Matryoshka and the Red Ox
Page One
Mother promised a true feast on fresh game that Father
planned to trap in the forest near their humble cottage. A young woman, small
but strong and the only child of her parents, was sent to fetch the red ox that
liked to wander.
The young woman liked to wander, too, and so it took her a
five days’ walk through the mountain pass when the journey should have taken
two days. She found the red ox at a frozen post on the outskirts of a village,
where lived an old man. The old man, to whom belonged the post and the clean
shack beyond, gave over the ox’s rope to the young woman. The young woman
returned her thanks to the djedjuska by
giving him dried wildflowers from her long hair, green birch switches from her
satchel, and firewood she had gathered and carried in a bundle across her
shoulders.
The old man looked as he always did at the young woman and
her bright cheeks which made her seem like a matryoshka doll come to life. “Matryoshka,” he said, for she had
never told him if she had a name, “take care of this beast. It likes to wander
more than it should. Take care that it does not cause you sorrow, for it is a
beast and not a man.”
“Thank you, Djedjuska,” the young woman returned, as always.
She tried to follow the old man’s advice on the journey back
home. The ox had a mind of its own. Soon the young woman and the ox were
wandering away from the path.
On one cold winter day in the Caucasus Mountains, the young
woman pulled her ox’s ragged rope with all her might. The ox’s foot stuck fast
in an ice hole beside a frozen creek, where both the animal and the woman had
stopped to find water and rest before continuing another half a day’s journey
home.
The red ox’s leg broke through the ice as the ragged rope
frayed and snapped. She tried to catch the broken end, but the young woman bent
too far forward. Ice sheets trembled and plunged into the depths of the water,
swallowing the ox, the young woman, and all she had with her.
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