The Autumn Tree

It's an early Sunday morning.  The barest hints of Autumn have been creeping along the branches of trees.

My children are in the backseat playing with two stuffed animals, fully animated with deep voices for men and high pitched for women, laughing with complete abandon.  There isn't a single hint of worry or sorrow yet on their smooth young faces.

We turn left and find Autumn in the parking lot of a church.  The trees are bursting with yellows and oranges and a crunchy wave of color falls onto my windshield when the prairie wind blows just right. 

My kids look out the windshield and squeal that it looks like a princess's house.  This church is made of red brick, like the red brick castles and churches in Poland.  Perhaps that's what my older daughter is remembering.

Jarzębina trees are sporting their signature red berries along the walls of the church.

To my children, they're just pretty.  But...

"My Babcia's family on my mother's side had a tree like this next to their front door for good luck.  You can take the berries and put them on string with a needle and when they dry, you can wear it like a necklace for fun.  When I was little, there was a Jarzębina tree that grew near our apartment building and my Mommy, brother and I used to pick the berries for necklaces.  But you can't eat the berries unless you cook them carefully, because they are poisonous.  Maybe you can find the fairies that live in this tree."

In a fairy book we own, there is a poem about the Jarzębina. 

There is also a musical group called Jarzębina, in case you might remember them.

My little ones run around the Jarzębina, at first peering up into the branches, trying to spot a fairy or two, that might be hiding among the red berries.  After a few minutes, they revert to the timeless childhood game of "You Can't Catch Me!", holding with delicate hands onto the bark of the tree as they spin around under the Autumn Tree. 

Leaves fall down around us, the sky is blue above.  The air cool on rose petal cheeks. 

Na razie...

A Bedtime Story I Tell My Kids- Wars i Sawa

Sometimes, at bedtime, I tell my children legends of Poland.  One of their favorites is the story of Wars and Sawa.

Wars is pronounced Vahrs and Sawa is pronounced SAH-vah.

Wars and Sawa are two legendary figures which helped shaped Warsaw. 

There are several versions of this story but this is the one I tell my children.

I use Polish words throughout the legend to help teach my children Polish.  See the glossary at the end for pronounciation and meaning.

Photo by s3k, from Wikipedia

The Legend of Wars and Sawa, A Love Story

Dawno temu, when Poland was young, the lands were filled with forests, fields, and wild animals.  Kings and mythical creatures roamed the land.

Warszawa was not yet a town, let alone the huge, bustling city it is today.  In fact, Warszawa was not yet even the capital of the Polish kingdom.  It was just a hut owned by a fisherman on the banks of the Wisła river.

This fisherman was called Wars and he was a great fisherman.  He kept his nets straight, knew where to fish, and kept his gear in good working order.  He was also kind- he always threw back fish which were too small or which he could tell were pregnant and never caught more than he needed to feed himself and a small amount to sell on the market.

At the end of his hard day, he would always say a prayer to thank God for giving him another day to fish and would always say a thank you for the fish he caught.

Wars was not only these things, he was also handsome. 

One day, he saw a beautiful Syrena by his home.  She was at the sandy bank, under a Wierzba tree.  The same willow trees Chopin composed music about.

Her name was Sawa. She was beautiful. Blonde, long hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin.  And a mermaid's tale.  She was singing a song, the kind humans no longer remember how to sing, about Nature, life, death, the wilderness of the Earth and Sea.

Sawa had been watching Wars for many weeks after having travelled down the Wisła from the Baltic Sea.  She knew he was kind, humble, not selfish at all.  She had fallen in love.

Wars approached her cautiously, trying not to scare her.  He sat down a few feets from her on the sandy bank and listened as she sang to him more.

At the end of the song, she waved and disappeared under the waters.

This happened at the end of the day between them for several days.

Finally, Wars could not stand it anymore.  He stopped her singing before she could leave him.

"I love you.  I don't know how but I feel like I've always known you.  Please, stay with me.  Be my wife."

Sawa looked at him with love in her eyes and said "And I love you.  But I am a Syrena and you are man.  I must live in the waters or I will die.  And you must live on Earth so that you can breathe and live on, for now."

Wars was devastated at this and said, "But what am I supposed to do?  I love you, I cannot imagine you not in my life.  Please, there must be a way."

Sawa told Wars, "I will stay here in your river and will watch over you forever.  And, I will watch over our children and our children's children and so on.  But our children must live on land with you."

And so it was.  They saw each other throughout the day while Wars fished and Sawa swam through the waters, keeping their children safe as they swam and played and grew.

Years passed happily for them together, and then Wars passed away, as humans do.  But Sawa still swims in the Wisła, watching over their children's children. 

She guards Warszawa, which is named in memory of their love for one another, and sings songs in the cool shadows of the willows, about Nature, life, death, the wilderness of the Earth and Sea.  And love.

 

Glossary:

Dawno Temu - pronounced Dahv-noh Teh-moo, meaning Long ago, or Once upon a time.

Warszawa - pronounced Vahr-SHAH-vah, meaning Warsaw.

Wisła - pronounced VIS-wah, meaning the Vistula River.

Syrena - pronounced Sih-REH-nah, meaning Mermaid.

Wierzba - pronounced Vee-ehr-zbah with the "rz" sound as a "z" pronounced with tongue in same position as if you were rolling your "r", meaning Willow.



For more information on the Warsaw Mermaid, see in Polish the Wikipedia Warszawska Syrenka.  Also, Warsaw Coat of Arms.


Na razie...

Related Posts:

The Golden Duck of Warsaw and Brewster's Millions

A Collection of Polish Kings and Lech I

Teaching Children About Poland (I love the site in my post & explain why) Note: not endorsed

Books for Polish American Children

Our Honeymoon Daytrip in Warsaw

The Golden Duck of Warsaw and Brewster's Millions

I love reading to my children bedtime stories.  But often times, there are only so many stories I can read to them before we are essentially retelling the same stories over and over in different versions.

Polish fairy tales are boundless and there are countless stories, if you can find them translated from Polish to English or can read Polish.

I remembered a story from my childhood about a golden duck and dug through my countless books about Poland and the various fairy tales I have from Poland. 

I found the story.  It's called the Legend of the Golden Duck of Warsaw (Złota kaczka).

The short version of the legend is that under the cellar of Warsaw's Ostrogski Castle, there is a golden duck which guards a treasure.  The finder can keep all the treasure if he or she can spend all of a certain amount of money on himself down to the last coin, all within a certain period of time. 

One popular version tells of a man who was lucky enough to find the Golden Duck, received the money for spending and was successful.  Until he had one coin left and gave it to a poor beggar and thus, with his generosity, lost the treasure.

I never really noticed before that the story reminds me of Brewster's Millions.  There are several film versions of the movie but they are all based on the 1902 book by George Barr McCutcheon. 

George Barr McCutcheon also wrote several novels based in  "Graustark, a fictional East European country" and Poland and Polish characters are regularly used in prominent and smaller characters throughout his novels.  McCutcheon was born in Indiana, which at the time had some Polish immigrants living there. 

Did McCutcheon have Polish ancestry?  I do not know.  It's certainly possible and it's also possible he wasn't.

It is also possible that McCutcheon might have learned of the Legend of the Golden Duck of Warsaw from nearby Polish immigrants living in Indiana.

I would love to learn if there is a direct correlation but for now, I will take it as a definite similarity between the two beautiful stories.

What do you think?

And, if you understand Polish or would still like to hear some, a video from Polish theatre of the Golden Duck of Warsaw.





Other Links Related to the Legend:

The Legend of the Golden Duck

The Golden Duck of Ostrogski Castle


Wikipedia's post on Złota Kaczka




Other Links Related to the Novel:


Wikipedia's post on Brewster's Millions