Guest Storytellers Posts

A Story About a Doll, a Witch, A Girl, and her Lover (Almost) by Guest Storyteller Marie Selavy.

For the beginning: VasiRiesa the Brave and VasiRiesa the Brave, Tale the Second

While she gardened in the late afternoon, she spotted another young woman pushing a heavy bookcart up the next hill. This one was small with hair like a wren, smiling genially behind black spectacles despite the immense weight of her cart. Vasiriesa wondered what brought students so far to the outskirts of campus, but wisely decided to hold her tongue.

Baba Yaga returned in the late eve, and nodded with approval at the clean home and fluffy roof. “You’ve succeeded once again, Vasiriesa,” she sighed, “and it’s a shame, because that means you will have to cook supper. However, the last task of all will surely mean meat for my table tomorrow. I have created a list of every student admitted to the university, and every student who has been passed over. Tomorrow, you must write to them and inform them of their luck, or lack of it–and tomorrow, I shall finally have meat for dinner!”

Then she laughed.

The little doll had another good dinner, as Vasiriesa chewed off her fingernails, eying her toes in a manner that disturbed the good doll. “For heaven’s sake, Vasiriesa! You’ll waste away to nothing!”

“But those letters without end! I can understand the squirrels and their sorting, and the birds and their swift delivery, but whoever could help me with such a tedious, thankless task?”

“Trust me, Vasiriesa,” said the doll, wiping tomato soup from her carved nose, “I’ve helped you before, and I shall help you on the third day. Now, if you’re not eating that pie….”

Vasiriesa slept soundly, waking so early that Baba Yaga was still getting ready to leave, chortling to herself in the wee hours of the morning. She glanced out the window, and saw a third woman carting heavy books up the nearest, steepest hill. Though her fair hair stuck up in every direction, Vasiriesa thought her the most lovely of the three girls who had passed on that hill.

“That is my future bride!” she told the doll.

“Oh no. No, no, this is not a good development. At least you’ll make a nice goulash.”

Vasiriesa paid her no mind. The beauty of the third woman stayed with her while she polished every piece of furniture and fed shocks of corn to the quietly clucking house. The doll’s reminder of the third, most impossible task hit her like a thunderclap.

“All those letters!” she cried. “I am goulash for sure!”

“You think after the pigeon bit, you would have trusted me, but such is the life of a poppet.” The doll sighed, and whistled out the window a third time.

Imagine Vasiriesa’s joy as the lawn filled with graduate students!

There were tall students, short students, students of every color and creed. Male students, female students, and quite a few that were something in between. There were centaurs and fairies and even a peaky looking vampire who glimmered dully in the bright sun. All wore open, excited expressions and practical clothing, their arms filled with books and quills and notepaper.

Vasiriesa had a busy day overseeing the grad students’ work, but they were eager to please. All the letters were finished by sundown, and Baba Yaga’s return was hailed with a shower of official white letters, ready to be mailed to students all over the world the next morning.

“Nicely done, Vasiriesa,” she said, settling into an easy chair while the girl served her supper. “Though I was looking forward to a nice stew, this is better than having to finish all those letters myself. In return for your loyalty and hard work, you may ask me three questions. But if you ask the wrong ones, you will grow old and haggard before your time, and people will run from the sight of you.”

Then she laughed.

Vasiriesa thought long and hard about how to plumb the depths of her knowledge, and decided that the simplest questions would be the safest. “If it pleases you, Baba Yaga,” she asked, “who is the tall woman who pushes books up the hill at night?”

Baba Yaga laughed. “She is my Assistant of the Evening, and she is the most cunning and clever.”

“Then, if you please, who is the spectacled woman who pushes books up the hill in the afternoon?”

“She is my Assistant of the Day, and she is the most gentle and kind.”

Vasiriesa blushed delicately at the last question. “Then, if you please, Baba Yaga, who is the woman who pushes books up the hill in the earliest morning?”

“She is my Assistant of the Dawn, and she is the most brilliant.”

Then she laughed.

“Then with utmost respect, most Baba of Yagas,” said Vasiriesa, “I wish for your blessing to court and wed the Assistant of the Dawn, so we may serve you together.”

Baba Yaga did not laugh.

“Blessing? I give no blessings!” Sparks flew from her cloud of hair. “So this is why you come, to take my best and brightest Assistant from me? Begone with you, and if it’s fire you want, fire you shall get!”

Baba Yaga summoned a ball of flame, and Vasiriesa would have likely been barbecued if the hut had not spat her out quickly, sending her flying right into the group of three Assistants, who breaked for coffee together in the early evening.

“You have to help me!” she cried, “Baba Yaga has turned on me!”

The End. For now…

Source: Vasilisa the Fair, Alexander Afanasev. Also, somewhat inspired by Psyche and Eros.

About our Guest Storyteller:
Marie Selavy might have some experience with demanding graduate assistant-ship, but she doesn’t want to talk about that. She’d rather talk about Australian books, pretty girls, guerrilla art, or how to make a mushroom out of a paper bag. You can find her all over the internet: for her collection of whimsical odds and ends, take a look at her blog, girlsbooksfoodartlove, or for book reviews and more, check out Leaving Shangri L.A. Plus, her proudest moment was being chased off the grounds of the Alice Austen House on a date.

A Story About a Doll, a Witch, A Girl, and her Lover (Almost) by Guest Storyteller Marie Selavy.

For the beginning: VasiRiesa the Brave

“I smell a neophyte! Fresh blood and untainted mind! Who dares set foot upon the home of Baba Yaga?” she boomed.

Then she laughed.

Vasiriesa quaked in her sturdy, practical boots. The doll took the opportunity to hide in Vasiriesa’s tall, red hair.

“It is only I, Vasiriesa. My stepmother’s Beautiful Roadies snuffed the light in our cottage, and I vowed to bring back the finest light of all.”

“The finest light you shall have,” said Baba Yaga, “But at a price. You will work as my Assistants do, or I shall eat you for supper.”

Then she laughed.

Vasiriesa was put to work immediately. She was ordered to dust the shelves, and varnish the bookcase, and arrange Baba Yaga’s treasured University Almanacs by year.

“You have done well enough,” said Baba Yaga when the girl had finished. (The doll still hid, trembling, in Vasiriesa’s red pompadour). “But you will have to do even better tomorrow. While I am gone, you shall sweep the hut, and trim its toenails, and then you must go into my files of University Records and separate the letters I have sent, and the letters sent to me.”

Then she laughed.

Baba Yaga presently began to snore, occasionally chuckling in her sleep. Vasiriesa fed the doll the few bits she could spare of her meager dinner of chickpeas and beets.

“Thanks, I think. Now, Vasiriesa, why are you snuffling in that unbecoming manner?”

“Because I am frightened that Baba Yaga will cook me for supper–have you seen the records? There must be hundreds of years worth!”

“Don’t worry, kid. I got your back. Go to sleep and dream of something better than this, because in the morning we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Vasiriesa peered outside, and was surprised to see a tall, strapping woman pushing a cart of books over the next hill. Her hair was as dark as a raincloud, and she wore a look of sturdy determination throughout her Sisyphean task. Puzzled, she settled down to sleep.

In the morning, Baba Yaga left sticky notes on all of the tasks Vasiriesa was to accomplish, so she would not forget a one. Sweeping the hut was not too bad, even though it tended to be ticklish, and cutting its toenails was easy after the doll scrounged a pair of pruning shears. However, the last task nearly set her to tears again.

“You’re awfully weepy today. Didn’t I say I would help you?” The doll leapt from her perch atop Vasiriesa’s head and whistled out the window. “Wait and see who shall come to help with your task.”

Vasiriesa looked out the window. To her wild surprise, dozens of squirrels gathered round the hut, gingerly climbing the giant yellow legs and chittering about the windows and door. There were red squirrels, and grey, and the especially cute kind with tufty ears and big eyes. All were sleek and fat and happy, due to a healthy diet of student leftovers and slow freshmen.

They set to work, carefully separating the official letters sent to Baba Yaga from the ones sent from her hut. (How, you ask? While most of the squirrels couldn’t read, they were quite good at sniffing out the different sorts of wax seals. Though a few had to be dissuaded from nibbling on them, they made short work of the pile.)

“Oh, thank you, squirrels!” Vasiriesa beamed at the tidy files and sparkling clean kitchen. “I will find a way to repay you, I swear it.”

The squirrels waved, and showed themselves out just in time for Baba Yaga to return. She looked round the clean cottage and tidy filing, and nodded in approval.

“I shall not have to eat you tonight, Vasiriesa, and that’s good, for I have more work for you. In the morning, I will need you to clean my hut, and preen the roof, and furthermore, you will need to deliver these minutes to every department on campus!” She swept her arm, revealing piles of thousands of packets from the University’s latest meeting. “And if you cannot finish, I’ll just have you for supper!”

Then she laughed.

Vasiriesa could barely touch her dinner, so nervous was she at the prospect of the morrow’s task. (The doll finished her quinoa and cranberries with relish.) Filing was one thing, but the University spread out as far as the eye could see, and a glance at the department headings revealed that there were countless professors for the most esoteric of subjects. How could she ever deliver them all in time?

“Stop sniveling,” said the doll. “I promised to help you, and help you I will. Now, go to sleep, cause we will work hard on the morrow.”

Baba Yaga had left in the wee hours of the morning, so Vasiriesa was alone once again within the chicken-legged hut. Dusting the little hut was not hard at all, even with all the stacks of parchment about, and the hut crowed in such pleasure at having its roof-feathers preened that Vasiriesa couldn’t help but smile. Her good mood lasted until she remembered the endless piles of minutes to deliver.

The doll sighed. “Haven’t you learned to trust me?” She tossed her long purple braids, and whistled out the window. In the blink of an eye, the sky was filled with–pigeons! Not just the common grey sort, but brown and white and black pigeons, and even the odd lost seagull. They roosted in the nooks and crannies of the hut, but not for long, as the doll and Vasiriesa soon set them to delivering each of the minutes right to the desk of the honored professors, thanking each bird in turn. So swiftly was the work finished that Vasiriesa could pause before supper and trim the bracken-nest.

The End. For now…

Source: Vasilisa the Fair, Alexander Afanasev. Also, somewhat inspired by Psyche and Eros.

About our Guest Storyteller:
Marie Selavy might have some experience with demanding graduate assistant-ship, but she doesn’t want to talk about that. She’d rather talk about Australian books, pretty girls, guerrilla art, or how to make a mushroom out of a paper bag. You can find her all over the internet: for her collection of whimsical odds and ends, take a look at her blog, girlsbooksfoodartlove, or for book reviews and more, check out Leaving Shangri L.A. Plus, the pinnacle of her artistic achievement was hanging stick notes with doodles in the bathroom at the MET.

A Story About a Doll, a Witch, A Girl, and her Lover (Almost) by Guest Storyteller Marie Selavy.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl called Vasiriesa the Brave. She was not very graceful, nor very beautiful, nor very tall, but she had three gifts from her mother (who died in her youth). One, a clever mind; two, a Book of Not So Useful Knowledge; and three, a doll with a big head, purple hair, and staring eyes.

“If ever you should need help,” said Vasiriesa’s mother, “give her a bite to eat, and a drink, and she will come to your aid.”

When Vasiriesa was of an age where girls packed up and prepared to study Great Subjects at the University, her father–a famous author–married a musician only three years Vasiriesa’s senior. With her new stepmother came Three Beautiful Roadies, a motley crew with tangled hair and kohl-lined eyes that dressed in cast-off bits of the Musician’s finery, ill-fitted as it was (They seemed to prefer it that way). They simpered and sighed around the Musician’s husband but treated Vasiriesa most cruelly for not knowing things such as how to bake without hen’s eggs nor cow’s milk, or play the ukulele, or other fashionable skills.

Now, when one has a house with a Famous Author, a Brilliant Musician, and Three Beautiful Roadies, sooner or later groupies will come to call. Their lovely home was filled top to bottom with scruffy young men and women dressed as peasants with the jewels of kings and queens, warbling terrible songs and painting things on the walls. The Three Beautiful Roadies thought this a cunning arrangement indeed, owing to the comeliness of the groupies, but these odd bohemians had eyes for none but Vasiriesa. For, as you know, there is no surer way to attract the attention of suitors than to insult their existence, ignore them completely, or (in one particular desperate case) set them on fire.

“Enough!” cried the Brilliant Musician. “With my dear husband leaving on yet another Tour, I cannot handle my Three Beautiful Roadies and that mousy little thing, too. We shall rent a cottage up North, among the students and gentleman farmers and green folk, and leave the madding crowd behind us for the summer.”

All was well and good if you were a Brilliant Musician or one of her Three Beautiful Roadies, but as the summer wore on all the hard work of maintaining a cottage fell to Vasiriesa. She did not mind chopping the firewood or polishing their leather demimonde’s boots, or even picking endless beans for their dreary stews, but none of this was getting her to the University. She began to despair of ever becoming a Scholar after all.

One night, everything changed. The Brilliant Musician decided to spend an evening at her friend and rival’s home, where the Brilliant Musician and Sad Drummer would compose a Haunting duet. The Beautiful Roadies mocked Vasiriesa’s cookery, rent her careful mending, and as a final insult, cast out the lights she needed so dearly to study by night.

“If you want to read,” they cackled, “go fetch a light from the neighbor! And don’t hurry back!”

“I’ll show you,” thought Vasiriesa.

“The neighbor, hah!” she said aloud. “I’ll fetch a light from Baba Yaga, and be glad to do it!”

The youngest Roadie gasped, but her elders shushed her. They giggled in mad glee with the prospect of being rid of that distracting step-Roadie once and for all.

Vasiriesa set out at once, carrying her book, her doll, and a bit of bread and butter. As she stormed out in a mad huff, it took nearly till dawn for her to realize that she had no idea where Baba Yaga lived. Remembering her mother’s advice, she stopped at a river to quench her thirst, offering both food at drink to her doll.

With a squeak of the joints and a blink of her huge, staring eyes, the doll sprung to life and glared at her.

“Bout time,” sputtered the doll, wiping away crumbs.

“Right. Since we’re already acquainted, why don’t you tell me how to find Baba Yaga so I can get the light, or meet my untimely death, or both?”

The doll cracked her neck, sending dozens of little purple braids flying. “Follow the river until you find the Traveling University. Baba Yaga holds office there, in a hut on chicken legs. When she is needed to sign a paper, or punish a student, or gather tuition, she picks up and moves her whole hut.”

After a long day of following the river and avoiding advances from youngest sons, brave little tailors, and the odd wooden boy, she came upon a most peculiar university. It could not be less like the grand halls of knowledge in the city she hailed from; each building slid about as if on tracks, or picked up and moved on tiny feet, or disappeared entirely, shimmering into form several yards hence. It was a most magical–and nauseating–effect.

On the outskirts of the university stood the hut the doll had described, roosting in a bit of bracken. As Vasiriesa made her way to this strange abode, she realized that the nest was not only broken branches and swampy plants alone, but woven through with scrolls and parchment. She quite forgot herself in finding something new and interesting to read–indeed, these were the remnants of a thousand failed dissertations.

So intrigued was she that she did not notice Baba Yaga watching her from the front door.

The End. For now….

Source: Vasilisa the Fair, Alexander Afanasev. Also, somewhat inspired by Psyche and Eros.

About our Guest Storyteller:
Marie Selavy might have some experience with demanding graduate assistant-ship, but she doesn’t want to talk about that. She’d rather talk about Australian books, pretty girls, guerrilla art, or how to make a mushroom out of a paper bag. You can find her all over the internet: for her collection of whimsical odds and ends, take a look at her blog, girlsbooksfoodartlove, or for book reviews and more, check out Leaving Shangri L.A. Plus, she knows the location of the Secret Stash, and she’ll only reveal it to people she likes. Sadly…she likes a lot of people.