The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda
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The Tale of the Priest and of his Workman Balda (Russian: Сказка о попе и о работнике его Балде, Skazka o pope i o rabotnike ego Balde) is a fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin wrote the tale on September 13, 1830 while staying at Boldino. It is based on a Russian folk tale which Pushkin collected in Mikhailovskoe early on. The Tale of the Prist and of his Workman Balda consisits of 189 extremely varied lines that range from three to fourteen syllables but made to rhyme in couplets. During the summer 1831 Pushkin read the tale to Nikolai Gogol who liked it a great deal. The Tale was first published posthumously by Vasily Zhukovsky in 1840 with considerable alterations due to censorship; the Priest character was replaced by the merchant.
[edit] Plot summary
The poem tells about a lazy priest who was wandering around the market looking for a cheap worker. There he met Balda (Балда in Russian means a stupid or not very serious person) who agreed to work for a year without pay except that he could hit the priest three times on his forehead and cooked spelt for food. The priest of course agreed because he was very much of a cheapskate. But then after he had observed Balda at work, he saw that he was not only very patient and careful but also very strong. That worried the priest greatly and he started giving Balda impossible missions to accomplish.
The Priest asks Balda to gather the fabricated debt from sea devils. Balda troubles the sea with the rope and forces the leader of the devils, an "old Bies", to come out. He agrees to pay the debt if Balda will defeat his grandson in running and weight carrying. Balda tricks the "little Bies", allowing the rabbit (his proclaimed "younger brother") to run instead him, and "carrying" the horse between two legs by riding on it.
The story ends when Balda gives the priest three blows to the forehead which results in the priest losing his mind. The final line is "You shouldn't have gone rushing off after cheapness."
[edit] Adaptations
- 1933-1936 - The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda, USSR, animated film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, and the surviving film score by Dmitri Shostakovich
- 1940 - The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda, USSR, traditionally-animated film by Panteleymon Sazonov. [1]
- 1956 - The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda, USSR, stop motion-animated film by Anatoly Karanovich. [2]
- 1973 - The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda, USSR, traditionally-animated film by Inessa Kovalevskaya. [3]
[edit] References
- Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study by A.D.P. Briggs, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1982.
[edit] External links
- (Russian) Сказка о попе и о его работнике Балде available at Lib.ru
