The Tale of the Boyar’s (1) Daughter

She faced her suitors.
In the clean field she cast them down,
until Stanislav the Red-Hand lay broken before all.
She had not meant to bring him low,
but pride, once shattered, festers deeper than any wound.

In his desperation he crept to Dragomir, his uncle,
a voivode of cold halls and darker ties.
A Chornobog(2) priest was summoned,
and a curse was spoken like venom:
“Rend from her the flame that keeps her light.”

That night, shadows poured into her father’s hall.
Kateryna, her younger sister, was gone.
Only her knucklebones(3) remained on the floor.
Her father sat silent, his house hollowed,
and whispers spread that his strength was failing.

She swore an oath, gathered Dymitr her brother,
Milosz quick with laughter,
friends and household guards,
and they rode out together.

At the river, Vodniks(4) clawed and dragged,
water filled mouths, hands tore the sky.
Together they fought through the black current,
and gasping, reached the far bank and pressed on.

Mist thickened among the pines,
and a pale-eyed volkhv(5) stepped forth.
Before she could speak, he placed in her hand
a toy carved of bone and whispered:
“For the child who will never return home.”
They looked around in silence, but moved on.

In a lonely inn where the lamps smoked low,
strangers watched too closely, hands restless at their sides.
Fear broke first — a sudden brawl and splintered tables.
When the noise faded, no blood had been spilled.
But at dawn, in the wreckage, they found a scrap of writing,
a call to strike her father’s hall,
now judged weak with its captain gone.

They had to turn back.
Dymitr and the others rode home.
Only Milosz stayed.

Another danger rose from the marsh,this time it left a wound too deep to ride past.They sought a hearth to rest and bind it.But the hearth was false, the bread bitter with poison.Milosz died choking, his laughter cut short.The deceiver’s skin split to ash,but it could not bring Milosz back.She, alone, moved on.