiled" "The Wicked Sisters" "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" "The Magic Swan Geese" "The Feather of Finist the Falcon" "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" "The Bold Knight, the Apples of Youth, and the Water of Life" "Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What" "The Golden Slipper" "The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa" "The Wise Little Girl" "The Armless Maiden" "The Gigantic Turnip" "Storm-Bogatyr, Ivan the Cow's Son" "Emelya the Simpleton/At the Pike's Behest" "The Fiend" "The Lute Player" "The Language of the Birds" "The Maiden Tsar" "The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise" "The Norka" "Dawn, Midnight and Twilight" "Verlioka" "Sivko-Burko" "Donotknow"
Tales by Pushkin	"Ruslan and Ludmila" "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"
Other	"The Little Humpbacked Horse" "The Scarlet Flower" "The Snow Maiden" "The Hairy Man" "King Kojata" "The Tale About Baba-Yaga" "The Wonderful Birch" "The Girl as Soldier" "Green-Vanka"