Baba Yaga seized Vasilissa and dragged her from the house and beyond the fence of bones. “Here,” she said, taking a skull from its post. “Take this. It is the light that your stepsisters sent you for.”

Vasilissa ran home as quickly as she could, and the skull gave light her whole way home. When she finally reached her gate, she started to throw the skull away. Surely it was no longer necessary. There would be lights enough in the house. But the skull suddenly spoke. “No. Do not throw me away! Take me to your stepmother,” it insisted.

So she went home and found that it was indeed still in darkness. There had been no light there since she had left, and no one had been able to kindle even a spark. Now, the skull cast its fearful light throughout the house.

But the stepmother and stepsisters were still unhappy. The skull’s eyes followed them wherever they went, and the light singed them. By morning they had been burned to cinders. Only Vasilissa was spared.

Happiness at last

Vasilissa buried the skull in the earth where it belonged, then locked the house and went in search of a new home. In time she came to the town, and there she met an old woman who lived alone. Vasilissa asked to be taken in and to be allowed to wait for her father’s return. The kindly lady agreed, and so Vasilissa finally had a place to live where she was treated with kindness.

After a while, Vasilissa grew tired of having nothing to do. She asked the old woman to buy her flax, the best available, so that she could be useful and spin yarn. This the woman did. Soon Vasilissa had spun a great deal of the finest yarn, and she decided that this had to be woven into linen. She asked her little doll for help, and together they made a beautiful loom and created the finest linen. Vasilissa then gave the linen to the old woman. “Sell this,” Vasilissa suggested,  “and keep all the money for your own use, dear grandmother.”

But the old woman thought the linen too fine to bring to market. “Only a king should wear such cloth,” she declared. So she took the linen to the palace and waited outside until the king saw her and demanded to know what she wanted.

“I have this wonderful cloth,” said the woman. “I will show it only to the king.”