Yuri Lotman:
“Culture is the atmosphere that people create for their own survival”
What are fairy tales talking about?
Time and longevity of antediluvian humanity. Many tales carry particles of ancient wisdom.
The Moldovan "Tale of the Piglet" talks about the time when the pregnancy of women lasted more than three years and passed without birth pains, and dragons, basilisks, many-headed hydras and other monsters lived on the earth. It could be between 24 million and 70 thousand years, rather, even at the beginning of this period. Finding Fat Frumos, she gave birth to a child without birth pains.
The Romanian folk tale "Youth without old age and life without death" about the search by Fet-Frumos for youth without old age, and life without death. After long wanderings and adventures, he found such a land inhabited by beautiful sorceresses, where time seemed to stop. Having lived with them for many years, he went home but found his palace long destroyed, and the world was completely different.
The Russian folk tale about the miracle-monster overseas, the beautiful girl and the grey wolf - about the invasion of the twenty-armed, decapod, and seven-headed miracle monster and his army on the Don Earth is either fish or people. Fighting off the miracle-monster from the side of Svetlanka, which then turned into a fish.
The Russian folk tale "Ivan, widowed son" - about how Ivan the widowed son came to an old man - a giant, the brother of the Zmei (Serpent) Gorynych, who had a winged horse and threw lightning in the sky. Ivan received the same horse named Sivka-Burka and was able to fly away from him from the old man.
The Russian folk "The Tale of Rejuvenating Apples and Living Water" - about the search for Ivan - the prince of rejuvenating apples and living water. While travelling to the Kingdom of the Fifties, he visited the three sisters of the Baba Yaga and they gave him three flying horses, covering a distance of hundreds of kilometres in seconds. Then he found youthful apples and a well with living water, met the hero-girl Sineglazka and married her.
The Russian folk tale "Copper, silver and gold kingdoms" of Ivan Tsarevich’s search for his mother, who was kidnapped by Whirlwind. Looking for her, he climbed the glass mountain, on which stood copper, silver and gold palaces. There Ivan Tsarevich found three beautiful princesses - Slave Whirlwind and his mother - Nastasya Tsarevna and defeated the Whirlwind. Descending from a glass mountain, he married Elena the Beautiful.
The Arabian fairy tale "1001 nights": The Tale of the Copper City (567-578 Nights) - about the search by the Syrian king Abn al-Malik, Emir Musa and Sheikh Abd al-Samad for the place where the genies lived in the past and where they were defeated by Suleiman and sealed by him in copper jugs. Discussions about past times and the desire of Abn al-Malik to get one of the copper cushions Sending in his search Musa, Abd al-Samad and Talib.
The Arabian fairy tale "1001 nights": The story of Hasib and the queen of snakes (483-536 nights) - about the penetration of Hasib into the underworld, inhabited by 12 thousand large snakes and his meeting with the queen of snakes. The queen of snakes told Khasib about the wanderings of the king’s son from the sons of Israel, Bulukia, in bygone times. The beginning of the history of Bulukia and his meeting with the queen of snakes.
The Romanian folk tale "Greucanu" - about the search for Greucanu sun and moon, stolen by snakes. Turning into a dove, and then into a fly, Greucanu fell into the serpent's lair, defeated three snakes, and then turned into a pear tree, a garden and a spring of serpentine wives and a mother.
The Romanian folk tale "Bogatyr Pryslya and Golden Apples" - about the search by the hero of Acne for the kidnappers of golden apples from his father’s palace. They turned out to be three snakes living in bronze, silver and gold palaces underground. Each snake abducted by a princess and forced them to marry themselves. The battle of Acne with snakes and victory over them.
The Romanian folk tale "Ilyana Kosynzyana" - about the search for Ionita Fat Frumos Ilyana Kozynzyany, who appeared to him from Lake Sorceresses and presented a ring. Before finding her and marrying her, Ionita Fat Frumos flew on huge birds, met with a dragon snake, an old witch grandmother with horse legs, werewolf mares.
The Romanian folk tale "Fet Frumos and the sun" - about the search for Ionike Fat Frumosom sun, stolen by dragons. Before freeing the sun, he killed three dragons. And then, when the sun reappeared in the sky, Ionike Fat Frumos killed three snake wives, who turned into apple trees, a vine bush, and a mother of dragons.
The Moldavian folk tale "Dafin and Vestra" - about how Dafin fell into slavery to hell (he is unclean, devil and devil), and then he met Vestra's chardeka and married her.
The Romanian folk tale "Tsugul, son of an old and old woman" - about the search for Tsuguli’s strivings stolen by the Witch Snake. To take possession of them, he killed the giant serpents, their brides - the daughters of the Snake - the witch and the old snake itself.
The Romanian folk tale "Serpent Winner" - about the search by Fat Frumos for his sisters, who were kidnapped by the mother of three snakes, called a furious whirlwind. Reaching the kingdom of snakes, Fat Frumos killed the three brothers of the giant serpents, their sisters, who turned into a fruit garden and a vine bush, as well as their mother.
The Romanian folk tale "Fat Frumos Golden Curls" - about the miraculous birth of Fat Frumos and his wanderings. Fat-Frumos inherited from the old hermit winged horse, visited the Land of Sorceresses, obtained a wonderful dress and married a royal daughter. After that, he, along with his horse, crushed the enemy forces of the tsar’s opponents from the water three times.
The Moldavian folk tale "Pour the light ahead, the darkness trailed behind" - about a beautiful girl who was to marry a dragon and the adventures that fell to her lot. Her meeting with the son of Zelen the king, who took living water from Dragon Rock for her and grew her hands chopped off by dragons.
So who has always been the main rival of heroes?
And not only Russian, but also Indian, and Iranian, and Western European and etc.?
In the folk tradition, these animals are usually called either snakes, as in India - nag, or dragons.
There are quite specific descriptions of them - lizard-like, first of all, combat heroes. They are shrouded in impermeable scaly armour, have a short flat tail, a snakelike head and long flexible arms.
Most often, lizard people are single knights. But sometimes they surround themselves with an escort, they own formidable beam weapons.
But at the same time, many myths celebrate their military honour: as a rule, these creatures fight people on equal terms with cold weapons, and even when they lose, they do not resort to their formidable technique.
The myths say that they are very smart and wise, that they hate people fiercely, but sometimes, very rarely, they become friends.