The Malachite Box nuggets. The story of the brothers is continued in "The Snake Trail" (alternative translation: "The Serpent's Trail"), published in 1939. In this "skaz", a young the factory worker Stepan meets the legendary Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He passes her tests and is rewarded by a malachite casket filled with jewellery for his betrothed, Nastyona. Stepan dies, leaving the Malachite Casket to his widow Nastyona. Their daughter Tanyushka likes to play with it. With black hair and green eyes, Tanyushka does not look like her mother at all, as if she was born to different parents. When she grows up,
The Malachite Casket (fairy tale) that (e.g. Tanyushka) are never completely "normal". Marina Balina mentioned Freud's interpretation of the motif of a double as a symbolic manifestation of death. The theme of the person leaving for the mountains at the end of his life is present in the story. Similar plot device can be found in "Two Lizards". "The Malachite Casket" is considered to be one of the best stories in the collection. The style of the story was praised. "The Malachite Casket" has been a popular subject for analysis. During Soviet times, every edition of "The Malachite Box" was usually prefaced by an essay