Artistic originality of fairy tales about yersh (ruff) recorded in Karelia

Handwritten and oral folklore pieces with Yersh (Ruff) as a character have been studied quite comprehensively by many researchers. This article deals with folk tales belonging to the indexed plot type number 254** Yersh Yershovich, which were collected in the 1930s-1940s in Karelia in all major Russian-populated areas (Zaonezhye, Pudozhye, Karelian Pomorye) and are stored at the Scientific Archives of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Only two texts have been previously published, while another five had not attracted the attention of scholars before. The largest number of folk tale variants was recorded from Pudozh-area folklore performers (F. A. Konashkov, A. M. Pashkova, A. Pavkov, A. N. Timonina, E. A. Kokunova), pointing to a local pattern in the circulation of the plot. All the folk tales recorded in Karelia are rich in dialectal vocabulary. The texts were part of the repertoire of several famous performers of bylinas (hero epics) (F. A. Konashkov, A. M. Pashkova from Pudozhye, M. E. Samylin from Zaonezhye). Almost all the folk tales have similarities with the version published in “Russian Folk Tales by A. N. Afanasiev” (No. 79), suggesting re-folklorization, as a result of which printed text subsequently lives on in an oral form. Folk tales about Yersh recorded in Karelia traditionally have a two-part structure, combining narration about fish judging Ruff and about people eating him.