The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales by Arthur Ransome Page A

cat, and cocks and hens, but none of these made up for having no children. These two would just stand and watch the children of the other huts. The dogs would bark, but they took no notice; and the cat would curl up against them, but they never felt her; and as for the cocks and hens, well, they were fed, but that was all. The old people did not care for them, and spent all their time in watching the children who belonged to the other huts.
    In the winter the children in their little sheepskin coats played in the crisp snow. They pelted each other with snowballs, and shouted and laughed, and then they rolled the snow together and made a snow woman—a regular snow Baba Yaga, a snow witch; such an old fright!
    And the old man, watching from the window, saw this, and he says to the old woman,—
    â€œWife, let us go into the yard behind and make a little snow girl; and perhaps she will come alive, and be a little daughter to us.”
    â€œHusband,” says the old woman, “there’s no knowing what may be. Let us go into the yard and make a little snow girl.”
    So the two old people put on their big coats and their fur hats, and went out into the yard, where nobody could see them.
    And they rolled up the snow, and began to make a little snow girl. Very, very tenderly they rolled up the snow to make her little arms and legs. The good God helped the old people, and their little snow girl was more beautiful than ever you could imagine. She was lovelier than a birch tree in spring.
    Well, towards evening she was finished—a little girl, all snow, with blind white eyes, and a little mouth, with snow lips tightly closed.
    â€œOh, speak to us,” says the old man.
    â€œWon’t you run about like the others, little white pigeon?” says the old woman.
    And she did, you know, she really did.
    Suddenly, in the twilight, they saw her eyes shining blue like the sky on a clear day. And her lips flushed and opened, and she smiled. And there were her little white teeth. And look, she had black hair, and it stirred in the wind.
    She began dancing in the snow, like a little white spirit, tossing her long hair, and laughing softly to herself.
    Wildly she danced, like snowflakes whirled in the wind. Her eyes shone, and her hair flew round her, and she sang, while the old people watched and wondered, and thanked God.
    This is what she sang:—
    â€œNo warm blood in me doth glow,
Water in my veins doth flow;
Yet I’ll laugh and sing and play
By frosty night and frosty day—
Little daughter of the Snow.
    Â 
    â€œBut whenever I do know
That you love me little, then
I shall melt away again.
Back into the sky I’ll go—
Little daughter of the Snow.”
    â€œGod of mine, isn’t she beautiful!” said the old man. “Run, wife, and fetch a blanket to wrap her in while you make clothes for her.”
    The old woman fetched a blanket, and put it round the shoulders of the little snow girl. And the old man picked her up, and she put her little cold arms round his neck.
    â€œYou must not keep me too warm,” she said.
    Well, they took her into the hut, and she lay on a bench in the corner farthest from the stove, while the old woman made her a little coat.
    She began dancing in the snow, like a little white spirit.
    The old man went out to buy a fur hat and boots from a neighbour for the little girl. The neighbour laughed at the old man; but a rouble is a rouble everywhere, and no one turns it from the door, and so he sold the old man a little fur hat, and a pair of little red boots with fur round the tops.
    Then they dressed the little snow girl.
    â€œToo hot, too hot,” said the little snow girl. “I must go out into the cool night.”
    â€œBut you must go to sleep now,” said the old woman.
    â€œBy frosty night and frosty day,” sang the little girl. “No; I will play by myself in the yard all night, and in the morning I’ll play in the