Vasilissa the Fair

01Identity

Vasilissa the Fair in Slavic tradition

Vasilissa the Fair keeps a small doll given to her by her dying mother. In William Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, she is a merchant’s daughter whose stepmother and stepsisters make her work and turn away her suitors. The doll advises her and helps with the tasks she cannot complete alone.

Her journey takes her to Baba Yaga’s house, where a fence of bones and skulls surrounds the yard. Three horsemen are named Day, Sun and Night. Vasilissa must finish household work and sort grain under the threat of being eaten. Her mother’s blessing protects her, but the light she brings home is dangerous to the family waiting there. Her mother dies when she is eight. The forest journey takes place years later, after she grows old enough to marry.

SourceRussian Folk-Tales (W. R. S. Ralston, 1873): Vasilissa the Fair, printed pp. 150-158

A merchant’s daughter helped by her mother’s doll. (Russian Folk-Tales (W. R. S. Ralston, 1873))

The quick answers

Who is Vasilissa the Fair?
Vasilissa the Fair is a Slavic hero.

02The myths

The myths of Vasilissa the Fair

1 myth, with sources recorded for each.

Vasilissa and the skull of fire

When Vasilissa’s mother was dying, she gave her eight-year-old daughter a doll and told her to feed it whenever she needed advice. After the merchant remarried, Vasilissa’s stepmother and stepsisters burdened her with work. She saved food for the doll, which comforted her and helped finish her tasks.

Years later, while her father was away, her stepfamily put out the house’s last candle and sent her into the forest to fetch a light from Baba Yaga. The doll told her to take it with her. On the journey, white, red and black horsemen passed by. Vasilissa reached a yard enclosed by bones and skulls whose eyes shone in the darkness.

Baba Yaga demanded work in exchange for a light and threatened to eat Vasilissa if she failed. She had to clean the house, prepare food and separate wheat from other seeds. The doll helped her finish. The next day, it also helped her clean the earth from a store of poppy seed.

Vasilissa asked about the horsemen. Baba Yaga called them her Day, Sun and Night. Vasilissa did not ask about the disembodied hands working inside the house. When she said that her mother’s blessing helped her, Baba Yaga drove her out and gave her a skull with burning eyes, mounted on a stick.

The skull told Vasilissa not to throw it away. She carried it home, where no other light would stay alight. Its eyes pursued her stepmother and stepsisters until they were burnt to ashes, while Vasilissa remained unharmed.