an oak tree, and on that oak tree there are golden chains, and a cat walks along those chains: he goes up and tells fairy tales, he goes down and sings songs. (Recorded by A.S. Pushkin).

Formulas depicting a wonderful horse, Baba Yaga lying in a hut or flying in a mortar, a multi-headed Serpent are widely known... Many of them

Remains of myths and therefore significantly older than fairy tales. Some fairy-tale formulas go back to conspiracies; they retain clear signs of magical speech (summoning a wonderful horse, addressing Baba Yaga’s hut, demanding something at the behest of the pike).

The dynamism of fairy tale narration made the stylistic role of verbs especially important. The actions of the characters (functions), which form the structural basis of the motives, are stylistically fixed in the form of supporting verbs in their traditional combination for a particular motive: flew - hit - became; splashed - grew together; hit - drove in, swung - cut down.

The fairy tale actively used poetic stylistics common to many folklore genres: similes, metaphors, words with diminutive suffixes; proverbs, sayings, jokes; various nicknames for people and animals. Traditional epithets, along with the epithets gold and silver, especially expressed in this genre, sublimely depicted the world, poeticized and spiritualized it.

3.3. Everyday tales

Everyday fairy tales express a different view of man and the world around him. Their fiction is based not on miracles, but on reality, people's everyday life.

The events of everyday fairy tales always unfold in one space - conventionally real, but these events themselves are incredible. For example: at night the king goes with a thief to rob a bank (SUS 951 A); the priest sits on a pumpkin to hatch a foal from it (SUS 1319); the girl recognizes the robber in the groom and incriminates him (SUS 955). Thanks to the improbability of events, everyday tales are fairy tales, and not just everyday stories. Their aesthetics require an unusual, unexpected, sudden development of action, which should cause surprise in the listeners and, as a consequence of this, empathy or laughter.

In everyday fairy tales, purely fantastic characters sometimes appear, such as the devil, Woe, and Share. The meaning of these images is only to reveal the real life conflict underlying

fairy tale plot. For example, a poor man locks his Grief in a chest (bag, barrel, pot), then buries it - and becomes rich. His rich brother, out of envy, releases Grief, but it is now attached to him (SUS 735 A). In another fairy tale, the devil cannot quarrel between a husband and his wife - an ordinary troublemaker woman comes to his aid (SUS 1353).

The plot develops thanks to the hero’s collision not with magical forces, but with difficult life circumstances. The hero comes out unscathed from the most hopeless situations, because a happy coincidence of events helps him. But more often he helps himself - with ingenuity, resourcefulness, even trickery. Everyday fairy tales idealize the activity, independence, intelligence, and courage of a person in his struggle in life.

The artistic sophistication of the narrative form is not characteristic of everyday fairy tales: they are characterized by brevity of presentation, colloquial vocabulary, and dialogue. Everyday fairy tales do not tend to triple the motives and generally do not have such developed plots as fairy tales. Fairy tales of this type do not know colorful epithets and poetic formulas.

Of the compositional formulas, they include the simplest beginning, once upon a time, as a signal for the beginning of a fairy tale. By origin, it is an archaic (long past) tense from the verb “to live,” which disappeared from the living language, but “petrified” in the traditional fairy tale beginning. Some storytellers ended everyday tales with rhyming endings. In this case, the endings lost the artistry that was appropriate for completing fairy tales, but they retained their gaiety. For example: Fairy tale not all of it, but it’s impossible to instruct, but if I had a glass of wine, I would tell end1.

The artistic framing of everyday fairy tales with beginnings and endings is not mandatory; many of them begin right from the beginning and end with the final touch of the plot itself. For example, A.K. Baryshnikova begins a fairy tale like this: The priest did not love the priest, but loved the deacon. And here's how it ends: I ran home by TV(i.e. undressed)2.

The number of Russian everyday fairy tales is very significant: more than half of the national fairy tale repertoire. This one is huge

1 Russian folk tales. The tales are told by the Voronezh storyteller A.N. Korolkova / Comp. and resp. Ed. E.V. Pomerantseva. – M., 1969. – P. 333.

2 Fairy tales of Kuprianikha / Recording of fairy tales, article and commentary. A.M. Novikova and I.A. Osovetsky. - Voronezh, 1937. - P. 158, 160. (The fairy tale “How the priest loved the deacon”).

The material forms an independent subspecies within the fairy-tale genre, in which two genres are distinguished: anecdotal tales and novelistic tales. According to a rough estimate, in Russian folklore there are 646 plots of anecdotal tales, and 137 novelistic tales. Among the numerous anecdotal tales, there are many plots that are not known to other peoples. They express that “cheerful cunning of the mind,” which A. S. Pushkin considered “a distinctive feature of our morals.”

3.3.1. Anecdotal tales

Researchers call everyday anecdotal tales differently: “satirical”, “satirical-comic”, “everyday”, “social everyday”, “adventurous”. They are based on universal laughter as a means of resolving conflict and a way to destroy the enemy. The hero of this genre is a man humiliated

V family or in society: poor peasant, hired worker, thief, soldier, simple-minded fool, unloved husband. His opponents are a rich man, a priest, a gentleman, a judge, a devil, “smart” older brothers, and an evil wife. The people expressed their contempt for them through all sorts of forms of deception. The conflict of most of the plots of anecdotal tales is based on fooling.

TO For example, a husband finds out about his wife's infidelity. He hides in the hollow of a thick pine tree and pretends to be St. Nicholas - Mikola Duplensky. The imaginary saint advises his wife: “Tomorrow... melt the buckwheat pancakes and spread them as buttery as possible with quick butter,. let these pancakes float

V butter, and the honor of her husband, so that QH ate them. When he has eaten enough, he will be blind, the light will run out of his eyes and the hearing in his ears will deteriorate..." (SUS

1380: "Nikolai Duplensky")1.

In another tale, a fool accidentally kills his mother. He puts her in a sleigh as if alive and drives out onto the main road. A troika of gentlemen rushes towards them, the fool does not turn aside, his sleigh is overturned. The fool shouts that they killed his mother, the frightened master gives three hundred rubles in compensation. Then the fool sits the dead mother in the priest's cellar over the milk bottles. The priest mistakes her for a thief, hits her on the head with a stick - the body falls. The fool shouts: "Goddamn mother killed!" The priest paid the fool a hundred rubles and buried the body for nothing. The fool has money

1 Tales of I.F. Kovaleva / Zap. And a comment. E. Hoffman and S. Mintz. – M., 1941. – P. 209.

comes home and tells his brothers that he sold his mother in the city at the bazaar. The brothers killed their wives and took them to sell (“If they gave so much for an old woman, they will give twice as much for a young woman”). They are exiled to Siberia, all property goes to the fool (SUS 1537: “Dead Body”).

No one accepts such stories as reality, otherwise they would only cause a feeling of indignation. An anecdotal tale is a cheerful farce, the logic of the development of its plot is the logic of laughter, which is the opposite of ordinary logic, eccentric.

Yu. I. Yudin came to the conclusion that behind all the diversity of characters in anecdotal tales, there are two characteristic types of heroes. Firstly, this is a fool as an active person: he is allowed to do what is impossible for an ordinary person. And, secondly, a buffoon, a cunning person pretending to be a simpleton, a “fool inside out” who knows how to cleverly fool his opponent. As we see, the type of hero is always determined by the poetics of laughter. Historically, the jester's tricks were based on some ancient knowledge inaccessible to the mind of an ordinary person (this could be a pagan priest, the leader of ancient initiations). The image of a fool is associated with the idea of ​​the initiate himself at the moment of his temporary ritual “madness”1.

Historical analysis also makes it possible to explain the motive for the pranks with the dead body. As V. Ya. Propp showed, in its most ancient form it goes back to the ritual of sacrifices at the graves of parents. The mythological meaning of this plot, inherited from the fairy tale, was that the deceased mother acted as an “afterlife donor” in relation to her son.

Anecdotal tales began to take shape during the period of decomposition of the tribal system, parallel to fairy tales and independently of them. The originality of their historicism is determined by the collision of the era of tribal unity with the new world order of class society.

For example, in ancient times there was no condemnation of theft, because there was no private property. People appropriated what nature gave them and what did not belong to anyone. And it is no coincidence that a large group of tales about a clever thief (SUS 1525 A) of all nations depict him with obvious sympathy: the thief does not steal for the sake of self-interest - he demonstrates his superiority over others, as well as complete disregard for property. The thief's courage, intelligence, and luck are admirable. Fairy tales

1 Yudin Yu.I. Russian folk everyday tale: Dis. For the job application. Uch. Step. Doctor of Philology. Sci. – L., 1979.

about a clever thief is based on ancient law, on ancestral property relations.

IN The anecdotal tale as known to us only developed in the Middle Ages. It absorbed the later class contradictions: between wealth and poverty, between peasants, on the one hand, and landowners, judges, priests -

With another. The type of experienced soldier, scoundrel and rogue, could not have appeared earlier than the “soldierdom” itself, i.e. Peter’s time. Under the influence of church books, especially hagiographic literature, the image of the devil entered fairy tales and was fixed. Folklore rethinking of biblical stories began (SUS 790*: “Golden Stirrup”; SUS-800*: “A drunkard enters heaven”, etc.).

IN In anecdotal tales, according to their content, the following plot groups are distinguished: about a clever thief; about clever and successful guessers, about jesters; about fools; about evil wives; about the owner and the worker; about priests; about the court and judges.

The poetics of anecdotal tales is the poetics of a genre based on laughter. Merging with other forms of folk satire, anecdotal tales used poetic verse.

A talented storyteller, creating a comic style, could rhyme his tale entirely. This is how A. Novopoltsev began the story: There lived an old man, not big - about the size of a fist, and he went to a tavern. Mittens in the belt, and someone else looking for. This old man had three sons...(“Shurypa”); Once upon a time there lived the Vyatchans, they ate... with cabbage soup and decided to build a church, to pray to God, to worship the Russian Savior...(“About the Vyatchans”)1.

Specific nicknames for characters in anecdotal tales are associated with this tradition: Finally, a native from the other world; Tikhon - kicked out of this world; Nahum- came to mind; my wife's sister's motley pig and so on.

Fairy tales use realistic grotesque - fiction based on reality. In the group of stories about fools, the grotesque appears as a special form of “stupid” thinking. Fools act according to external analogies: they sow salt (it resembles grain), build a house without windows and then carry light into it in bags, remove a table from a cart - “He has four legs, he’ll get there on his own,” put pots on burnt stumps - "The guys are standing without hats." From-

1 Fairy tales and legends of the Samara region. Collected and recorded by D.N. Sadovnikov. – St. Petersburg, 1884. – P. 119; 164.

There lived one padishah. He had an only son named Abdul.

The son of the padishah was very stupid and this caused his father a lot of trouble and grief. The padishah hired wise mentors for Abdul and sent him to study in distant countries, but nothing helped his stupid son. One day a man came to the padishah and told him: I want to help you with advice. Find a wife for your son so that she can solve any wise riddles. It will be easier for him to live with an intelligent wife.

The padishah agreed with him and began to look for a wise wife for his son. There lived an old man in this country. He had a daughter named Magfura. She helped her father at all, and the fame of her beauty and intelligence had long spread everywhere. And even though Magfura was the daughter of a common man, he still sent the padishah of his viziers to her father: he decided to be convinced of Magfura’s wisdom and ordered her father to be brought to the palace.

An old man came, bowed to the padishah and asked:

The great padishah appeared at your command - what do you order?

Here's thirty arshins of linen for you. “Let your daughter make shirts from it for my entire army and leave it for foot wraps,” the padishah tells him.

The old man returned home sad. Magfura came out to meet him and asked:

Why, father, are you so sad?

The old man told his daughter about the order of the padishah.

Don't be sad, father. “Go to the padishah and tell him - let him first build a palace from one log, where I will sew shirts, and also leave it for firewood,” Magfura answers.

The old man took the log, came to the padishah and said:

My daughter asks you to build a palace from this log and also leave some wood for fuel. Fulfill this task, then Magfura will fulfill yours.

The padishah heard this, marveled at the girl’s wisdom, gathered the viziers, and they decided to marry Abdul to Magfur. Magfura did not want to marry the stupid Abdul, but the padishah began to threaten her father with death. They called guests from all the estates and celebrated the wedding.

One day the padishah decided to travel around his domains; he took his son with him. They go, they go. The padishah became bored, he decided to test his son and said:

Make the road shorter - I'm getting bored.

Abdul got off his horse, took a shovel and began to dig the road. The vizier began to laugh at him, and the padishah felt hurt and annoyed that his son could not understand his words. He said to his son:

If by tomorrow morning you haven’t figured out how to make the road shorter, I will punish you severely.

Abdul returned home sad. Magfura came out to meet him and said:

Why are you, Abdul, so sad?

And Abdul answers his wife:

My father threatens to punish me if I don’t figure out how to make the road shorter. To this Magfura says:

Don't be sad, it's a minor problem. Tomorrow you tell your father this: in order to shorten the boring journey, you need to have conversations with your companion. If the companion is a learned person, you need to tell him what cities there are in the state, what battles there were and which commanders distinguished themselves in them. And if the companion is a simple person, then you need to tell him about different crafts, about skilled craftsmen. Then the long road will seem short to everyone.

The next day, early in the morning, the padishah calls his son to him and asks:

Have you figured out how to make a long journey short?

Abdul answered as his wife taught him.

The padishah understood that it was Magfura who taught Abdul such an answer. He smiled, but didn't say anything.

When the padishah grew old and died, it was not the foolish Abdul, but his wise wife Magfura, who began to rule the country instead of him.

Many years ago, they say, there lived an old man with his son. The old man's wife died a long time ago. The guy was crazy, nevertheless, it turns out he was a brave, strong man.

One day the old man, leaving his son at home, went down the river near which he lived. He walked and came to people. Their urasa towered gracefully at the top of the hill. The old man got down from the animal he was riding on and entered the urasa. It turns out there was an old man sitting here with his daughter. He entered the urasa, took off his mittens and hat.

- Home, hello!

- Hello, passing person! Do you have any news?

“There’s nothing special,” he answered and sat down in the place of honor, opposite the door. He sits, looking out of the corner of his eye at the girl sitting in the left front corner. He thinks: “How beautiful she is, like the shining sun after the rain. But isn’t she stupid, like my son?” He has a desire to test his thought.

At this time, the girl gets up and begins to prepare food. I chopped the meat and cooked it. She put it on a plate, brought it and placed it in front of the old man. The old man says:

- You, girl, how many ladles did you put on my plate?

— I don’t know how many ladles I put in. If you had told me how many steps you made your deer take on the way from home to home, then I would have answered then.

The old man thought: “The girl turns out to be smart.”

The next day the old man brings Erbekhtei's stupid son Bergen and says: “If we old men married our children, what would it be like?” The old owners, the girl’s father and mother, after thinking, agreed, and they themselves moved in with distant relatives.

The old man, Erbzhtay and the smart girl lived together for a long time, they say.

One day, the old father and Erbekhtay Bergen go hunting. Only the smart girl, the guy's wife, stays at home.

The old man, walking down the river, meets people of a different kind, with whom he has been at enmity since birth. Having grabbed him, they tie him to a tree and light a fire under the tagan. They decided to choke him with smoke.

The old man asks: “Listen to my last word.”

People agree.

The old man begins:

— My only son remains at home. Tell my son these words: “I have lost my strength, turned into a lump, I’m rolling around, fighting with young leaves.” And also say: “Let the son, having heard my words; will cut down the tops of two birches growing in the very north. Then let him look straight to the west, there will be a pine forest with countless trees. Let him cut off the tops of all these trees and bring them to me. If my son doesn’t know how to cut them, then the white stone that lies under my bed will help. If he cannot understand my word, then a sharp knife lying under his pillow will help, tell him that I said so.”

The heroes consult. Their leader says:

- Well, bring these words to the guy faster! - and sends two heroes. When the two heroes came to the house, the guy was not there, only his wife was sitting.

The heroes ask:

-Where is the old man's son?

- Uh, he’s not here now, wait a little, he’ll come! - she answers.

The heroes agree. Soon the guy comes.

- Boy, your father sent you a message with us, listen! - And they give the guy all the old man’s instructions.

Then the guy’s wife quietly says to him:

- “A sharp knife under your pillow”, or your mind - that will be me. Boy, listen carefully! “I’ve lost my strength, turned into a lump, I’m rolling around, fighting with young leaves” - this means that your father was tied to a tree. “My son, having heard my words, let him cut off the tops of two birches standing in the very north” - this means you must cut off the heads of these two heroes. “Then let him look straight to the west, there will be countless pine trees, let him cut off the tops of them all and bring them to me” - this means that you must kill all the warriors of these heroes. “If my son does not know how to cut them, then there is a white stone under my bed, it will help” - this is his father’s sharp sword. “If my son does not understand the meaning of my words, then a sharp knife lying under his pillow will help,” it will be me, your smart wife.

The guy agrees:

- Ok, I understood everything!

From under his father's bed he snatches a sharp sword and cuts off the heads of two heroes. Then he goes and kills all the warriors, unties his father and removes him from the tree. Saves him just before his death.

This is how the old man escaped death with the help of his clever daughter-in-law, they say.

One day the padishah said to his vizier:
- Here's a sheep for you, take it to the market. You must get money for it, get the wool, bring me two skewers of kebab and return the live ram.
The vizier changed into the clothes of a dervish and set off on his journey. I met a young man on the way. Let's go together. A small river blocked their path. The Vizier suggested:
- Brother, let's make a bridge, it will be easier for one of us. The companion was surprised:
- What are you, stupid! How can you and I do it together? They walked further and saw a hill ahead. Dervish suggested:
- Let's make a ladder and quickly climb it. The companion was surprised again:
- Dervish, are you completely stupid? How can you make a staircase here and why?
They moved on, climbed the hill for a long time, then descended, finally reaching a field.
Dervish asked:
- I would like to know if the owner of the field ate his harvest or not?
The companion got angry:
- Yes, you are obviously a complete fool! The field had not yet been mown, how could he eat it?
The dervish and the young man entered the city. The dervish asked with a sigh:
- City, are you alive or ruined?
“Let your house be destroyed,” the young man exclaimed, “you see how many people are here, that means they live.” And why should he be ruined?
The dervish went to the inn, and the young man went home. He came and said to his sister:
- Sister, today I met such a stupid dervish, I’ve never seen anyone like him.
- Why did he seem like that to you? Come on, tell me what stupid thing he said to you.
“We reached a small river, and he said: “Let’s make a bridge, it will be easier for one of us.” The sister interrupted her brother:
- Brother, the dervish is smart, you are stupid. He wanted to say: “Come on, one of us will carry the other, it will be easier for one.” Here is the bridge.
- Eh, okay, so be it. We came across a hill on the way. He said, “Let’s make a ladder and quickly climb it.” Well, isn't it stupid?
- You are stupid, but the dervish is smart, he wanted to say: “Let one of us tell something, and we’ll get up unnoticed.”
- Eh, okay. But when we reached the field, he asked: “Would you like to know whether the owner of this field ate his harvest or not?”
- Brother, this dervish is very smart. He wanted to say: “Is the debtor the owner of this field or not?”
- Okay, I agree with you, sister. But we entered the city, there were a lot of people, and he asked: “City, are you alive or ruined?” I answered him: “Of course, the city is alive, people are walking.”
- Eh, brother, how stupid you are! After all, you should have said: “Come to our house.” Where did that dervish go?
- He went to mevankhana.
- Brother, here are twelve cakes and thirty eggs for you, take them to the dervish.
She tied the food in a bundle and gave it to her brother. On the way, the young man thought: “How does the dervish know how many cakes and eggs there are here?” He took it and ate one flatbread and two eggs. He brought food to the dervish. The dervish untied the bundle, counted the cakes and eggs and turned to the young man:
- My friend, do you have eleven months and twenty-eight days in a year?
The young man did not understand the dervish’s question, but did not answer and returned home. And he says to his sister:
- Sister, I’m still right, you’re both kind of stupid. He asked me: “Do you have eleven months and twenty-eight days in a year?” Doesn’t he know that there are twelve months in a year and thirty days in a month?
Then the sister got angry:
- May the disease take you! Why did you eat a flatbread and two eggs on the way? That's why he said so. Go invite him to visit us.
The young man went and brought the dervish.
The dervish entered the house and said hello:
- Salaam-alaikum, good girl!
- Aleikum-salaam, omniscient dervish!
The girl invited the guest to sit down. The dervish turned to the tandoor:
- Tandur, you look good, but I would like to know: does the smoke rise straight up?
“Dear guest, smoke is rising from my tandoor,” the girl answered.
- Mistress, I see that you are a smart girl and only you can help me. I am the vizier of the padishah, gave me the padishah a ram and set the condition: to get money for it, and get wool, and bring two skewers of kebab, and at the same time return the ram to him safe and sound.
“Eh,” says the girl, “dear guest, what’s so difficult about that?” The ram must be shorn, half the wool taken to the market to sell, and half left - that’s money and wool. Then you need to cut off the ram’s eggs, prepare two kebab skewers from them and carry them to the padishah.
Joyful, the vizier returned to the city and did as the girl advised him. The padishah asked the vizier:
- Vizier, did you have an adviser? Tell me the truth, I will have mercy on you.
The vizier had to tell the padishah about the wise girl. The padishah ordered the vizier:
- Go and get me this girl.
The vizier came to the girl and told her:
- Good girl, I have come to woo you to the padishah himself.
- Well, I don’t mind, I’ll just set the price of the bride price myself.
- Speak.
- Twenty lambs, thirty wolves, forty lions, fifty camels, sixty foxes, seventy skins, eighty wise men - this is my bride price.
The vizier returned to the padishah and conveyed to him the girl’s condition. The padishah thought and answered:
- The girl is right, a man at twenty years old is like a lamb, at thirty years old he is like a wolf, at forty years old he is like a lion, at fifty years old he is like a camel, at sixty years old he is cunning like a fox, at seven to ten years old all that remains of a man is his appearance, skin, and at eighty he becomes wise. She deserves my son.
And the smart girl became the wife of the padishah’s son.