The Bear and the Nightingale

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

A rural family in northern Russia, or Rus’, weathers the later winter and fasting of Lent. They gather in the kitchen’s warmth, where the family’s nurse, Avdotya “Dunya” Mikhailovna, prepares to tell a story to entertain Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children. The children clamor for different tales, but their mother, Marina Ivanovna, interrupts when she enters from the storm outside and suggests that Dunya tell them about the frost demon, Morozko.

Dunya reluctantly agrees and tells the story of Marfa, a virtuous young maiden who endures her stepmother’s hatred and is abandoned in the forest as a supposed bride for Morozko. Despite his merciless tests, Marfa remains courteous. This impresses him, and he sends her home with riches. When her stepmother sends her own spoiled daughter to Morozko, her complaints anger him, and he kills both the stepsister and her mother.

One of the children, Olga, asks Dunya if Marfa married Morozko, to which the old woman replies that she didn’t. While the family prepares to sleep, Dunya notes Marina’s frailty.