Koschei- Slavic CreatureCreature · Monster"The Deathless"

The Prisoner

In the tale of Marya Morevna, Prince Ivan marries a warrior-queen who keeps a locked room in her castle. She tells him he may go anywhere except there. When she rides off to war, Ivan opens the door. Inside, Koschei the Deathless hangs from twelve chains, starved nearly to bone, begging for water.

Ivan gives him three buckets. With the first, Koschei stirs. With the second, his chains begin to crack. With the third, he bursts free, smashes through the castle wall, overtakes Marya Morevna on the road, and carries her away. Ivan pursues three times. Three times Koschei's horse outpaces his. The first two times Koschei catches him and cuts his body to pieces, stuffing the remains into a barrel and throwing it into the sea. Ivan's magical brothers-in-law, the husbands of his three sisters, find the barrel each time and restore him with the water of life.

The Hidden Death

No sword can kill Koschei because his death is not in his body. He has hidden it. A needle holds his death. The needle is inside an egg. The egg is inside a duck. The duck is inside a hare. The hare is locked in an iron chest, and the chest is buried beneath a great oak on the island of Buyan, far out in the ocean.

This is the secret the captive woman must extract from Koschei. In some tellings from Afanasyev's collection, she flatters him, weeps, pretends devotion until he relents and tells her where his death lies. She passes the knowledge to the hero. Without it, no amount of strength or courage matters. Koschei can be hacked apart, burned, drowned. He will return. Only the needle ends him.

Baba Yaga's Mares

Ivan cannot rescue Marya Morevna because Koschei's horse is faster than anything alive. After his third death and resurrection, Ivan seeks out Baba Yaga beyond the river of fire. She agrees to give him a horse if he can herd her mares for three days without losing a single one.

The mares scatter at dawn, running to the edges of the world. On the first day Ivan loses them all. A wolf, a hawk, and a pike, animals Ivan had spared earlier on his journey, drive the mares back before nightfall. On the second day the mares scatter again, and again the animals return them. On the third day Ivan holds them himself. Baba Yaga gives him the weakest, most wretched foal in the herd. Ivan feeds it, waters it, and in three days it grows into a horse that can match Koschei's stride for stride.

Breaking the Needle

Ivan rides to Koschei's stronghold and takes Marya Morevna. This time Koschei's horse stumbles. It tells its master it cannot catch Ivan's mount because the two horses came from the same herd. Koschei rides after them anyway.

Ivan finds the oak on Buyan and tears open the iron chest. The hare bolts. The wolf runs it down. The duck bursts from the hare and takes flight. The hawk strikes it out of the sky. The egg falls toward the sea. The pike catches it in its mouth and brings it to shore.

Ivan holds the egg. Inside it, the needle. He snaps it. Wherever Koschei is at that moment, he dies. His body crumbles. His castles fall dark. The captives walk free.