Equally, there is none of the artistic grace of Greek legend, nor the exuberance of Celtic fantasy; both of these are departures from the crude, unilluded, unexpectant observation.
This unconsciously involves a perfect art with regard to detail; so much is told as a man would remember of an experience; there is no striving after impressionalism, nor meticulous detail.
The prevailing tone is sadness; but there is no absence of humour; yet fun merely happens, and is inherent; there is no broad, boisterous fun.
In them, unlike other Aryan folk-tales, there are no fairies, nor giants, nor gnomes, nor personifications of nature. As in his Pagan myths, the Slav never advanced beyond inchoate conceptions of Nature, he neither philosophized like the Hindu, nor created types of pure grace like the Greek, nor beautiful fancies, like the Celt. Where the river-gods [vodyanóy], or. the wood-sprites [lěši], have human form, it is to a certain extent because they have been contaminated with the Christian Devil.
To sum up, these undiluted products of the Russian people are a faithful mirroring of life, as it appeared, casual; for the most part unfortunate, and inscrutable.
There are some very frequent supernatural beings. The Witch who lives in the forest, rides the winds in a mortar, devours human flesh, lives in a hut on cocks' legs, is one of the commonest. The great baleful magician is Koshchéy the Deathless, whose soul, in some stories, is contained in an egg far away, fearsomely guarded. Historically, his ancestry is the dread Tatar, in which figure all the previous Turanian tribes that overran medieval Russia have been confounded.
Notes will be found dealing with all such specific persons and places.
The folk-tales are very various; some classes of them can be distinguished.
