Continued, Country People
In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, there lived a fisherman who wished he might be someone other than the person that he was. All day long he sat by the banks of the great river and watched the fish, dreaming of following them on their long journeys.
One day, when he was lying in this wistful state, he saw a golden fish among the silvery schools, twice the size of all the others.
Here and there it swam, until, all of a sudden, it stepped from the river and became a beautiful maiden, dressed in a robe of water that shimmered about her body as she walked.
She did not even seem to notice him, but walked on by, leaving footprints of shining water.
Rising from his broken torpor, he followed her, up the riverbank, to a great willow tree that he had never seen before, though he had been coming there his entire life.
Then, with each step, she became smaller and smaller, until, just as she reached the tree, she became a fox and disappeared within a foxhole.
The fisherman followed her gleaming prints to the base of the tree, where he crouched and peered into the darkness. More than anything in the world he wished to follow her, to love her, though he did not know if she were maiden, fish, or fox.
“Two Kings, Two Kingdoms,” from An Anthology of Russian Folktales, Random House, 1978