The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (fairy tale)
| "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Pavel Bazhov |
| Original title | "Медной горы хозяйка" |
| Translator | Alan Moray Williams (first), Eve Manning, et al. |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Series | The Malachite Casket collection (list of stories) |
| Genre(s) | skaz |
| Published in | Krasnaya Nov |
| Publication type | Periodical |
| Media type | Print (magazine, hardback and paperback) |
| Publication date | 1936 |
| Preceded by | "The Great Snake" |
| Followed by | "The Manager's Boot-Soles" |
"The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" (Russian: Медной горы хозяйка, tr. Mednoj gory hozjajka), also known as "The Queen of the Copper Mountain" or "The Mistress of the Copper Mine", is a folk tale (the so-called skaz) of the Ural region of Siberia collected and reworked by Pavel Bazhov. It was first published in the 11th issue of the Krasnaya Nov literary magazine in 1936 and later the same year as a part of the collection Prerevolutionary Folklore of the Urals.
It was later released as a part of the The Malachite Casket collection on 28 January 1939. In 1944 the story was translated from Russian into English by Alan Moray Williams and published by Hutchinson. In the 1950s another translation was made by Eve Manning. The story was published in the collection Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov, published by Penguin Books in 2012. It was translated by Anna Gunin. It was included in James Riordan's collection of stories The Mistress of the Copper Mountain: Tales from the Urals, published in 1974 by Frederick Muller Ltd. Riordan heard the tales from a headteacher when he was bedridden in Sverdlovsk. After returning to England he rewrote the tales from memory, checking them against Bazhov's book. He preferred not to call himself "translator", he believed that "communicator" was more appropriate.
Bazhov's stories are based on the oral lore of the miners and gold prospectors. The mythical creatures such as the Great Snake or the Mistress of the Copper Mountain were well known to Bazhov from the tales that were told by his own family members (Pavel Bazhov was born at the village near the Sysert Mining Plant) and by the old men at the plant. Those old people were experienced workers, who worked in the industry for all their lives, but were eventually exhausted by many years of hard work. They were sent to do light-duty work, such as guard the place, etc. They were the story-tellers who knew a lot of legends about the plants and the miners' lives. From a very young age Bazhov used to write down the local folk tales.
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