How far back into the dark centuries do the roots of a magical folk fairy tale go? What is the hidden original meaning of the actions of its heroes—meanings that have been erased from popular memory for millennia, leaving only fairy-tale plots? Why, in truth, did Ivan the Fool or Ivan the Tsarevich set out for the Thrice-Ninth Kingdom? Who is the mysterious Baba Yaga from the no less mysterious hut on chicken legs? The importance of the book “Historical Roots of the Magic Fairy Tale” for folkloristics is hard to overestimate. In the work by V. Ya. Propp, translated into many languages (from English to Japanese) and reissued many times, the reader is invited to look into ancient fog and understand how meanings and archetypes move through time.