Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Pananghia


Panaghia it seems it hasn’t always been a cold stone rock, without a heart and soul.
Panaghia was a beautiful girl. It is said that fate (godmothers), when they gave her at birth, one took dark form the most impenetrable dark of a night without a moon, deep from the bottomless deep sea, fire and light from light and the fire of the most brighten stars, tenderness and gentleness from the eyes of the angels who sit on the right side of God and put them in her eyes; another one broke the freshness and white of lilies, and the blush of roses and put them on her face; and the third spin the bundle of slim fibers of righteous shadow and put it as a crown on her black and full hair. But God broke also a piece of his heart and soul and gave it to Pananghia.
And, for not to be seen by mortal souls, the godmothers took her on the heights of mountain Ceahlaul, beyond the clouds kingdom and put her in the cave of Saint Ghedeon.   The bees form the Hermitages fed her with their honey, and the clear nights showered her with the dew of fragrant flowers. And Pananghia grew big and she became a beautiful maiden, so beautiful that only in stories you can meet a girl like her.
And from the heights of sky, the Sun saw her, and from the highest peaks of Earth, Pananghia saw the Sun. And both fell in love. The sun stopped for hours on his way in the sky to watch her, surrounding her with his shines.
And that is how the day got longer and the nights shorter, almost that the sunset met the sunrise. God got mad and punished the Sun to never shine again only surrounded by fog, so he may never waste his time as he wished and change the things they were set from the beginning of times.
And God’s will come true, and Pananghia never saw the Sun again as young and beautiful as he was. Her heart was broken, she cried for days and nights, without sleep, her tears never dried on her cheeks. After a while God felt mercy for her, and gave orders to Sunrise and Sunset to send their sweetest and easy winds to the peaks of Ceahlaul Mountain and towards the forests, that fill its cliffs.
All of a sudden, heavenly voices rose up at the peak where Pananghia was and filled her ears and dried her tears.  The whisper of wind with leaves, the breeze of Sunrise and Sunset, came loaded with the fragrance of bloomed plains.
But Pananghia couldn’t live without the sun and asked God to turn her into a rock and let the Sun come shine again on the sky.
God made her will come true. When she wanted to go back to the cave of Saint Ghedeon, she felt like her legs got roots in the deep earth and she couldn’t move.
Pananghia
She wanted to go, but her body was cold and hard as a rock. She wanted to lift her hands, but her hands stayed closed to her body, also cold as a rock. She tried to yell, but it was useless. And when she wanted to turn her eyes towards the sky, but her eyelids fell on her eyes light and the dark came on her. And Pananghia turned into a mountain rock. It is said that her heart never turned into a rock, and now she is joyfully showering into the Sun light, the shine of flowers, the touch of the white clouds, sweet winds and the warm sunrise and sunset. 

The tale of Baba Dochia


The stones from the Ceahlaul Mountain

Dochia had a son named Dragobete, who got married against his mother’s will with a beautiful girl.
Being a mean mother in law, Baba Dochia gave her daughter in law, on a cold winter day, a ball of black wool telling her to go to the river to wash it and don’t come back until the wool gets white.
Poor girl washed the wool until her hands started to bleed, but the wool was still black. Touched by the girl’s suffering, Jesus showed and gave her a red flower, telling her to wash the wool with it. The girl was surprised when she saw that the wool washed with the water where the flower was put in, got white.
Happy that she managed to pass over this ordeal, which her mother in law gave to her, the girl came back home.
Home the girl wasn’t received well, contrary, her mother in law hearing the story, accused her of having another man, called Trinket (Martisor). That was the name that the girl gave to that man, not knowing it was Jesus.
From this story, Dochia started with her herd of sheep towards the mountain, convinced that spring already came, because she saw the red flower, sign that the snow melted and it was spring. Climbing the mountain, Baba Dochia got warmed up and she threw all her 12 coats one at a time, until she had none left. But the moody weather changed. As beautiful it was at the beginning of the day, as ugly it got now. It started to snow and to freeze everything around.
Dochia froze with her sheep, turning them, according to legend, into stones. The stones can be viewed today on the Ceahlaul Mountain and they are a living proof of this Romanian myth.