The Bear and the Nightingale

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and religious discrimination.

In The Bear and the Nightingale, Arden uses elements of Russian folklore to build the world and shape the characters. While many are immediately recognizable as part of a larger European folklore tradition, such as the wicked stepmother or the impossible tasks, some are more specific. For example, the story that Dunya tells the children at the very beginning of the novel is an actual Russian folktale, recorded in Alexander Afanasyev’s Russian Fairy Tales (1855-1863) as “Father Frost” and later in Andrew Lang’s The Yellow Fairy Book (1894) as “The Story of King Frost.”

Likewise, the spirits that appear in the village and the forest are primarily based on actual creatures from Slavic tradition. For instance, there is the domovoi, which lives in the family’s oven and protects the household in the novel. To keep a domovoi happy, families traditionally offer small gifts, such as bread, milk, or salt, left in a respectful manner. Maintaining a clean and orderly home is another way to ensure the spirit remains content. Disrespectful behavior, loud arguments, or neglect of the domovoi’s needs are thought to provoke its ire. Rusalki, such as the one that attempts to drown Konstantin, are female Slavic water spirits.