Ep. 832 - Princess Helena the Fair - A Russian Folktale

We say that we are wise folks, but our old people dispute, the fact, saying: “No, no, we were wiser than you are.” But skazkas tell that, before our grandfathers had learnt anything, before their grandfathers were born—

There lived in a certain land an old man of this kind who instructed his three sons in reading and writing and all book learning. Then said he to them:

“Now, my children! When I die, mind you come and read prayers over my grave.”

“Very good, father, very good,” they replied.

The two elder brothers were such fine strapping fellows! so tall and stout! But as for the youngest one, Ivan, he was like a half-grown lad or a half-fledged duckling, terribly inferior to the others. Well, their old father died. At that very time there came tidings from the King, that his daughter, the Princess Helena the Fair, had ordered a shrine to be built for her with twelve columns, with twelve rows of beams. In that shrine she was sitting upon a high throne, and awaiting her bridegroom, the bold youth who, with a single bound of his swift steed, should reach high enough to kiss her on the lips. A stir ran through the whole youth of the nation. They took to licking their lips, and scratching their heads, and wondering to whose share so great an honor would fall.

“Brothers!” said Vanyusha, “our father is dead; which of us is to read prayers over his grave?”

“Whoever feels inclined, let him go!” answered the brothers.

So Vanya went. But as for his elder brothers they did nothing but exercise their horses, and curl their hair, and dye their mustaches.