The Little Humpbacked Horse: a fairy tale

Ershov Pyotr Pavlovich (1815-1869) - Russian poet and prose writer, teacher of the gymnasium.
Born in the family of an official in Siberia, in one of the counties of the Tobolsk province. He was educated at the Imperial St. Petersburg University, the historical and philological faculty. It was there that already at the age of 19, Ershov wrote a poetic fairy tale about a magic skate that spoke in a human voice. This fairy tale professor of Russian literature Pyotr Pletnev, admired by the talent of the student, began one of his lectures, and then pointed to the reddened author sitting in the audience.
For a long time it was believed that the first four lines were written by Alexander Pushkin, who Pletnev, a poet’s close friend, showed the "skate-humping". Later they came to the conclusion that Pushkin, who received the poem very warmly, undertook to edit it a little, but after that Ershov himself changed it 4 times.
"Horse-horsemen" is written by a four-stroke chorea with a steam rhyme. Folklore melting, soft and well -aimed humor, amazing ease of verse and today make a popular almost two -hundred -year -old fairy tale - it was published in 1834, since then it was reprinted more than 150 times, translated into 27 languages.
She also passed the period of oblivion - censorship prohibitions pursued her in the days of not only tsarist Russia, but also Soviet.
According to the author, this fairy tale is folk, it is based on the tales of the Baltic Slavs and Scandinavians.
2nd edition