"The Fox had an ice hut, and the Hare had a bast hut " Bast hut: what is Zaikin's house made of?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Everyone remembers the fairy tale "Bunny's hut" from childhood. It was once read to us by mothers and grandmothers, and now we ourselves tell our children and grandchildren. And to be honest, we are often baffled by the child’s question: “The bast hut… What is it made of?”

Mysteries of Russian fairy tales

Folk Russian fairy tales that many generations of children listened to came to us from ancient times. The famous Russian philologist V. Propp believed that the roots of the fairy tale go back to primitive mythology, and their meaning is much deeper than a simple plot.

These works of oral folk art are emotionally rich, instructive, they make you empathize with the characters, awaken imagination. Their educational function is enormous. But sometimes fairy tales contain words, concepts and expressions that are incomprehensible not only to young children, but also to modern adults. This makes it difficult to perceive the text, but the child seeks to satisfy his curiosity, to understand, to understand.

For example, what are these "bottlenecks" along which the old woman scraped flour for Kolobok? Why does Baba Yaga's hut have chicken legs and on whichdid the mistress herself fly such a stupa? Or why did the mischievous old woman put Ivan Tsarevich into the oven on a shovel? They dig the earth with it …

The children's fairy tale about the Bunny's hut belongs to such not fully understood old tales. “The Fox and the Hare lived in the forest. And the Fox had an ice hut, and the Bunny had a bast hut … What is the bast hut made of?

What is lub

To answer this question, we must first figure out what kind of material - lub.

On a saw cut tree or on a fresh stump, three layers of different colors are clearly visible: the dark outer one is the bark, the lightest and densest inner one is wood, and between them there is a layer of a rather soft, light brown or yellowish color. This is the bast - the inner part of the bark, or, as V. Dahl wrote - "under the bark", "under the bark".

Removed from a tree trunk, peeled and dried, the bast is a rather rough and at the same time flexible cloth. In some trees, such as linden, the bast is easily separated into separate fibers, which are called bast.

So that's what a bast hut is! Made from bast - soft "podkor".

In the past, the word “bast” was also often used to refer to coarse fibers from nettle and hemp, which are used to make matting. But this meaning has nothing to do with Zayka's hut.

What was made of bast

The material that Bunny chose for his house, only a modern ignorant person may seem unusual. In the past, a lot of things needed in the household were made from bast, and even now it is widelyused in arts and crafts.

Most often used linden underbark. It bends well and separates into fibers, has a pleasant golden color and fragrant smells of honey.

Boxes of all sizes were made from linden bast - in the old days they kept a variety of things and food; baskets, tuesas, baskets, bread bins and even cradles. From the finer fibers of the bast - bast - weaved the most common shoes - bast shoes, made washcloths, ropes, weaved mats for household needs on special looms.

Sometimes roofs were covered with bast, instead of shingles. But what does the bast hut mean?

Why bast?

An inquisitive and inquisitive kid, listening to a fairy tale and explanations from an adult, will definitely ask why Bunny did not build a house for himself, for example, from logs, boards or clay. By the way, in one of the modern versions of the fairy tale, a hare has a hut made of sand. Probably so that parents do not rack their brains over an explanation.

Having figured out where the hare got the bast hut from, what it is made of, it remains to find out why it is from the bast, and not from another material more suitable for building a dwelling.

A fairy tale, as you know, is a lie, but there is a hint in it. Despite all the fantastical situations, fairy tales are logical in their own way. Children are generally realists, their thinking is concrete, and the peasant children would clearly doubt that Bunny had an ax and a saw. The hare simply could not build a hut for himself out of logs and boards, and there is no clay in the forest, and this animal does not dig holes.

And he peels the bark from the trees,especially in winter. Soft bark and bast of young trees are the main winter food of these animals in the forest. There is even an old children's rhyme in which the hare “bastly pulled … put it under the deck.”

So it turns out that Bunny could only have a bast hut. What it is made of and why exactly from this material is explained from the point of view of logic and worldly experience. But there is another important point.

Poetics of a fairy tale

Folk tales have a special poetic language. The narrator's speech flows slowly, like a forest stream, each word in it is in its place, filled not only with meaning, but also with sound. After all, it’s not without reason that the fox’s hut is not snowy, but icy. “Bast hut, ice hut” - these definitions are both opposite in meaning and very close in sound. Soft affectionate phrases are perfectly woven into the lace of a fairy tale, making it almost a poetic work. Yes, and children perceive and remember such soft lulling words better.