This is a book of Russian folklore retold for young people and the young at heart. The tales are a good sampling of Slavic märchen, and the luminous prose counterposes the sometimes dark narratives. Ransome was the author of the popular 'Swallows and Amazons' childrens' books. He spent time in Russia during World War I as a journalist for a radical British newspaper, the Daily News, meeting among others, Lenin and Trotsky. However, that was after he wrote this book. He was a member of the London bohemian artistic scene, and knew Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist behind the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

This is a book of Russian folklore retold for young people and the young at heart. The tales are a good sampling of Slavic märchen, and the luminous prose counterposes the sometimes dark narratives. Ransome was the author of the popular 'Swallows and Amazons' childrens' books. He spent time in Russia during World War I as a journalist for a radical British newspaper, the Daily News, meeting among others, Lenin and Trotsky. However, that was after he wrote this book. He was a member of the London bohemian artistic scene, and knew Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist behind the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

This is a book of Russian folklore retold for young people and the young at heart. The tales are a good sampling of Slavic märchen, and the luminous prose counterposes the sometimes dark narratives. Ransome was the author of the popular 'Swallows and Amazons' childrens' books. He spent time in Russia during World War I as a journalist for a radical British newspaper, the Daily News, meeting among others, Lenin and Trotsky. However, that was after he wrote this book. He was a member of the London bohemian artistic scene, and knew Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist behind the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.