Vasilisa the Beautiful, or Vasilisa the Fair, is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki. Before she died, the mother of Vasilisa gave her daughter a magical Montaka doll. Whatever Vasilisa needed, the doll talisman would provide, as long as she kept it secret. After Vasilisa’s mother passed, her father remarried a cruel woman. This stepmother eventually tried to have Vasilisa die at the hands of Baba Yaga, but with the aid of her doll, she survived the encounter. In the end, she married the Tsar.
Appearance List Russian Fairy Tales by Alexander Afanasyev (1855–1863), Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar (1890), The Red Fairy Book (1890) by Andrew Lang [Internet Archive], Russian Folk-Tales trans. by Leonard Magnus from Afanasyev (1916)
Description Vasilisa the Beautiful, or Vasilisa the Fair, is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki. Before she died, the mother of Vasilisa gave her daughter a magical Montaka doll. Whatever Vasilisa needed, the doll talisman would provide, as long as she kept it secret. After Vasilisa’s mother passed, her father remarried a cruel woman. This stepmother eventually tried to have Vasilisa die at the hands of Baba Yaga, but with the aid of her doll, she survived the encounter. In the end, she married the Tsar.
