1 падчерицу It is typical for the stepdaughter to fill a Cinderella-type role in these tales, suffering the torments of her cruel stepmother. The father in this tale and others like it fulfills an equal but opposite role: he is loving, yet weak-willed and unable to stand up to his wife.
2 заведенные гусли The gusli is an ancient stringed intstrument, consisting of a long board with several strings stretched across the length of it. It is mentioned in The ornate melodies that it produces are a distinctive feature of Russian folk music.
3 Видит: стоит избушка на курьих ножках, пирогом подперта, блином накрыта, стоит — перевертывается. This is a typical description of Baba-Yaga’s hut, which spins atop a pair of chicken legs. Here, however, we also find the additional feature of being ‘covered with a pancake,’ which can be thought of as a fairy-tale description of what the wooden hut would have looked like through a child’s eyes. Notice the similarity between this tale and Western tales like “Hansel and Gretel,” which also uses food to describe of the witch’s house The placement of the hut at the edge of the dark woods is significant, as this liminal place between the safety of the familiar roads and fields and the danger lurking in the dark woods represents the limbo between childhood and maturity through which the young girl must pass.
4 Леший The леший is a nature spirit whose domain is in the woods (cf. лес and Linda Ivanits 64-70)
5 новогородским купцом “Нов(о)городский купец” is such a frequent phrase in fairy tales that it is practically a fixed epithet. Novgorod was such a bustling center of commerce at the time that if one were a merchant, one was most probably from Novgorod.