romania revealed

"The Kiss" by Madalina Adronic.

"Inspired by Romanian folklore, this card represents Dragobete's kiss, a symbolic Romanian figure, equivalent of Valentine's Day, celebrated at the end of February. The tradition requires young, unmarried girls and boys to gather flowers and play/sing/dance altogether in a brightly lit glade, while members of their families cheer and applaude; at a certain point, the hoe-down stops and the girls run away, hiding and screaming, while the boys are  trying to find them; each single girl then sneaks out and picks with a light stroke of her bouquet the innattentive young man she finds attractive and kisses him; the boys do the same, until a sharp cry ends the game and the groups melt away, with the girls running home and hiding the love-bouquets, hoping to get married. The ritual of kissing the one you liked in that day's celebration was called Dragobete's engagement, a childish, yet significant gesture, made in the name of pure love. That is why, in Romania, it is often said 'Dragobetele sărută fetele!' (Dragobetele kisses the girls!), as a love celebration for that time of year, at the arrival of spring."

From Madalina Andronic's Behance Portfolio

Gnomes and mushroom hunting in Romania.

I spent a little time today enjoying The Transylvanian Joem, a blog by a young Peace Corps volunteer who visited Romania a few years ago and appreciated its whimsical, particular wonders. Below, you'll find his blog entry about mushroom hunting and gnomes in Romania. 

Garden gnomes, Gura Humorului, Romania

The sun had only been up an hour, so the shadows were still long and cold as the tiny car bounced along the snaking, dirt road. Speaking Romanian is hard in the early morning, so I tried to stick to specific questions–ones which Doru could answer at length while I sat quietly and listened. As we reached Cheile Jiețului, however, my child-like wonder withered my will to sustain conversation. Cheile Jiețului is a gateway (one of many) into the fairytale kingdom that is Romania’s wild places– so I shut up and stared out the window at the tortuously slow symphony of fall color on all sides of me–each note represented a different moment of passing, and every note was a symbol of the suddenly suspended transience of time.

Doru and I were going mushroom hunting, which seemed an apt way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the land of fairy tales. We crossed into the next county, Vâlcea, over a long mountain pass and came to a crossroad where scores of other mushroom hunters had set up temporary camps made of wood, plastic, and nylon. Doru told me that these mushroom hunters were after a different type of mushroom than we were–a kind that is exported to other countries throughout Europe. North of the crossroad, the road heads toward Sibiu, one of the more well known cities in Romania. Ahead it goes to Râmnicu Vâlcea, and behind us back to Petroșani and the Jiu Valley I call home. The last time I was here was over a year ago, and since then a large portion of this road has been widened, grated, and paved. Doru told me this is part of an attempt to establish the area as a center for eco-tourism, and to make it more accessible. It reminded me of all the other ways that Romania has been progressing around me since I arrived 16 months ago.

We parked alongside a river with a crossing–a long, fallen pine tree. Doru poured two small glasses of strong, dark wine and we toasted. “For courage,” Doru laughed before we cleared our glasses in a few, long gulps. Doru pulled on a pair of rubber galoshes, and told me that he was going to wade the river. I had on hiking boots, so my route would be to  ‘slowly’ cross by using the tree. I climbed onto it and carefully began to step my way across. Now, as a person who is chronically clumsy, I figured the odds were at least 50% that I’d slip and fall into the water. True to my nature, 2/3 across the river I stepped onto a patch of rotting bark which disintegrated under my foot and threw my balance downward. I suddenly found myself suspended in the air, heading for a bad fall and a cold bath.

However, being chronically clumsy has its benefits: that is to say, I’ve ‘adapted’ to my handicap–I’m really good at falling down.  Instinctively, I kicked my right leg over my body and rolled my trajectory so that I was facing downwards. I planted my right foot ankle deep into the water, which sucked, but I was able to catch myself on the log with both hands and raise my left leg over the river.

“Joem!” Doru yelled, as he quickly sloshed his way upriver. “Are you alright?! Did you hit yourself?!” Doru gave me his shoulder and helped me across to the far bank.

I assured Doru that I had indeed caught myself, and that I was fine. “You scared me…” Doru said. “I have to be responsible for you,” and I knew he was right–my 7 Romanian mothers would scold Doru to death if I broke an arm or leg while I was in the woods with him.

Doru seemed relieved, and passed me two large, woven, plastic sacks from the supermarket. “Last fall I filled two bags,” Doru. “We’ll see how we do.”

He scampered over to a cinnamon colored mushroom craning itself out of the supple earth. “These are what we’re after,” Doru told me, as he plucked off the mushroom’s ‘tail’ and passed the ‘head’ to me to examine. I took mental notes: brownish and sort of spotty– check. Doru took the low ground, and I went higher. The hill was on a steep, north-facing grade, and the trees were dense. It had also rained lightly the evening before, so all roots were slick and the dirt was spongy. Each step I either sunk four inches into wet moss and pine needles or slid down a half meter over wet branches. Doru and I would leave our bags in a spot and sort of zig zag around, grabbing mushrooms, popping off their stems, and putting the caps carefully into our sacks.

Under a pine tree, in a place that felt noticeably more magical than the rest, I found two large mushrooms that weren’t like what Doru had shown me. These two were a deep brown, and their heads came to distinct peaks. These were the sort of mushrooms you’d expect to find in a magic forest,  safeguarded by over-protective gnomes. I carefully plucked the caps from the stems and bagged them. I heard Doru call my name–so I scampered across the hill so that he could keep me in his sight and wouldn’t need to worry about me.

I instantly became aware that I had a problem–I felt like I was grabbing about four different types of mushroom. Some seemed more reddish than what Doru had shown me. Others had distinct, almost black ‘nipples,’ at their crests. Others seemed right, but were grey and rosy colored underneath. I took my half-full bag to Doru and asked him to inspect what I had collected.

Doru dumped the bag onto the earth and began picking through them. “No. No. These aren’t good,’ he murmured and I watched as he tossed away 2/3 of what I had found. “Look,” Doru said, handing me another ‘good’ mushroom to study. The mushrooms I really wanted weren’t brown and spotty– they were latte colored with the occasional light fleck of cream on top. And, underneath, they were a luminescent white that seemed so pure and soft that it almost sang lullabies.

I also showed Doru the two gnome mushrooms. “Oh these–these are good,” Doru said as he carefully took the two caps from me. “These are what the other mushroom hunters come after– you should have left the tails on them, but you didn’t know. We’ll try and sell them later for beer,” Doru said and smiled at me before putting them in a separate plastic bag.

Doru and I moved on, and I now felt more comfortable recognizing the kind of head we were after. They start deep inside the ground, and grow upwards strong and solid. Hence, they’re usually hidden under swathes of moss and dirt, or on the dim sides of uprooted trees. The young ones have domes, perfectly designed for pushing past the soil into the open air. Older ones flatten out, and become wide, concave cups that catch rain. Because of the precipitation, the older ones are susceptible to mold and rot, growing fuzzy white beards and losing that glowing white sheen– trading it for a faded color like grave water. They are easy to uproot, tail and head together, and the two are separated with a quick, strong pinch at the neck.

As my bag filled, I felt a strange sense of guilt. I almost felt as if Doru and I were pillaging the forest–tramping through to take what we wanted and leaving headless mushroom stalks in our wake. I wanted to take only half of what I found–to leave the rest for other collecters that might wander by tomorrow or the day after. I stopped for a moment to think, my heavy breathing a constantly slowing soundtrack for the forest. But I was  soon able to reconcile those guilty thoughts and continue on (see italicized portion below).

When Doru and I wandered out of the forest about three hours later, he had two heavy bags, both 2/3 full. I was excited with my own contribution: a 2/3 full sack, and a second that was a little over 1/4 full. Doru waded across the river with all four bags, while I slowly inched across the bridge again. This time, as odds would predict, I made it across without falling down.

Doru laid out a spread of canned meat, bread, sliced vegetables, salty sheep cheese, and a beer for me. We ate hungrily, occasionally breaking apart our bites by talking about wildlife conservation, or how warm the recent winters have been in Romania. Doru and I ate hearty, and after the whole beer and another short glass of wine I had a small buzz. So Doru and I packed the mushrooms into the car, and began the trip home.

Back at the crossroads, we stopped briefly so that Doru could sell the two gnome mushrooms I found along with two others that he had come upon. There was a group of hard-looking men hanging out around an electronic scale and a pickup truck piled with wooden crates–these were the mushroom gangsters. The crates were for gnome mushrooms that the men would buy from other mushroom hunters working at the crossroads camp. The mushroom Don was a squat man, and he held a wad of bills totaling a few thousand RON. A young crony in the pickup truck weighed our four mushrooms– they were 600 grams altogether. Although they usually sell for 25 RON per kilogram, the don gave us a 10 RON note. Doru didn’t argue–so we got  in the car and left.

In the car, Doru told me that the man was ‘making fun of us,’ but that he didn’t want to argue. I told him it was fine–we had enough money for two beers, and that was alright with me. On the ride home, we blasted out of the fairytale gate and time suddenly latched onto us, hyperactive and anxious to make up for the three hours we lost away from it. There was sun, and countless packs of people grilling along this part of the Jiu river. I suddenly realized how sleepy I had become, and so I told  Doru we’d have to save our beer money for another time.

“That’s fine Joem,” he smiled at me, and dropped me off at home. “I’ll clean the mushrooms and give you some,” and I told him that would be beautiful, but that I didn’t want many. I said that I would rather go to his house so that we could eat them together, and spend our beer money. Doru told me “this goes without saying.”

The lore of the willow tree in Romania.

In Romania the willow tree reigns supreme. Before starting to build a house for his family, a villager will first put a little willow shoot in the ground; in no time it becomes a weeping willow embellishing the 

entrance to his house. Willow trees surround water wells, providing shade around the water pump, the traditional village meeting place; they denote boundaries between individual peasant plots; they grow along the fast-flowing mountain streams and form closely knit clumps of greenery on the meadows. [Christine Sutherland, Enchantress: Marthe Bibesco and Her World]

The willow keeps its sacred spot in Romanian tradition and legend. Little willow rods are used to make traditional bouquets for New Year's wishes. The willow's evergreen rods are used to make bride coronets, believed to pass the regenerating power of nature to humans. The willow also saves the single moms. 

In a tradition going back to pagan times, a village girl who becomes pregnant out of wedlock must undergo symbolic marriage to a willow tree. The village elders come and take her from her home, leading her to the riverbank, where they tie her to the trunk of a willow, whose branches symbolically cover her shame. After the requisite incantations, the pregnant girl is pronounced duly married. From then on, she will be allowed to walk with her head covered, like the other married women in the village. The willow tree thus exorcised her shame and dishonor.

Coincidentally, The Wind in the Willows (2006) was filmed in Romania. The photo, Salcie atingand lacul (the willow touching the lake), was taken by Maira.

April in Romania.

April used to be known as "prier" in Romanian-- a word related to the good weather required for continuing the agricultural work begun in March. When the weather changed and it was too cold for seeding, April was called "bag-on-a-stick", associated with the poverty of a hobo and his sack.

According to tradition, if the weather is beautiful in April, then May will be cold and frosty. So we should hope for a cold and rainy April to being beautiful weather in May.

Some Romanians celebrate April Fool's day on the first of April (though there are questions about the Romanian-ness of this tradition). Those who celebrate April Fool's claim that the tradition originated in the Middle Ages, between the 5th and 15th centuries, when servants were masters for one day of the year. It seems that on this one day, servants could give orders to their masters and their masters had to obey. No wonder it continues as a celebration of tricks and pranks!

The best endnote in Katherine Verdery's book, "The Political Lives of Dead Bodies".

Rarely is an end-note a rich as Swiss chocolate with macademia nuts. This particular specimen comes from Katherine Verdery's path-breaking book, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. Voila end-note #29 for the chapter entitled, "Dead Bodies Animate the Study of Politics":

Before pooh-poohing the idea that "regular" people leading "regular" lives worry much about this sort of thing, note that some 70 percent of the US population believes in angels-- a fact that throws light on why the TV program Touched By An Angel has such high ratings.

Perhaps I might illustrate the "cosmic" in the "everyday" for Eastern Europe with one of its most widespread and popular folk tales. The tale appears all across Southeastern Europe but is particularly well-crystallized in Romania. It has caught the imagination of folk both learned and not, and my experience indicates that it still does. The story in outline concerns a young shepherd who sees his favorite lamb sorrowing, and asks her why. She tell him that she has overheard his two companions scheming to kill him. Knowing that animals can foresee the future, he believes her, then proceeds to tell her how he wants his funeral to be handled; his wishes show popular beliefs that violent deaths of the young require special treatment and, in the case of an unmarried person, a symbolic wedding so that his life can have included all the major components of human existence. He wants to be buried not in a church cemetery but in the meadow, with his sheep singing the funeral laments, and pines and stars as wedding/funeral guests.

According to Eliade, the tale's most profound message is the shepherd's will to change the meaning of his destiny, turning it into a moment in a cosmic liturgy. By taking the folk-practice of the "death wedding" and making it a cosmic event, he succeeds in transforming a dire event into a sacrament, thus triumphing over his own fate. Folk balladeers as well as intellectuals who love the tale find in it an affinity between the sheperd's destiny and that of the Romanian people. The shepherd has made an absurd event meaningful by responding to adversity with a new spiritual creation (Eliade 1970: 251-254). For more on the Romanian form of this tale, see Kligman 1988: Stahl 1983. 

For more on Miorita and related topics:

• The text of the ballad.
• Another version of the Miorita legend.
  
• Mircea Eliade on a certain incapacity.
• Lucian Blaga on the mioritic space. 
• A psychoanalystic perspective on the Romanian myth of the master-builder.
• Vintila Mihailescu on mioritic fatalism.
• A modern mioritic remix.
• An Aromanian shepherd.
• Goana dupa brad.
• Ciobani.ro.
  
• Mircea Eliade on the Romanian spiritual life.
  

Lazarus' Saturday in Romanian Orthodox traditions.

Mihaela Lica has a wonderful introduction to Lazarus' Saturday, part of the Romanian Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter (or Pascha). This year, Lazarus' Saturday will take place on April 11th. For those unfamiliar with the rich Romanian Pascha traditions, Lica sums Lazarus' Saturday as follows:

On this day the dead are waiting at the gates of Heaven to be remembered and celebrated, with traditional drinks and dishes like “coliva.” Coliva is the food for the dead and it’s prepared traditionally by widows or close family members of the deceased. The dish is used in various death related occasions, to celebrate and honor the dead. The coliva is usually decorated with a cross motif, made of cocoa or nuts and sugar. The coliva is always blessed in the church by a priest before being consumed. The ceremony is long, but beautiful – the participants join their hands in a ritual “hora.”

In the Orthodox tradition, the raising of Lazarus is auspicious enough to be the "only time in the Church Year that the resurrection service on Sunday is celebrated on another day". During the Lazarus Saturday Liturgy, the Church glorifies Christ as the Resurrection and the Life who confirmed the universal resurrection of mankind even prior to His own death and resurrection through the resurrection of Lazarus. It is a hopeful and joyous celebration for those who have lost loved ones and family members.

Lica shares three Lazarus legends which circulate in Romania, and explains how these legends live on in traditions:

A Romanian legend from Bucovina mentions a second Lazarus, whose brother (unnamed) was rich and lived a life of luxury and extravagance. (Legend slightly different from The Rich Man and Lazarus) Poor Lazarus was also ill, and the illness made his friends and wife to leave him. In his condition he could not get a job – his only chance to survive was to beg for food. Once he went to his rich brother’s gate, but the brother denied and family relationship with Lazarus and refused to feed him. Deeply hurt, Lazarus sat down and cried his pain away. Dogs from his brother’s yard noticed his sorrow and famine and brought him food remains from the rich’s man table, who that days was also marrying and had a wedding party.

Lazarus’ brother ordered the servants to chain the dogs. When the party ended, the fiddlers noticed Lazarus, and despite he couldn’t pay them for their effort, they sang for him. The rich brother didn’t like this either, he began making fun of the fiddlers, telling them that the only reward they might receive from poor Lazarus would consist of skin eruptions. When the fiddlers ended their singing, Lazarus indeed rewarded them this way, because, he said, the skin blisters were the only thing in his possession. The singers accepted the gift, only to notice later on that the blisters transformed into gold coins.

Not long after this “miracle” Lazarus found himself on his death bed. He called his brother for help, but the rich man replied that he had no fear of Death and God. When Lazarus died the angels took him to heaven. Soon, his rich brother died too, but the devils burned his fortune and took him to hell.

Another legend, which is also an Easter tradition, comes from Wallachia. In Wallachia Lazarus’ Saturday is called “Lazarica” (which is a diminutive of “Lazarus” or “Lazar”). In the morning of the day, young girls gather and choose the youngest to wear bride’s clothes and jasmine in her hair. The girls then go from house to house, dancing the hora around the “bride” and singing of Lazarus.

According to the Wallachian legend, Lazarus was a young man who asked his mother to bake him bread. As she refused, Lazarus went to the forest with his sheep. He climbed a tree to gather leaves for his sheep, but a branch broke and he fell and died. His sisters found him later, mourned him, bathed him in milk and buried him. The legend also says that Lazarus resurrected and changed into flowers. The connection between the “bride” and Lazarus is not very clear. Romanian folklorists speculate that the origin of the custom is in one of the rituals of Dionysus, who was also celebrated in the Spring. We can certainly see some similarities: a violent death, ritual bath, resurrection and the transformation of the hero in vegetation. Thus Lazarus is a prehistoric deity, like Flora, and they are both celebrated before Easter (Flora = Palm Sunday, celebrated this year Sunday, April 12.).

A third legend places Lazarus as a small boy, brother of Dargobete’s bride (a probable connection to the bride mentioned above). Dragobete’s mother, Baba Dochia, was always mean to Lazarus, giving him the most difficult chores. One Saturday Lazarus asked his mother to bake him pies and then when with his flock of goats to the forest. There he climbed an oak tree to gather buds for his animals. Remembering the pies, and anxious to get home faster to eat them, he fell to his death. His sister looked for him for months, but the young boy was only found on August the 15^th, Saint Marry’s day, covered by grass and flowers.

This legend is the reason why women bake pies on Lazarus’ Saturday and give them to the poor and the children. The pies are also baked in the memory of Lazarus the Poor (from the first legend) who prays to God for the forgiveness of the sins.

In some regions, the girls plant flowers on Lazarus’ Saturday, believing that they will grow faster and bloom more beautifully. Trees are not planted today, because people believe they will only bloom but never make fruits.

If you are still hungry:

• For a photo of an amazing coliva, visit Teologie pentru azi, where you can also find a list of the canonized Romanian saints.
• Read the details at Folk Romania.
  
• Read the Bible story, browse an explanation of the icon, or listen to the hymns at the Greek Orthodox website.
• Send an iconogram to family and friends celebrating Lazarus' Saturday.
• Explore the wikipedia entry on Lazarus' Saturday. Or, better yet, try the Orthodox wiki entry.
• Learn why Lazarus' Saturday is also called "Flowers Saturday".
• Baba Dochia.
  
• Relevant images.
  

Romania's relations with Ukraine sour.

Since Romania's relations with Hungary are currently on the rocks, it does not help that Romania and Ukraine can't seem to get along either. According to an article released by the Jamestown Foundation, Ukraine, the non-NATO member with the greatest level of cooperation with NATO, expelled two diplomats of NATO-member Romania. The diplomats were expelled after the Ukrainian government levied accusations of supporting separatists and damaging the Ukraine's reputation with the NATO alliance.

Taras Kuzio fills in the details:

The expelled diplomat and military attaché lived in the Romanian Consulate in Chernivtsi, the capital of the oblast of the same name, in the Northern Bukovina region annexed from Romania by the USSR in 1945. A visit by Romanian President Traian Basescu to Ukraine scheduled for February 24 and 25 was put off indefinitely. Basescu had planned to visit the Romanian minority in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukrainian sources believed, so that he could establish his nationalist credentials and proclaim in his election campaign that he was a "collector of Romanian lands".

Two Ukrainian diplomats were also expelled from Bucharest. This was fourth time a country had expelled Ukrainian diplomats since 1991 (the three earlier cases were from Canada, Russia, and Georgia). The Ukrainian military attaché was alleged to have been purchasing military secrets from Petar Zikulov, a Bulgarian who had ties to Florizel Akimom, an officer in the Romanian Ministry of Defense.

The official Ukrainian statement accused the Romanian diplomats of having propagated "unionist and separatist feelings" among the Romanian minority. The Romanian diplomats also allegedly financed civic organizations and cultural societies that "propagate anti-Ukrainian ideas".

Romanian diplomats also agitated among Romanian civic organizations to support calls to establish an autonomous ethnic Romanian region in Chernivtsi Oblast. Ukraine has always ruled out creating any autonomous entities outside of the Crimea, and the issue of autonomy is quite sensitive.

A more nebulous Ukrainian charge was that the Romanian diplomats had propagated a picture of the Ukrainian authorities that "discredited our country in the world arena". In the last four years, President Viktor Yushchenko has not required any Romanian assistance in discrediting himself and the Orange Revolution. As Zerkalo Nedeli (March 7-13) pointed out, the doors to NATO for Ukraine will remain closed for some years, and "we have discredited ourselves far better than any Romanians could have accomplished."

Segodnya (March 6) wrote that the Romanian aim was to establish an image of Ukraine in the EU and NATO as a country "that undertakes espionage activity against NATO members." Bucharest is aware that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has greater maneuverability for adopting a tough line toward Romania than it has toward Russia.

Romanian-Ukrainian relations have never been particularly good for five reasons. First, Romanian irredentist nationalism has traditionally permeated Romania's entire political spectrum. Extreme nationalists, for example, aligned themselves with the post-communist social democrats who ruled the country in the 1990s. Romania joined Russia in 1997 as the last of Ukraine's neighbors to recognize Ukrainian borders.

Second, Ukraine and Romania have never given priority to improving their relations. Ukraine has focused on Slavic Poland and the three Baltic states, dealt as best it could with Russia, was rebuffed by the EU, and prioritized relations with the United States. Romania has focused exclusively on relations with the West, that is, joining NATO and the EU, while turning its back on its eastern neighbors.

Third, Romania condemns Ukraine's policy of defining Moldovans in its censuses as an ethnic group distinct from Romanians. This issue is intimately bound up with Moldova's status and Ukraine's historical relationship with the Trans-Dniestr separatist enclave, which was the Moldovan Autonomous Republic in the interwar Soviet Ukraine. The Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic was the only Soviet republic (aside from Ukraine) with a larger population of ethnic Ukrainians than ethnic Russians.

Fourth, during Leonid Kuchma's presidency, Ukraine began building a canal on the Danube that Romania opposed. Kuchma opened the first part of the canal on August 26, 2004, with the words, "I give the command to restore navigation in the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta" (see EDM September 9, 2004). The EU added its critical voice to the building of the canal in the registered 70,000-hectare UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, issued by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, members are required to notify and consult with each other on projects such as the Ukrainian Danube canal.

Fifth, territorial conflict over Serpents Island and its territorial waters was only resolved in February in Romania's favor, after a five-year investigation by the International Court of Justice. The ruling equally divided the maritime zone without taking into account the existence of an island. Romania has consistently argued that the island was not mentioned in the 1947 border treaty between Romania and the USSR. The Ukrainian-Romanian dispute over Serpents Island centered on the delimitation of its shelf and the exclusive economic zones between Romania and Ukraine. If the island were to be recognized as an island, then the surrounding shelf would be considered Ukrainian waters. If it were not defined as an island (as the February ruling concluded), the maritime boundary between Romania and Ukraine would then simply ignore the island. Another area of contention was Chernivtsi Oblast (formerly Northern Bukovina), which has a Ukrainian majority and a Romanian/Moldovan minority.

Relations between Romania and Ukraine were already poor before the spy scandal. In an unusual move, Ukraine made the spy affair public and has used the occasion to condemn Romania's support for separatism, which is always a sensitive issue in Kyiv. Romania has not made similar accusations of Ukraine's committing espionage or supporting separatism. Neither country will go so far as to recall ambassadors, but relations will decline to a very low level, thereby losing Ukraine a potential ally in its goal of seeking NATO and EU membership. The Polish, Hungarian, and Czech ambassadors have advised Ukraine that joining NATO would require "political stability" and the "regulation of joint questions with [its] neighbors".

On the brighter side,  the Polish government stuck out its neck for Romania and defied Germany over the Nabucco pipeline project, which the EU has shelved.

Jewish music in Romania, a post inspired by Ben Cohen.

Whenever the tuica was plentiful in our American home, my mother would try to convince her guests to dance the hora. The only other times I had the opportunity to dance the hora in the United States involved Eastern European Jewish friends. How is it that Eastern European Jews and Romanians share a national folk dance? Why did my strolls through the Jewish kletzmer festival in Cracow, Poland evoke an incredible, dolorous homesickness?

Kletzmer remains an enduring love for me-- it brings tears of joy to my eyes. Since there are few things in life powerful enough to elicit joy, that magnificent compost of sadness, awe, and elation, it was with great delight that I read Ben Cohen's essay on Jewish music in Romania.

Cohen's experise is personal-- he is a "bessarabisher yid". His grandparents were born in Bessarabia when it was part of Romania and lived in Chisinau until the time of the 1905 pogrom. Today, Bessarabia is the Republic of Moldova, and Cohen lives in Budapest. He notes:

"Although I live in Hungary, the majority of our music’s influences come from Romanian musicians. The reasons are simple. Romania was crucial to the development of klezmer dance repertoire. My ancestors came from Moldavia. I grew up eating mamaliga in New York City. My grandparents spoke Romanian Yiddish. And Romania is one of the few places in Europe today that can boast a rich and active traditional context for folk music."

After discussing the four categories of Jewish music repertoire as applied by Dr. Wallter Zev Feldmen, Cohen zeroes in on the city of Iasi.

When I began to record music in Romania in the late 1980s, many of the elder Gypsy musicians I approached in Transylvania enthusiastically played Jewish tunes for me, alongside the Romanian and Transylvanian Hungarian music I was asking after. I was intrigued. Where had they learned these tunes? From playing for Jewish weddings, they answered. And so I began to learn something of the styles and repertoire of Jewish music from the elder generation of Gypsy musicians such as Ferenc "Arus" and Bela Berki of Mera, Samuel "Cilika" Boross of Cluj, Bela Gaspar, Arpad Toni of Voivodeni, Vassile and Gheorghe Covaci in Maramures, and others. I made trips through Transylvania, Bukovina, Maramures, and Moldavia.

Eventually I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Itzik Shvartz and his wonderful wife Cili in Iasi in 1991. Prof. Shvartz, born in 1905, is a prolific writer, folklorist, linguist, and former director of the Iasi Yiddish theater who at this writing is still living in Iasi. He has known all of the 20th century’s important Romanian Jewish personalities as well as many of the Jewish musicians. His wife Cili was perhaps the best living Yiddish traditional singer in Europe until her death in 1998 (her kosher soda cookies were absolutely the best….).

From Itzik Shvartz I learned about the life of klezmer families in 20th century Iasi: the Bughici family, the Segal family, and the Weiss family. The Lemesh family were important musicians in the last century who also played in Avram Goldfaden’s original Yiddish Theater orchestra at the Pomul Verde wine cellar in Iasi, but that family no longer resides in Iasi – I have heard they moved to Philadelphia. 

Abraham Goldfaden, considered by many to be the "father of Yiddish theater", founded his theater troupe in Iasi, then moved to Bucharest, and then took it to the road. Nahma Sandrow recounts her trip to Pomul Verde and the heady influence of sweet Romanian wines in her article for The New York Times. Joel Berkowitz's article on Goldfaden is the best I've read on Goldfaden so far. I return the microphone to Mr. Cohen:

The Bughici band was primarily violin-based. Many of the Bughici family were murdered in the 1941 Iasi pogrom, but several survived, including Avram, the violinist, and Dimitru, who became a renowned piano teacher and jazz composer in Bucharest and now resides in Israel. During the 1970s, Prof. Shvartz had made some cassettes of the playing of Avram Bughici and Gheorghe Bughici, both on violin. Avram Bughici sold a book of repertoire to Itzik for use in the theater. Although the manuscript may now be lost, Itzik did make a cassette recording around 1975 with the accompaniment of accordionist Izu Gott (son of Dorohoi klezmer clarinetist Berko Gott), sight-reading the pieces on accordion. (Izu, a classically trained bassist who lives part of each year in Israel, has since served as music director of the Romanian Federation of Jews, as well as its president.) From Avram Bughici’s book we can assume the nature of the family’s repertoire – lots of khosidls, to be sure, several freylachs, with some theater songs and doinas.

The Segal family were considered more accomplished musicians, however, and played in the Iasi Yiddish theater as well. Unfortunately, a manuscript of their music may have been lost – we are still looking for it – but hopefully in the future I will get the chance to meet one Segal still big in the Romanian entertainment business – Gheorghe Segal, known as TV personality Gheorghe Sava – and ask if he knows anything about this. Sava’s father’s gravestone in the Iasi cemetery features a carved stone harp, as testament to his prowess as a musician.

Elsewhere in Moldavia we know of other Jewish musicians. In Roman, before the Holocaust, there was Hayim "Hersko" Herskovits, a trumpeter, as well as fiddlers Moishe Musikant and Iancu Malai. The popular Romanian song composer Richard Stein was also from Roman. Jewish musicians in Roman often played alongside Gypsies, and a basic band was formed of a violin or trumpet, accordion, and drum – a very typical lineup for a modern Moldavian band even today.

In modern Moldavian folk music we still find traces of Jewish repertoire in the music of the fanfara brass bands. The elder generation of Romanian and Gypsy folk fiddlers often have pieces of klezmer origin in their repertoires, although this is becoming rarer these days. Dances such as "Jidancuta", "Jidoveasca", and melodies commonly recorded by early klezmer musicians are still current among many village repertoires. 

Cohen provides a lot of detail and wonderful photographs about his experiences with Jewish music in Romania on Mark Rubin's blog. I encourage peeking. 

On Jewish music in Transylvania, Cohen writes:

In Transylvania we find fewer traces of Jewish musicians. One reason is the different social development of Transylvania’s Jews under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In this region, as in Hungary (after 1825), it was mostly Gypsy musicians who provided instrumental music for Jews. Transylvania was a part of Hungary previous to 1920. As "Hungarian" Jews, Transylvanian Jews were enfranchised as citizens in 1867, and even before that date were accepting social assimilation to a "Hungarian" national identity, after the German Jewish model. In 1867 Hungary’s Jewish communities split into Neolog (sort of "Reform") and Orthodox, with certain communities remaining as "Status Quo Ante". Thus, communities in Cluj (Kolozsvar in Hungarian), Arad, Sibiu, and Timisoara (Temesvar in Hungarian) were predominantly Neolog, and adopted Hungarian language in place of Yiddish.

Alongside many other Hungarian customs they adopted, Jews were great patrons of Hungarian popular music, or Magyar notak, and a Neolog wedding allowed for mixed-sex dancing. Gypsy musicians were hired for Jewish weddings, and played a few Jewish songs (usually "Belz" alongside various Yiddish theater songs and a few Sabbath zmiros) while providing csardas music for dancing. In Fizesul Gherleii (Ordongosfuzes in Hungarian) as well as Sarmas, local Gypsy village bands also played sets of "Jewish Dances". Zoltan Blum, a Jew from Fizesul Gherleii, remembers Jews dancing in a circle to this music before WWII. He also says that Jews in the village lived harmoniously with their neighbors, except for three things which they would never do with non-Jews: eat with them, bathe with them, or dance with them.

So much for the Austro-Hunagrian enlightened ideal. Clearly, Jewish music differs from Romanian folk music in some important ways. Seth Rogovoy distinguishes Romanian folk music from Jewish music in its connection to the Yiddish language and ornamentation:

Yet for all the “borrowings” of klezmer, for all the Romanian dance rhythms and the haunting melodies that some attribute to the music’s Gypsy flavorings, there is something essentially Jewish that separates klezmer from Gypsy or Romanian music. This is partly due to its close connection to the Yiddish language, spoken by Jews. It is also demonstrably a technical question of phrasing or ornamentation – those krekhts, or achy moans that are characteristic of klezmer violinists and clarinetists, along with the tshoks, or laugh-like sounds, and kneytshn, the sob-like “catch,” which are all directly borrowed from the characteristic vocal ornamentation of the khazones, the prayer melodies of the synagogue cantors. But even more than any of these specific cultural influences, there is something more intangibly Jewish that gives klezmer its distinctive flavor, that makes it different from other closely-related Balkan folk musics.

Romanian film director Radu Gabrea has produced several films on Jewish music in Romania. If you are interested in learning more about Romanian Jewish music, I suggest reading a little about the cimbalom and exploring the following links:

• Photos from the Jewish Music Research Center.
• Lost Trails' "The Lost Jewish Music of Moldavia", with violinist Constanin Lupu.
  
• "Jewish Musicians in Moldova" by Itsik Shvarts. Translated by Bob Cohen.
• View the Goldfaden Centennial Exhibit Online.
• The Yizkor Book Project's tour of Jewish heritage in Iasi.
• Explore Romanian folk music with the BBC Radio 3's guide.
• Video of John Belushi doing the classic Yiddish folk tune, "Romania, Romania" for SNL at Teruah.
• National Geographic offers a few Romanian folk tunes for sample in addition to a detailed look at gypsy folk traditions.
• For information about Belf's Romanian Orchestra, visit the Kletzmershack and scroll down.
• To find Jewish music online, use this wonderful Guide from The Jewish Theological Seminary.
• Dumneazu gets personal about Ukranian influences in Jewish folk music and also mentions Muzsikas, which produced a recording of Maramures Jewish music learned from Gheorghe Covaci. (I posted his photo of the band above.)
• Sephardic Jewish Community of Romania.
• For a list of names to google on this topic, see the line-up for The International Workshop on Yiddish Theatre, Dance, and Performance.
• Explore Jewish culture in Iasi with Haskedim.
• The hora from Moistworks.
  

Donald Dunham's dissertation on Romanian art.

The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on Trajan’s Column.

They are peasants with the utmost in sophistication. They farm instinctively, but are suspicious of machinery. They speak a language like Italian but the majority of their words are Slavonic. They are superstitious but religious at the same time. They are astutely intelligent, but refuse to be intellectual. They submit to invasion but preserve their identity. They support great wealth and extreme poverty. They produce striking beauty yet can live in filth.

As a collective personality, the Romanians are Oriental in their souls although Latin on the surface. Their patience is almost unending but they are quick to explode in argument; they are peace-loving yet would disintegrate without controversy. They are passive but strong in their resistance; spontaneously adaptable, still difficult t influence. They are romantic but never escape from reality.

They are charming yet cruel in their ridicule, warmly emotional but calculating, generous yet concentrate on the ‘main chance.’ They are opportunistic but lose interest after they have gained the advantage; they seize the moment, still adopt the long view.

The Romanians are a people of colorful contrasts and extreme extremes, born in classic times, ravaged by barbarians, indentured to the Turks, dominated by the Byzantines, the Greeks, dictated to by the Hungarians, Poles, Austrians and others, seduced by the French and not recognized as a country until 1878. Yet they emerge with a character that defies this confusion, that is definitely, emphatically, unmistakably Romanian. This character was born of a Dacian shepherd and a Roman lass, whose progeny became dwellers with nature itself, epicureans with earthy values and a tough constitution.

It developed in composition and grew in strength under the invasions of waves of barbarians. Slavs were added to the original Dacians and the Roman colonizers. Christianization was extended in Wallachia and Moldavia by the Byzantine Church and intrigue was introduced as a science by the Greek ruling emissaries of the Sublime Porte. With the intrigue came the Greek culture of the mind – the analytical clarity of the Mediterraneans – which evaporated as Greek, as it was quickly absorbed as Romanian. Following this permeation came the magnetic seduction by Paris and the synthetic adoption of French-Western artistic values, by those classes who would afford to visit the “Rive Gauche” and return.

Today you find the cult of the mind imbedded as an element of character in all classes second only to emotional spontaneity as a national characteristic. The Greeks were more successful than the French because they came to Romania and did not make Romanians come to them, and because their main influence was middle class and thereby could infect those classes both above and below them. The French appealed to aristocracy; the upper and wealthy classes of Romania went to Paris yearning to prove themselves by Gallic standards, perhaps eventually to return to the country of their birth to demonstrate their cultural acquisitions.

It was 1947. The Soviets were stationed in Romania under the auspices of the Allied Commission.

Donald Dunham wrote his doctoral dissertation for Professor George Oprescu, who, at the time, was secretary of the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. The subject of his dissertation, Rumanian Profile: A Study of National Character as Reflected in the Visual Arts, dove-tailed with the assumptions of the European nation-state. It was submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Letters on May 20th, 1948. Dunham introduced it as follows:

Rumanian Profile is a study of the character of the Rumanian people as reflected in their visual arts. It is based on the contention that man is better analyzed by his artistic achievements than by his behavior, that the history of art in many respects is a more exact commentary on a country than its political history.

Dunham provides a brief history of the Romanian nation and then begins to examine the relationship between a people and their national arts. He looks at the artistic traditions of the Romanian elite as they developed under Greek-Byzantine influence (particularly in architecture) and under French influence during the 19th century (particularly in painting). He explores parallels between the Romanian national painter Nicolae Grigorescu and the American expatriate James Whistler. Dunham contrasts the elite traditions with the peasant traditions, using embroidery as the medium for describing peasant art.

While Dunham deals richly with the artistic traditions of Moldavia and Wallachia, he does not touch upon the traditions of Transylvania. Dunham excuses this on the grounds that Moldavia and Wallachia, the original provinces of unified Romania, "possess the essential ingredients while the other areas are culturally on the periphery". However, in a conversation with Ernest H. Latham, Jr., Dunham suggested that the real reason for this exclusion was that his status as an American diplomat in the postwar period made it impossible for him to get permission to travel to Transylvania and other regions. He didn't want to write about architecture and art which he was unable to view in person. In this sense, his dissertation failed to adequately portray the relationship between the Romanian "national character" and its artistic traditions.

Despite its limitations, Dunham's dissertation is remarkable in the fact that it was "the first American doctorate conferred in Romania", according to the roundtable convened with that title by the Association of Friends of the United States in June 1995. It exemplifies the role of history as inculcator of national values and creator of national identity. Dunham's appreciation for Romanian people and culture might sound a little expansive to modern ears, but it is an excellent historical document.

An excerpt from his dissertation dealing with Wallachian architecture and Byzantine influence is available online courtesy of Plural magazine. The excerpt quoted at the beginning of this post is also available from Plural.

Ion Creangă writes about his mother.

There is nothing like the joyous revelry of Ion Creanga, and, unfortunately, much is lost in translation from Romanian to English, from Protestant rationalism to village Orthodoxy, from city to town. For those who have never spent time in a Romanian village, reading Creanga might be only moderately amusing; his writings testify to the mischiefs, superstitions, trials, and challenges of the Romanian peasant life.

Thanks to Tom and Tom's Place, the entire text of Creanga's Memories of My Boyhood is available online, complete with illustrations, for your enjoyment.

Here is an excerpt in which Creanga talks about his mother's specific charms:

I don't pretend to know what other people are like, but for myself, I seem to feel my heart throb with joy even to this day when I remember my birthplace, my home at Humuleşti, the post supporting the flue of the stove, round which mother used to tie a piece of string with tassels at the end of it, with which the cats played till they dropped exhausted, the flat ledge of the stove that I used to cling to when I was pulling myself up and learning to walk, the place on top of the stove where I used to hide when we children played at hide-and-seek, as well as other games and delights full of childlike fun and charm. Lord, what good times those were, for parents and brothers and sisters were hale and hearty, there was everything needful in the house, the sons and daughters of our neighbours were for ever romping with us, and everything was exactly as I liked best, without a shadow of ill-humour as if the whole world were mine! I myself was as happy as the day was long, whimsical and playful like the gusting wind.

Mother, who was well-known for her spells and cantrips, would say to me sometimes with a smile as the sun peeped from behind the clouds after prolonged rain: "Go outside, you fair-haired child, and laugh at the sun, maybe the weather will change." And the weather did change at my smile.

The sun no doubt knew what I was capable of, for I was my mother's son, and she in truth could work wonders: she would chase away the black clouds overhanging our village and drive the hail away into other places by sticking the axe into the ground, outside the door; she would so curdle water by means of a couple of beef bones that the people crossed themselves in amazement; she would hit the ground, the wall or any wooden thing that I bumped my head against saying: "Take that!" and forthwith the pain was gone.

When the red embers moaned in the stove, which is supposed to foretell wind and bad weather, or when the embers hissed, a sign that someone is talking about you, mother would scold the hearth and beat it with a poker to make the enemy shut up. More than that, if I didn't look as well as she thought I ought to, she would immediately lick her finger and make a muddy mixture with dust from the heel of her shoe, or, if she was in much of a hurry for that, she would take soot from the stove and say: "As heel or stove are free of the evil eye so let my baby be free of it!" and she would make a mark on my forehead lest her precious pet come to harm. These and many more things did she do.

"The Story of the Swan Maiden and the King"

Once upon a time a king went out hunting, and after he had been hunting in the forest for a long time without finding anything, he found himself suddenly in an open plain, in which there was a huge lake, and in the midst of the lake he saw there a bird swimming about, the like of which he had never seen before. It was a swan.

Drawing his bow, he wanted to shoot it. To his surprise it spoke to him in a human voice, and said, "Do not kill me."

So he tried his best to catch it, and succeeded. Pleased with the capture of the bird, he carried it home alive, and gave it to the cook to kill it to make a meal of it for him. The cook was a Gypsy. She whetted her knife and went to the bird to cut its throat, when, to her astonishment, the bird turned three somersaults, and there stood before her a most beautiful maiden, more beautiful than she had ever seen before. So she ran to the king and told him what had happened.

The king, who first thought that the cook was trying to play some trickery with him, did not listen to her, but when she persisted in her tale, the king, driven by curiosity, went into the kitchen, and there he saw a girl more beautiful than any that he had ever yet set his eyes upon.

He asked her who she was, and she said she was the swan who was swimming on the lake, that she had willfully gone away from her mother, who lived in the land of fairies, and that she had left two sisters behind. So the king took her into the palace and married her. The Gypsy, who was a pretty wench, had thought that the king would marry her, and when she saw what had happened, she was very angry. But she managed to conceal her anger, and tried to be kind to the new queen, biding her time all the while.

The king and queen lived on for a while in complete happiness, and after a time a child was born unto her.

It so happened that the king had to go on a long journey, leaving the wife and child in the care of the Gypsy. One day the Gypsy came to the queen, and said to her, "Why do you always sit in the palace? Come, let us walk a little in the garden, to hear the birds singing, and to see the beautiful flowers."

The queen, who had no suspicion, took the advice of the Gypsy, and went with her for a walk into the garden. In the middle of the garden there was a deep well, and the Gypsy said artfully to the young queen, "Just bend over the well, and look into the water below, and see whether your face has remained so beautiful as it was on the first day when you turned into a maiden from being a swan."

The queen bent over the well to look down into the depths, and that was what the Gypsy was waiting for, for no sooner did the queen bend over the well, than, getting hold of her by her legs, she threw her down head foremost into the well and drowned her.

When the king came home and did not find the queen, he asked what had happened, and where she was. The Gypsy, who had meanwhile taken charge of the child, and looked after it very carefully, said to the king that the young queen, pining for her old home, had turned again into a swan and flown away.

The king was deeply grieved when he heard this, but believing what the Gypsy had told him, he thought that nothing could be done, and resigned himself to the loss of his wife.

They Gypsy woman looked after the child with great care, hoping thereby that she might win the king's love, and that he would marry her. A month, a year passed, and nothing was heard of the wife. And the king, seeing the apparent affection of the Gypsy for the child, decided at last to marry her, and fixed the day of the wedding.

Out of the fountain into which the queen had been thrown, there grew a willow tree with three branches, one stem in the middle and two branching out right and left. Not far from the garden there lived a man who had a large flock of sheep. One day he sent his boy to lead the sheep to the field. On his way the boy passed the king's garden with the well in the middle of it.

As the boy had left his flute at home, when he saw the willow he thought he would cut one of the branches and make a flute. Going into the garden, he cut the middle stem, and made a flute of it. When he put it to his lips, the flute by itself began to play as follows, "O boy, do not blow too hard, for my heart is aching for my little babe which I left behind in the cradle, and to suckle at the black breast of a Gypsy."

When the boy heard what the flute was playing, not understanding what it meant, he was greatly astonished, and ran home to tell his father what had happened with the flute. The father, angry that he had left the sheep alone, scolded him, and took away the flute. Then he tried to see whether the boy had told the truth. As soon as he put it to his mouth the flute started playing the same tune as when the boy had tried to play it. The father said nothing, and wondering at the meaning of the words he hid the flute away in a cupboard.

When the king's wedding day drew near, all the musicians of the kingdom were invited to come and play at the banquet. Some of them passed the old man's house, and hearing from them that they were going to play at the king's banquet, he remembered the marvelous flute, and asked whether he could not go also, as he could play the flute so wonderfully well.

His son -- the young boy -- had meanwhile gone into the garden in the hope of getting another flute, as the willow had three branches. So he cut one of the branches and made a flute of it. Now this flute did not play at all.

When the old man came to the palace, there was much rejoicing and singing. At last his turn came to play. As soon as he put the flute to his lips, the flute sang, "O man, do not blow so hard, for my heart aches for my little babe left in the cradle to be suckled by a black Gypsy."

The Gypsy, who was the king's bride and sat at the head of the table, at once understood the saying of the flute, although she did not know what the flute had to do with the queen whom she had killed.

The king, who marveled greatly at the flute and at the tune which it was singing, took a gold piece and gave it to the man for the flute, and when he started blowing it, the flute began to sing, "O my dear husband, do not blow so hard, for my heart aches for our little babe whom I left in the cradle to be sucked by the black Gypsy. Quickly, quickly, do away with this cruel Gypsy, as otherwise you will lose your wife."

The guests who were present marveled at the song, and no one understood its meaning. The Gypsy, however, who understood full well what it meant, turning to the king, said, "Illustrious king, do not blow this flute and make yourself ridiculous before your guests. Throw it into the fire."

But the king, who felt offended by the words of the Gypsy, made her take up the flute and blow. With great difficulty she submitted to the order of the king, and she was quite justified in refusing to play it, for no sooner had she put the flute to her lips when it sang, "You enemy of mine, do not blow hard, for my heart aches for my little babe left in the cradle to be suckled by you, you evil-minded Gypsy. You have thrown me into the well, and there put an end to my life, but God had pity on me, and he has preserved me to be again the true wife of this illustrious king."

Furious at these words, the Gypsy threw the flute away with so much force that she thought it would break into thousands of splinters. But it was not to be as she thought, for by this very throw the flute was changed into a beautiful woman, more beautiful, indeed, than any had ever seen before. She was the very queen whom the Gypsy had thrown into the well.

When the king saw her, he embraced her and kissed her, and asked her where she had been such a long time. She told him that she had slept at the bottom of the well, into which she had been thrown by the Gypsy, who had hoped to become the queen, and this would have come to pass had it not been for the boy cutting a flute out of the stem of the willow tree. "And now, punish the Gypsy as she deserves, otherwise your wife must leave you."

When the king heard these words, he called the boy and asked him whether he had cut himself a flute from the stem of the willow tree which had grown out of the well in the garden.

"It is so, O illustrious king," said the boy, "and may I be forgiven for the audacity of going into the king's garden. I went and cut for myself a flute from the stem of the willow tree, and when I began to blow it, it played, 'Do not blow so hard, O boy, for my heart is aching within me,' etc." Then he told him he had gone back to his father, who instead of praising him for the marvelous flute, gave him a good shaking. He had then gone a second time into the garden, and had cut off one of the branches to make a flute, but this did not play like the first one. The king gave the boy a very rich gift, and he ordered the Gypsy to be killed.

Some time afterwards, the queen came to the king and asked leave to go to her mother to tell her all that had happened to her, and to say good-bye for ever now, as she henceforth would live among human beings. The king reluctantly gave way. She then made three somersaults, and again became a swan, as she had been when the king found her for the first time on the waters of the lake.

Spreading her wings she flew far away until she reached the house of her mother, who was quite alone. Her two sisters were not there. They had left her some time ago and no one knew whither they had gone. The young queen did not go into the house. She was probably afraid lest her mother would not let her go back again, so she settled on the roof, and there she sang, "Remain in health, good mother mine, as the joy is no longer granted you to have me with you in your house, for you will only see me again when I lose my kingdom, dear mother mine, not before, and not till then."

And without waiting for the answer of her mother she returned back again to her husband. Sitting on the window sill, she sang again, "Rise up, O husband, open the doors, wake up the servants and let them be a witness of my faithfulness to you, for since I have married you I have left my mother, and my sisters have gone away from me, and from a swan I have become a true wife to live in happiness with you. Henceforth I shall no longer be a swan, but you must take care of me that I do not go hence from you. I do not know whether my fate will be a better one by being a queen in this world. O sweet water, how I long to bathe in you! And my white feathers, they will belong to my sisters. Since I am to leave them forever, and my mother with them, O Lord, what have I done? Shall I be able to live upon the earth, and shall I keep the kingdom? Thou, O Lord, O merciful, hearken unto me and grant that this kingdom may not be in vain." And turning again head over heals, she became a woman as before, and entering the palace she lived there with her husband -- the king -- and if they have not died since, they are still alive.

[This story is originally posted at Swan Maidens: Folk Tales of Type 400 by the illustrious folk-tale collector D.L. Ashliman. You can compare it to other tales of the swan maiden type from other countries, thanks to this resource.]

"Why Cats Sit on the Doorstep in the Sun": a folk-tale.

(Thanks to Eldrbarry for finding and posting this wonderful Romanian folk tale about men, wives, and work.)

We all know cats love to sit on the doorstep, but do you know why? This story goes back to the days of Noah and the Ark (You do remember that story don't you - how God commanded Noah to build an Ark and to take aboard two of every animal and bird to repopulate the world after it was destroyed by a great flood.) Noah had worked for a hundred years to build that great boat out of gopherwood and he had put in as many years trying to warning mankind of the impending doom that would be coming because of their sin. They only laughed at Mr. Noah, building that Ark in the midst of a desert. But finally, it was done and all the animals had been loaded two-by-two, male and female. The dark wet clouds were gathering and there was a foreboding rumble of thunder in the distance. All that remained was for God to close the door and seal it.

But at this very moment there was a problem. Mrs. Noah refused to come aboard. She was standing at the bottom of the gangplank, her back turned toward Mr. Noah holding her cat. It seems the argument had started about Mrs. Noah's cat. Now Noah already had two cats on board and had simply suggested she leave her tabby behind. Now you must understand that while it was Mrs. Noah's cat, the center of its affections was Mr. Noah. It was always fubbing against his legs or jumping into his lap hoping to be petted. We all know of cats like this, who have a fondness for men who can't stand them and never return their affections. Moreover, Noah knew her cat was quite a mouser and hunting could not be tolerated on the ark! There were only two mice!

But Mrs. Noah's stubborness went far beyond the matter of that cat, as it became more and more clear..... "Come aboard Woman, its time to go."

"No! I'm sick of this Ark - it has had all your attention for the past 100 years. Every time I have needed you - you've been off sawing gopher wood or nailing it together. I hope this Ark doesn't leak like the roof you never got around to fixing."

"You know very well God told me to build it. Come aboard now, it's starting to rain!"

"No! You love this Ark more than you do me! I have cooked for you and done your laundry and raised three boys singlehanded - Shem and Jephtah and Hamm especially has been quite a handful. You've been off building Your Ark in the middle of a desert. You don't even care that I'm the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood."

"Get in here right now Woman, I need to save the world."

"If you want to save the world, you can start by saving your marriage. You don't even like my cat!"

A loud crack of thunder ("Noooo-aaah!") and a sheet of pouring rain made up Noah's mind as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her aboard... "You Devil! Get on board and bring that lousy cat with you!" Now the Devil was hiding nearby just waiting for such an invitation and as Noah pulled his wife in, he changed into a large red rat with pointed ears and a forked tail, scampered aboard and disappeared quickly down into the hold bent on sabotage.

The Lord sealed the door shut and the rains began. You know the story - how it rained and rained and rained for 40 days and 40 nights and covered the earth with a great flood in which all life perished except that aboard Mr. Noah's Ark. What you don't know is that while the storm raged ouside, a mostly silent argument continued with similar force within. And as the argument continued a sinister red rat bent on sabotage was gnawing and gnawing away at making a hole in the bottom of the ark. What few words were spoken between Mr. Noah and Mrs. Noah were icy and hard. The cramped conditions and all the work feeding and caring for all that livestock day after day for weeks didn't help either.

Nor did the fact that Mrs. Noah's cat was constantly under Noah's feet. Its affections were harshly rebuffed again and again as it rubbed against his legs or tryed to sleep in his lap. Everything came to a climax when Noah tripped over the cat and fell into a pile of elephant dung that Mrs. Noah was shoveling out a port hole. Noah blew his stack, and the cat, realizing that she was not wanted, took off for the haven of the hold as Mr. and Mrs. Noah, finally pushed to the breaking point, cut loose on each other full force. As their angry words echoed down into the ark, Mrs. Noah's tabby came upon the red stowaway deep in the hold gnawing busily away and knew immediately what it was up to. Pouncing on the wretched rodent, the cat hurried off to to present its prey as a gift to Mr. Noah.

As the cat approached them. Mrs. Noah was screaming something about "this Ark is no romantic cruise ship" when Mr. Noah spotted the cat with its prey in his mouth, and in a burst of sudden released fury, tossed it and its prey over the side. Mrs. Noah was screaming "My Cat! My Cat!" as they hit the water. The cat released the rat as she hit the water and the Devil returned to his original form and started swimming away, even as Mr. Noah realized what had really been happening. He might be saving the world, but that overly affectionate cat had saved his ark. Cooing words of apology and remorse to Mrs. Noah, he fished the cat out of the water with a net. At that moment, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in many days and the cat sat on the step in the sun drying itself with a smug look on its face. And to this day, cats love to sit on their doorsteps in the sun, remembering how once a cat saved the world.

"The Crow and Its Ugly Fledglings".

Of all the birds the crow is considered the ugliest, especially its young fledglings. The legend tells that sometime after God had created all the living beings, he called everyone to see them and their offspring. He wanted to see how the young birds and animals looked, and then to give them suitable gifts, and food for their little ones.

They came one by one, and God looked at them, patted some and stroked others, and was very pleased with every one of them, for each one had something of beauty in it. And so he blessed them and gave them food by which to live. The last to come was the crow, bringing her little brood with her, very proud of them.

When God cast his eyes upon the young crows, he spat in astonishment, and said, "Surely these are not my creatures. I could not have made such ugly things. Every one of my creatures has such beautiful young ones that they are a pleasure to look at, but yours are so ugly that it makes one sick to look at them. Where did you get this one?"

"Where should I get them from?" replied the crow. "It is my very own young child," she added with pride.

"You had better go back and bring me another one. This is much too ugly. I cannot look at it."

Annoyed at the words of God, the crow went away and flew all over the earth to search for another young one that would be more beautiful than the one she had brought to God. But no other young bird appeared so beautiful in her eyes as her own. So she returned back to God and said, "I have been all over the world, and I have searched high and low, but young birds more beautiful and more dainty than mine I have not been able to find."

Then God smilingly replied, "Quite right. Just so are all mothers. No other child is so beautiful in their eyes as their own."

Then he blessed the little crows and sent them away into the world with his gifts.

This Romanian folk-tale can be found online, as well as in book format at M. Gaster, Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories (London: Folk-Lore Society, 1915), no. 46, pp. 170-171.