Ilya Muromets and the Dragon

Author: Alexander Afanasyev

Time Period: 1851 CE–1900 CE

Country or Culture: Russia

Genre: Folktale

PLOT SUMMARY

A peasant couple, who have saved up a considerable amount of money, decide to have a child. After praying to God, the wife becomes pregnant. When the child is born, his legs do not work properly. Years go by, and when the child, Ilya, reaches his eighteenth birthday, his legs still do not function.

One day while the parents are out working, a beggar-pilgrim comes to their house. Ilya is home alone, and when the old man asks for alms, he explains that his legs do not work and that he cannot bring anything. The old man enters the house and demands that the young man rise from his bed and fetch a pitcher. Wondrously, Ilya does just so. The old man then has Ilya fill the pitcher with water and instructs him to drink all of it. Once Ilya finishes drinking, the old man tells him to refill the pitcher. Ilya goes to fetch more water, and each time he grasps a tree for support, he ends up pulling it out of the ground. Ilya can feel a new strength coursing through him. In fear of Ilya becoming uncontrollably strong, the pilgrim drinks half of the second pitcher’s water and commands Ilya to drink the remaining half. This lessens Ilya’s strength. The beggar praises God and leaves.

Ilya grows bored with lying around and starts digging up the whole forest. When his parents return from work, they are shocked at what their son has done. The czar learns of the boy’s feats and summons him to Kiev to display his strength. Ilya sees the czar’s beautiful daughter and wants to marry her.

The czar leaves one day to visit another king. This king tells the czar that his daughter is being drained of life by a twelve-headed dragon. The czar knows that Ilya is powerful enough to kill the dragon, so he goes back home and calls Ilya before him. Ilya agrees to the task. From the stables, he selects the only horse that does not stumble when he pats it on the back. He rides for a time until he comes to a very tall and steep mountain made of sand. At the top he finds a sign indicating three roads: one will force him to go hungry, the second will force his horse to go hungry, and the third will lead to death. Having faith in himself, he takes the third road.

The road leads Ilya to a thick forest, where he finds the home of Baba Yaga. The old witch attacks Ilya with a scythe, but he bests her. She eventually invites him in, where she feeds him. He stays the night, and in the morning, Baba Yaga sends him off with a letter to her sister, so that she will not also attack him. This second Baba Yaga warns Ilya about Nightingale the Robber (Solovey-Razboynik), who makes his nest atop seven oak trees and can deafen a person with his whistling. Ilya is not affected by Nightingale’s voice, though, and he manages to capture the creature in his satchel.

When he arrives at the palace, Ilya shows the king that he has caught Nightingale. The king then pleads for him to slay the twelve-headed dragon that is sucking the energy from his daughter. Ilya attacks, and with each blow another of the beast’s heads falls off until none are left and it is dead. With the task completed, Ilya returns to his kingdom, where he weds the czar’s daughter.

SIGNIFICANCE

This story, recorded in the nineteenth century by folklorist Alexander Afanasyev, is one of many medieval tales concerned with the Russian epic hero Ilya Muromets. He is celebrated in numerous Russian epic poems and tales for achieving a number of feats, and he is considered the greatest bogatyr, a term applied to the great folk heroes of Kievan Rus, a medieval Slavic state. In other versions of the tale of his origins, Ilya’s grandfather puts a curse on him that makes him unable to walk, and this enchantment is not lifted until he is thirty-three years old. Scholars believe that while Ilya’s heroic exploits belong to the realm of epic fiction, he may have been based on a twelfth-century warrior known as Chobitko, who earned this name for beating his enemies with a chobot (boot). Later in life, Chobitko became a monk in Kiev and was canonized in 1643 as Saint Ilya Muromets.

While little is known of Chobitko’s life, records do mention a peasant upbringing and paralysis as a youth. He was a member of the royal bodyguard and fought against the Tatars until he eventually retired and took up a life devoted to religion. When his remains were examined in 1988, scholars found that he was above average height and had an incurable spine defect. Examination of his wounds showed that Chobitko may have been killed when the Mongols besieged Kiev in 1204.

The great amount of evidence of Ilya’s existence has helped make him a very popular character. Since being canonized in the seventeenth century, Ilya has remained a very popular saint among Russians. He has been the protagonist of many works of literature, films, works of art, and even cartoons. The residents of the village of Karacharof, believed to be Ilya’s birthplace—Ilya Muromets’s name comes from the nearest town, Murom—consider themselves direct descendants of the hero.

Several recurring themes and narrative structures appear in the tale of Ilya and the dragon. One prominent example is the rule of three, in which the protagonist is tasked with three challenges or obstacles. This appears frequently in folklore and fairy tales. Ilya must take three trips with the pitchers of water to heal his legs and gain strength, and when he begins his journey, he must select from three paths and overcome three obstacles (two witches and the Nightingale). In other versions of the tale, three pilgrims make thirty-three-year-old Ilya strong.

The Baba Yaga who appears in this story is one of the most famous beings in Russian folklore. Her name is used as a general term for a witch; typically she is depicted as an old woman who lives deep in the forest inside a house with a hidden front door. When visitors reach out to her for help, she either aids them or hinders their journey. Here, both incarnations of Baba Yaga help Ilya achieve his goal to slay the dragon and marry the czar’s daughter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avanova, Tatyana, and James Bailey, trans. An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics. Armonk: Sharpe, 1998. Print.

Balina, Marina, Helena Goscilo, and Mark Lipovetsky, eds. Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Tales. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2005. Print.

Hapgood, Isabel Florence. The Epic Songs of Russia. 1916. New York: Scribner, 1969. Print.

Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Lang, 2004. Print.