Finista feathers clear falcon

The plot of the first tale

My father had three daughters, he twice went to the city for shopping and brought gifts to his daughters, but only his younger daughter didn’t want anything, as soon as she got a feather of Finist clear falcon. Finally, for the third time, being at the city gates, the old man's father met with a box in which the feather was found. I paid a thousand rubles for a box and gave it to my daughter. Every evening, the youngest daughter locked herself in her room, opened a box with a feather, a feather flew out, hit the floor, and turned into a beautiful young prince who had sweet conversations with her until late. The older sisters heard the male voice and checked it themselves, and complained to the father, but they couldn’t catch their younger sister with her boyfriend, since he always turned into a feather at strangers. In the afternoon, the prince in the guise of a falcon flew through the window, and in the late evening he returned in the same way. On the third night, the sisters put a ladder and poked sharp knives and needles on the window. A falcon flew in, but could not fly into the window, hurt yourself about the knives, and exclaimed: “Farewell, beautiful girl! If you try to look for me, then look for distant lands in the thirtieth kingdom. Before, you will destroy three pairs of iron shoes; you will break three staffs of cast iron; you will make three stone swellings, and you will find me, a good young man. ”

She went to look for her lover, and on the way she met three huts one by one, each of which had an old woman who gave her three wonderful objects: a spindle , a dish and a hoop . And Finist, in the meantime, was already married to a prosvirne. Finding out about that, the girl got a job as a housekeeper at the house of mallow, and began to barter with her for one night with her husband on one wonderful subject. But the mallow watered Finista with sleeping pills, so he slept like a dream for those three nights. But on the last, third night, the teardrop of a girl accidentally fell on the cheek of sleeping Finista, causing him to wake up, recognize his former lover, and run away with her to her homeland. She returned with a feather to her father's house and healed as before. At Easter week, everyone gathers to church, and the youngest daughter does not go. When everyone had gone, the feather turned into a prince, his whistles were dressed and a carriage, on which they went to church incognito for two days, until his father tracked down. Then they had to play a wedding ^[2] .

Differences in the plot of the second tale

In the second version of the tale of Finista, the youngest daughter asks her father to bring not a feather, but a scarlet flower. The father receives a scarlet flower from an old man with the condition that the youngest daughter marries the son of an old man, Finist, is clear to the falcon. The flower has a wonderful property: if you put it in the water, Finist flies in the form of a falcon, hits the ground, and turns into a man. Finist gives his beloved feather, with a wave of which various outfits, servants and carriages appear. Now, every Sunday, the youngest daughter did not go to church, but remained at home, arriving later incognito in the form of a rich lady, thanks to the magic of a little feather. But one day, upon the return of loved ones, she forgets to pull a diamond pin out of her hair, which caused her sisters to suspect.

Next, the story repeats the story of the first fairy tale, with minor differences: instead of old women, the younger daughter meets three grandmothers in the huts on chicken legs, a hammer , a dish and a horse that feeds on burning coals makes three wonderful gifts, and instead of the hypnotic wife Finista leads to That dream is a magic pin that sticks into his hair. And the cause of awakening is not a tear, but a pin found and extracted. Also different is the ending. Finist arranges a public court over his wife under the following wording: “How do you judge with which wife to spend a century with me - with this, that you sold me, or with this, that you bought me?” The people condemned my wife, who sold her husband, to hang on the gate and shoot. Which was carried out by Finist. ^[3]

The notes to the publication of the tales of Afanasyev ^[4] said: “... the plot is taken into account in a number of European versions, as well as in records made in America, Africa, Asia (Turkey, India). Russian versions - 20. The story of the plot is associated with medieval knightly poetry - in particular, with the work of Marie de France "Lais" (XII century) and Hartmann von der Aue's poetic story " Poor Henry " (late XIII century). In the XVII century. this type of fairy tale was edited by the Italian writer Basile ( Pentameron , II, No. 2). The first Russian literary-edited tale of Finista the Clear Falcon was printed in 1795 (Awesome, II, No. 11, pp. 3-14). Information about fairy tales like this and other fairy tales about a wonderful wife - AT 425, 428, 430, 440. ^[5] . The presence in Russian versions of this archaic plot about the secret marriage of different-stage motives gives K.Ye. Korepova the basis for concluding that the tale, which probably has a Western book source, reflected the Russian oral tradition, rooted partly in the Slavic ethnographic soil. (...) AT takes into account a range of 425 ° C types recorded in Europe and America (from European Americans and Negroes in French, English and Spanish) and only one text recorded in Asia (in India). There are 19 Russian variants, 5 Ukrainian ones, and 2 Belarusian ones. There are such tales in the Turkic ^[6] and Finno-Ugric ^[7] material not considered by AT. The formation of this particular kind of plot about the wonderful spouse, to which the fairy tale “The Scarlet Flower ” belongs, heard by S. T. Aksakov from the keywoman Pelageya (1858) is associated with the main type 425 A - “ Cupid and Psyche ”. The oldest literary version in Aristides of Miletus’s “Miletus' Tales” (1st or 2nd century BC), his story about Cupid and Psyche was retold in the 2nd century. n er Apuleius in the book. 4-6 Golden Ass . The plot was then processed by Italian, French, and Russian writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Basile, Pentameron (II, No. 9); La Fontaine . "Love of Psyche and Cupid" ("Les amours de Cupidon", 1669); Barbo de Villeneuve " Beauty and the Beast " (Villeneuves M. "La Belle et la Bete", 1740); I. F. Bogdanovich " Darling " (1778, full ed. 1783). Partly close to the story about Amur and Psyche is one of the stories of the Indian Sanskrit book “ Kathasaritsagar ” (“Somadeva”): see Benfey, S. 254. In this text, the usual logical sequence of the development of the action is disturbed: the youngest daughter of the merchant even before her father I brought her a scarlet flower, met Finist in the church, spoke to him and became convinced of his love for her ... ”

Vladimir Propp (“The Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale”) writes about Finista and others, as he puts it, “female fairy tales”: “It can be established that shoes, staff and bread were items that once supplied the dead for wandering along the way another world. They became iron later, symbolizing the longitude of the road. ” He points out that the fairy tale is one of those whose hero was married twice - voluntarily and involuntarily: “The first marriage — moreover, a free marriage — takes place not in the woods, not in another kingdom, but at home, after which the lover in the form of an animal goes to another the kingdom is already going to marry (or marry) there when the girl finds it and, having bought three nights from an opponent, wins the husband. The motive of the purchased nights is also undoubtedly historical, but there is no data in the materials on men's houses, with the help of which this motive can be explained precisely. One can only assume that here we have the forbidden connection of a girl with a young man-bird, that is, with a mask, with a young man who was already outside his home in the “other” kingdom, where his bride is going to follow. ” The feather that Finist gives to the bride is a “magic object”, akin to a “ magic helper, ” moreover, it belongs to the group of animal body parts (claws, hair, skins, teeth).

• Josepha Sherman used fairy tale motifs in her novel The Shining Falcon (1989), for which in 1990 she was awarded the Compton Crook Award for the best English-language novel of the year in science fiction, fantasy or horror. ^[eight]

• Afanasyev A.N. Folk Russian fairy tales. Full edition in one volume. / - M .: Alfa-Kniga, 2010, p. 553-562, ISBN 978-5-9922-0149-9
• Plot number 432. "Finist clear falcon" // Comparative index plots. East Slavic tale