Russian folklore: werewolves based on the example of a princess-frog

For some reason, it is commonly believed that all sorts of vampires and werewolves came to us from the West, and meanwhile in Russian folklore there are many characters who are also, in fact, werewolves. Think of a fairy tale about the Finist-Clear Falcon, about the Gray Wolf, which helps Ivan Tsarevich, not to mention the fact that the Ivanov get married to the frog princess.

Finist has the ability to turn a bird. A gray wolf assumes a variety of guises: he can turn and a swift-footed horse, and a beautiful princess, and even become a double of Ivan the Tsarevich himself. And the frog princess secretly throws off the frog skin and starts to perform various economic duties. So they quite fall under the definition of werewolves, despite the fact that their conversion from man to animal is not associated with the lunar cycle.

In fact, the image of the princess-frog is found not only in Slavic folklore. Similar plots are present in Greek folk tales, and in Italian tales. Before them, for some reason, did not reach the brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, that's not found among the brides of the overseas princes croaking beauties. And we have even two versions of the fairy tale "The Frog Princess". Their content is similar, but the differences are insignificant. So, in one version of the fairy tale, our heroine performs all the tasks of the tsar's father alone, and in the other, we are weaving and baking her mother's nannies, whom she calls for help. However, it is difficult to name her work as a heroine uses witchcraft, which makes her effort very easy. But her rivals, the wives of the brothers Ivan Tsarevich, this method is not available, so they are in a known losing position.

From the point of view of justice, the image of the Frog Princess can hardly be called an exclusively positive one. She earns the sympathy by the fact that the reader is sympathetic to the fact of burning frog skins by rivals, because of what the heroine is forced to leave her beloved husband and go to Koshchei the Immortal. After all, according to the plot it was Koschey who bewitched the beautiful woman, angry with her for rejecting his matrimonial plans, simply speaking, she refused to become his wife. Instead of continuing courtship, the villain decided to punish his obstinate bride, turning it into a frog. Koschey himself is quite drawn to the role of "The Dark Lord", as he is a magician, on the one hand, and on the other, he constantly plans to capture the universe, not disdaining the theft of beauties: he abducts Vasilisa the Wise in the image of a princess-frog, then Maryna Morevna .

But the question now is not so much about Koshchei, but about the vicissitudes of the married life of Ivan the Tsarevich. In some cases, fairy tales of the daughter-in-law are not at all, and the frog's skin is burned by the prince himself, counting on the fact that without this attribute his wife will cease to be a werewolf. But, as already mentioned above - this particular. And the Russian fairy tale "The Frog Princess" ends in the same way: Ivan Tsarevich defeats Koshchev by cunning and liberates his beautiful wife. They live, as in all fairy tales, long and happy, and die in one day.