Storytelling Week 13: Russian Folktales

There was once a couple that was so in love and seemed to have the perfect marriage. Other couples envied them. They were both so happy with one another. They never fought or disagreed. Everyone always told them they were so meant to be. 

Mother with Child. 

They had built such a loving home and wanted to add more love, a child. They tried and tried, but had no luck. One day the wife felt something and knew that they had been blessed with a child.

They waited and waited. So excited for the day they could rest their eyes on their son or daughter. The day finally came and their beautiful baby son came out healthy. But, something went very wrong with the wife. She turned red and was bleeding and bleeding. The husband didn’t know what to do. He watched his wife take her last breath. She had gone. And just as the baby was crying so was the husband. Weeping for his beloved wife.

The man stopped his crying and began wondering. Wondering how he was going to take care of his infant child. How was he going to nourish it? How was he going to care for it all by himself?

The next day, after a long night, looked for an old maid to take care of his child. He found a nice, sweet old lady who had raised 5 children of her own who were all grown now. She loved the little boy like her own. It pleased the husband to see his boy taken care of and loved by a mother figure, but he couldn’t help but wonder how not having a mother would affect the boy.

A few weeks later the old maid told the husband that the baby cries all day long but stop his crying and is silent at night. She wasn’t sure why and neither was the father. One night the old maid stayed up to see what made the boy stop crying.

One night she was up and heard a creek in the floor and what sounded like steps. She creped up to the boy’s room. What she saw was unbelievable. She saw his mother bent over in her ghost like state feeding the boy from her bosom. The old maid couldn’t believe what she saw. The mother saw the old maid and rushed up and out of the window.

The boy was still silent so the old maid went over to his crib and noticed the boy was not moving. He was dead just as his mother was.

Author’s Note: This week I read stories from the Russian Folktale section. I found these stories interesting and easy to read. These stories were separated by story and were not a continuous story. So for my story this week I focused on only one story, The Dead Mother. I kept my story very close to the original, not steering away at all really except how I told it and a few minor details. In the original story, the couple is very much in love and have a child. The mother dies right away. The father hires an old lady who notices the baby doesn’t make noise at night. She finds that the dead mother is nursing the baby who also ends up dying. I wasn’t sure how the baby died in the original story so I didn’t add how he died in mine.