This is an excerpt from the book "On the High Uplands: Sagas, Songs, Tales, and Legends of the Carpathians" by Stanisław Vincenz. The book is a compilation of stories from the Hutsul people, who live in western Ukraine. Foka is one of the main characters, his surname is Szumej.
The title of this chapter in the book is "Foka's Ancestry."
Foka's Ancestry
Below the high meadows, on the very summit of Kiczera, just above the old house, lie the remnants of an old forest; all that is left of the ancient forest in the heart of which, according to tradition, Foka's forebear, the first of the Szumejs, was born.
Foka himself used to tell the story of his ancestor in these words:
"There is little good forest left now, though the gentlemen from the towns, and even the Viennese ministers who come to see the squire, exclaim: 'Beautiful forest!' Evidently the poor devils have never seen anything finer. We still have great and old forests, but not here now, not in Jasenowo. In olden times the forest came right down here, it was forest without end; only the uplands of Bukowec and Pisany Kamen showed green along the heights. And the people kept to the heights and were afraid of the forest. Everything below the peaks—the slopes, the cliffs, the precipices—was covered with forest.
"And now I'll tell you why I'm so fond of the forest, and why I've cut down so much of it in my time. Evidently it's because of this old story I'm telling. That's difficult to understand, but you can't help believing it, for it's an old tale, and it's been passed down by serious, responsible people—not by chatterers but by hard-working people.
"The father of my great-grandfather drove his flocks and herds to this spot from somewhere around Jaworowo, and he built his cottage where my upland cottage stands now. What kind of father he was, I'll tell you in a moment. He and his wife started with a summer hut, and as time passed they built a cottage too; but it stands there no longer, for this was very long ago. It is said they had two sons. They were brave lads, worthy fellows who were the first to build a summer hut on Czornohora, and who bred cattle by the thousands. One of them went around with Dobosz1, and possibly even with Pynta2. They rode on horseback over to the Hungarian side, and there beyond the peaks they fell upon Hungarian castles, fought the gentry and the knights, carried off all sorts of goods and hid them in inaccessible cliffs on Czornohora. But at that time there weren't any people living on Czornohora. It was a snakes' paradise, and the serpents had a fine life. It is said that provided a snake doesn't see a man for seven years it grows and swells so much that it changes into a mighty dragon, looking like an enormous bull on short legs, with great glass eyes and teeth like stone, tusky and fierce; and covered with bark, rather like spruce bark, but silvery and shining. These dragons built themselves castles, or rather they forced people they had taken prisoner to build them; they took possession of the people's treasures hidden up there, carried off or killed the cattle, drove the people down from the up-lands, and destroyed the summer huts. And they captured these two sons of my forefather and harnessed them to heavy, fearful slave labour in those great glass castles which incessantly turn and spin on Smotrycz peak, as the people do tell.
"And so, when he was an old man the father of my great-grand-father had to work hard, he and his wife, to do the mowing, to gather in the hay and look after the cattle. A lot of the animals were lost, for they had no helpers or servants.
"One day he had been to the forest, and was just returning home, carrying a heavy tree up the hill. The old man groaned and stumbled under the weight of it. The forest was roaring, but he complained to the forest:
"'Roar away, roar away, forest; you might roar a son to me to assist me, and a child who would be my comfort; you might bring me news of my sons, who are being punished in the torture-chamber of those fiendish monsters.'
"Another time he was going down into the forest, and he came to this lower hill, just here where I've got my old cottage. And the forest was roaring, and the wind was groaning and weeping, and he thought he heard something calling after him:
"'Daddy! Daddy! Wait a bit!'
"He crossed himself, thinking it was the spirit of one of his sons calling. Without doubt the Czornohora dragons had already killed them off. He crossed himself, sighed, went back to his cottage, and told his wife about it. The woman was curious... and ran the very next day to the forest. She listened, straining her ears, when some way off; and somehow the roar of the forest seemed to be different from usual. She shivered and in her terror crossed herself, and raised her eyes to God's sun; but she went on listening... And then she heard a voice calling: ""Mummy! Mummy! Wait a bit!'
"The voice was unusual, but it was clearly that of a child, as the woman with her woman's heart realized better than the old man had done. She felt like running, but she could hear a child, quite clearly a child, whimpering and calling.
"She looked, and she saw a cembra pine with a trunk like a swollen belly, as though it were a pregnant woman; and from it, from a hole in the trunk, two arms, the arms of a little child, were stretched out to her. She crossed herself again and said a Paternoster, but the little hands stretched out like white flowers from the hole, and a thin little voice, caressing and kindly, as though it were speaking from below her own heart, twittered: 'Mummy! Mummy!' She went still closer, and looked: the hole was almost closed, the arms were sticking out through a narrow gap, and she had no axe with her, so she could do nothing about it. She ran up the height to the old man, and told him everything, and they both flew down with an axe. The old man began to cleave that enormous cembra pine. It was hard work, and he sweated, but at last he succeeded. And they drew out a beautiful, delicate, white-skinned little child which began to talk at once. They had grazed him a little with the axe, and he bore the mark of it for all his life after. They marvelled, they caressed him, they wrapped him in a kerchief, they set the sign of the Cross on his brow, and the child was delighted and laughed happily. Nothing but joy! The old couple rejoiced exceedingly. All the world grew bright for them. They at once saddled horses and carried the child right to Jaworowo to be christened. And there they called him 'Szumej (Roar away)' and 'Kiedrynec (Cembra-child)' because it had all begun with the roar of the forest and because a pine mother had given birth to him. Afterwards in that spot they built this very cottage and made a cradle for him from that same tree. The cradle is still in my cottage; its wood is as red as ever. It was a sign that not only were the ridges and the uplands to be kept in our faith, but that we were to go into the forest and to dwell there, where only trees, naiads, and wood-spirits and an old forest daddy with his cattle had dwelt before. Dobosz himself often rocked the child in that same cradle, when he came this way, and so brotherhood and friend-ship were formed between us and Dobosz and his fellow-robbers. They say, too, that a roe-deer came and fed the child. And the lad that grew up from this child was very useful, helpful, and a good farmer. And afterwards-so they say with the aid of the holy hermit Onufry, who lived a hundred and fifty years and spent half his life in a niche in the cliff, driving away the dragons, he stopped the shining, glass castles from spinning and released his brothers from the dragons.
"Great comfort and great happiness did God's forest and the cembra give the old couple, and may it be blessed.
"And that is why we of Szumej's line, who come from the forest and the cembra, are like that tree: both hard and delicate. We love the forest, we are akin with the forest, related to the forest—its sons and grandsons.
"When the forest roars it is my forefathers calling me; and when the resin flows from the tree it is my blood flowing.
"These old trees, these giants, pass on the heritage to us. When we clear forest for a new pasture or a new hayfield, the trees talk to us and whisper that they have lived through their greyheaded age, and now it is our turn to draw the juices from the earth, to rejoice in the sun, to wash ourselves in the rain, to resist the winds, to raise our curly heads boldly, as once these trees our forefathers did."
Such was Foka's story of his ancestry.