Reading Notes: The Headless Princess, Part B

This week I chose, surprise, Russian myths. I think I am probably going to keep reading them as my extra credit until the stories run out, as I am really enjoying them.

Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

A king had a daughter who was a witch, nearby a priest lived and had a son of 10 years old who was learning how to read and write. One day he passed by the window of a princess, and he saw her dressing and noticed that she took off her head! She cleaned it and put it back on. He told anyone who would listen about what he saw.

One day, the headless witch became sick. She demanded if she died that the priest’s son reads something called a psalter over her three nights in a row. When she died, the king ordered the son to do as the princess had wished. The boy was unhappy, and when he told his teacher about it she gave him a knife for protection to trace a circle around him. She warned him he should do his work, but not to look up from the reading no matter what happened.

When he started reading, the princess rose from her grave, furious he had been a peeping tom and a gossip. She rushed the boy, but the circle protected him. She made all kinds of horrible hallucinations happen, but he never looked up. Once the sun came up, she went back to her coffin. The second night the same thing happened. The third night though, the teacher gave him a hammer and four nails, to nail the coffin shut and to hold the hammer when he started reading.

When the princess tried to leave, she found she couldnt and was furious. She made him think the church was on fire, but he did not look and when the day came the church was fine. As the princess rushed her coffin.-The king found her inside the coffin the next day, lid open and her body face down. The king found out from the boy what had happened, and a stake was driven through her chest. He rewarded the boy for his bravery with money and land. 

image source

image source

End Thoughts

I love how at a loss I always am for these stories. Was the reading causing her to rise, or did she know she would rise and wanted him to be there to torment him, and the reading was a distraction for him? Why was she headless? Why did she die? Why punish a boy in the wrong place, wrong time? Why did the teacher have all the answers - was she a witch too? Maybe she had cursed the princess for some wrongdoing? Who knows, but this gives me an idea for a story.

And About My Image Choice 

I love the movie Mars Attacks! and when I searched for "female headless horseman" on google, the image results made me think of this scene in the movie where a lady whose obsessed with her dog gets a little switch-a-roony during one of the alien's experiments. If you are in the mood to watch a crazy weird and funny 90's movie, this would be a good start!