In ancient times, girls practiced a divination ritual on Christmas Eve, “wedding the snow” to predict their future marriages. While performing the ritual near a water-hole, they were frightened by a mysterious, fiery stove. They sought refuge with an old woman, who saved them by making them wear copper saucepans on their heads, confusing the stove.
Source
Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia
by Waldemar Bogoras
The American Museum of Natural History
Anthropological Papers, Vol. 20, Part 1
New York, 1918
► Themes of the story
Ritual and Initiation: The girls engage in a traditional divination practice to predict their marital futures, highlighting cultural rites of passage.
Supernatural Beings: The appearance of the fiery stove as a menacing entity introduces a supernatural element to the narrative.
Cunning and Deception: The old woman’s clever tactic of using saucepans to disguise the girls demonstrates the use of wit to outsmart the supernatural threat.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Yukaghir people
Told by Mary Dauroff, a Russian creole woman, in the village of Pokhotsk, summer of 1896.
It was in olden times that some girls went to wed the snow. [It is a kind of old Russian divination, practised on Christmas Eve or Twelfth Night. Young girls “wed the snow,” and, according to the marks left on the snow by their fingers, foretell the future chiefly in reference to their possible marriage during the coming year.] They came to a water-hole, sat down, and traced a magic circle all around themselves upon the snow. They were seated on a bearskin. One of the paws of the skin projected accidentally beyond the circle, but not one of the girls noticed it. All at once the skin under them began to move. The water in the water-hole bubbled as in a kettle, and something made its appearance out of the water. They were horribly frightened and rushed away. Nearest to the river stood the small house of an old woman. She was pious and wealthy. She had among other things a great number of saucepans, large and bright, made of solid copper.
► Continue reading…
She met them in the entrance, and ordered them immediately to put the saucepans on their heads as caps. Then they sat down and waited. After a few moments the door was torn open, and in rushed a large stove, all of black iron, breathing fire from all its openings. All at once all the saucepans were pulled down with great violence. That done, the phantom departed. Most certainly the saucepans had been mistaken by it for the heads of girls, so the girls were saved.
That is all.
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