1 поп Russian Orthodox priests, unlike Catholic priests but like Protestant clergy, could marry and have children. Note the word’s resemblance to English pope.
2 бабушке-задворенке-ягинишне ‘Grandmother-Backyard-Yaga.’ Ягинишна looks like a patronymic, except that it is formed from the feminine name Яга; this apparently harmless [and ultimately ineffectual] old woman is apparently from Baba-Yaga’s clan, even though we only see her giving advice to the Tsar.
3 богу молится As a priest’s daughter, Vasilisa knows that one should pray and cross oneself when entering a dwelling.
4 кашу Kasha is a general term for cooked cereal, or, more narrowly, a specific term for buckwheat groats (grain). It can be served in a porridge-like state for breakfast, or as a side dish or element of the main meal.
5 бывал Although the narration has been using feminine grammatical forms to refer to Vasilisa all along, here for the first time we see her use a masculine past-tense verb to refer to herself. If she had spoken with feminine forms all along, of course, Tsar Barkhat would not have had to wonder about her sex.
6 умела Having called the Tsar a raven, a bird whose name is feminine in gender, Vasilisa can go to on address him as a feminine ты (Tsars were traditionally addressed with the informal pronoun, along with children, family members and other intimates, drunks, madmen, and dogs). By referring to herself as сокол, masculine in gender, she completes the assertion begun in her judgments of Barkhat’s effeminate and overly decorated dwelling: she is masculine and he is not, despite their biological sexes.
7 Василиса-то Васильевна-то была мудрая, да и лепообразная This is the first mention of Vasilisa’s beauty in the tale. In most wise-maiden tales, the maiden is rewarded for her wisdom precisely by marriage, often to the Tsar, and this tale is unusual in leaving her unmarried.