Mercedes Lackey used the humpbacked horse in her book The Fairy Godmother and although I knew it was from a Northern tale, I didn't know which. Thanks for posting these pictures. They are lovely.
My daughter is fond of the animated version and will adore these.
Does anyone know about the history of the story itself? I mean if its more or less fairytale, r if some scholar might have worked it over? What I am thinking about is the business about the Sea Goddess tricking the old Tsar to leap into he boiling cauldron and die. Its very similar to the way in which Medea tricked Jason's cousins into murdering his uncle (She convinced them that if they cut up their father into little bits and boiled him it would make a young man again, except it just made him soup). Medea thought Jason would then become king, but, since she was popularly hated as a witch, they were run out of town instead.
It occurred me some classical trained scholar might have improved the story by borrowing this detail. Or else they both go back to some Indo-European stratum independent manifested in Greece and Russia.
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Does anyone know about the history of the story itself? I mean if its more or less fairytale, r if some scholar might have worked it over? What I am thinking about is the business about the Sea Goddess tricking the old Tsar to leap into he boiling cauldron and die. Its very similar to the way in which Medea tricked Jason's cousins into murdering his uncle (She convinced them that if they cut up their father into little bits and boiled him it would make a young man again, except it just made him soup). Medea thought Jason would then become king, but, since she was popularly hated as a witch, they were run out of town instead.
It occurred me some classical trained scholar might have improved the story by borrowing this detail. Or else they both go back to some Indo-European stratum independent manifested in Greece and Russia.
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