The folktales of AN Afanas' ev represent the largest single collection of folktales in any
European language and perhaps in the world. Widely regarded as the Russian Grimm,
Afanas' ev collected folktales from throughout the Russian Empire in what are now regarded
as the three East Slavic languages, Byelorusian, Russian, and Ukrainian. The result of his
own collecting, the collecting of friends and correspondents, and in a few cases his
publishing of works from earlier and forgotten collections is truly phenomenal. In his lifetime …

Up to now, there has been no complete English-language version of the Russian folktales of
AN Afanas' ev. This translation is based on LG Barag and NV Novikov's edition, widely
regarded as the authoritative Russian-language edition. The present edition includes
commentaries to each tale as well as its international classification number. This second
volume of 140 tales continues the work started in Volume I, also published by University
Press of Mississippi. A third planned volume will complete the first English-language set …