Apocrypha or false, renounced books (as they were called in the old days) are such nameless works of folk literature that are built on biblical (Old Testament and New Testament) testimonies and legends, but contain fictitious details that often distort and pervert the meaning of the biblical narrative. Many of these apocrypha arose in the first centuries of Christianity and owe their existence to the ardent imagination of Eastern heretics, known under the general name of Gnostics, some of whom, under the name of Manichaeans or Bohumils, subsequently spread from Greece to Bulgaria and Bosnia. With the adoption of Christianity by our ancestors, the Apocrypha from Byzantium penetrated through Bulgaria into Southern Russia, and from here gradually, with the settlement of the Russian people, moved north.
Receiving ready-made apocrypha from Byzantium and Bulgaria, the inhabitants of Southern Rus' shared this acquired wealth with the northerners, who repaid the south with Moscow adaptations of the same apocrypha.
Some of the latter arose already on Russian soil. in subsequent centuries, sometimes independently in Ukraine and Muscovite Russia.
Among such late apocrypha, probably of purely Russian origin, is a legend or sheet, otherwise called a prayer, called “The Dream of the Virgin Mary.” Some data on its contents suggest that it appeared in the 16th or 17th century; however, with a greater degree of probability one can point to the 16th century as the time of its appearance.
"The Dream" has several editions or retellings; their total number reaches thirty. We have chosen the edition of “Dream” that seems to be more complete than the others and presents more convenience and necessity for analysis and refutation. It is included in the third issue of “Monuments of Ancient Russian Literature”, published. A. Pypin (SPB., 1861, pp. 125-127).
Writing out the text of “The Dream” in parts, we accompany each individual excerpt with an explanation and refutation.