Father Frost (Russian folktale)

Author: Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal

Time Period: 1851 CE–1900 CE

Country or Culture: Russia

Genre: Folktale

PLOT SUMMARY

The Russian tale “Father Frost,” recorded for an English-speaking audience by Vera Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal, shares a familiar set of character types in its story of reward and punishment.

The story starts with a family that includes a selfish and thoughtless stepmother and her spoiled daughter, as well as a weak father and his virtuous daughter. Despite doing everything she is told, this daughter, who is “good and kind,” receives “no other reward than reproach” (Blumenthal 141). The stepmother is so jealous of the girl that she sends her ineffectual husband on a mission to abandon his daughter in the winter woods, where, she anticipates, the girl will die. The girl’s father is so pathetic in his subservience to his wife that though he “wish[es] to cover [the girl] with a sheepskin in order to protect her from the cold,” he does not do so, because “he [is] afraid.” As he leaves, the narrator attempts to forgive him for his weakness by commenting that the father is “a good man” who does “not care to see his daughter’s death” (142).

After being left out in the freezing wild without even a blanket to keep herself warm, the girl is visited by Father Frost. The king of winter approaches her and asks if she can identify him. Because she is upright and well trained, she responds courteously and denies her own discomfort in a desire to honor him, even when he challenges her goodness with an assault of icy temperatures. Father Frost is wise and understands her true state, so, “charmed” (Blumenthal 143) by her attitude, he takes pity on her and rewards her generously with many riches. Upon donning “a blue ‘sarafan’ ornamented with silver and pearls” (145), the girl’s loveliness shines like the sun.

Meanwhile, her stepmother is home preparing the girl’s funeral meal. As the stepmother works, a little dog crows, “Bow-Wow! bow-wow! the old man’s daughter is on her way home, beautiful and happy as never before, and the old woman’s daughter is wicked as ever before” (Blumenthal 145). The woman alternately beats and attempts to bribe the dog with food to tell her that her daughter will be rewarded while her stepdaughter will be found dead. When her husband comes home with his daughter and her gifts, the woman sees an opportunity to gain riches for her own child and sends him back to the cold wilderness with her own daughter.

The story ends with a predictable twist. The woman’s daughter is as rude and shortsighted as her mother, so Father Frost, disgusted by the girl’s attitude, freezes her to death. Though crushed by her child’s demise, the woman finally accepts her own culpability and learns a lesson about the dangers of evil and jealous attitudes.

SIGNIFICANCE

For centuries after Russia opened to Christianity, Russian folktales were discouraged by the church, the government, and upper levels of society, partially because of their connection to pagan beliefs. In the nineteenth century, however, several literary, art, and music figures, such as Alexander Pushkin, began to acknowledge the power of the oral tales, bringing them to the attention of literary study. True study of Russian folklore began to be regarded as an important contribution to literature with Vladimir Propp’s Morfologija skazki (1928; Morphology of the Folktale, 1958) as well as his later works. Propp makes several points about the “Father Frost” story: first, the tale is part of a cycle focusing on the motif of the victimized child from a previous wife; second, there are several variations of the story, with one version using Father Frost as the magical figure, while other accounts use a bear or a wood goblin; and finally, regardless of the specific character who fulfills the role in the story, the story structure remains the same. Propp’s claim coincided with Stith Thompson’s first revision of Antti Aarne’s categorization of folktales, also in 1928, and connected “Father Frost” to Aarne-Thompson tale type 480, the tale of the kind and unkind girls. Additionally, the tale’s universal appeal becomes clear in the ways the characters fulfill several of Thompson’s motifs as laid out in his Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932–36).

A list of thirty-one “functions” of various folktale characters was compiled and defined by Propp in Morphology. Among the functions this story contains are function 8, “villany,” in which “the villain causes harm or injury to a member of a family”; function 11, “departure,” in which “the hero leaves home,” either willingly or unwillingly; function 12, the “first function of the donor,” in which “the hero is tested, interrogated, attacked, etc., which prepares the way for his receiving either a magical agent or helper”; function 13, the “hero’s reaction,” in which “the hero reacts to the actions of the future donor”; function 29, “transfiguration,” in which “the hero is given a new appearance”; and function 30, “punishment,” in which “the villain is punished” (Propp 122–23). The girl’s deliverance into the wild by her father fits functions 8 and 11, her interaction with Father Frost mesh with functions 12 and 13, and her reward of riches and transformation when she puts on the gown from Father Frost is function 29. Blumenthal’s version of the tale ends with the stepmother’s recognition of her own complicity in her daughter’s death, thus fulfilling function 30.

Thompson’s traditional motifs, which are not usually applied to Russian folklore, are nevertheless also evident in the characters of the story. The cruel stepmother who cares only for her own child to the detriment of her husband’s child is probably the most obvious character type. This stepmother not only mocks the virtuous girl but orders her husband to abandon his daughter in the woods with the full knowledge and hope that the girl will freeze to death. Further, her abuse of the dog as it predicts the future demonstrates motif W185, “violence of temper,” and her greed and jealousy are evident when she sends her daughter out to gain riches. In contrast to the stepmother, the man’s daughter possesses a variety of Thompson’s “favorable traits of character,” including “kindness” (W10), “patience” (W26), and “obedience” (W31), and she is rewarded for these positive traits. Finally, the talking dog fits Thompson’s motifs of “prophetic animals” (B140) and “speaking animals” (B210).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blumenthal, Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de. Folk Tales from the Russian. Chicago: Rand, 1903. Print.

Marshall, Bonnie C., trans. The Snow Maiden and Other Russian Tales. Westport: Libs. Unltd., 2004. Print.

Propp, Vladimir. “The Structure of Russian Fairy Tales.” International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore. Ed. Alan Dundes. New York: Rowman, 1999. 119–30. Print.

Riordan, James. “Russian Fairy Tales and Their Collectors.” A Companion to the Fairy Tale. Ed. Hilda Ellis Davidson and Anna Chaudhri. Rochester: Brewer, 2003. 217–25. Print.

Sherman, Josepha. World Folklore for Storytellers: Tales of Wonder, Wisdom, Fools, and Heroes. Armonk: Sharpe, 2009. Print.

Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Medieval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends. Rev. and enl. ed. 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1955–58. Ruthenia. Web. 7 June 2013.