Marya Morevna- Slavic HeroHero"The Beautiful Princess"
Also known as: Maria Morevna, Mariya Morevna, Марья Моревна, and Мария Моревна
Description
Ivan Tsarevich found her on a battlefield surrounded by an entire army she had destroyed alone. They married. She told him never to open one closet in her castle. He opened it, freed Koschei the Deathless, and lost her.
Mythology & Lore
The Battlefield
In the tale collected by Afanasyev, Ivan Tsarevich has married off his three sisters to shapeshifting lords, the Falcon, the Eagle, and the Raven, and rides out looking for a life of his own. He comes upon a field of slaughter. An entire army lies dead. One figure is still standing. Ivan asks a wounded man who did this. "Marya Morevna," the man says. "The beautiful princess."
Ivan finds her and they marry. She takes him home to her castle, where she commands armies and rules a kingdom. Before riding off to another war, she gives him one instruction: he may go anywhere in the castle except a single locked closet. She is specific. She does not explain why.
The Forbidden Closet
Ivan opens it. Inside, Koschei the Deathless hangs from twelve chains, starved to bone, begging for water. Ivan gives him three buckets. With each bucket the chains crack. With the third, Koschei bursts free, flies after Marya Morevna, and takes her.
The woman who had imprisoned an immortal sorcerer with twelve chains is carried off because her husband could not leave a door shut. Ivan pursues Koschei three times. Three times Koschei catches him and kills him. Three times Ivan's shapeshifter brothers-in-law find his body and bring him back with the water of life. In the end Ivan obtains a horse from Baba Yaga fast enough to outrun Koschei's mount, finds the needle that holds Koschei's death, and snaps it.
Marya Morevna goes home with Ivan. The tale does not say whether she forgave him for the closet.