Retold by Amy Parrish

 

Once there was a girl named Vasalisa whose mother was on her deathbed.

Her mother gave her a tiny doll in secret right before she died.

The doll looked just like her, and Vasalisa immediately loved it.

Her mother whispered to her that if she would feed it a little each day and keep it safe and hidden in her pocket at all times, the little doll would protect her and guide her.

This was her mother’s final blessing.

Vasalisa grew and grieved and grew.

Her father became lonely and eventually remarried a woman without any awareness of little dolls who had two mean daughters of her own. 

So Vasalisa became the third child and a stepchild to a doll-less mother who did not care for Vasalisa and felt jealous of her beauty.  

The three insisted that Vasalisa do all the housework, especially the unpleasant work. 

But Vasalisa continued to grow in beauty and countenance, as her little doll remained safe and hidden in her pocket.

There came a time when the stepmother and her daughters decided to get rid of Vasalisa once and for all and plotted to trick her toward her own death.

So the trio extinguished the fire in the hearth and demanded that Vasalisa go to Baba Yaga, who lived in the middle of the dark forest to ask for fire – thinking for sure the Yaga would eat Vasalisa the moment she saw her.

Vasalisa didn’t really know to be afraid and in obedience left for the woods to search out Baba Yaga with a little bread and of course her little doll. 

She traveled for days with the doll, and when she came to a cross in the path she would ask her doll which way to go, and the doll would jump around and point out the right direction.       

Finally she came upon a house, a wild house too strange for the imagination.  The fence around it was a long winding row of skulls – painted white, black and red, sitting on stakes.  The house was poised atop giant chicken legs.

As Vasalisa and her doll watched from a distance, Baba Yaga flew from above in a round cauldron and landed in the front garden.

Yaga’s clothes were bold and flowing with color and the scent of sage and burning cedar. She was intense, wise and seeing with a wafting pungency of her wild and natural perfume.

She called forth the young girl from the woods for her eyes could see more than what they saw and demanded to know why she had come to annoy her in her solitude.

Vasalisa feared she would be devoured by the Yaga.  The little doll was silent, calm and did not breathe a breath or make a move so as to size up the moment.

Vasalisa slowly moved toward the chicken house and Baba Yaga, and with a trembling voice she asked ever so politely if she could possibly… if it were not too much of an inconvenience to maybe somewhat have… well, some…some, fire….   

The doll started to jump a little inside her pocket, and Vasalisa stopped talking and watched to see what the Yaga would do with her humble request.

As the doll had tried to warn Vasalisa to stop her earlier soliloquy Baba Yaga was not pleased with the whining request. 

She was annoyed by this nuisance of a girl and thought she just might eat her as well as look at her but then thought a little challenge might make this annoyance worth the trouble.

Baba Yaga towered over the girl and told her if she could complete all the tasks that she was given she would be given the fire but if she didn’t complete them, she would become dinner. 

 “Bring me my dinner,” the Yaga snorted as she lay down on her bed.  “Then you will clean my house, rake the yard, wash my clothes, separate the mildewed corn from the good corn and see that everything is in order.”   

Vasalisa looked at the hovel of a chicken house and began to try and clean and sort and organize.  She cried from exhaustion.  She asked her doll if it was possible to get all of this done and the doll answered, “Of course you will get it done.  Sleep now and all will be well.” 

The next day everything was done.  Vasalisa was so pleased, and had the dinner ready when Baba Yaga arrived.  The Yaga was surprised that this young girl could complete this large task but only resolved to make the next task more grueling.

“You see that mound of dirt over there,” the Yaga pointed.  “There are poppy seeds mixed into that dirt and I want them all sorted by morning – a new pile of poppy seeds and a new pile of dirt.  And if you don’t have it done by dawn, I’m going to eat you for my breakfast!”  

Well Vasalisa was overwhelmed by this task.  The pile of seeds and dirt was taller than a tree and wider than a carriage.  How would she ever get this done so as not to be the breakfast of the Yaga in a few short hours?  But the doll whispered to Vasalisa not to worry.  “Just go to sleep and I will see to this sorting.  It will be done in time. Just sleep now.”

And so Vasalisa slept deeply and peacefully that night, and when she awoke, she saw two perfect piles of sorted seeds and dirt.   

The Yaga was angry when she saw the challenge was not too much for Vasalisa.  But having met the challenge, she agreed to give Vasalisa the fire.  So she held a large stake with a skull on the end of it into the flaming cauldron and a strong fire blazed through the eyes of the skull.

Vasalisa was gaining confidence now and wanted to ask Baba Yaga questions before she left, so holding her newly earned fire she said, “I’m sorry to bother you again but why do you have skulls painted red, black and white around your house?”

Baba Yaga replied in a frustrated tone that the white one was her day, the red one her rising sun and the black one her night and then said, “It is not good for a girl to know too much too soon.”

The Yaga was tired of these questions and thought perhaps to eat Vasalisa anyway.  Then Vasalisa started to ask another question about the chicken leg house but the doll jumped up and down in her pocket so Vasalisa quickly thanked Baba Yaga and made her way into the forest. 

She continued to move quickly through the woods and when she came to a cross in the path she would look to her doll to guide her left or right or straight ahead and she got home as it was turning nightfall.

Her fire pole with the blazing skull shown through the woods, and the stepmother and her daughters, hovering together from cold, were terrified by the ghostly burning skull that seemed to be floating in the air as it came closer to their house. 

And they were completely shocked when they saw Vasalisa, unharmed, carrying that which had frightened them. 

They stood up to welcome her with the fire, as they had grown colder and hungrier still.  “We thought you had been killed,” they feigned concern. 

And in that moment, the flames leapt from the eyes of the skull and burned the three of them to ash. 

And so it was and so it is.

The End.