A Heavy Wreath on Kupala Night

On Kupala night the river turns craftier than the oldest matchmaker. A girl sets her wreath afloat quietly, with hope, and the water already knows whose feet to carry it to, whose hands to place it in, and who to shame before the whole bank with a wet shirt. In the evening the girls floated their wreaths on the water, and the lads crept out of the reeds on the sly, for they believed: catch a girl's wreath, and her fate will follow you.

But one lad, Stepan, decided not to wait on the current's mercy. He wanted to catch a whole handful of wreaths, so he'd have something to choose from. Stepan was handsome as a poppy bloom, but he had more conceit in him than there are frogs in the pond. He bragged to the whole village that he'd catch as many girls' wreaths as he could carry.

The girls giggled into their palms, the old women by the bonfire exchanged looks, and he waded into the water up to his waist and hid in the reeds - not like a lad, but like a pike in a new shirt. The first wreath floats by - Stepan claps it on his head. The second - on his arm. The third caught on his belt so that the girls fairly snorted.

There he stands in the water, hung with flowers, wet, proud and foolish, as if he'd already sent for the matchmaker, though he hadn't even climbed out of the reeds yet. Palazhka calls from the bank: "Stepan, it's not fate you're catching out there, it's your own conceit you're stringing onto yourself!" And he only snorts: "Let it be! A handsome lad has more than one fate!"

Then the river carried out one more wreath. Big. Heavy. Tightly woven of wormwood, lovage and marigolds, so firmly that even the water seemed to flow more carefully around it. Stepan narrowed his eyes: now this, he thinks, must be the finest girl fated for me. He seized the wreath, pressed it to his chest, climbed out onto the bank and stood there like a prince after a victory. The girls said nothing. The old women too. And then out from behind the bonfire came Baba Hapka.

And as if on the other side of a homespun cloth something were very slowly touching the fabric... Once. A pause. Once more. As if a small finger were feeling for where the edge began. A clever woman, sharp-tongued, with the kind of look that first chills the back of a man's neck, and only then does he remember he had something to say. She walked up to the soaking-wet Stepan, looked at the wreaths and said: "Well, since you've caught it, my little falcon, then carry it.

Only mind your knees don't buckle. Because my wreath is heavy - I've no love for lightweight lads." The whole bank exploded with laughter. Stepan turned so red that steam rose off the water on him. He tried to joke his way out of it, but Hapka calmly took her wreath off him, straightened it and added: "And give the rest of the flowers back to the girls. Because you're a fine-looking lad, I can see that, but for one woman all you've got so far is a tongue and a wet shirt."

After that Stepan grabbed no more wreaths. He sat in the inn, quiet, drinking kvas and staring into his mug as if his drowned glory were floating in it. And Hapka, at the next table, ate her fish soup, and between spoonfuls laughed so hard that Stepan hid his eyes deeper in his mug each time, as if he could drown all his Kupala swagger in there.

So I'll tell you this: don't grab more wreaths than you can honestly carry. On Kupala night the river doesn't only carry a girl's fate - it gives a lad's conceit a good rinsing too.