The Mistress of the Copper Mountain

The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (Russian: Хозяйка медной горы, romanized: Khozyaika mednoi gory;), also known as The Malachite Maid (Russian: Малахитница, romanized: Malakhitnitsa), is a legendary being of the Ural miners, said to be the Mistress of the Ural Mountains of Russia. A character of Slavic mythology and Russian fairy tales.

In folklore or legend, she is depicted as an extremely beautiful green-eyed young woman in a malachite gown or as a lizard. She has been viewed as the patroness of miners,^: 247 the protector and owner of hidden underground riches, the one who can either permit or prevent the mining of stones and metals in certain places.

"The Copper Mountain" is the Gumyoshevsky mine, the oldest mine of the Ural Mountains, which was called "The Copper Mountain" or simply "The Mountain" by the populace. It is now located in the town of Polevskoy, Sverdlovsk Oblast. In some regions of the Ural Mountains, the image of the Mistress is connected (or equated) with another female creature from the local folktales, the Azov Girl (Азовка; Azovka), the enchanted girl or princess who lives inside Mount Azov.

The Mistress of the Copper Mountain became a well known character from her appearance in Pavel Bazhov's collection of Ural Mountains folktales (also known as skaz) under the title The Malachite Box. The Mistress appears in the third skaz, "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain", and in 9 other stories from the collection, including "The Stone Flower", "The Manager's Boot-Soles", and "Sochen and His Stones".