A study about Russian transportation methods in famous fairy tale, “Vasilissa-the beautiful”

Abstract

Russian fairy tales are a mass of folktales which most famous among other countries. There are lots of examinings about the beginning and spreading of these stories. The Russian word “skazki” ,used to identify these folktales, means ‘to tell’. Vasilissa- the beautiful is one of the main story of Russian fairy tales. It was published by W. R.S.Ralston(1873), Petr Nicholaevich Polevoi(1874), Post Wheeler(1912) etc. Dadigma V. Rudrigu has translated it in to Sinhala as “Lassana Vasilissa”. There are sixteen fairy tales included in this book. The research problem of this paper was to identify those myths and other transportation methods used in the book. Encyclopedia of Russian myths, Dictionaries of Russian language, Articles about the history of Fairy tales and Vasilissa- the beautiful were the main sources for the study. According to that we found there are some types of transportation methods in folk tales such as Myths, Animals and Vehicles. The famous witch Baba-Yaga’s vehicle was mortar and pestle. She is sweeping the air with a broom. The characters in Vasilissa- the beautiful travels especially by horses, swans, wolves etc. They used carts and snowmobiles also. These animals are usually seen in Russian Forests, home yards and farms. Horses were mostly used for hunting, war matters and transportation in day today life. The conclusion of this research is that Fairy Tales are the spirit of Russian culture which show every bit of Russian background and myths were the masterpiece of it.