Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov

'She turned into a frog, into a lizard, into all kinds of other reptiles and then into a spindle'

In these tales, young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Half the tales here are true oral tales, collected by folklorists during the last t…