Today, all children begin their acquaintance with the literary language from fairy tales. The very first examples, over the past hundred years in Russia, are everyone's favorite "Ryaba Chicken", "Kolobok" and "Turnip". Despite the fact that we know the texts by heart, these plots are so old that we do not always already understand what kind of lesson the good fellows and red girls should learn from them. This is because over the years these stories have partially lost characters and events.
Ryaba Chicken
In the old days, the text of this tale was much richer in events. A broken testicle was followed by a whole series of misfortunes, growing in strength and degree of tragedy:
"Ryaba chicken" - art painting on wood.
In a later version, the terrible consequences of an insignificant incident are different: the grandfather and the woman are crying - they broke their leg - tyn loosened - the oak knocked the leaves off - the priest's daughter broke the bucket - the priest threw the pies out the window (or turned over the tub of dough) - the priest tore the church books, scattered and hit the jamb, etc. In total, several dozen different versions of this tale are known. Such a cumulative (growing) plot structure makes it comic - an insignificant event leads to world catastrophes. In principle, in the modern world we are used to describing this ancient logic by the “butterfly effect”.
Postage stamp of Ukraine 2002 "Ryaba Hen".
There are many scientific interpretations of the ancient symbols present in the tale. Vladimir Toporov (Soviet linguist and philologist, founder of the "theory of the main myth") saw in her the motive of the "World Egg", from which the world is born. Therefore, the old world dies. The mouse in this case is a destructive image of the elements associated with the underworld. By the way, the incomprehensible phrase that “Verei are beginning to laugh” is also explained from this point of view. Verei are pillars on which gates were hung, an important element that supports the "border of the existing world" - houses. And they laughed, on the eve of the terrible destruction, according to the researchers, quite within the framework of the old Slavic tradition of seeing off the dead with noisy fun. This seemingly strange behavior is explained by the wise attitude of our ancestors to death. In her they always saw the promise of a new life. Laughter in this case turned death into birth, and the tale from a slightly illogical and childish one turns into a cosmogonic model of the universe. Therefore, the Hen promises to lay a new egg, better than the previous one. The tale mostly lost all these details in the 19th century. The literary version, which is best known today, was written down in 1864 by Ushinsky.
Turnip
This tale also underwent some changes, but its meaning was not distorted by this.
Drawings for the tale from the collection of A. N. Afanasyev.
The tale was recorded in the 19th century in the Arkhangelsk province by the researcher of folklore A. N. Afanasyev. In 1863 he included it in his collection "Russian Folk Tales". In the original folklore version, it was about "legs" that came in turn to help:
Drawing from the cover of the book of Russian fairy tales of 1916
The author of the text familiar to us is the same famous Russian teacher and writer Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky. He very wisely gave the dog a name. By the way, now there is even a joke about the fact that the Bug, the only named creature in the tale, thus hides a more rude treatment. Unknown jokers don't even know how right they are. Later, when retelling, both Tolstoy and Dal retained this nickname. Judging by some sources, there used to be more characters in the fairy tale, but here, perhaps, every storyteller in the old days could show imagination, that's why it is oral folk art. As for the rest, the plot of this fairy tale-chain remains the same, and she speaks, of course, of mutual assistance and that even the smallest effort can help the common cause.
Kolobok
This character, who is known to have a bad ending, is likely to have very ancient roots. The culinary product itself has already gone from our kitchen, but the memory of it has been preserved in historical documents. So, for example, in the Moscow "Painting of Tsar's Food", created in 1610-1613, the Kolob dish is mentioned, consisting of 3 scoops of flour, 25 eggs and 3 hryvnias of beef lard. Judging by the number of eggs, the kolob served at the royal table was great. Not like the old woman who "scratched the bottom of the barrel."
"Kolobok" - illustrations by E. M. Racheva.
As for the old interpretation of this plot, a version is now widespread on the Internet, which, however, is given without references to serious sources, but looks logical and therefore quite attractive. It is believed that the Gingerbread Man actually rolled off slightly bitten from each of the animals he encountered:
According to this version, in this way, the basics of astronomy and the calendar were explained to children in the old days - the ever-decreasing Kolobok clearly illustrated the phases of the lunar cycle.
Gingerbread man in the Donetsk park of forged figures.
In any case, our Kolobok definitely has many foreign brothers. This story is about an escaped bakery product that meets many characters on the way, but usually ends in the teeth of a fox or a pig, exists in many countries: Gingerbread Boy and Johnny Pie (USA), Flatbread (Scotland), Pancake (Norway), Thick, fat pancake (Germany) and many others. So this character is loved all over the world.