The fairy tale of the hen and the goldfish. The fairy tale about the chicken Ryaba and its meaning. Moral of the story about the chicken Ryaba. What is this fairy tale about?

• Russians folk talesRussian folk tales The world of fairy tales is amazing. Is it possible to imagine our life without a fairy tale? A fairy tale is not just entertainment. She tells us about what is extremely important in life, teaches us to be kind and fair, to protect the weak, to resist evil, to despise cunning and flatterers. The fairy tale teaches us to be loyal, honest, and ridicules our vices: boasting, greed, hypocrisy, laziness. For centuries, fairy tales have been passed down orally. One person came up with a fairy tale, told it to another, that person added something of his own, retold it to a third, and so on. Each time the fairy tale became better and more interesting. It turns out that the fairy tale was invented not by one person, but by many different people, people, that’s why they began to call it “folk”. Fairy tales arose in ancient times. They were stories of hunters, trappers and fishermen. In fairy tales, animals, trees and grass talk like people. And in a fairy tale, everything is possible. If you want to become young, eat rejuvenating apples. We need to revive the princess - first sprinkle her with dead and then with living water... The fairy tale teaches us to distinguish good from bad, good from evil, ingenuity from stupidity. The fairy tale teaches us not to despair difficult moments and always overcome difficulties. The fairy tale teaches how important it is for every person to have friends. And the fact that if you don’t leave your friend in trouble, then he will help you too...
• Tales of Aksakov Sergei Timofeevich Tales of Aksakov S.T. Sergei Aksakov wrote very few fairy tales, but it was this author who wrote a wonderful fairy tale “ The Scarlet Flower“And we immediately understand what talent this man had. Aksakov himself told how in childhood he fell ill and the housekeeper Pelageya was invited to him, who composed different stories and fairy tales. The boy liked the story about the Scarlet Flower so much that when he grew up, he wrote down the story of the housekeeper from memory, and as soon as it was published, the fairy tale became a favorite among many boys and girls. This fairy tale was first published in 1858, and then many cartoons were made based on this fairy tale.
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• Tales of Valentin Kataev Tales of Valentin Kataev Writer Valentin Kataev lived a long and beautiful life. He left books, by reading which we can learn to live with taste, without missing out on the interesting things that surround us every day and every hour. There was a period in Kataev’s life, about 10 years, when he wrote wonderful fairy tales for children. The main characters of fairy tales are the family. They show love, friendship, belief in magic, miracles, relationships between parents and children, relationships between children and the people they meet along the way that help them grow up and learn something new. After all, Valentin Petrovich himself was left without a mother very early. Valentin Kataev is the author of the fairy tales: “The Pipe and the Jug” (1940), “The Seven-Flower Flower” (1940), “The Pearl” (1945), “The Stump” (1945), “The Dove” (1949).
• Tales of Wilhelm Hauff Tales of Wilhelm Hauff Wilhelm Hauff (11/29/1802 – 11/18/1827) – German writer, best known as the author of fairy tales for children. Considered a representative of the artistic literary style Biedermeier Wilhelm Hauff is not such a famous and popular world storyteller, but Hauff’s fairy tales are a must-read for children. The author, with the subtlety and unobtrusiveness of a real psychologist, invested in his works a deep meaning that provokes thought. Hauff wrote his Märchen for the children of Baron Hegel - fairy tales, they were first published in the “Almanac of Fairy Tales of January 1826 for the Sons and Daughters of the Noble Classes.” There were such works by Gauff as “Calif-Stork”, “ Little Muck", some others that immediately gained popularity in German-speaking countries. Initially focusing on eastern folklore, he later begins to use European legends in fairy tales.
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• Tales of Gennady Mikhailovich Tsyferov Fairy tales of Gennady Mikhailovich Tsyferov Gennady Mikhailovich Tsyferov is a Soviet writer-storyteller, screenwriter, playwright. Most big success Gennady Mikhailovich brought the animation. During the collaboration with the Soyuzmultfilm studio, more than twenty-five cartoons were released in collaboration with Genrikh Sapgir, including “The Engine from Romashkov”, “My Green Crocodile”, “How the Little Frog Was Looking for Dad”, “Losharik”, “How to Become Big” . Lovely and good stories Tsyferov is familiar to each of us. The heroes who live in the books of this wonderful children's writer will always come to the aid of each other. His famous fairy tales: “Once upon a time there lived a baby elephant”, “About a chicken, the sun and a bear cub”, “About an eccentric little frog”, “About a steamboat”, “A story about a pig”, etc. Collections of fairy tales: “How a little frog was looking for dad”, “ Multi-colored giraffe”, “Locomotive from Romashkovo”, “How to become big and other stories”, “Diary of a bear cub”.
• Tales of Sergei Mikhalkov Tales of Sergei Mikhalkov Mikhalkov Sergei Vladimirovich (1913 - 2009) - writer, writer, poet, fabulist, playwright, war correspondent during the Great Patriotic War, author of the text of two hymns Soviet Union and anthem Russian Federation. They begin to read Mikhalkov’s poems in kindergarten, choosing “Uncle Styopa” or the equally famous poem “What do you have?” The author takes us back to the Soviet past, but over the years his works do not become outdated, but only acquire charm. Mikhalkov's children's poems have long become classics.
• Tales of Suteev Vladimir Grigorievich Tales of Suteev Vladimir Grigorievich Suteev - Russian Soviet children's writer, illustrator and animation director. One of the founders of Soviet animation. Born into a doctor's family. The father was a gifted man, his passion for art was passed on to his son. WITH teenage years Vladimir Suteev, as an illustrator, was periodically published in the magazines “Pioneer”, “Murzilka”, “Friendly Guys”, “Iskorka”, and in the newspaper “Pionerskaya Pravda”. Studied at Moscow Higher Technical University named after. Bauman. Since 1923 he has been an illustrator of books for children. Suteev illustrated books by K. Chukovsky, S. Marshak, S. Mikhalkov, A. Barto, D. Rodari, as well as his own works. The tales that V. G. Suteev composed himself are written laconically. Yes, he doesn’t need verbosity: everything that is not said will be drawn. The artist works like a cartoonist, recording every movement of the character to create a coherent, logically clear action and a bright, memorable image.
• Tales of Tolstoy Alexey Nikolaevich Tales of Tolstoy Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy A.N. - Russian writer, an extremely versatile and prolific writer, who wrote in all kinds and genres (two collections of poems, more than forty plays, scripts, adaptations of fairy tales, journalistic and other articles, etc.), primarily a prose writer, a master of fascinating storytelling. Genres in creativity: prose, story, story, play, libretto, satire, essay, journalism, historical novel, Science fiction, fairy tale, poem. Popular fairy tale by Tolstoy A.N.: “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio,” which is a successful adaptation of the Italian fairy tale writer XIX century. Collodi's "Pinocchio" is included in the golden fund of world children's literature.
• Tales of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich Tales of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich (1828 - 1910) is one of the greatest Russian writers and thinkers. Thanks to him, not only works appeared that are included in the treasury of world literature, but also an entire religious and moral movement - Tolstoyism. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy wrote many instructive, lively and interesting tales, fables, poems and stories. He also wrote many small but wonderful fairy tales for children: Three Bears, How Uncle Semyon told about what happened to him in the forest, The Lion and the Dog, The Tale of Ivan the Fool and his two brothers, Two Brothers, Worker Emelyan and the Empty Drum and many others. Tolstoy took writing little fairy tales for children very seriously and worked a lot on them. Fairy tales and stories by Lev Nikolaevich are still in books for reading in elementary schools to this day.
• Tales of Charles Perrault Fairy tales of Charles Perrault Charles Perrault (1628-1703) - French writer-storyteller, critic and poet, was a member of the French Academy. It is probably impossible to find a person who does not know the story about Little Red Riding Hood and gray wolf, about the little boy or other equally memorable characters, colorful and so close not only to a child, but also to an adult. But they all owe their appearance to the wonderful writer Charles Perrault. Each of his fairy tales is folk epic, its writer processed and developed the plot, resulting in such delightful works that are still read with great admiration today.
• Ukrainian folk tales Ukrainian folk tales Ukrainian folk tales have many similarities in style and content with Russian folk tales. Ukrainian fairy tales pay a lot of attention to everyday realities. Ukrainian folklore The folk tale describes it very vividly. All traditions, holidays and customs can be seen in the plots of folk stories. How Ukrainians lived, what they had and didn’t have, what they dreamed of and how they went towards their goals is also clearly embedded in the meaning fairy tales. The most popular Ukrainian folk tales: Mitten, Koza-dereza, Pokatygoroshek, Serko, the tale of Ivasik, Kolosok and others.

The tale of the Ryaba Hen is striking in its absurdity. On the one hand, by all indications, it is the most ancient archaic, probably the oldest fairy tale on Earth. On the other hand, how to understand this?

Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and a woman. They had Ryaba chicken. The hen laid an egg, not an ordinary one - a golden one. Grandfather beat and beat, but did not break. The woman beat and beat, but did not break.
The mouse ran, waved its tail, the egg fell and broke.
The grandfather is crying, the woman is crying, and the chicken is clucking: “Don’t cry, grandfather! Don't cry, grandma! I'll lay you an egg, not a golden one - a simple one.

What, a simple egg is an equivalent substitute for a gold one, which should somehow console the grandfather and woman? On the other hand, why did they grieve so much if they themselves wanted and tried to break it? Well, we got what we wanted!
This is some kind of nonsense.

It is impossible to figure it out using a similar, excuse the expression, paraphrase. To understand, you need to go to the original source.
I always say and never tire of repeating: Read the primary sources!

What did the fairy tale really sound like?
That's how:

Chicken Ryaba (original text)

Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and a woman,
They had ryabka chicken.
The hen laid an egg:
Motley, bright, boney, tricky, -
She planted the egg in an aspen hollow,
In the corner - under the bench.
The mouse ran and returned with its tail,
I broke my testicle.
Grandfather began to cry about this testicle,
Grandma is crying
Verei - laugh,
Chickens fly,
The gates are creaking,
Sor lit a cigarette under the threshold,
The doors shook, the backing crumbled,
The top of the hut began to shake...
And the hen says to them:
Grandfather don't cry, grandma don't cry,
Chickens don't fly
Don't squeak the gate, litter is under the threshold
Don't smoke
Tyn don't fall apart
The top of the hut don’t stagger -
I'll lay another egg for you:
Motley, bright, boney, tricky,
The egg is not simple - it is golden.

(Kut - a stall in which chickens were kept in winter. Verey - pillars on which gates were hung. Pobutusilis - stuck out, arched. Tyn - fence, palisade.)

That's it! It turns out that everything is exactly the opposite. AT FIRST there was a simple egg, but PROMISED a golden one!
Well, this already sheds light on a lot.
And yet, in order to understand the true meaning of this ancient fairy tale, which has come down from the beginning of time, you need to carefully read its contents, line by line.

The image of the Bird that lays the World Egg is present in many mythologies and religions. But we are interested in the Slavic version, so let’s turn to those close to it in spirit and origin:

1. The Finno-Ugrians, whose mythology closely echoes the Slavic-Aryan, report (in the epic “Kalevala”) that a duck, “the daughter of air space,” conceived from the eastern wind and laid several eggs on the knee of the water mother Ilmatar. These eggs broke and from their parts the world was born.

Initially, the entire surface of our planet was covered with land - the original continent. In the process of expansion of the planet, this first continent - the egg split, and its parts became the current continents, diverging further and further from each other (as the Earth further planetary expansion).

We will call this first continent in accordance with what is customary now - Gondwana. Only it did not stand in the middle of the ocean at all, but rather covered the entire surface of the planet (as proven by computer modeling)! The world ocean arose from the bowels of the Earth in the process of expansion - dehydration, that is, the release of hydrogen from the original material of the core - iron hydride and its combination with oxygen. That is why the egg, or the original continent-land, was carried “to the waters” - the “waters” originated inside the planet!

2. In Hinduism, a divine bird lays a Cosmic egg on the primordial waters, from which Brahma, the supreme god of this world, emerged. In another Vedic version, the yolk of the egg, the golden embryo - Hiranyagarbha is the original form of Prajapati, the creator of the Universe.

3. The Slavic-Aryan, Vedic, and as a result, the Hindu version quite logically echoes the ancient Egyptian:

In ancient Egyptian cosmogony, the white goose "Great Gogotun", the incarnation of the earth god Seb, lays an egg from which the sun god Ra is born.

Seba, or Sva. Vedic mythology speaks of Mother Sva, or Mother Glory, who gave birth to this world “And now Mother Glory beats her wings on both sides, as if on fire, all shining with light” (“Veles’ Book”).

Ryaba, a speckled hen, or a speckled hen, symbolized the starry sky, which in turn symbolized Mother Swa or Mother Glory. “Like on fire, shining with light,” the night sky looks like in the Arctic, where there was ancient Hyperborea, the ancestral home of the Slavic-Aryans, during the aurora.

So with the pockmarked chicken everything is quite clear.

Grandfather and grandmother - yes, this is a separate issue. Judging by a number of sources, the grandfather is Svarog, the creator and creator of the world (hence the verb, which we perceive as jargon, but in fact an extremely ancient word - to bungle, that is, to create; just as the word “makar” in Shakta Yoga means a method , way, hence the Russian “in this way” - Sanskrit and Russian are related languages, since the Indo-Aryans and Slavic-Aryans once in the past constituted one people).

Baba is the wife of Svarog, or Brahma, Saraswati (again, as expected, the root of Swa) is the goddess of wisdom in Hinduism.

IN Greek mythology, which is essentially a later retelling of the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, will be born from the head of Zeus, thus being his daughter. Strictly speaking. Sva's mother is also not only a wife, but also... the daughter of Svarog. This is divine incest, but let’s not go deeper.

Moreover, Sva is not only a woman who is “with her grandfather”, but also a “hen of the pockmarked chicken”. Another thing is important - the egg, planet Earth, the original continent split, continents and the world ocean arose, modern world. But origination also means ending, as we will see a little later.

As for the kinship and even partly identity of Hinduism and Slavic-Aryan Vedism, this does not require additional explanation, at least for readers of my blog. The rest can be referred to sources, of which there are plenty.

Let's move on to the second part of the “fairy tale”.

The egg is broken by a mouse.

The mouse is originally a chthonic image, that is, related to the underground, infernal kingdom. This ancient performance preserved in particular in languages, for example, geli- (Indo-European proto-language “mouse”) - qela (Lydian “earth”). In ancient Egyptian mythology, the mouse is a creature of the earth.

So, chthonic, infernal, or hellish forces crush the egg, or life. The apocalypse is coming. Its description in the fairy tale about the ripple is similar to the “Apocalypse” of John Chrysostom: human crying, a column of smoke, a hurricane, an earthquake.

There are other versions of the tale (about 60 in total), which differ little from the original, but with the introduction of some additional details. For example, an oak tree sheds its leaves, a magpie breaks its leg, a priest’s daughter breaks the buckets with which she walked through the water, the priest throws pies out the window, the priest tears up holy books and breaks his head on the door frame.

Pop is a later concept, the perception of a priest as such. The Slavic-Aryans have priests - sorcerers, sorcerers, or keepers of the Vedas - sacred tests. The sorcerer tore up these sacred texts, because knowledge has no meaning at the End of the World. And he broke his head - the material container of the mind. But the soul has not died, just as knowledge cannot die. And after the end of the world comes the beginning of a new world!

This is where the detail becomes extremely interesting: “the believers laugh.” Why are the pillars actually laughing? There is death, destruction, horror all around, but they find it funny?

We know that the ancient Slavs burned their dead and laughed at the same time. Ibn Rusta Abu Ali Ahmed ibn Omar writes in the book “Dear Values” (9th century AD):

“The country of the Slavs is flat and wooded, and they live in it.
When someone dies among them, their corpse is burned.
When the deceased is burned, they indulge in noisy fun, expressing joy.”

Why or why did they laugh?

Strabo also reported about the Egyptians who buried their dead amid loud laughter.

I don't really like V.Ya. Propp, but in detail he is sometimes useful. So Propp believed that among the ancients, laughter at death and during murder meant an upcoming new birth.

“When killing, laughter turns death into a new birth, destroys murder. Thus, this laughter is an act of piety that turns death into a new birth” (Kaisarov A. S., Glinka G. A., Rybakov B. A. Myths of the ancient Slavs. Velesova book. Saratov, 1993).

That is, laughter is a way of starting or conceiving a new life through death.

Thus, laughter is a symbol of the re-creation of life through death.

Now it is clear that the laughter of faith is a harbinger of a new life through death and destruction of this world.

That's why the pillars laugh.

We will not delve into the topic of pillars; it is known how symbolic the image of a pillar is in all mythologies, and primarily in Slavic-Aryan and Indo-Aryan, there is a connecting link between heaven and earth and the path of ascension, and even a phallic symbol. Shiva, world energy, creation and destruction of worlds. The pillar is the axis of the earth, which is located at the North Pole (“bears rub their backs against earth's axis") and on which sits the Cat-Bayun, aka the World Tree (in Pushkin, the scientist cat walks along the tree, along a chain, only for him it goes right and left, and in Slavic-Aryan mythology up and down).

All this is a separate big topic. Now the main thing is laughter at the death of the world, and therefore the harbinger of a new world and a new life.

At the same time, the gates are creaking, the top of the hut is shaking, the tyne is crumbling - everything clearly indicates a hurricane gust of wind. And this wind fills the hut, an important detail - “the doors shook,” that is, they opened, bent outward, the house was filled with wind.

The wind fertilizes the hen, as it is the fertilizing principle in the main mythologies (hence the “wind blew” about an incomprehensible pregnancy). This is pregnancy with a new world.

Feeling this, the Ryaba hen reassures everyone: it will be new world, better than before, not trashy, but golden.

According to Hinduism, four eras or Yugas - Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga make up the Manvantar cycle (Mahayuga or Chaturvy Yuga).
We are living in the Kali Yuga era, which began in 3012 BC. and will last for a long time.

Kali Yuga corresponds to the Iron Age, this is an era of global degradation, when virtue comes into complete decline, the righteous are in poverty, and criminals prosper.

Here are descriptions of Kali Yuga in Hinduism:

“Norms of legality and justice in relations
between people will be established by who is stronger.

Greedy and ruthless rulers will not behave
better than ordinary thieves."

(Srimad Bhagavatam)

“When the age of Kali comes, deception reigns on Earth,
lies, laziness, drowsiness, violence, depression, grief,
confusion, fear and poverty.

Men in Kali Yuga will be absolutely miserable creatures,
under the authority of women.

Uncultured people will collect in the name of God
begging for alms and earning a living by simply dressing up
robes of monks and playing at ostentatious renunciation.

(Bhoomi-Gita)

“In Kali Yuga, lawlessness prevails by three quarters.”

(Mahabharata)

“The downward movement of manifestation”, Kali Yuga - the end of the Manvantar cycle (Chaturvyu-yuga), when the “spark of being” is exhausted, eroded and a special situation of the end of times, the apocalypse, arises.

The apocalypse is followed by a new cycle, the world moves into a new Golden Era, called Satya Yuga in Hinduism. The golden egg promised by the pockmarked hen is this era, the “golden age,” when people will again live in harmony with the Trinity of Gods (Father-Son-Holy Spirit in Christianity, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva in Hinduism, Tritheism in the Slavic Aryan Vedas) and in harmony with nature.

So, the meaning of the fairy tale “about the little hen” becomes clear:

The hen Ryaba laid an egg, that is, the world in the fourth, current Iron Age. Chthonic, infernal beginning The mouse breaks or cracks (“breaks”) this egg, thus completing Kali Yuga (parallel meaning - creating a world inhabited by humanity, the first continent and the world ocean split into pieces). As a result, the end of the world comes, the world perishes. However, chaos is the beginning of a new Golden Age, Satya Yuga, a new world and a new cycle of Manvantara.

Like this. The tale of the pockmarked hen is both a story about the beginning of the world (the split of the first continent) and a prophecy about the end of the Iron Age (the end of Kali Yuga) and the onset of a new “golden age”.

That is, in fact, the tale of the pockmarked hen is both a prophecy about the end of this world and the end of Kali Yuga, and a message about the creation of the world, the split of the first continent, the formation of continents and the World Ocean in the process of expansion of the planet (dehydration of the planetary core). In the first case golden egg- This new era, Golden Age. In the second - life itself, which came to a lifeless, but “whole” planet.

Deep meaning, age-old wisdom coming from the beginning of time - that’s what this fairy tale is. Why was it so distorted, why and when, cut down to two sentences, and even turned inside out, turning it into absurdity?

It’s stupid, yes, it’s strange that we know so little about the religion, history and philosophy of our ancestors, while the history of Rus' did not begin with Baptism, but at least several thousand years before this event. And what depths of knowledge are not hidden in this story. Or maybe they then hide so that we can look for them?

Well, even if the fairy tale about the pockmarked hen was at least somewhat logical, even primitive, would anyone begin to look for its meaning?

Hello, dear readers of the Russian Word blog!

In a previous article about fairy tales, I wrote that storytelling fairy tales- This is an old Russian custom.

Each of us remembers our childhood, when adults told fairy tales, and we asked for more and more new fairy tales. The fairy tale immerses us in fantasy world, full of mysteries and secrets. Everything secret, unknown, unknown always attracts...

But here's what's interesting. Did you know that those fairy tales that we loved to listen to in childhood, and which we now tell our children, are

ADAPTED fairy tales?!

Actually in Russian folk tales not adapted the ancient ideas of the people about life are hidden. All unadapted fairy tales very scary. After reading such a fairy tale, an unprepared person best case scenario will experience shock, and at worst, plunge into deep depression.

When reading an unadapted fairy tale, you need to understand that it was created several thousand years ago. Therefore you need to have at least general idea about the rites and rituals of the ancient Slavs.

For example, our ancestors imagined life to be endless.

Since ancient times, the symbol of the infinity of life has been egg. The egg is the prototype of all life on earth! By the way, I remembered a question that always baffles me: what came first - the chicken or the egg?.. However, there is always new life in the egg!

Everyone knows the “simple” fairy tale about the Ryaba Hen:

Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and a woman. They had Ryaba chicken. The chicken laid an egg, not an ordinary one - a golden one. Grandfather beat and beat, but did not break. The woman beat and beat, but did not break. The mouse ran, waved its tail, the egg fell and broke. The grandfather is crying, the woman is crying, and the chicken is clucking: “Don’t cry, grandfather, don’t cry, woman!” I will lay you a new egg, not a golden one, but a simple one!

I confess I never understood the meaning of this tale! Why do grandpa and grandma suddenly start crying and are worried about a broken testicle?! They themselves wanted to break it! And by the way, why did they want to break it?!

The meaning of this story will become clear if you read the unadapted text of the fairy tale. Here he is:

There lived a grandfather and a woman. And they had grouse hen, old old lady.

She laid an egg in the hay on a shelf, on rye straws. Wherever the mouse came from, it split this egg.

The grandfather is crying, the woman is grieving, the magpie has broken her leg, the backbone has become loose, the oak tree has knocked off its leaves.

The priest's daughter went for water, broke the buckets, and came home without water. Popadya asks: “Why are you daughter, did you come without water?” She said:

What grief is upon me, what great grief is upon me! There lived an old man and an old woman. And they had a hazel hen, an old little old lady. She laid an egg in the canopy on a shelf, on rye straws. Wherever the mouse came from, it split this egg. The grandfather is crying, the woman is grieving, the magpie has broken her leg, the backbone has become loose, the oak tree has knocked off its leaves. And I went for water, broke the buckets, broke the rocker. At least you, dear, leave the pies out of the window out of grief!

The priest got upset and threw the pies out the window. The priest goes: “What are you doing, priest?!” And she answers:

What grief I feel, what great grief I feel! There lived an old man and an old woman. And they had a hazel hen, an old little old lady. She laid an egg in the canopy on a shelf, on rye straws. Wherever the mouse came from, it split this egg. The grandfather is crying, the woman is grieving, the magpie has broken her leg, the backbone has become loose, the oak tree has knocked off its leaves. Our daughter went to fetch water, broke the buckets, and broke the rocker. And out of grief, I left all the pies out the window. And you, priest, at least hurt yourself on the doorframe out of grief!

The priest ran away, and how he hit the doorframe! That's where he died. They began to bury the priest and celebrate a wake.

What an expensive egg!..

There is another, even more creepy, version of this story, where the granddaughter, having learned that the testicle was broken, took it and... hanged herself! Horror!

In the morning they look, and instead of an emerald egg, there is a fine fellow lying there, but it is so beautiful that it cannot be said in a fairy tale, nor can it be described with a pen. He sleeps on the stove in a heroic sleep. “Holy, holy, but how long has he been here?” - Grandfather and Baba crossed themselves and looked at each other. The rooster crowed. The fellow woke up, stretched, sat up...

Good morning, good people! - said the young man.

Hello, killer whale, hello,” Grandfather and Baba answered in unison. -Who will you be?

They call me Ivan Tsarevich, and I come from your region - the son of the late Tsar and Tsarina, peace be upon them...

Yes, how can that be? - Grandfather and Baba were surprised. After all, we have Queen Amdev who rules us! True, people say that she harassed the rightful heir, but guess what in those stories is true and what is a lie.

Is Amdev now on the throne of my ancestors?! - the prince exclaimed sadly. - Apparently people were telling the truth, but I thought that she wouldn’t succeed...

On the eve of my birthday,” Ivan Tsarevich began the story, “there was a ball in the palace. I was told that some person, attractive and sweet, wanted to meet me after dancing in the palace park. I arrived at the meeting place before the end of the dance. I sat down on my favorite invisible bench under a spreading tree. It covered her so well that from two steps it was not visible whether anyone was sitting on her or not. Before that ill-fated evening, I really loved sitting there with my fiancée Maryushka. So this time I sat down on this bench, so that I could see the whole alley, on which a mysterious stranger appeared... Oh, it would be better not to appear: gray-haired, bony, not teeth, but fangs, a humpbacked nose kissing her chin, all her clothes in rags, a mincing gait, a kind of squeaky, shrill voice...

“Holy fathers, this is Amdev,” Baba said, crossing herself. “I was at the market in Stolgrad just now and saw her there.

People say that Amdev is a witch,” added Grandfather. - All the people of the world groan at her atrocities, you and your father and mother kind words remember. There will be great joy for everyone when you return to the throne.

They say that Amdev’s servants walk around the city, among people unrecognized, and find out about the desire to overthrow her, and therefore she is supposedly invincible.

Is there really no place where her witchcraft would not work? Where could one talk without fear of Amdev's servants? - asked Ivan Tsarevich, looking around.

There is such a place - the only one in the capital city, in the cathedral where your ancestors are buried, Vanyusha. “This place is holy,” answered Grandfather and Baba. - That’s where you can talk without fear of Amdev and her servants - they have no way there. Amdev cannot find out about the conspirators outside the capital. But as soon as you set foot on the soil of the city, don’t talk too much, except for the cathedral - before you have time to blink, you will find yourself in a dungeon.

Well, so,” continued Ivan Tsarevich, “I’m sitting, hiding, on a bench and I hear this witch muttering under her breath: “Nothing, I didn’t manage to kill the Tsar and Tsarina, they killed themselves, but their heir I “I’ll ruin you now,” she laughed. And suddenly I saw that for a moment she was enveloped in some kind of smoke or fog, and when it cleared, I saw a beauty. She was so beautiful that for a moment I forgot who she really was and... almost fell in love with her. She apparently hoped for this. But I wouldn’t trade my fiancée Maryushka for anyone! When Amdev moved away from the tree under which I was, I came out of hiding, and approaching her, pretended as if I had just arrived.

Next?.. - We just talked with her. We exchanged compliments, she hinted that she had secretly loved me for a long time. I replied that if my heart had not been given to another, it would have belonged to her. At these words, fierce hatred and anger flashed in her eyes. Suddenly, the sky darkened, lightning flashed, thunder roared, and a terrible wind rose, which in the blink of an eye scattered the entire ball. And then, amid this terrible roar, I heard a voice: “Ha-ha-ha! Finally, I will deal with the prince, and at the same time with his bride - I will turn them into chickens and sell them at the market. Ha-ha-ha-ha-a!..” Then everything began to spin, spin, and the white light faded. Circles swam before my eyes, among them the laughing face of Amdev, then the sad image of Maryushka, then her ring, then the faces of the priest and mother, asking not to leave the throne to the witch, who will bring a lot of grief and suffering to people.

What is true is true - Amdev brought us a lot of troubles and misfortunes, Grandfather and Baba lamented.

“...I woke up on your stove,” the young man finished the story, “and I can’t imagine what to do next.”

Ivanushka, just now you mentioned some kind of ring. What kind of ring is this? Grandfather asked.

The ring is not simple - magical. Maryushka said that her gardener uncle gave her this ring with a pebble in memory of her great-grandmother, who, they say, was a fairy... If you turn the pebble, you can turn into either a bird in the sky, or a forest animal, or a creeping reptile,” explained Ivan Tsarevich.

With such and such a ring, you can enter the palace unnoticed and find out how to defeat Amdev,” Baba realized.

“First we need to find Maryushka,” the young man said sadly, and I don’t even know where she is. Is she alive?..

Don’t worry, prince, we will find your beloved beauty,” Grandfather encouraged the young man. Baba, Baba, I think you said that when you bought the Ryaba Chicken, there was another chicken sitting next to it?

And that’s right, Grandfather, that second chicken was bought by a grandmother from a neighboring village, a few miles away.

In the next morning they went to that village. We found the old woman who bought the second chicken - Pestrushka. We went into her yard...

Look, Grandfather, that chicken,” Baba said, seeing the chickens pecking at the millet, “it’s so colorful.”

Yes, look, Baba, this Pestrushka has chickens. Why should we take it with them? - Grandfather answered.

“Maybe with them,” said Ivan Tsarevich thoughtfully. - After all, Ryaba the Hen didn’t have any chickens; she herself, as you say, laid an emerald egg! “Here, with Pestrushka, everything is different,” the young man added thoughtfully, “and how he looked into the water.” - What if a magical egg, thanks to which Maryushka can be disenchanted just like me, is laid by one of those hens that is now running around with mother Pestrushka?..

The owner of Pestrushka turned out to be a cunning woman and did not believe in the fairy tale about the emerald egg. And our trio only returned home late in the evening with the whole chicken family.

I’ve been reading this fairy tale to my daughter for days now and I’m indignant! What kind of stupid chicken couldn’t lay a normal egg right away? Why was it so difficult? In a fit of anger, so to speak, I was puzzled by the question of what exactly is the moral of this fairy tale. The first link that Google gave me was very informative)) I quote:

I’ve been telling my child a bedtime story about the chicken Ryaba for six months, and every time I’m tormented by guesses as to what its moral is.

Finally, I decided to do a little research on this topic. And here is the result!

Firstly, I learned that there are a lot of variations on the theme of the fairy tale about the hen Ryaba. Here are examples:

Attempts to interpret its meaning are also very broad, from simple statements like “what we have, we don’t keep; if we lose it, we cry,” “we haven’t lived richly, so there’s nothing to start with,” or “old age is not a joy: they have two less strength left, than a mouse” to entire parables, for example, about love: “5 years ago, when I was a student, a certain aunt-professor told me that the golden egg is Love, which my grandparents did not save. The grandfather beat and drank, walked..., the grandmother beat and walked, did not wash the floors and did not wash the shirts. A mouse is a little nasty thing like gossip or some household trifle. Like, if you beat Love for a long time and diligently, then in order to completely smash it, a little thing is enough. Well, a simple egg is a habit that my grandfather and grandmother received instead of love. Chicken Ryaba, respectively, Fate or Supreme Intelligence. And she is pockmarked because she is pockmarked, i.e. black and white, i.e. combines both the black and white sides of life” or about the ecological end of the world:

Here are a few more interpretations:

Perhaps all these interpretations are not without meaning, but the most plausible decoding (as it seems to me) is offered by E. Nikolaeva in the book “111 tales for child psychologists” « (if you don’t have the strength to read the whole thing, pay attention to at least the last 5 paragraphs):

“Once upon a time there lived Grandfather and Baba. And they had Chicken Ryaba. The hen laid an egg. Yes, not simple, but golden. Grandfather beat and beat, but did not break. Baba beat and beat, but she didn’t break it. The mouse ran, waved its tail - the egg fell and broke. Grandfather is crying, Baba is crying, and the Chicken is clucking: “Don’t cry, Grandfather, don’t cry, Baba. I will lay another egg for you - not a golden one, but a simple one.”

Ask your parent to tell you this story. It's hard to find a person who doesn't know her. You can start by asking whether the parent has read this fairy tale to the child. If you read it, let him retell it. If there is a hitch in the story, you can help. And when the parent tells the whole story, it’s worth asking a few questions.

Grandfather and Baba wanted to break an egg?
If you wanted to, then why did you cry?
Why didn’t Grandfather and Baba pawn the shells at the pawnshop if they were gold?
What was in the testicle when it broke?
How often has a parent thought about the situation when telling a fairy tale to a child?
Why does a parent read this particular fairy tale to a child if it is full of contradictions?
What can we expect from reading this fairy tale?

Moral: often, when communicating with a child, we do not think about what we are really doing, and therefore we offer him something to which we ourselves do not know the answer.

Comment: Most parents will report that they have never thought about the content of the fairy tale. Those who say that they were always confused by its contents will add that they never found an explanation for the strange behavior of Grandfather and Baba. Here it is worth paying attention to the fact that, remaining perplexed, we often do not change our behavior, we do not trust the child, for example, after consulting with him about the content of a fairy tale. After all, you could just ask the child about what Grandfather and Baba are doing, why are they crying?

It is quite possible that the psychologist will hear a parent’s counter-question about how one can consult with a one-and-a-half-year-old child to whom the parent read a fairy tale? Then you can simply ask, how often does the parent even ask for the child’s opinion? And this in itself can be a separate topic for conversation.

However, if the parent remains confused about the previous one (that is, the psychologist clearly grasped the context of the unconscious), then it is better to develop the “fairytale” direction further, rather than rise again to the level of consciousness.

We can say that the parent just retold this fairy tale word for word, because he remembered it not when he read it to the child, but when his parents read it to him, still a child. Information received in early age, we store our whole life and perceive it without criticism, because at this age we have not developed critical thinking. Therefore, when reading a fairy tale as an adult, we continue to treat it without a shadow of doubt.

But a fairy tale is only an excuse for discussing what a parent is doing when reading a fairy tale or otherwise interacting with a child. When communicating, the child remembers all the statements of the parents and, just like a fairy tale, treats them uncritically. Therefore, already as an adult, a person sees in the mirror not himself, but the image that he formed under the influence of the words of people significant to him: “You are such and such. You won’t amount to anything” or: “You will grow up, work hard and achieve everything you want.” These words and the attitude towards a child under 5 years old form a scenario that entangles a person with invisible threads and forces adults to act not in accordance with the real situation, but in accordance with those ideas about themselves and their purpose that were formed in childhood.

When we read a fairy tale to a child, he reacts not to it, but to our attitude towards it.

A fairy tale told in childhood allows us to understand many features of adult behavior. In addition, this fairy tale is not an everyday one, it is not easy to interpret. It differs from others in that it is told to all children of our culture, therefore it bears the imprint of this culture.

The version of “Ryaba the Hen,” which a parent will most likely remember, appeared in the 19th century, when this very ancient tale the great teacher K.D. Ushinsky for some reason took away the ending. And the ending can be found in the three-volume work of A. N. Afanasyev “Russian Folk Tales”. When reading this version, it turns out that after Grandfather and Baba cried, the granddaughters came, found out about the egg, broke the buckets (they went for water), and spilled the water. The mother, having learned about the egg (and she was kneading the dough), broke the kneading bowl, the father, who was in the forge at that moment, destroyed the forge, and the priest, who was passing by, demolished the bell tower. And the peasants, having learned about this event, in different versions of the tale, hanged themselves or drowned.

What kind of event is this, after which no stone was left unturned?

Most likely, such details will confuse the parent, so we can continue that repeated different corners world events, actions and heroes participating in them, K. Jung called archetypes - ancient ideas. They are transmitted through fairy tales to people of the same culture. At a moment of extreme stress, a person begins to behave in a way that is not characteristic of his personality, but exhibits behavior that is common to a given people. If we take into account that this fairy tale is not an everyday tale, but carries the characteristics of our culture, then we can read it differently.

Someone gave Grandfather and Baba something they had never encountered. The egg as an archetype, which is regularly found in myths and fairy tales of all nations, is a symbol of the birth of something. It is golden because it does not look like what the Hen was carrying before. That is why Grandfather and Baba do not run to the pawnshop to pawn a golden shell and then buy a mountain of ordinary eggs. Gold, like the egg itself, is only a symbol here. But the old people are trying to destroy something that they have never encountered before in their lives. But you could wait, put it aside and see who will hatch from it. But they don’t do that, and are in a hurry to destroy this new thing. And here another archetypal hero appears in the story - the Mouse. We write her name with capital letters, because this is also not a small rodent, but a symbol. It is not without reason that in many Russian fairy tales she is the key subject who resolves the problems that arise. The mouse as an archetype is a substitute for God. And then the one who gave takes away what people do not know how to use. And then another archetype arises in the fairy tale.

But it will be better if the psychologist does not simply say what kind of archetype this is, but helps the parent feel its existence. The psychologist may tell him that he would like to prove the existence of this archetype, and not just report it. After all, it was precisely to introduce it into the unconscious of every child of a given culture that this fairy tale was created, and for this reason it is passed on from generation to generation.

The psychologist asks the parent to completely trust him for two minutes, close his eyes, listen to his voice and compare what he hears with what is happening at that moment in his soul. If the parent agrees to such an experiment, then the psychologist, in a slow, clear voice appropriate for suggestion, says: “Imagine that there is Someone about whom you know that any word he says will surely come true. And now this Someone comes in and tells you: “From this moment on, nothing new will ever, EVER happen in your life. Just an eternal repetition of what you have already experienced. Never anything new. The eternal cycle of already accomplished events."

What do you feel? - you ask your parent in a normal voice. Obviously, he will say that he either didn’t believe you (the worst case scenario), or that he felt scared, unpleasant, or bad (you succeeded). Then you say that right now a person felt the reality in himself of the most important archetype, which all people of the same culture pass on to each other from generation to generation - this is the archetype of Miracle. We live because we know for sure that if not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow, a miracle will definitely happen to us. Everyone has their own. But for everyone it is extremely attractive.

There is one difference between the Russian archetype of miracle and the similar archetype of other nations (and everyone has it, since it is this that allows us to survive when there is simply no hope, when life drives us into a dead end). For many Russian speakers, this miracle happens for nothing, “for free,” since many of our fairy tales tell how a miracle happens without any effort on our part. And here the psychologist has the opportunity to talk about how a miracle will definitely happen to the child and to any other person, but not for free, but through teamwork. This long haul- creating a miracle, but very effective. If you manage to conduct such a mini-training with a parent, then future cooperation with him is guaranteed.”