The Tale of Tsar Saltan

Сказка о царе Салтане

Also known as Skazka o tsare Saltane

One dark winter evening, the young tsar Saltan was lucky enough to find himself a tsarina from a simple Russian family. He was so impressed by the speech of the young charmer that he married her the same evening, and took her two sisters with him to the palace as servants. However, the treacherous girls do not share the happiness of their luckier sister and begin to plot. Saltan leaves for a long military campaign, during which the young queen gives birth to his son. The evil sisters write a dispatch to the tsar, where they brazenly lie about the child: they say, the queen gave birth to someone unknown, "neither a son nor a daughter." Saltan is upset, but orders to wait until his return. The sisters substitute the letter, and as a result, the girl and her son are sealed in a wooden barrel and thrown into the ocean in the best sadistic traditions.