Snow Maiden

This old tale of the lovely girl who materializes one winter day out of the creation of an old and childless couple is deceptively simple. Apparently the snowgirl from which she emerges, fully formed, is only a vehicle through which she comes to this world from quite another realm. She has already a pre-existence in the Slavic ‘otherworld.’ She is, in fact, the sixteen year old daughter of the goddess, Fair Spring and Father Frost. She has been raised in the icy land of her father, kept from Yarilo the sun god who, like the Greek Apollo, has a fierce passion for comely virgins.

For the sake of safekeeping she is sent to earth and into the care of an old couple who have long prayed futilely for a child of their own. With skin of translucent ivory and lips as red as rowan berries, she is a delight to them during the short, dark winter days. It is only with the approach of spring that trouble begins to appear. As the first beds of snowdrops emerge from the warming earth, she grows fearful and melancholy, hiding in the shadows of the house. On days when March hail rains from the sky she stretches out her hands to catch the pellets as if they were falling pearls.

Finally the snow disappears, the birches put forth green buds and the village girls go into the forest to play and pick berries. At the urging of her mother, the Snow Maiden goes along, but she hides a painful secret. She has been given a cold, distant heart by her father as a protection against fiery Yarilo. When a village boy named Lel begins to court her he seems to meet with nothing but cool aloofness and soon turns his attentions elsewhere. But there is unsuspected passion behind the impassive gaze. Snow Maiden turns to her mother, who represents the feminine, vulnerable side of her being, and begs for a tender human heart to replace the lump of ice in her breast. With trepidation, her mother grants her wish, placing a wreath of lilies on her head with a warning to beware of the blazing attentions of Yarilo. To live fully is to be open to wounding and death.

Animated by her newfound warmth and openness, she runs to find Lel, to declare her love to him. No sooner has she found him than the sun begins to rise, engulfing her body with its warming light. With a pitiful cry she melts away, leaving only a crown of wilting lilies on the ground. Her spirit passes into the spring grass, engendering new life out of the fertile earth.

Here we have a northern prototype of a theme found in all planting societies from the Aztecs to the Celts, that of the sacrifice of an unblemished youth or maiden to feed the hunger of the Sun Lord, who in turn fertilizes the fecund soil. In this view of the world an individual human life is only a visitation, part of a much larger cycle like the yearly sowing, growing and dying of the fields of grain or corn.

Out of the Great Mystery, our children come to us, ambassadors from a place unknown. Then, with time, they are gone again. The tender, ’unrepeatable years,’ of early childhood, all too brief…