After reading the Russian fairy tales, “The Frog Tsarevna” and “Tsarevich Ivan and Grey Wolf,” I noticed the presence and significance of shapeshifting in both texts. The problems encountered by Tsarevich Ivan are relieved by  supernatural beings, which heightens the social idea that Russian rulers as mystic and holy. Additionally, the text shows that these encounters with shapeshifters evokes a level of mysticism, ultimately reinforcing supernatural significance in Russian culture and fulfilling the plot of the story. Most notably, I focused on the relationship between Tsarevich Ivan and the supernatural–especially through his contact and interaction with shapeshifters– in overcoming the trials Ivan faces.

I thought about the role of shapeshifters in signifying divine intervention, in which Vasilisa the Wise and Clever and Grey Wolf reinforce the material and mystic power of Tsarevich Ivan and his family by helping him overcome his dilemmas using their supernatural powers. In this way, the presence of shapeshifting within both texts is essential in evoking an aura of a somewhat divine status and angelic undertone for the family of Tsarevich Ivan.

Additionally, aside from these texts serving  to teach a lesson, the connection of the supernatural world to the material world acknowledges the Russian ideal that both these connections are imperitave to living a life of respect for nature and spiritual power.