• There once was a girl who had fair hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a smile as radiant as the sun. But she rarely showed her smile for, though she was beautiful, no one wanted to play with her. “She wouldn’t want to play with us.” The other children would say, “She’s too beautiful for us to play with her.” So as time went by, the girl, Nadia by name turned to a more self-centered form of playing. She would imagine things. Her imagination was eventually strengthened to the point where she could simply sit by the riverside and play with the river, called Ursunov.
    Now, most people would think such things as this to be the deeds of a mad-man, or in this case, Mad-woman. But Nadia was not mad. She was lonely. So, when she came of age, she waited gleefully as the suitors came to her mother and father, who gave each and every one their blessing. But Nadia was not impressed by the suitor’s shallow tricks. She knew they wanted her for her beauty, so they could say ‘ah, look at me! I’m so happy with such a wife, for what man would not be?’ Well, even though she was delighted to be considered a beautiful woman, she could not stand to be thought of as a prize. Nadia soon realized that she would never be thought of in any other way, so Nadia decided to make an announcement. “I will see no more suitors! I will not marry.” She declared.
    Well, on the day that Nadia made this fateful announcement, the current suitor that day was the Czar. When the Czar had heard what Nadia had said, he ordered her parents killed. He thought that once he had demonstrated his power, she would come running to him, begging for forgiveness. But of course, Nadia was not about to stoop that low. However, the loss of her parents lay heavy on her heart, and as she thought of her parents each day, her sorrow turned her more beautiful than ever before. Nadia would sit by the bank of the river she called her friend from morning till dusk, and it was soon said that if one were to look at her during this time, that person would be waylaid with love or lust.
    One day as Nadia sat on the bank of her beloved river, she saw a small stone floating through the water. As it cam along, it was swept up in an eddy and brought to the bank. Nadia bent down and picked it up. It was a strange stone she thought, to be floating like that, perhaps it was not a stone at all? But as she picked it up, she could tell she was right. It was not a stone. It was a small blue heart, and the veins sprouting from it were small and silvery. It was a beautiful, if gruesome thing to behold, and immediately Nadia knew it was the Heart of the Ursunov.
    That same day, the Czar had been told by his advisors that the people were becoming restless, so he decided to do a ‘Good Deed’ instead of his usually threats of more taxation. “What should I do?” he thought. Then, he had an idea. “The River Baba-Yaga!” which means ‘witch’. “Men, go make a hole in the dam of the Ursunov River, that it may drain away and leave the witch powerless!” Well, it was as the men did this that Nadia had found the Heart. As she watched in horror, the Ursunov drained away and the Heart beat weaker and weaker, and soon stopped altogether.
    Then Nadia wept. She cried and cried till her legs, arms, and back grew stiff as she gradually lost the ability to move. She soon became old and withered and had cried out all her tears, which had flowed down the old Ursunov’s path to the sea. Nadia had been there so long, that she had almost become one with the earth covering her feet. Soon, she took root like a tree and became a willow. She was over one hundred years old, and still the tears wished to spring from her sockets, but they could not. So as Nadia got more treelike, so did her emotions. She became fixed in a state of permanent sorrow so great that the branches drooped as if under some heavy weight. Well, her branches were soon so low that they almost brushed the ground. They were long, sturdy, and easy to climb in. children gradually began to gather one after another at the base of the Willow that was once Nadia. They climbed and swung on her branches and hid things among her roots. These children reminded Nadia so much of herself as a child, that she began to take part in their fantasies when she could, moving this way or that, so that it seemed it was merely the wind. But the children understood. They loved the Willow, and Nadia soon loved them too. Finally, Nadia was happy.