Let's remember:

Lukomorye has a green oak tree;

Golden chain on oak tom:

Both day and night the cat is a scientist

Everything goes round and round in a chain;

Goes to the right - the song starts,

To the left-he tells a fairy tale.

Kot-bayun himself came from an oral folk tale: from a beautiful island in the middle of the sea, where he amazed passing merchants and shipbuilders. A. S. Pushkin heard this fairy tale in Mikhailovsky-probably from Arina Rodionovna. In a synopsis of 1824, he wrote: "A certain tsar planned to marry, but did not find anyone to his liking. He once overheard the conversation of three sisters. The eldest boasted that the state would feed her with one grain, the second boasted that she would clothe her with one piece of cloth, and the third boasted that she would give birth to 33 sons from the first year." In the specified period, "the queen was safely resolved with 33 boys", and also gave birth to another, wonderful one: "legs up to the knee are silver, handles up to the elbows are gold, a star in the forehead, a month in the veil... "(Pushkin A. S. Sobr. soch.: In 10 volumes, Moscow, 1975. Vol. 3. P. 425).

In the happiest year for the poet in 1831, this work formed the basis of his radiant "Tale of Tsar Saltan". The cat used earlier in the prologue to the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was replaced by a cheerful, flirtatious squirrel - the fruit of the author's imagination. But one image was repeated. In Pushkin's synopsis of a folk tale, it was laconically marked:"...The sea was stirred up, and 30 young men and an old man came out" (Ibid., p. 426). The poet turned it into a picture twice with inspiration:

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There the forest and the valley are full of visions;

There about the dawn the waves will rush

On breg sandy and empty,

And thirty beautiful knights

Chredoy out of the waters come clear,

And their marine uncle is with them...

(Prologue to the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila")

There is another wonder in the world:

The sea will swell violently,

It will boil, raise a howl,

It will rush ashore empty,

It will spread out in a noisy run,

And they'll end up on the brega,

Scaly as the heat of grief,

Thirty-three heroes,

All handsome men are dashing,

Young giants,

All are equal, as in the selection,

Uncle Chernomor is with them.

("The Tale of Tsar Saltan")

The universal plot "Wonderful Children" existed in different national versions. The fairy tale of the birth of light-emitting babies and how their mother was slandered by envious older sisters was told by almost all the peoples of the Earth. Ancient Rusichs in the Kievan period created its original type, which Pushkin heard in Mikhailovsky-and immediately visionary saw its historical roots. It is no accident that in the prologue to "Ruslan and Lyudmila" the poet exclaimed:

There is a Russian spirit there... it smells like Russia there!

Pushkin also knew another national version of the plot - from the book "One Thousand and One Nights". Thanks to several translations of this book from French, the eastern version of the fairy tale "Wonderful Children" has been included, along with the original one, in the narrative folklore of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians since the beginning of the XIX century. : "Knee-deep feet in gold, elbow-deep hands in silver" (Folk Russian tales of A. N. Afanasyev in three volumes. Moscow, 1985. Vol. 2. N 283-289). Both versions are included under N 707 in the reference book " Comparative index of plots. East Slavic fairy tale". L., 1979; further - SUS and number.

Meanwhile the Eastern Slavs have a narrow range of folklore texts

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forms another, third, version of the fairy tale "Wonderful Children", which is not highlighted in the index. It can be called "Reincarnation of light-bearing twins". In our opinion, it reflects the original, Old Slavic type of plot. This version, known to Russians, was recorded mainly in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. It is also common among Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and Slovaks (see: Anmerkungen zu den Kinder-u. Hausmarchen der Br. Grimm / Neu bearb. von Johannes Bolte und Georg Polivka. Bd. 1-3. Leipzig, 1915. Bd. 2. S. 384-385). Consequently, the version was preserved on the Old Slavic territory in the folklore of the southern, eastern and western Slavs. Its plot scheme is as follows:

1. The king (king, pan) overheard the conversation of three sisters and married the youngest, who promised to give birth to twin sons radiating heavenly light.

2. The pest buried (drowned) the newborn miraculous children, and threw the young animals to the queen. The king believed the slander and sent his wife away.

3. Children began to transform (into wonderful plants, animals). Whenever the pest tried to destroy them, they were reborn in a new form and therefore were indestructible.

4. Under the guise of a fairy tale, the children told their father their story, and then, to confirm its truthfulness, they discovered their own luminous signs. Execution of the pest.

* * *

The motif with linear repeatability (3), which carries the main plot load, immediately draws attention to itself. Such motifs were included in the circle of works that tell that a magical plant grows on the grave of an innocent person, which helps to solve the murder mystery. Stories of this type originated in different peoples and were developed in different folklore genres: fairy tales, ballads, ritual songs, lamentations.

Rites as a conservative area of folklore well preserved traces of the pralogical thinking of the ancients. It was based on the mystical unity of a person with the surrounding world, which L. Levi-Bruhl called the "law of participation", that is, "participation" (Levi-Bruhl L. Primeval thinking, Moscow, 1930, pp. 43-69). The worldview of the ancients is captured in the multiple semantics of poetic images. Sometimes a folklore character can be "all at once". For example, the Northern Russian bride, in order to escape from a stranger, hides in the woods and swamps as a duck, in the seas and rivers as a fish. A. F. Losev, citing similar examples from ancient mythology, also noted the dominance of the principle "everything is everything" or "everything in everything". "Zeus, -

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the scientist wrote, " it turns out to be the sky, the earth, the air, the sea, the underworld, the bull, the wolf, the ram, the eagle, and the man, and sometimes just a beetle or some geometric body. Apollo is also light, and darkness, and life, and death, and heaven, and earth, and a ram, and a wolf, and a mouse, and hundreds of other objects and phenomena." Losev also attributed this to the primeval disjointness of the individual, society, and nature. He emphasized: "A separate individual thinks of himself as a carrier of any forces, that is, he thinks of himself and everything else magically" (Losev A. F. Ancient mythology in its historical development, Moscow, 1957, p. 13).

The fairy tale has separated the archaic polymorphism of the image, built its transformation into a chain that closes when the character regains its original appearance.

This also happens with miraculous twins. They are buried in the yard, under the threshold, in bushes, in manure. In one version, they were drowned in the river (Kazki Pidgr'ya. Uzhgorod, 1976, pp. 111-112). However, from the river water that was watered in the front garden, a large apple tree grew, and on the new one - two golden apples. - just like in the other version - on the grave of children (Kursk collection. Issue 3: Materials on ethnography of the Kursk province. Part 3: Collections of A. S. Mashkin. Kursk, 1903. N 4). We believe that the wonderful apple tree as a favorite image of a fairy tale is a later replacement for yavor, the mythological essence of which is clearly visible in the folklore of the Eastern Slavs. It is not by chance that in most texts on the grave of children it is yavory that grows up: golden yavory (Charmed by the kazkoyu: Ukrainian folk Kazki of Transcarpathia in the notes of P. V. Littur. Uzhgorod, 1984. N 11); dva yavary - zalataya galinka I srebranaya (Folk Russian fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev. N 287).

Yavors talk in the voices of children: "Hilyaesya yavir to yavor:" Tsy dbbre sya toby, bratchyku, cost?" - "Dbbre, bo po-pry mane ms tatunce yde!" "Oh, mane ne dbbre, bo po-pry mane matsosysche yide!" (Yavorsky Yu. A. Monuments of Galician-Russian folk literature. Issue 1. Kiev, 1915, N 646). The pest tells the trees to be cut down to make beds out of them. But even the beds talk at night: "What's easy for you, bro?" - "Легко, бо на мет наш рщний татко лежить". "Ah myung! тяжко, бо на менi та мачуха спить, що нас зi свiту зжила" (Казки Пiдгiр'я. С. 112).

Then the pest orders the bed to be chopped up, burned in the oven, and the ashes to be poured out on the road. But the transformations do not stop: "Gnau shepherd avechki; adna auca zabegla I popelu ukhvashla, pryvyala two sheep: on the forehead pa month, on patylitsy pa zvezdatstsi (Folk Russian tales of A. N. Afanasyev. N 287); " Polozhyly v piets-vyskochyly z piets dviyskry, zrobylysya two sheep. We have taken tykh baraniu to rest, - kolo pana sleeps" (Yavorsky Yu. A. Monuments of Galician-Russian culture... N 646).

In one Belarusian version, flowers grew on the grave of children.

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A sheep ran past, "grabbed" a flower from the grave - and on the run "doused" with two sheep. And these sheep, "running after her, threw panichami across" (Federowski M. Lud biatoruski na Rusi Litewskiej. Krakow, 1902. Vol. 2. N 82). Here we can see a similarity with the Bulgarian text (which may explain the origin of the personification of beds): two cast-iron trees with silver leaves and golden flowers grew on the grave of the children. On the branches of these trees, the children's father made two beds: for himself and his new wife. At night, my stepmother could hear the trees talking. She cut them down and burned them, but the twins ' own mother sowed the ashes in the garden. "And by evening, two cornflowers with golden corollas and silver stems grew in the garden." The stepmother released a sheep into the garden to eat the flowers. "And by nightfall this sheep brought two lambs with silver wool and golden horns" (Bulgarian Folk Tales, Moscow, 1951, pp. 80-84).

There was an isolated case of the transformation of wonderful yavors into golden-winged eagles (Charmed by kazkoyu. N 11). We found an explanation for this in H. P. Yashurzhinsky, who wrote: "The newest fact - the image of an eagle on the state coat of arms-is also inserted in the transformation scheme. The people say that the eagles are from the tsars, and therefore even now the eagles are carved on the royal seals" (Yashurzhinsky Kh. P. On transformations in Little Russian fairy tales / / Ukraintsy: narodni viruvannya, povir'ya, demonologiya. Kiiv, 1991, p. 563).

In this original version, the motif of transformations had another borrowing - from the Bible. In the first book of Genesis, we read: "At the time of her birth, it turned out that the twins were in her womb. And when she was in labor, the midwife took hold of her and put a red thread on his hand, saying," This one came out first " (38: 27-28). A similar detail appeared in the fairy tale: "Narodila vona dvoh golden-haired khlopchikiv-bliznyukiv. Аби впiзнавати того, котрий перший народився, цариця прив'язала йому на руку шовковий пантлик". Later, the two splinters that flew off the yavors became two golden-winged eagles. "Они стрепали крилами та и полетiли високо попiд небеса. У одного на крилi маяла шовкова шматина".

Wonderful lambs pest orders to kill. However, their mother came out, kiski padabrala, zvarila I z'ela I became tsenzhi I pryvela two sons: on the forehead of the month, on patylitsy pa zvezdatstsi (Folk Russian tales of A. N. Afanasyev. N 287). In another version; "yysty baranyu she ne yyla, bo vzhe knew, scho that to her dity, lysh vsi kistky zbyrala and to myha khovala, kervavymy teardrops them washed. Yak ti kistky vyzbyrala vsi, zrobylysya dva khloptsy z tykh kistok" (Yavorsky Yu. A. Monuments of Galician-Russian culture... N 646).

So, a stable chain of reincarnations emerges: twin boys - two yavors-lambs-twins-again twin boys. All images have wonderful, luminous signs.

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Such a pronounced werewolf behavior, and the artistic principle of linear repetition itself, is a clear trace of a mythological fairy tale. It is also characteristic that there is no image of the liberator, which is mandatory for a classic fairy tale. In the ancient version of the plot, the equivalent meaning was a series of reincarnations of children as a way to achieve immortality.

* * *

The division of fairy-tale forms into ancient (close to myths) and later (related only to fairy tales) was first proposed by A. N. Veselovsky. With this he connected the question of the historical poetics of fairy tales (Veselovsky A. N. Istoricheskaya poetika, L., 1940, p. 455). Mythological fairy tale refers to the time of " pre-reflective traditionalism "(Averintsev S. S. Historical mobility of the genre category: the experience of periodization / / Historical Poetics: Results and prospects of study, Moscow, 1986). The signs of a fairy tale of the mythological period were formlessness, diffuseness, unstable concreteness of images and plot schemes, lack of expression of the genre reflex, syncretism (in particular, traces of a magical function).

The echoes of a mythological fairy tale present in Slavic oral folk art made folklorists pay attention to it. Transcarpathian scholar P. V. Lintur noted the "blood relationship" of some fairy tales with ballads of mythological content. He proposed for them the general term "fairy tale-ballad", which, as it seems to us, is synonymous with a mythological fairy tale. Lintur considered the alternation of prose text and song stanzas to be a characteristic feature of this genre ("the prose text serves as a commentary on a lyric-epic song"). The researcher pointed out the general archaic plot types, the " genetic connection between ritual poetry, fairy-tale creativity and ballad songs "(Lintur P. V. Ballad song and folk tale / / Slavic Folklore, Moscow, 1972, pp. 166, 176).

In the light of this, the facts of recording the plot of "Wonderful Children" in song form are of particular importance. One of these texts was recorded in Western Ukraine. In it, the child is replaced by a kid:

She gave birth to such a son:

Z yasnoy mesyachekom and z yasnov zvezdoykov.

Evil cursed baba sonoyka hopila,

Before Orda zadnila, in the Danube go trutila.

And the goat took, reddened povila,

Blush go povila, to lichku pritulila.

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(Folk Songs of Galician and Ugric Russia, collected by J. F. Golovatsky, ch. I. M., 1878, pp. 89-90).

There is an opinion about the juxtaposition of mythological images of a goat and a ram (Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia: In 2 volumes, Moscow, 1991, Vol. 1, pp. 663-664; Vol. 2, pp. 237-238). However, the Slavic material testifies to their interchangeability and even identification. For example, carolers could dress up as one or another animal. In the Ryazan province. at the same time, they sang a song to lamb, who has a goatee. Slovaks believed that on the eve of Christmas, a ram with golden horns appears in the sky. The golden-horned ram is mentioned in Moravian songs. P. G. Bogatyrev described the Czech (and in some areas German) rite of throwing a goat from a bell tower, which existed in the XIX century as a folk entertainment: "The goat was decorated with ribbons and flowers, the horns were covered with gilding and led to execution with music and singing. This rite was performed on July 25 on the day of St. Yakub" (Bogatyrev P. G. Voprosy teorii narodnogo iskusstva, Moscow, 1971, p. 34). The Bulgarians believed in the healing power of the blood of the sacrificial ram, which was slaughtered on St. George's Day, and in the Czech Republic they also believed in the healing power of the blood of the sacrificial goat.

You can talk about the synonymy of reincarnation of wonderful children in sheep or goats. Substitution of a goat is a weakened version of reincarnation in it. The direct transformation of a boy into a kid is described in another fairy tale - " Brother and Sister "(SUS, 450), where the ancient ritual song of the goat sacrifice is preserved:

Alyonushka, my little sister!

They want to kill me;

Bonfires are placed high,

Boilers heat cast iron,

Knives sharpen damask!

(Folk Russian fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev. N 261).

The ritual text of such a song was given directly by I. I. Sreznevsky: "Beyond the river, beyond the speed, the forests are dense: in those forests the lights are burning, the great lights are burning; around the lights there are benches, the benches are oak; on those benches the young men are kind, the girls are red, the koledushki sing songs. An old man is sitting in the middle of them, and he is sharpening his damask knife; a goat is standing next to him... They want to slaughter a goat" (Sreznevsky I. I. On the pagan worship of the ancient Slavs, St. Petersburg, 1848, p. 73).

Finally, we note that in some Ukrainian and Belarusian versions of the fairy tale "Brother and Sister" the boy is reincarnated not in a kid, but in a ram (Charadzeynyya kazki. Ch. 2. Minsk, 1978. N 56; Kazki Pidgir'ya. pp. 99-102).

The second example of the song form is from the folklore of the Russian North. In a number of versions of the ballad "Prince Michael and rowan" evil mother-in-law

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he wraps a rowan tree around his daughter-in-law, who is pregnant with two wonderful twins. She advises her son to cut down a rowan tree.

And I listened to d'son and my mother,

En went and cut down rebinushka d'kudrevastuyu,

En cut down that rebinka and poeredotsky.

I looked - the ore went out of rebinushka.

"I didn't cut down rebinka or curly hair,

And I cut down yes I ruined yes young zhona.

And she had two babies in Tsrevie,

The baby is knee deep and her feet are covered in silver,

And at their yes on lokbt yes rutski in gold,

And in their foreheads it is baking and the sun is red,

And in zatylotsky bakes yes mlad-svitelets,

And on all yes on babies yes crayons zvezdotsky.

(Onega Byliny, Moscow, 1948, No. 229). Here, in contrast to the Ukrainian ballad, a different element of the once polysemantic image of wonderful twins is creatively used: children-trees.

We believe that traces of the ancient song form were also preserved by a special plot denouement, as if adapted to the structure of the melody. She appeared only once in various works of the fairy-tale group about a non-winegone mother. The denouement was a rhythmic repetition of the entire plot, which was sometimes combined with a game of nuts "even or odd". This custom was described by E. R. Romanov: "Fairy tales in Belarus are told on exceptionally long winter evenings, and mainly on "holy evenings" - from December 25 to January 1, during which all work, even light work, is forbidden. They are entirely devoted to fun and games. Among the games, not the last place is occupied by the game of nuts, "in tsot ai lishku". Near the town of Senna, in the village of Latygov, the above tale is told precisely in connection with the game "in tsot ai lishku"" (Romanov E. R. Belorussky sbornik. Vitebsk, 1887, issue 3, p. 302).

Romanov's comment referred to fairy tale No. 626 , one of the variants of the later, novelized version of the plot "Wonderful Children". Nevertheless, this Belarusian version retained the archaic features of the song form of a mythological fairy tale. In it, the son told his mother to dress as a beggar, made himself a lyaskoven skrypka-and they went to the wedding of the king with the sister of the slandered queen. The boy went under the window and played skrypuchku dujo hojo. Почув цар тэй, што прыгожо нехто йграець: "Возьмем, - кажець, - гэтыго музыку!" А жонка кажець: "Не, ня треба браць!" - "Не, - кажець, - возьмем - прыгожо йграець!" The Yans hired him. "Idzi, mamka, sit down at the stove, and I'll catch you!" Said Tsar Tey to koropka orekhov.: "And hto gety nuts otgydayets, I will describe to that the umbilical cord of the kingdom!" And nihto nya uzyasya. Tolki tay kid

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kazhets: "I'll cry!" Iago's aunt screamed: "You're giving me a hard time!" We Yae wuxi shouted: "Don't, don't try to guess!" En stav guesswork:

Batska had three daughters-tsot para oreshkuv!

Naked y naked, volys y volys-tsot couple of nuts!

Spev im batska po lubuchtsy-tsot para oreshkuv!

Send your daughters to griba-tsot a couple of oreshkuvs!

Poshov duzho strong dozhdzh-tsot para oreshkuv!

Seli yany pyd biarezinkyi-tsot para oreshkuv!

Dujo strong dozhdzh isov-tsot para oreshkuv!

Already ran the river cheraz tsarsky dvor-tsot para oreshkuv!

Full repetition of the whole fairy tale. - T. Z.). Peramichiv use nuts, dy shapychku z gylyvy and ziyav-au Yago on the forehead mesits, and in potylitsy zorki!".

From the context, it is clear that "guessing" nuts, the boy musician sang his story.

Repeating "a fairy tale within a fairy tale" is a well-known narrative technique. For example, this is how the denouement was constructed in the thematically close fairy tale of literary origin "Bova-Korolevich" (SUS, 707B (*)). However, the rhythm in interchanges of this type did not always occur. Where the ending was adapted for playing "even or odd", a proverb appeared, repeated after each phrase. In the above version from the collection of Romanov they were tsot para oreshkuv! Similarly, in the thematically close fairy tale "Bezruchka" (SUS, 706): "Two nuts in a box, two out of a box... "(Folk Russian fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev. N 280). There was an epic rhythm that conveyed the melodious appearance of a mythological "fairy tale-ballad".

It is noteworthy that every second version of the ancient version of the fairy tale "Wonderful Children" has just such a denouement. The twins who have taken on their original appearance either ask to go to their father's house, or come to him for their own wake, or are recommended as craftsmen of bayki bayats. They repeat their history - in the collection of Federowski with the proverb " Dwa harieszki and korab "(Federowski M. Lud biatoruski ... Vol. 2. N 82; see also: Yavorsky Yu. A. Monuments of Galician-Russian culture... No. 646; Folk Russian fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev. N 287). We can firmly assume that such rhythmic repetitions were sung.

The ending follows

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