The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan is an 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin

Aleksandr Pushkin

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....

, written after the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 edited by Vladimir Dahl. As a folk tale, it is classified as Aarne-Thompson type 707, the dancing water, the singing apple, and the speaking bird.

Plot summary

The story is of three sisters, of whom the youngest is chosen by Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

 Saltan (Saltán) to be his wife, while he makes the other two his royal cook and royal weaver. They are jealous, of course, and when the tsar goes off to war, and in his absence the tsaritsa gives birth to a son, Prince Gvidon (Gvidón), they arrange to have her and her child sealed up in a barrel and thrown into the sea.

The sea itself takes pity on them, and they are cast up on the shore of a remote island, Buyan

Buyan

In Slavic mythology, Buyan is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with an ability to appear and disappear. Three brothers – Northern, Western, and Eastern Winds – live there...

. The son, having quickly grown while in the barrel, goes hunting. He ends up saving an enchanted swan

Swan

Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...

 from a kite

Kite (bird)

Kites are raptors with long wings and weak legs which spend a great deal of time soaring. Most feed mainly on carrion but some take various amounts of live prey.They are birds of prey which, along with hawks and eagles, are from the family Accipitridae....

.

The swan creates a city for Prince Gvidon to rule, but he is homesick, and the swan turns him into a mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...

. In this guise, he visits Tsar Saltan's court, where he stings his aunt in the eye and escapes. Back in his distant realm, the swan gives Gvidon a magical squirrel

Squirrel

Squirrels belong to a large family of small or medium-sized rodents called the Sciuridae. The family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots , flying squirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa and have been introduced to Australia...

. But he continues to pine for home, so the swan transforms him into a fly

Fly

True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

. In this guise, Prince Gvidon visit's Saltan's court again and he stings his older aunt in the eye. The third time, the Prince is transformed into a bumblebee

Bumblebee

A bumble bee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species, existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere although they are common in New Zealand and in the Australian state of Tasmania.Bumble bees are social insects that are characterised by black...

 and stings the nose of his grandmother.

In the end, he expresses a desire for a bride instead of his old home, at which point the swan is revealed to be a beautiful princess, whom he marries. He is visited by the Tsar, who is overjoyed to find his wife and newly-married son.

Adaptations

• 1900 - The Tale of Tsar Saltan
  The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Rimsky-Korsakov)
  The Tale of Tsar Saltan is an opera in four acts with a prologue, seven scenes, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by Vladimir Belsky, and is based on the poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin...
  
  , opera
  Opera
  Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
  
   by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
  Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
  Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
  
   in which the popular piece Flight of the Bumblebee
  Flight of the Bumblebee
  "Flight of the Bumblebee" is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900. The piece closes Act III, Tableau 1, during which the magic Swan-Bird changes Prince Gvidon Saltanovich into an insect so that he can fly away to...
  
   is found.
• 1943 - The Tale of Tsar Saltan, USSR, traditionally-animated
  Traditional animation
  Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
  
   film directed by Brumberg sisters. http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=2943
• 1966 - The Tale of Tsar Saltan, USSR, feature film
  Feature film
  In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
  
   directed by Aleksandr Ptushko
  Aleksandr Ptushko
  Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko is a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR. Ptushko is frequently referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis...
  
  . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174207/
• 1984 - The Tale of Tsar Saltan
  The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1984 film)
  The Tale of Tsar Saltan is a 1984 Soviet traditionally-animated feature film directed by Lev Milchin and Ivan Ivanov-Vano and produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio. It is an adaptation of the poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin. There are few words in the film besides those of the poem...
  
  , USSR, traditionally-animated
  Traditional animation
  Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
  
   film directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano
  Ivan Ivanov-Vano
  Ivan Pyetrovich Ivanov-Vano was a Soviet animator and Russian animation director, sometimes called the "Patriarch of Soviet animation"....
  
   and Lev Milchin
  Lev Milchin
  Lev Isaakovich Milchin was a Soviet animated film director, art director and painter. He was also a pedagogue and Honoured Artist of the RSFSR.He was a prototype for the main character for Film, Film, Film.- Selected filmography :...
  
  . http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=3213

Gallery of Illustrations

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was a 20th-century illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva and contributed to the Ballets Russes. Throughout his career, he was inspired by Slavic folklore....

 made the following illustrations for Pushkin's tale in 1905:

See also

The basic folktale has many variants from many lands. Compare:

• The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird
  The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird
  The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird is an Italian fairy tale collected by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Popular Tales...
  
  
• Princess Belle-Etoile
  Princess Belle-Etoile
  Princess Belle-Etoile is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy. Her source for the tale was Ancilotto, King of Provino, by Giovanni Francesco Straparola....
  
  
• The Three Little Birds
  The Three Little Birds
  The Three Little Birds is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 96. The story is originally written in Low German.It is Aarne-Thompson type 707, the dancing water, the singing apple, and the speaking bird....
  
  
• The Bird of Truth
  The Bird of Truth
  The Bird of Truth is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Cecilia Böhl de Faber in her Cuentos de encantamiento. Andrew Lang included it in The Orange Fairy Book.-Synopsis:...
  
  

External links

Сказка о царе Салтане available at Lib.ru

Lib.ru

Lib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment.Founded and supported by Maksim Moshkow, it receives contributions mainly from users who send texts they scanned and processed...

• The Tale of Tsar Saltan, transl. by Louis Zellikoff