Father Frost is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki. Andrew Lang included it, as "The Story of King Frost", in The Yellow Fairy Book.[1]
It is Aarne-Thompson type 480, The Kind and the Unkind Girls. Others of this type include Shita-kiri Suzume, Diamonds and Toads, Mother Hulda, The Three Heads in the Well, The Three Little Men in the Wood, The Enchanted Wreath, The Old Witch, and The Two Caskets.[2] Literary variants include The Three Fairies and Aurore and Aimée.[3]
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A woman had a stepdaughter and a daughter of her own, and she hated her stepdaughter. One day, she orders her husband to take her stepdaughter out into the winter fields and leave her there, and he obeys. Father Frost finds her there, and she is polite and kind to him, so he gives her a chest full of beautiful things and fine garments. When her stepmother sends her father to bring back her body to be buried, he goes to fulfill his task. After a while, the family dog says that the stepdaughter is coming back beautiful and happy.
When the stepmother sees what her stepdaughter had brought back, she orders her husband to bring her own daughter out into the fields. The girl is rude to Father Frost, and he freezes her to death. When her husband goes out to bring her back, the dog says that she will be buried. When the father brings back the body, the old woman weeps.