The Fiend

The Fiend is a Russian fairy tale about a young women named Marusia who goes to a feast and party where she meets a man who is both nice and pleasant to look on. He also appears to be fairly wealthy providing many of the drinks and food items for the party. As the party progresses they fall in love with each other and he asks her to marry him. Marusia agrees that this is a good idea, at the request of her mother though she later follows the boy to discover where he lives and more about him.Marusia follows the man to the church where she sees him eating a corpse, horrified she runs back home. At a later party the fiend (evil one as the folktale refers to him) asks her if she saw him at the church. Marusia however claims that she did not follow him to the church, and so he tells her that her father will die the next day.This continues for a while with him asking her if she knows what he is and her denying it, and with each denial he causing another of her family members to die, finally he tells her she is going to die. At this point Marusia asks her grandmother what to do. Her grandmother explains a way by which Marusia can come back to life after she dies, however Marusia cannot enter church for a number of years. However on coming back to life she meets a good man who she marries, however he does not like the fact that she will not go to church and eventually forces her to do so, and so the Fiend discovers that she is alive and kills her husband and her son, but with the help of her grandmother, the water of life, and holy water she brings them back and kills the fiend.

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22373 Project Gutenberg Russian Fairy Tales by Ralston, William Ralston Shedden, 1828-1889.]
* [http://www.zeluna.net/russian-fairy-tale.html Russian Fairy Tale Stories, Zeluna.net.]