Excerpted from the book "On the High Uplands: Sagas, Songs, Tales, and Legends of the Carpathians" by Stanisław Vincenz.
This excerpt is about a childbirth. Kalyna is the new mother, and Foka is her husband. The chapter opens with the priest's wife at Kalyna's bedside, making sure Kalyna is comfortable and reassuring her.
She talked incessantly, she talked of affairs of heaven and earth, the church and the family, the house and the stable. Meanwhile it grew dark, and then there was a rumble of thunder and rain began to beat and rattle on the panes. Kalyna, exhausted, had dozed off, but was disturbed by the thunder. The room was plunged in darkness, in the roar of the storm. The priest's wife comforted Kalyna, but without effect: she wept. Foka came in. Kalyna brightened up into a smile, and for some time they gazed at each other. The world came to a halt. The lightning flashes lit up the happy, frozen smiles. Even the priest's wife was silent.
There was a knock at the door. The two godfathers entered, Tanasenko in a jerkin and the squire in a coat. They had come for the child, to take her out into the first spring rain, in accordance with custom. The priest's wife was excited beyond belief. She hurried about the room, took charge of the proceedings, wrapped the child in coarse linen, put on her own cape.
Meanwhile Tanasenko was deliberately noisy, poking fun at Kalyna. "What's this new fashion? All the world is keeping the holiday, but you, the most important of all, you're unwell. If it weren't for the holiday I'd say you were spoiling the holiday. I'm old enough, but have you ever known me to lie in bed?"
"Think what you're saying, Tanasenko," the priest's wife exclaimed. "This is a childbirth; have you ever given birth to a child?"
"A hard job, I must say! Slipenczuk's wife, who lives up in the highland, in Tarnoczka, gave birth to quadruplets as she was running from the village to the mountain. One at each separate stile: she just clapped it into her lap and went on. You people down at the foot of the mountains are a soft lot. If you want to get well you must keep the holiday, you must dance."
"Tanasenko, you're not treating horses now; you'll wear the woman out," the priest's wife scolded him.
"God forbid that I should wear out either horse or woman. But I'll take to my bed only an hour before my death."
Kalyna excused herself with a smile, and whispered:
"But perhaps I could get up, your reverence? At least for supper?"
"Over my dead body!" The priest's wife threw up her hands. "Tanasenko, this is a childbirth! And have you ever been so far gone as a single month?"
"A hard job!"
"Then you do it!"
The two of them flew at each other like fighting cocks. Kalyna, Foka and the others laughed heartily. Tanasenko stroked Kalyna on the head: "You lie still, child; you're like a gentleman's horse, you have to be looked after. But I must dance with you on the next saint's day, even if it be the end of the world."
The priest's wife grew impatient, and ran out with the child into the rain, hurriedly followed by the godfathers. The rain was beating down heavily, but her powerful voice rose above its sound:
"Slawek! Where are you, Slawek?"
In alarm the priest ran out of the house in only his cassock.
"Wait, Slawek," she cried, seizing him by the arm. "It won't be done without you."
The rain stopped and started, the wind blew; then the rain fell again in torrents. They all went out beyond the farmstead enclosure.
The wind danced over the river waters in great bounds and whirls. The Black River reared in a sombre-green wave between its precipitous banks, the White River hissed with milky foam, pouring over the shallows, the Waratyn and Paratczyn torrents gushed and somersaulted. All the world was in motion; the forests bowed down, the trees went crashing. The weaker ones, or those standing in less sheltered spots, fell into the abysses. Only those which were very small and low, the bushes and high grasses, danced fearlessly. Against the small things the might of the storm was impotent.
It was the first storm of spring: with a flashing whip St. George drove his herds out for the first spring stroll. Cloud after cloud rolled over from Czornohora. Thousands of heavenly horses galloped and drummed. They reared, they rode one another, they fructified.
The first rain of spring. Thousands of strings of rain were stretched out over the earth. The grass drank in the manna, the leaves sipped the water, the herbs caught the heavenly treasure, innumerable runlets bubbled and hissed over the fields. The cattle galloped in full flight from the meadows. The lightning flashes momentarily lit up human forms hurrying after the animals, then they were lost again in the darkness. Among them the squire recognized old Maksym. In youthful, even childlike bounds he ran after the cows, circled round them, barred the road, so that they should not go astray in their terror of the storm, should not fall into a ravine or one of the swollen streams. After Maksym came belated young couples, not necessarily married, who were saying good-bye to each other in the ravines and among the undergrowth before the men set out for the upland. The rain had sent them scurrying, the lightning betrayed them, but the darkness faithfully covered them again. The giggles, squeals and merry curses were not to be drowned by the thunder. Then songs were struck up, answering one another, penetrating through the storm.
"A little bull came on the track and how it began to bellow;
It's going to the pasture but there is none to follow."
Through the sound of the rain a girl answered:
"If you will once remember me each day ere sun is sinking,
I know that seven times every hour of you I shall be thinking."
The godfathers, and the priest and his wife, and the violinist Gawecio, halted with the child, not beneath a roof, but under the beeches, in the midst of the downpour. In the impenetrable darkness the lightning lit up the white linen in which the child was wrapped, and showed the way. Carrying the child, Tanasenko slowly prayed in a voice that could be heard afar, half chanting, half speaking:
"Pour, little rain, pour, pour, pour,
In potfuls, pailfuls, bucketfuls,
On the all-green pasture.
"Rain and water, holy Jordan…
Be renewed, O world, accept this child.
Rejoice."
Then he repeated the song right through, the song he had made up for his little god-daughter. The strings of the rain played more and more noisily. Standing beside the old man, Gawecio accompanied him on his violin. Tanasenko's song rose through the tumult with a powerful rhythm, not too fast, nor yet too slow:
"But let this child riot and revel
Like all the springs on this day of St. George."
Once more St. George flashed lightnings, and cracked his whip. The droves of cloud horses neighed triumphantly. The world was being renewed, the omen was favourable.
Tanasenko sang his song through to the end. Then the godparents and the others, soaked to the skin, squelching and slipping over the wet grass, fled before the downpour. As she hurried along, the priest's wife, in her saturated cloak, her hair dripping with rain, merrily panted admonitions to the others:
"Wait, Slawek! Faster, faster! As soon as you get indoors take off your cassock and have it dried. Squire, button up your coat, you're young yet, you must take care. Tanasenko, don't play about with the rain, you're not so young, you know."
She ran into Kalyna's bedroom, slammed the door in her fervour, and unwrapped the child.
"Kalyna, my dear, my soul! God is gracious, and St. George too. Don't worry, little bird. The omens are perfect; I know!"