Grey Wolf

Three days down the right-hand road, the horse is in two pieces on the ground and the wolf that did it is already gone into the trees. Ivan Tsarevich had been warned. The stone pillar at the crossroads set out the terms plainly enough: straight on for hunger and cold, left for the rider’s death, right for the death of the horse. He chose the horse. Now he walks, a full day of it, until his legs give out and he sits down in the dust, and the grey shape comes padding back out of the forest to ask him why he looks so miserable.

This is the Grey Wolf, Seryi Volk, and that is how he enters the best-known wonder tale in Russia. He has killed the prince’s horse, as the pillar promised someone would. Then he does a thing the pillar never mentioned. He says he is sorry for the young man, tells him to climb on, and offers to take him wherever he was going.

Where Ivan was going is a long story. His father, Tsar Vyslav Andronovich, has a tree of golden apples and a thief who visits it by night. The thief is the Firebird. Ivan’s two elder brothers, Dmitri and Vasili, slept through their turns at watch. Ivan stayed awake, grabbed at the bird in the dark, and came away with one feather that lit a dark room by itself. The tsar wanted the rest of the bird, and so the three sons rode out, and the youngest met the wolf.

The tale spends very few words on what the wolf looks like. He is grey. He is big enough to ride, and later big enough to carry two. Beyond that there is only his speed, which is faster than any horse, so that a journey of many days is over by the end of a night. The prince clings to the rough fur of his neck, the dark fields go by underneath, and before dawn they are standing outside a stone wall in the kingdom of Tsar Dolmat.

Here the pattern of the story is set, and it is a pattern that says a good deal about both of them. The wolf gives exact instructions. Go over the wall, take the bird, leave the golden cage alone. Ivan takes the cage. Hidden strings run from it, bells and rattles go off across the garden, and the guards have him. Dolmat, more offended than angry, says he would have given the bird to an honest visitor, and now wants a horse with a golden mane in exchange. The wolf listens to all this and carries the prince on to the stables of Tsar Afron. Take the horse, he says, and do not touch the golden bridle on the wall. Ivan touches the bridle. The stable rings like a foundry, and Afron names his own price: Elena the Fair, a princess in a third kingdom.

The wolf does not trust Ivan with a third errand. He goes himself. He lies up by the palace garden until evening, when Elena comes out to walk with her women, then clears the fence, seizes her, and is away before anyone has finished screaming. Ivan is waiting. The three of them travel back together, prince and princess on the one grey back, and somewhere on that road the two humans fall in love, which makes handing her over to Afron impossible.

So the wolf handles that as well. He throws himself against the damp earth and stands up as Elena the Fair. Ivan leads this false princess into Afron’s hall and leaves with the golden-maned horse. Afron holds a wedding. Three days later his new bride asks to walk in the open field, and once she is out there she is a wolf again and running. The trick works a second time at Dolmat’s court. The wolf strikes the ground, becomes a horse with a golden mane, and is traded for the Firebird. When Dolmat rides his prize out into the fields, it throws him and goes home on four grey legs.

Ivan now has the bird, the horse and the princess, and he did not honestly win one of them. The wolf brings him back to the place where the dead horse lay, some twenty versts from his father’s house, and says his service ends here. Then he goes into the forest. The prince weeps to see him go.

It should have ended there. Instead Ivan and Elena lie down to rest under a tree, and Dmitri and Vasili find them. Dmitri puts a sword through his sleeping brother. The two take the bird, the horse and the girl, frighten her into silence, and ride home as heroes.

Ivan lies dead in the open for thirty days. Then the Grey Wolf passes that way and finds the body. A raven is coming down on it with two of its young. The wolf waits in the grass, catches one fledgling, and holds it in his jaws while he explains matters to the parent. The young one lives if the raven flies beyond the thrice-nine lands and brings back the water of death and the water of life. The raven is back on the third day with two small flasks. The wolf tests them on the fledgling first, tearing it apart and sprinkling it whole and alive again. Then he does the same for the prince. The dead water closes the wounds. The living water opens his eyes. Ivan sits up and remarks that he has slept a long time.

The wolf tells him how long, and what his brothers have done, and that Vasili is marrying Elena that same day. He carries him to the palace door. Elena sees who has walked in and tells the tsar everything, and Dmitri and Vasili go to the dungeon. Other tellings are harsher and have the wolf tear the brothers apart himself.

Where the Grey Wolf comes from, the tale never says. He has no den, no parents, no master and no enchantment waiting to be broken. In the German cousin of this story the helper is a fox who turns out to be a bewitched prince. The Russian wolf stays a wolf to the end. The story itself has a traceable history on paper: it was circulating in cheap printed broadsheets in Russia by 1786, Alexander Afanasyev put it in his great collection in the middle of the next century, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky turned it into verse in 1845, and Viktor Vasnetsov painted the prince and princess on the wolf’s back in 1889. That painting is how most Russians picture him.

His powers are speed, speech, cunning, a change of shape bought by striking the earth, and the knowledge of which water to use first. His limits are just as plain. Each disguise is a short loan that he has to escape from on foot. He cannot fetch the two waters himself and must bully a bird into doing it. And for all his sense, he cannot make one young man follow a simple instruction. He can only be there afterwards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Grey Wolf in Russian folklore?

The Grey Wolf is the talking wolf who helps Ivan Tsarevich in the Russian wonder tale of the Firebird. He kills Ivan’s horse, then takes pity on him and carries him on his back to win the Firebird, a golden-maned horse and Princess Elena the Fair. He also brings Ivan back to life after his brothers kill him.

Why does the Grey Wolf help Ivan Tsarevich?

The Grey Wolf says he feels sorry for Ivan after killing his horse. A pillar at the crossroads had warned that anyone taking the right-hand road would lose his horse, and the wolf carried that out. Seeing Ivan worn out from walking, the wolf offers to carry him instead.

Can the Grey Wolf change shape?

Yes. The Grey Wolf strikes the damp earth and takes on another form. He becomes Elena the Fair to fool Tsar Afron, and then a golden-maned horse to fool Tsar Dolmat. Each time he turns back into a wolf after a few days and runs back to Ivan.

How does the Grey Wolf bring Ivan Tsarevich back to life?

The Grey Wolf catches a young raven and makes its parent fetch the water of death and the water of life. He sprinkles Ivan’s body with the water of death, which heals the wounds, and then with the water of life, which wakes him. Ivan had been dead for thirty days.

Where does the tale of the Grey Wolf come from?

The tale is Russian and was collected by Alexander Afanasyev in his nineteenth-century collection of Russian folk tales. It was already circulating in cheap printed broadsheets in Russia by 1786. Vasily Zhukovsky made a verse version in 1845, and Viktor Vasnetsov painted the famous picture of Ivan and Elena riding the wolf in 1889.

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Fire Bird, Living Water and Dead Water, Koschei, Baba Yaga, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Zmey Gorynych, Buyan, Sirin, Alkonost, Fenrir, Asena, Amarok