Reading: The Dead Mother, Part A

For this last week of reading, I chose to read the Russian story titled The Dead Mother. This story comes from Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

I enjoyed this story up until the end. The baby dies, but it doesn't give an explanation why and it seems to throw the whole story off. I think it's a cool concept that the baby is soothed at night because the dead mother comes back to nurture and take care of her baby, but still I find no reason to have the baby die at the end. The husband already lost his wife, it would be even worse to lose his child.

So, I think in my version of the story I would not have the baby die. I would have the dead mother come back to take care of her baby, and when the husband finds a new wife, she will stop coming around. The husband will bring many different woman home, but the dead wife will not stop coming back until he finds the perfect woman to care for their child. As soon as he finds the perfect woman, the dead wife will say her goodbyes to her family once and for all, and wish the new mother luck.

Mother and Child
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Another concept I could use would be to make this story would be to make the dead woman kidnap her baby because her husband is trying to have bad woman be the new mother of her child. After losing his child, the husband searches everywhere for a new fitting mother to care for his child and finally finds one. I want the ending to be happy, as I do with most of my stories.