Frost.[277]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ralston, William Ralston Shedden
The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they felt the cold.
“I say, Prascovia! the frost’s skinning me alive. Well, if our bridegroom[281] doesn’t come quick, we shall be frozen to death here!”
“Don’t go talking nonsense, Mashka; as if suitors[282] generally turned up in the forenoon. Why it’s hardly dinner-time yet!”
“But I say, Prascovia! if only one comes, which of us will he take?”
“Not you, you stupid goose!”
“Then it will be you, I suppose!”
“Of course it will be me!”
“You, indeed! there now, have done talking stuff and treating people like fools!”
Meanwhile, Frost had numbed the girl’s hands, so our damsels folded them under their dress, and then went on quarrelling as before.
“What, you fright! you sleepy-face! you abominable shrew! why, you don’t know so much as how to begin weaving: and as to going on with it, you haven’t an idea!”
“Aha, boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We’ll soon see which he’ll take first!”
While the girls went on scolding like that, they began to freeze in downright earnest. Suddenly they both cried out at once:
“Whyever is he so long coming. Do you know, you’ve turned quite blue!”
Now, a good way off, Frost had begun cracking, snapping his fingers, and leaping from fir to fir. To the girls it sounded as if some one was coming.
“Listen, Prascovia! He’s coming at last, and with bells, too!”
“Get along with you! I won’t listen; my skin is peeling with cold.”
“And yet you’re still expecting to get married!”
Then they began blowing on their fingers.
Nearer and nearer came Frost. At length he appeared on the pine, above the heads of the girls, and said to them:
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones? Are ye warm, my darlings?”
“Oh, Frost, it’s awfully cold! we’re utterly perished! We’re expecting a bridegroom, but the confounded fellow has disappeared.”
Frost slid lower down the tree, cracked away more, snapped his fingers oftener than before.
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones?”
“Get along with you! Are you blind that you can’t see our hands and feet are quite dead?”
Still lower descended Frost, still more put forth his might,[283] and said:
“Are ye warm, maidens?”
“Into the bottomless pit with you! Out of sight, accursed one!” cried the girls—and became lifeless forms.[284]
Next morning the old woman said to her husband:
“Old man, go and get the sledge harnessed; put an armful of hay in it, and take some sheep-skin wraps. I daresay the girls are half-dead with cold. There’s a terrible frost outside! And, mind you, old greybeard, do it quickly!”
Before the old man could manage to get a bite he was out of doors and on his way. When he came to where his daughters were, he found them dead. So he lifted the girls on to the sledge, wrapped a blanket round them, and covered them up with a bark mat. The old woman saw him from afar, ran out to meet him, and called out ever so loud:
“Where are the girls?”
“In the sledge.”
The old woman lifted the mat, undid the blanket, and found the girls both dead.
Then, like a thunderstorm, she broke out against her husband, abusing him saying:
“What have you done, you old wretch? You have destroyed my daughters, the children of my own flesh and blood, my never-enough-to-be-gazed-on seedlings, my beautiful berries! I will thrash you with the tongs; I will give it you with the stove-rake.”
“That’s enough, you old goose! You flattered yourself you were going to get riches, but your daughters were too stiff-necked. How was I to blame? it was you yourself would have it.”
The old woman was in a rage at first, and used bad language; but afterwards she made it up with her stepdaughter, and they all lived together peaceably, and thrived, and bore no malice. A neighbor made an offer of marriage, the wedding was celebrated, and Marfa is now living happily. The old man frightens his grandchildren with (stories about) Frost, and doesn’t let them have their own way.
In a variant from the Kursk Government (Afanasief IV. No. 42. b), the stepdaughter is left by her father “in the open plain.” There she sits, “trembling and silently offering up a prayer.” Frost draws near, intending “to smite her and to freeze her to death.” But when he says to her, “Maiden, maiden, I am Frost the Red-Nosed,” she replies “Welcome, Frost; doubtless God has sent you for my sinful soul.” Pleased by her “wise words,” Frost throws a warm cloak over her, and afterwards presents her with “robes embroidered with silver and gold, and a chest containing rich dowry.” The girl puts on the robes, and appears “such a beauty!” Then she sits on the chest and sings songs. Meantime her stepmother is baking cakes and preparing for her funeral. After a time her father sets out in search of her dead body. But the dog beneath the table barks—“Taff! Taff! The master’s daughter in silver and gold by the wedding party is borne along, but the mistress’s daughter is wooed by none!” In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify its remarks. It eats the cake, but it repeats its offensive observations, until the stepdaughter appears in all her glory. Then the old woman’s own daughter is sent afield. Frost comes to have a look at his new guest, expecting “wise words” from her too. But as none are forthcoming, he waxes wroth, and kills her. When the old man goes to fetch her, the dog barks—“Taff! Taff!
The master’s daughter will be borne along by the bridal train, but the bones of the mistress’s daughter are being carried in a bag,” and continues to bark in the same strain until the yard-gates open. The old woman runs out to greet her daughter, and “instead of her embraces a cold corpse.”
To the Russian peasants, it should be observed, Moroz, our own Jack Frost, is a living personage. On Christmas Eve it is customary for the oldest man in each family to take a spoonful of kissel, a sort of pudding, and then, having put his head through the window, to cry: