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.