Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/20

xii in great measure ceases. It is seen that the true "fairy" element does not predominate. Not only are the relations between man and the spiritual world different, but that spiritual world itself is less familiar. The field of the skazki is not so much fairy-land as a natural wonderland, approaching in its variety and gorgeousness of surprise the Empire of the "Thousand Nights and a Night." Who originated these tales? In what forms did they first appear? And how can one account for the enormous number of their variants, and the hold they possess upon the millions of the Slavonic race who tell them to their children every day?

Russia was long in asking herself these questions. Until little more than a century ago she considered the skazki of small interest to the world of culture. The earlier Russian writers regarded them with mild curiosity, and had no conception of their origin. The first printed collection was not made until near the end of the eighteenth century, and the next was half gone before the "scientific" collector appeared. Active interest in them then began to be manifested, and it was not long before serious study had convinced students of the literature that not only did this submerged fiction of the people go back to the very beginnings of the Slavonic