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Overview
A woman dies immediately after bearing a son, leaving her husband to hire an elderly carer. The baby refuses food and cries through the day but rests silently for much of the night. Keeping watch, the carer hears someone enter at midnight and approach the cradle; the child immediately becomes quiet, as though being nursed. After three such nights she reports the visits to the father.
The father and his relatives watch together with a candle concealed in an earthen pot. When they expose the light, they see the dead mother kneeling beside the cradle in her burial clothes and nursing the baby. She rises, looks sadly at him and silently leaves. The observers then discover that he is dead. The story does not have her speak a threat or state that she deliberately kills him. It combines continued maternal care with a fatal ending whose precise cause is left unstated, rather than an ordinary malicious vampire attack.
Origins & earliest records
Ralston, Russian Fairy Tales, hosted Hurst edition: The Dead Mother, pp. 32–33; note 24; numbered source: Afanasief VI, p. 325.
Records & interpretation
The complete English tale and its source note preserve the stated sequence. The printed Hurst title page is undated; no modern catalogue year is asserted as a physical-copy date.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Russian Fairy Tales: The Dead Mother, pp. 32–33; note 24
Source note: Afanasief VI, p. 325. Complete translated tale; original Russian not independently collated.
Family, evolution & connections
The returning mother’s son — Ralston’s Dead Mother
Complete short narrative, pp.32–33, in the hosted Hurst edition.
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- Their unnamed infant son
Explicit wife, childbirth and son designations. Neither parent nor infant has a personal name. The hired caregiver is not another birth parent. Both mother and son are dead by the ending; no performed resurrection or descendants are supplied. Original Russian source not independently collated.
Her unnamed husband
The narrative begins with a husband and wife, then identifies the returning dead nurse as that wife. The hired old woman is a separate caregiver, not the child’s biological mother.
Her unnamed infant son
She bears a son and dies immediately after his birth. The dead mother later nurses him; the ending finds him dead after her departure. His return to life or later descendants are not narrated.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary historical translationRalston: The Dead Mother, pp. 32–33; note 24Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.