Sinyushka's Well

"Sinyushka's Well"
Short story by Pavel Bazhov
Original titleСинюшкин колодец
TranslatorAlan Moray Williams (first), Eve Manning, et al.
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian
Genre(s)skaz
Publication
Published inMoscow Almanac
Publication typeanthology
Media typeprint
Publication date1939
Published in English1944
SeriesThe Malachite Casket collection (list of stories)

"Sinyushka's Well" (Russian: Синюшкин колодец, romanized: Sinyushkin kolodets, lit. 'Sinyushka's Water Well'), also known as "The Blue Crone's Spring" and "The Blue Baba of the Marsh", is a folk tale (the so-called skaz) of the Ural region of Siberia collected and reworked by Pavel Bazhov. It was first published in the Moscow Almanac in 1939 (pp. 256–266).[1] It was later included in The Malachite Casket collection. "Sinyushka's Well" is one of the most famous stories in the collection and is still popular nowadays.[2][3] The story was translated from Russian into English by Alan Moray Williams in 1944, and by Eve Manning in the 1950s.

It is one of the tales about mining pioneers.[4] The tale is told from the point of view of the imaginary Old Man Slyshko (Russian: Дед Слышко, romanized: Ded Slyshko; alternative translation: Grandpa Slyshko[5]).[6]

There is a blue fog above Sinyushka's well.[7] Her main function is to keep the mountain riches from the greedy and undeserving.[8] Nataliya Shvabauer believed that this character did not exist in the original Ural folk tradition, but the author constructed it according to the "mythological canon".[8]

  1. ^ Sinjushkin kolodets (in Russian). FantLab. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  2. ^ Budur, Natalya (2005). "Bazhov". The Fairy Tale Encyclopedia (in Russian). Olma Media Group. pp. 34–35. ISBN 9785224048182.
  3. ^ "Bazhov Pavel Petrovitch". The Russian Academy of Sciences Electronic Library IRLI (in Russian). The Russian Literature Institute of the Pushkin House, RAS. pp. 151–152. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  4. ^ Bazhov 1952, p. 234.
  5. ^ Balina, Marina; Goscilo, Helena; Lipovetsky, Mark (25 October 2005). Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales. The Northwestern University Press. p. 115. ISBN 9780810120327.
  6. ^ Batin, Mikhail (1983). "История создания сказа "Малахитовая шкатулка"" [The Malachite Box publication history] (in Russian). The official website of the Polevskoy Town District. Retrieved 30 November 2015.[permanent dead link]
  7. ^ Bazhov 1952, p. 233.
  8. ^ a b Shvabauer 2009, p. 119.