The Chronicles of Narnia meets ancient Slavic mythology!
Svarog's World was a realm of eternal warmth, innocence, and magic, where humans, animals, and nature spirits spoke a single language. That was until a dark, icy shadow crept in from the cold...
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"He-eeee! How's it going?" a voice boomed from one side of the wheat field. "How could it not, my dear friend!" a voice called back from the other side. "Look how many of us there are!" With that, he swung his free arm as if to embrace the whole force of reapers gathered between the two loud-voiced men. "And sun-baked! And beautiful! And small! And stout! And sweet-scented! And youthful!" A chorus of voices began to cheer joyfully, while the Sun, perched high in the sky, grinned and blazed down on them. "It's easy for them to tease," said a tall, sturdy girl, drawing herself up. She straightened her coarse cloth apron and wiped her sweaty brow with her sleeve. "Our little hands and our sickles are the ones that have to reap the very last sheaf..." Then she said to herself, somewhat pensively: "I wonder which of us — bless her mother — will weave a crown from it and bring it home?" "Not me," a flushed neighbor snapped beside her, vigorously cutting through the ears of grain. "I don't want to get soaked." "Oh, you silly thing!" a third woman rebuked her. "They'll soak you on purpose so the spelt grows lush again next year. That is the custom. It doesn't just grow on its own." Just then, an old man approached them, still briskly swinging his scythe. Without pausing, he called out to them, alerting the others: "Hurry up, people! Hurry up, women! Now is not the time for storytelling!" "Mow fast, fast!" another voice chimed in. "Drive forward! Keep driving, before the spirits of the grain can gather themselves." Then he added jokingly: "Whoever ties the last sheaf shall place it on the head of a girl — whichever one he chooses — and she will have to kiss him in front of all of us!" Everyone burst into laughter. The youngest among them, Dubravko, felt a flush creep across his face; to hide it, he began to swing his scythe even more vigorously. The girls' voices joined together, and a song rose up, weaving and unfolding through the ears of grain:
"Beautiful Neva reaped the wheat, reaped all day, gathered the sheaves, hoooooo-oy! Beautiful Neva reaped the wheat, with her left hand, and a golden sickle, hoooooo-oy!"
Sweat beaded on their foreheads, soaking through the shirts on their broad shoulders; muscles swelled and strained. Dark curls broke free to veil their eyes, while white hands bound the sheaves as voices began to fade. Scythes and sickles had united, forging life through sacrifice; every grain of spelt was set to ignite. Warm voices sizzled: "We are the bread and the hearth-cake! To you, we give ourselves!" In the intense whirl of labor, they did not at first notice the breath of wind — cold, yet not enough to stop them or make them look up. Only a few felt the shivers down their spines, across their chests, or along their arms. And then, figures streamed through the field. It seemed as though the stalks were bending strangely, while elsewhere, swift rustles whipped by, leaving everything seemingly unchanged in their wake. For a while longer, golden stalks bore it all in their dark bosoms. It was as if various animal companions had mingled with the people: digging and hopping, moving silently somewhere, crawling, trailing through the grain without a trace. Carried by an ever-stronger wind. "Whoever reaps the last sheaf will get the Grain Sow!" a voice cried out as if in a wasteland, encouraging the reapers even more and making them all go wild. Lubjenka had fallen far behind. Exhausted by a recent illness, she struggled and strained until it fitfully seemed to her that everyone else was far behind, while she — a laborer of the Almighty — flew from one end of the field to the other in a single stroke. Dubravko looked back at her often, worried that the dear creature had lagged. He didn't want to separate from the group that had surged ahead; this was his first harvest year, his time to prove himself. Yet, where his head had wandered, his heart finally followed, and he turned back, wishing to help her. In a fog of fatigue, the girl didn't even notice a strange creature looming over her. It rose from the grain, from the very mown sheaves, swelling and taking shape. Resembling a giant old woman in a straw hat, it spread its grainy limbs and pressed down on the girl. Lubjenka fought back, and for a moment, the unnatural figure made of harvested stalks lost its form — it scattered, ears of grain flying. But then it gathered itself once more, rose up, and pinned her to the ground. Dubravko let out a shout, twisting his entire body towards her and swinging his scythe to drive away the foul creature. In an instant, a new wheaten beast, shaped exactly like a wolf, surged up before him and lunged at his chest. The daylight vanished — or perhaps the Sun had hidden itself in agony, unwilling to look upon the shadows and the dark stalks overwhelming the frantic people. It seemed as though their screams were merely a new song, a strange, broken, and gruesome melody spreading far across the land:
"I suddenly look up at the sky, one little star has fallen to the ground, my little star has fallen..."
