The Virgin Well

The glade had seen so much of peasants only on the Greek calends.

Plowmen clamored, fingering at outlandish stones which composed the well’s borders. Women yelled discordantly and so did Kolovrat, louder than everyone else, trying to overvoice them all. Kids stared at the well with curiosity, getting nothing and biting nails. Some of them were going to get into the water but their moms immediately pulled them back, giving a cuff on the nape or the butt.

Kolovrat was sitting on the boulder, quiet now. Cyrith appeared next to him.

«So, dad,» he said, «Is it sooth or sklent? The well makes maiden a virgin?»

«Hell only knows,» old man answered cursing the whole world in the spirit. «It does nothing to men, knock on wood to be good… I drank it a lot, and I am still here.

«Anyone drank it as well?»

«Lyenne did. And so Tyesse.»