A Christmas Carol.
White flowers, O Ler, [1]
What cloud appears on the horizon?
It is not a cloud, a black cloud,
But a young man
On a yellow charger.
The saddle glitters like gold;
The stirrups shine like silver;
The whip with a beautiful handle;
And bells tinkling on his reins.
He is gone to hunt—
To hunt, to woo.
He met a beautiful maid,
The like of whom there is not in the world.
It was the queen of the fairies—
Iana, the sister of the Sun.
He met her,
He took hold of her,
And in his cellar he hid her—
In the cellar of the peacocks.
The Sun, as soon as he got wind of it,
Sent immediately after her
The morning dawn to search,
The twilight stars to seek.
But the young man,
What did he say?
“For what are you searching,
Dawn of the morning?
And what are you seeking,
Stars of the evening?
Go into every nook,
But beware of the cellar.
If a peacock will escape,
I will take one of the sun’s steeds instead.
And if a hen will escape,
I will wed his sister.
For I have found her,
I have taken her,
And into my house I brought her.”
This the young man—
May he keep in good health,
With his brother,
And his parents,
And with all of us together.
This belongs to the series of the sun myths, curiously connected here also with the peacock. I am not aware of any parallel to this legend. Here a young man tries to woo the sister of the sun. In the lark stories it is the young girl who wishes to marry the sun, represented as a young man. They all belong to the same cycle, into which apparently so far the Christian element is absent. The remarkable part of it is, that this and the other songs are Christmas carols, connected probably with the Festival of the Sun with which Christmas was originally connected. It is the time of the winter solstice and the birth of the new sun. This probably explains the part which the sun legend plays in so many Rumanian Christmas carols.
FOOTNOTE
[1] Probably a reminiscence of Ler, the old Slavonic God of Love.
