The princess of winter is born when the days become shorter. Kupala Night approaches, and the preparations begin for the night when the sun hangs in the sky and does not retreat over the horizon. She enters the world when the moon stands high over the northern Belarusian hills and the leaves of the mixed deciduous forests, where the little village struggles to stand.
Her cry brings a shiver even in the warm midsummer night. The villagers endeavored to revel in the warmth of the sun and forget the horrors of the winter, and despised the rippling of feeling that went from nape to pelvis.
The hopes for this child was high. Recently the village had been besieged by bandits, their few strong men weary from the constant push to hold off the interlopers. The new daughter perhaps would bring a new era of prosperity, a sign that wealth and fortune was to come. In a decade or so, her parents would give her to her husband, in return for cattle, or chickens, or precious fabrics received from traders from faraway lands to the east. With the healthy complexion of the child, their hopes soared.
An elder touched her forehead lovingly. "A lovely daughter," he remarked. "She will grow up strong. A wonderful addition, your children will not disappoint you."
Eighty days after her birth, the village held her brit bat. They dubbed her Ludmilla, or beloved by the people, and their intentions for her future.
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A Thousand Year Summer
FanfictionBorn in the earliest days of civilization in what is now Belarus, Natalya Braginskaya finds herself living while the world around her dies. She watches the centuries pass, and participates in their histories. She navigates her way through love, frie...
