The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

Author:Elizabeth Kostova [Kostova, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2017-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

The Wolf and the Bear, that’s one I used to tell my children when they were little, said Baba Yana. It’s not about Baba Metsa, the She-Bear—they liked that one even better. But it’s a good one. My grandfather told it to us, right here, while the Turks still owned our land, and he said even then that it was a very old story, so you can be sure it is. There was a Bear, you see, who was the strongest and fiercest of all the animals when Bulgaria was young. He was so big and so tall that you could see him walking over the mountains, and he roared like this—aaaarrr. That’s the part where my children liked to scream, and my grandchildren, later. Everyone was afraid of this Bear because of his strength and his size. They said he could eat a sheep or a little girl in one swallow. The Bear wandered around the countryside and everybody stayed far away from him.

At the same time, there was a Wolf, who was big and strong but not as big as the Bear. But the Wolf was very smart, and one day he came into a village not so far from here, and he said to the villagers, “If you make me your Tsar, I will protect you from the Bear. Not only that, but I will get back all the sheep and goats that other wolves have stolen from you, shame on them, and give them out to everyone in the village.”

The villagers were a little afraid of the Wolf, but they all wanted their livestock back, so they agreed. And the Wolf ruled over the village, and many other villages, and he brought back not only the sheep and goats that had been lost, but many others that he stole from rich farms and gave to the poor villagers. The villagers were happy and they did not ask any questions about where all the food came from. Sometimes people came from other farms and villages, angry, and tried to attack their village, but the Wolf drove them off and kept the village safe.

Now, the Wolf had a young maiden to sweep his house and cook his meals and she was beautiful enough to be a bride of Heaven. When the Wolf had ruled over the village for some years, he said to this maiden that he had to go on a journey and that she must keep everything in order and not look into the chamber under the hearthstone, where he kept his treasure box, and not let anyone into the house while he was gone. Then he went away, without saying when he would come back. She had not known there was any chamber under the hearthstone or that he had any treasure, but she agreed to his orders.

For three days, the girl cleaned the house and cooked up good food for the Wolf’s return, and she did not open the house to anyone or touch the hearthstone.

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