Snegurochka- Slavic SpiritSpirit"The Snow Maiden"

The Snow Girl

An old man and an old woman had no children. In the depths of winter, they went outside and shaped a girl from snow. They gave her eyes and a mouth and hair, and when they finished, the figure stirred. She opened her eyes. She breathed.

Snegurochka lived with them through the cold months, pale-skinned and white-haired, quiet and gentle. The old couple loved her as their daughter. She played in the frost and laughed when the wind blew. But as the days grew longer, she grew listless. She avoided the hearth. She stayed in the shadows where the air was still cold.

Her companions called her to come out on Kupala Night. They were leaping over the bonfire, as the custom demanded. Snegurochka watched them jump and land laughing on the other side. She ran and leapt. Over the flames, her body thinned to mist and rose. The old couple called her name. There was nothing to answer.

Daughter of Frost and Spring

In Ostrovsky's 1873 retelling, drawn from the folk tradition, Snegurochka is the daughter of Ded Moroz (Father Frost) and Vesna-Krasna (Spring the Beautiful). Her parents' natures war inside her. Frost raised her in the forest, away from humans, knowing that warmth would kill her. Spring wanted her daughter to live and feel.

Snegurochka left the forest. She saw people. She watched them love each other and could not understand the feeling. She asked her mother for the ability to love, and Spring gave it to her, warning that the gift would destroy her. Snegurochka fell in love with the shepherd Lel. The warmth of her own feeling melted her where she stood. The first rays of summer sun fell on the place where she had been, and there was nothing left but wet ground.