Reading Notes: Russian Folk Tales, Part A

This week I decided to read Russian folk tales, and boy were they strange. I was both surprised and not surprised about the sadness of many of the endings. Russia is a harsh place. A couple of the stories just didn't seem to make sense at all. They felt a little like anti-jokes.

I did find the stories about Wednesday and Friday kind of fun. Either one could be interesting to try and update to a modern setting, or tell from the perspective of the day/demon/goddess? I'm also interested in doing something related to the story where the siblings turn into rivers. With that situation, I think I'd like to write some sort of first person perspective for a character that knows they have the ability to just turn into a river forever if they feel like it, and does. I could get into how they knew, and how they came to the decision to do it, and how they feel about it afterward. That could play out as a series of diary entries + 3rd person for post-river thoughts, or something closer to a stream-of-consciousness with first-person all the way through. I'm actually pretty into this idea.

I could also try my hand at something creepy, and try to write a more suspenseful and dramatic version of the story where the dead mother is found suckling her living child. I don't go in for scary stuff very much, so it would definitely be a new experience for me as a writer.

The story about the bad wife was also amusing and intrigued me, but I don't know that there's anything I particularly want to do with it. I think right now my number one choice is actually the river story, though I found it kind of boring initially.

Image: Anti-joke Chicken. Source.

Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).