"Bolotnitsa."
Description
"This image takes its name from the bolotnitsa, the bog-maiden of Slavic folklore, but mainly from a book I read religiously as a child, Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky's 1874 novel In the Forests (В лесах). Melnikov describes her like this (rough translation): She schemes, the accursed thing, longing to deceive and lead a person astray - she has settled into that wondrous flower to hide her goose's feet with their black webbing. The moment the bolotnitsa catches sight of a person - old or young, it makes no difference - she begins, in a sweet, soft voice, so plaintively, as if through tears, to plead to be lifted from the bog, brought out into the white world, shown the red sun she has never once beheld. She spreads her arms, throws back her head, and beckons that person to her breast, promising a thousand unheard-of delights, heaps of gold, mountains of rolling pearls."Try it!
