The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda

The Tale of the Priest and of his Workman Balda consists of 189 extremely varied lines that range from three to fourteen syllables but made to rhyme in couplets.

The Tale was first published posthumously by Vasily Zhukovsky in 1840 with considerable alterations due to censorship; the Priest character was replaced by a merchant.

There he meets Balda (Балда in Russian means a stupid or just simple, or not very serious person) who agrees to work for a year without pay except that he be allowed to hit the priest three times on his forehead and have cooked spelt for food.

Balda tricks the "little Bies", first by getting a hare, whom he proclaims his "younger brother" to run in his stead, and then by "carrying" a horse between his two legs by riding on it.

On October 5, 2006, Sophia Kishkovsky reported in The New York Times that "In the northern city of Syktyvkar, the State Theater of Opera and Ballet of the Republic of Komi, a region once notorious as a center of the prison camp system, or Gulag, recently bowderlized a commemorative performance of 'The Tale of Priest and his Workman Balda' ...after the local diocese objected to the portrayal of the priest in the work."