Russian and Cossack Folktales

"Far, far behind the blue sea, behind the fiery abyss, in the void places, in the midst of the pleasant meadows, stood a lofty city . . ."

Thus begins one of these delightful folktales. There are other delights too, not least amongst which is: "So he lived with her and was happy, but he caused his first wife to be tied to the tails of wild horses and torn to pieces in the endless steppes."

With fifty tales translated by historian and linguist R. Nisbet Bain, and twenty-two black-and-white a...