Adventure tale plot as a product of literary and folkloric synthesis: Case AaTh 485A

Abstract

The article discusses the plot, designated in the catalog of fairy tale types as “Borma Yaryzhka” (AaTh 485A): the hero is sent to the overseas kingdom, which is overrun by serpents, to obtain the royal regalia (~ to the city of Babylon for the crown); he fulfills his mission and returns; having three adventures on the way back (blinding the one-eyed ogre; escaping the sexual captivity of the ‘forest woman’; helping the lion in his fight with the enemy and then showing him the ‘power of hops’). It focuses on the literary sources of the plot frame (such as The Tale of the Babylonian Kingdom, The Parable of the City of Babylon, the Legend of Leo the Philosopher by Archbishop Anthony) and their origin; analyses the description of the hero’s adventures on his way back home and their genesis; discusses how this source material was assembled into a stable composition of an adventure tale. The conducted research leads us to the conclusion that The Tale of the Babylonian Kingdom is a Russian reworking of a Byzantine oral legend which over time absorbed a number of ‘wandering’ literary subplots. Their montage (unlikely to happen in the oral tradition) was probably modeled on the compositional patterns typical for books about the misadventures of returning heroes. Stories circulating in the tradition, which corresponded to a similar theme, provided the necessary materials. Thus, a long adventure story was created and later adapted by oral tradition. Analysis of its folkloric versions points to the previous existence of manuscript texts now lost, but their content can be partially restored from the available oral archives. Moreover, certain correspondences between the Russian adventure tale and the ones that come from geographically, historically and culturally distant parts (Latin, Arabic, Chinese), show that in the past there were some ‘intermediate links’ which connected them. Consequently, it is possible to hypothesize the existence of rich currents of manuscript texts, remotely connecting the whole ‘reader space’ of Eurasia and North Africa.