Koschei Deathless

Personality = Koschei the Deathless is a wise character and a very cunning manipulator. Features = Koschei the Deathless is a wise character and a very cunning manipulator. In addition, he is distinguished by his remarkable strength and cruelty. This entity of the lower world is able to control dead souls and transform into any person or animal. Background = Koschei the Deathless (Kashchei the Deathless) is a negative character in Russian fairy tales and in Russian folklore. A king, sometimes a rider on a magical talking horse. Often acts as the kidnapper of the protagonist's bride. Depicted as a thin, tall old man, he is often presented as stingy and miserly (cf. "there Tsar Koschei is wasting away over gold" by A.S. Pushkin). Koschei's power: Koschei is connected with the element of water:

• Water gives Koschei supernatural power. After drinking three buckets of water brought to him by Ivan Tsarevich, Koschei breaks 12 chains and is freed from Marya Morevna's dungeon.
• Koschei's death is hidden on the island of Buyan (according to some interpretations, this is the island of Rügen), on which an oak tree grows, a chest hangs on the oak tree, in the chest there is a hare, in the hare there is a duck, in the duck there is an egg, in the egg there is a needle. If this needle is broken, then Koschei will die. There is also a version according to which Koschei accepts death from his magic horse. Although, perhaps, death from a horse represents an earlier version.
• Koschei's daughter is Vasilisa (from the Greek basilissa - queen) the Wise (aka the Frog Princess), in another version, Vasilisa the Wise's father is the Sea King. The image of the "sea kings" goes back to the image of the sea-king - the Germanic leaders of sea campaigns of the Dark Ages (from the Goths to the Vikings), who came from Scandinavia. It is noteworthy that Koschei's kingdom is localized in the north. Koschei's enemies: In a number of fairy tales, Koschei's enemy is Baba Yaga, who gives the main character information on how to kill him. Koschei's mythological archetype: The plot of Koschei the Deathless goes back to the mythological motif of the Serpent, a chthonic creature, the keeper of the World Egg. The first cultural hero kills the Serpent. The death of the Serpent means the end of the primordial chaos and the beginning of an organized cosmos. While the Serpent is alive, the cosmos is for a time in a folded form in an egg, like an embryo. An echo of such mythological ideas can be found in the text written by Pushkin, A.S., where Tsar Koschei the Deathless did not want to marry off his daughter while he himself was alive. The daughter wants Koschei to die. She interrogates him about the location of Koschei's death. After a series of questions and answers, the daughter of Koschei the Deathless learns about the place where death is hidden. The location of the egg with Koschei's death in a chest on an oak tree and in a duck, once again proves that the archetype of Koschei is the Serpent associated with the World Tree, which contains the World Egg laid by a duck (see also birds).HE PLAYS the same role of a stingy treasure keeper and dangerous thief of beauties as the Serpent; both of them are equally hostile to fairy-tale heroes and freely replace each other, so that in one and the same fairy tale in one version the protagonist is the Serpent, and in another - Koshchei. In Old Slavonic monuments the word "koshch" ("kosht") occurs exclusively in the meaning: dry, skinny, thin in body - and, obviously, is closely related to the word "bone", as an adjective to a noun; the verb "ossify" is used in the sense: to freeze, to become numb, to become hard as a bone or stone, from severe cold. Based on this, one can think that the name "Koshchei" was accepted first as an epithet, and then as a proper name of a demon - a dryer of rain moisture, a representative of dark clouds, fettered by frost; In the winter time of the year, the clouds seem to freeze, turn into stones and no longer produce fruitful rains, and as a result, the earth itself is deprived of its productive power.