Can anyone tell me the name of the book that this story was adapted from? I know its a book of folk stories but i've forgotten the name of it.
shareI believe the story was first brought to the English speaking world by Arthur Ransome. You may want to seek out any of his anthologies.
sharehttp://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ this site has complete versions of many folk tales, though I didn't see The Soldier and Death. If you are fond of great Russian Folk tales, check out The Fool of The World and The Flying Ship
shareone thing to know is that this tale (and many others in the series) is a conglomerate of a few tales, you wont find this story anywhere in this exact form, I used to know the name of the Russian tale that the devil segment was taken from but I've since forgotten, but that tale doesn't have the part with death in it.
shareYeah, it's a conglomeration, but the funny thing is I own 'The War of the Birds and the Beasts' by Arthur Ransome, and there is an illustration by Faith Jacques that they recreated dead on in the show, where the devils crowd round him after he wins at poker. I remember being read this book when I was really young, and then seeing Storyteller, and I've always thought it was cool to see that picture brought to life.
Anyway, that book and Ransome's other collection 'Old Peter's Russian Tales' are both worth a read.
I actually saw a different version back in the late 80's on PBS that was very similar to The Soldier and Death. A few difference between the two is that the PBS version took place in post-World War 2 America and the soldier was actually the first one to die when he freed death.
share
I loved those shows!! My mother had recorded a bunch of them. as far as I know you can only get them individually on VHS. You can get them on Amazon.
look here
http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Jack-Tom-Davenport/dp/1888522178/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=IBQ1L6P5AV0BM&colid=AE1GEMM16E8Y
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