The Death of Koschei the Deathless

Ivan Tsarevitch had three sisters, the first was Princess Marya, the second was Princess Olga, the third was Princess Anna. After his parents die and his sisters marry three wizards, he leaves his home in search of his sisters. He meets Marya Morevna, the beautiful warrior princess, and marries her. After a while she announces she is going to go to war and tells Ivan not to open the door of the dungeon in the castle they live in while she will be away. Overcome by the desire to know what the dungeon holds, he opens the door soon after her departure and finds Koschei, chained and emaciated. Koschei asks Ivan to bring him some water; Ivan does so. After Koschei drinks twelve buckets of water, his magic powers return to him, he tears his chains and disappears. Soon after Ivan finds out that Koschei took Marya Morevna away, and chases him. When he gets him for the first time, Koschei tells Ivan to let him go, but Ivan doesn't give in, and Koschei kills him, puts his remains into a barrel and throws it into the sea. Ivan is revived by his sisters' husbands, powerful wizards, who can transform into birds of prey. They tell him Koschei has a magic horse and Ivan should go to Baba Yaga to get one too, or else he won't be able to defeat Koschei. After Ivan stands Yaga's tests and gets the horse, he fights with Koschei, kills him and burns his body. Marya Morevna returns to Ivan, and they celebrate his victory with his sisters and their husbands.

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index as ATU 552 (The Girls who Married Animals),[2] with an episode of type ATU 302 (The Giant/Ogre who had no heart in his body).

Peter Morwood wrote an expanded version of this tale in the novel Prince Ivan, the first volume of his Russian Tales series.

Gene Wolfe retold this as "The Death of Koshchei the Deathless", published in the anthology Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears and reprinted in his collection Strange Travelers.

Catherynne M. Valente released a novel based on the story, titled "Deathless" in 2011.

In the 7th Sea tabletop role-playing game setting, Koshchei Molhynia Pietrov, aka Koshchei the Undying is an enigmatic Boyar who entered into a strange contract with the Baba-Yaga-esque Ussuran patron spirit in order to receive a form of immortality. In contrast to the usual myth, he is portrayed in a sympathetic light and seems to be intended to serve (similarly to the Kami, Togashi in the Legend of the Five Rings RPG by the same publishers) as a source of adventure hooks and occasionally a Donor (fairy tale) to whom it is perilous in the extreme to apply.

The Morevna Project, an open-source, free culture film project, is currently working on an anime-style adaptation of this story set in a cyberpunk science-fiction future[3]

Combined with Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf in Mercedes Lackey's Firebird, wherein Ilya Ivanovich (son of self-styled Tsar Ivan), encounters Koschei the Deathless and, with the assistance of the titular Firebird, manages to slay him and free the maidens that the sorcerer had kept trapped.

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