Origins and setting
“The Frog Princess” (Tsarevna Lyagushka) is a classic Russian wonder tale, widely told across the East Slavic world. It blends two powerful folktale strands: the animal-bride who is secretly an enchanted wise woman, and the youngest prince’s quest through the “thrice-nine lands” to win her back. Its set pieces are famous: the arrow-shot bride-test, the frog-wife’s miraculous mastery of impossible tasks, the revel at court where she dances wonders out of her sleeves, the rash burning of the frog-skin, and the long road to the hut of Baba Yaga and the stronghold of Koshchei the Deathless.
The tale
There was once a Tsar with three sons. When they were come to marrying age, he said, “Each of you take an arrow, shoot it whithersoe’er it flies, and from where it is found, there take your bride.”
The eldest let fly and his arrow fell into the courtyard of a boyar; he married the boyar’s fair daughter. The middle shot and his arrow struck a merchant’s balcony; he married the merchant’s lovely child. The youngest, Ivan Tsarevich, drew and loosed—and his arrow fell into a marsh, where a frog sat with its green eyes bright. The frog tucked the shaft beneath its foreleg and croaked, “Croak! Ivan Tsarevich, take me to wife.”
Ivan hung his head, but the Tsar had given his word. So Ivan was wed to the frog, and the court laughed till the sconces shook.
That night, heavy-hearted, Ivan sat by the window. The frog on the sill spoke in a soft, human voice: “Do not grieve, Tsarevich; lie down and sleep—morning is wiser than evening.”
The impossible tasks
On the morrow the Tsar tested his new daughters-in-law. “Bake me bread by dawn, each of you, and let me see whose hands are cleverest.”
The boyar’s daughter sifted and kneaded; the merchant’s daughter likewise. Ivan went home miserable. The frog said, “Sleep.” When he slept, she hopped to the window, cast off the frog-skin, and stood revealed as a maiden of unearthly grace—Vasilisa the Wise. She clapped her hands and cried, “Little maidens, my dear handmaids, bake me wheaten bread such as my father ate.” From nowhere came bright girls with sieves and paddles; by cockcrow a round white loaf lay on the board, its crust traced with cities and fields in brown.
The Tsar tasted each loaf. He praised the elder brides—but Vasilisa’s bread was fit for a coronation.
“Now bring me cloth, woven and embroidered by night, that shirts may be made,” said the Tsar. Again the elder brides laboured; again Ivan fretted; again the frog said, “Sleep.” Vasilisa rose from the skin, summoned her handmaids, and by dawn there lay linen fine as a spider’s breath, stitched with sun and moon and strange beasts.
The Tsar marvelled. “Let us see the brides at feast, then,” he said. “Come all to-morrow, and see you carry yourselves well.”
The revel at court
Ivan was sick with shame. A frog at a feast! But at dusk the frog said, “Go alone before me. I shall not disgrace you.” He went, and when the court was full, a coach finer than snow-clouds drew up, and from it stepped Vasilisa the Wise, glittering as frost at sunrise.
The elder brides sniggered when they saw Ivan empty-handed. Vasilisa smiled and asked them sweetly, “Why bring you your work-baskets to a royal feast?” (For they had out of spite carried distaff and spindle, to shame the “frog.”) Then the music struck, and Vasilisa danced.
She waved her left sleeve—a lake spread across the hall, swans sailing. She waved her right sleeve—a green grove rose, with birds singing. The swans swam into the grove; the grove folded into the lake; the lake drew back into her sleeve as if it had never been. The elder brides, mad to imitate her, flapped their sleeves and only scattered bones and peelings across the floor, to the great mirth of all.
Ivan, seeing where his fortune lay, slipped home ahead of her, found the frog-skin, and burned it in the stove. “Now she will be mine in truth,” he thought.
When Vasilisa returned and saw the ashes, her eyes filled. “Ah, Ivan Tsarevich! If only you had waited three days, I should be free for ever. Now the spell recoils: I must go where it was laid. Seek me, if you will, in the thrice-nine land, in the thrice-tenth kingdom, in the house of Koshchei the Deathless.” She turned to a cuckoo (some say a swan) and flew out at the window.
The road through the thrice-nine lands
Ivan set out at once. In a dark wood he met a little grey old man.
“Whither, Tsarevich?”
“To find my wife, Vasilisa the Wise.”
“Hard is the road and long,” said the old man, “but do not shun mercy; it will go before you. Take this ball of thread: cast it, and follow where it rolls.” Ivan cast it; the ball ran ahead, unwinding a path.
On the way he spared a bear from his spear. “Do not kill me, Tsarevich,” said the bear; “I may serve you.” He spared a hare in the thicket. “I shall remember,” said the hare. He spared a drake at the river, and threw back a pike that had leapt upon the bank. Each called after him, “You will need me yet!”
The ball brought him to a hut on chicken legs, turning about on one foot. Ivan cried the charm:
“Little hut, little hut,
Turn your back to the forest,
Your front to me!”
The hut swung round. Within sat Baba Yaga, iron-toothed, bony-kneed, grinding her teeth. “Fie, fie! The Russian smell—never was it heard of here, yet now it comes to the eye! What do you seek, fair youth?”
“My wife, Vasilisa the Wise, carried to Koshchei.”
Baba Yaga scratched her chin with a bone. “Service for service. Three nights you shall tend my fire and horse; do not let the fire die, nor the mare stray, and I shall help you.”
Ivan served. The nights were wicked: winds to snuff the coals, sprites to loosen the tether. But the bear guarded the door with its back; the hare chased the mare when she burst her halter; the drake and pike turned back the river when it rose to drown the embers. Morning by morning Ivan had a bright hearth and a bridled mare to show.
“Well enough,” said Baba Yaga at last, not unkind. She gave him a horse of the whirlwind and three small things: a comb, a brush, and a towel. “When Koshchei follows you, cast them behind you in this order. And mind—his strength is in his horse.”
Koshchei’s house and the flight
Guided by the wind-horse, Ivan found the shining palace where Vasilisa sat, spinning grief into silk. They clasped hands. “Hush,” she said. “Koshchei sleeps like a stone by day and rides like the storm by night. We must steal his mare; without her he cannot overtake us.”
Vasilisa stroked Koshchei’s horse with lullabies and fed her poppy-seed; Ivan slipped on the bridle. They mounted and fled. When the sun went down, Koshchei woke and shouted; the walls trembled. He sprang to his stable; his mare was gone. He leapt upon a sorry hack and thundered after.
They heard the earth shake. “He comes,” said Vasilisa. Ivan cast the comb behind. In an instant there rose a black forest, close and thorny. Koshchei hacked through with iron, the sparks flying.
“He comes,” said Vasilisa. Ivan cast the brush. A mountain heaved up, steep and bare. Koshchei’s horse scrambled and slid; he cursed the stars and spurred on.
“He comes,” said Vasilisa. Ivan cast the towel. Between pursuer and pursued rolled a deep river, cold and swift. Koshchei hammered the bank with his fist; he drank the water down to a ford—but his horse, weary and wretched, stumbled. In that breath the whirlwind-mare bore Ivan and Vasilisa beyond reach.
Some tell that Ivan turned and, meeting Koshchei on the bank, smote off his head; others, that the river took him and the current carried his bones to the blue sea. In any case, there was no more pursuit.
Homecoming
Ivan and Vasilisa rode back through the thrice-nine lands to the Tsar’s court. The elder brothers gaped; the elder brides bit their lips. The Tsar rose, wept for joy, and set out his best cups. A wedding was held—yes, another, and this time with no laughter at the bride. Vasilisa kept her wisdom and her wonder, all without a frog-skin, and Ivan kept his lesson.
And if ever he sat thoughtful in the evening, you might hear Vasilisa say, with a smile, “Morning is wiser than evening, Ivan Tsarevich.” He would nod, for he knew it to be true.
Iconic lines and moments
- The bride-test: “Each shoot your arrow; from where it is found, there take your bride.”
- The frog-wife’s counsel: “Do not grieve; lie down and sleep—morning is wiser than evening.”
- The marvels at court: a lake and swans from one sleeve, a grove with singing birds from the other.
- The lament at the ashes: “If only you had waited three days…”
- The formula at the witch’s door: “Little hut, little hut, turn your back to the forest, your front to me!”
- The pursuit broken by charms: comb → forest; brush → mountain; towel → river.
Thus ends The Frog Princess: a tale of a wise woman hidden in a frog’s skin, a prince who learns patience the hard way, and a love proved on the long road beyond the world’s edge.
Leave a Reply