Russian Tales: Traditional Stories of Quests and Enchantments

The more I read these books the more I realize that most folktales are not unique. There are certain archetypes that permeate human society and while I wasn't familiar with these specific stories, I was familiar with the overall gist of most of these. I enjoyed them, especially the ones involving demons (TIL that blacksmiths were thought to have magical powers and in league with demons because people didn't know how smelting worked). Most of these stories I could think of a Grimm's fairytale that was similar, but surprisingly The Snow Child reminded me of Frosty the Snowman! The only negative is that the language is a bit outdated since the stories are all in the public domain and were translated quite a while ago. There is also a very show more archaic use of the word 'slut' (meaning uncleanliness). That made me do a double take. show less