Origins and setting
“Morozko”—also known as Father Frost—is a beloved East Slavic wonder tale, most often told in Russia and Belarus, within the international tale-type ATU 480: Kind and Unkind Girls. Its figures are archetypal and few: a sweet-natured stepdaughter, a jealous stepmother, a weak but sorrowing father, and Morozko, winter personified—crisp, crackling, and just. The story unfolds in set stations: envy, a cruel sending into the snow, the testing by Father Frost, gifts for grace, and a mirrored fate for the rude sister. Its refrain is unforgettable—“Are you warm, maiden?”—and its lesson clear: courtesy under trial invites blessing; churlishness summons a frost no fur can warm.
The tale
I. The two girls and the envy in the oven
There lived a peasant with a daughter as mild as milk and as diligent as dawn. After his first wife died, he married again, and the new wife brought with her a daughter of her own—strong of voice, idle of hand, and sour as unskimmed cream. The stepmother praised her own from morning till moonrise, but scolded the gentle one for breathing too loud.
“Useless mouse!” she would cry. “What do you bring to this house but sighs?”
The girl only lowered her lashes and went on with her spinning, her sweeping, and her quiet songs. The father loved her, but his heart was soft and his will softer; the stepmother’s tongue beat him like a rug.
Winter came early that year, laying the fields in linen. On a day of keen blue sky the stepmother hissed, “Husband, take that little frost-blossom to the forest and leave her there—let Morozko find some use for her.”
The man trembled. “Wife—”
“Do you love your daughter more than peace?” she said, sweetly as sleet. She thrust a threadbare shawl at the girl and bundled a crust of bread into her hand. “Off with you!”
The father harnessed the old mare and sat his daughter in the sledge. Snow squeaked under the runners; the girl’s breath smoked like candle-flame. At the edge of the dark pines he set her down, kissed her crown, and whispered, “Forgive me, little light.” Then he turned his face away and drove home, blind with tears that froze on his lashes.
II. The testing in the fir-gloom
The girl tucked her feet beneath her and sat straight as a wick in the lee of a great fir tree. The forest made its winter music—ice crackling, branches ticking, a fox stepping like a thought. Dusk folded down, blue on blue.
All at once the air sharpened, and with a sound like glass tapping glass a tall figure stepped from the glittering dark: Morozko, bearded with rime, clad in hoar-sparkle, the frost himself. His staff rang lightly on the snow.
“Are you warm, maiden?” he asked, voice like sleigh-bells far away.
The girl bowed her head. “Warm enough, dear Father Frost. Thank you for asking.”
Morozko lifted a white brow. The frost crept closer. The stars bit brighter.
Again he asked, a little nearer, breath chiming, “Are you warm, pretty one?”
Her teeth shook, but her voice was gentle. “Warm, warm, kind Father Frost. The fir shelters; the stars keep company.”
He circled, and the cold settled like a cloak of needles.
A third time, standing over her so that ice-dust spun in the air: “And now, child—are you warm?”
Her fingers were wood; her lashes wore pearls of rime. Still she smiled a little. “As warm as I deserve, Father Frost—only do not be angry with me.”
At that Morozko laughed softly, a sound like icicles breaking in sunshine. “Grace under frost deserves thaw.” He struck his staff. Out of the night came a robe lined with squirrel, felt boots soft as sleep, a cloak furred with silver, a basket heavy with cakes and honey, and a chest of bright things that chimed when it touched the ground.
He wrapped her himself, as tender as a snowdrift falling on a field. “Now be truly warm, little heart.”
III. The hearth’s shock and the bargain with greed
Back at the cottage the stepmother stoked the stove and sharpened her cruelty. “Look sharp, husband! Hitch the mare. Go and fetch your frozen darling—we’ll have a fine corpse to lay by the oven.” She rubbed her hands at the thought.
The man took the reins in misery and drove through a night lit with needles of frost. At the fir he stopped—and there sat his daughter, bright as a winter saint, wrapped in silver furs, cheeks rosy as rowan, with a chest of treasures at her feet.
“Father!” she cried, and he fell to his knees, mumbling blessings that smoked in the air. He lifted her into the sledge, heaved the chest aboard, and home they flew.
The door burst wide; the girl stepped in with sparkle following her like a retinue. The stepmother’s eyes went as round as millstones.
“Where did that beggar pick up such finery?”
“Father Frost lent it,” said the girl simply.
Greed flared like straw. The stepmother spun on her own daughter. “Hear that, my jewel? You shall go too. Morozko shall give you better yet!” She jammed a fur muff about the girl’s angry hands and shoved her into the sledge. “No crust for you—Frost feeds his guests.”
IV. The mirrored trial
They left the second girl at the same fir as the night pipped and the east froze pale. She stamped and muttered, tore at her muff, and cursed the cold.
Presently the air rang faintly, and Morozko came striding, staff ringing, beard bright. “Are you warm, maiden?”
“Warm? You old icicle! My nose is a stone and my toes are frogs. Give me your cloak!”
Frost deepened; branches cracked like muskets.
Morozko’s eyes glinted like stars. “And now—are you warm, pretty one?”
“Pretty yourself! Come closer and I’ll box your ears.”
The cold burrowed, bright and merciless.
He bent, breath singing. “And now—are you warm?”
She tried to spit, but it froze before it fell. “I’m dying, you wicked shard—help me!” she squealed—too late for courtesy, too soon for grace.
The forest stood still as sealed glass.
V. The reckonings
At dawn the stepmother had the kettle on, all smiles with herself. “Husband, fetch our glorious child and her chests! We’ll need a second oven for all Morozko’s gifts.”
He went, shoulders hunched. At the fir he found what he feared: the second girl stiff as a board, frost pale where rouge had been. He covered her gently and brought her home without a word.
When the door opened, the stepmother saw and struck her hands against her breast, wailing like a broken hinge. Some say she ran into the road and was lost in a drift; some that she sat and rocked, staring into a fire that would not warm her. As for the father, he bowed his head for the dead, then, with trembling hands, set about mending the living.
The kind girl laid her cloak over his shoulders and put warm broth to his lips. In time she married well—some say a good man from the next village; some, a forester whose laugh sounded like a thaw. Each winter when the night rang like glass, a tall figure could be seen pausing at their gate, frost smoking from his beard. He would lean on his staff and listen for a moment to the house where courtesy kept the hearth warm, then go on through the glittering dark.
Iconic lines remembered in the telling
- “Are you warm, maiden?”
- “Warm enough, dear Father Frost. Thank you for asking.”
- “As warm as I deserve, Father Frost—only do not be angry with me.”
- “Father Frost lent it.”
- “Warm? You old icicle! … Give me your cloak!”
Closing note
“Morozko” is winter’s parable: the same frost that bites the rude crowns the courteous. Trials come sharp and bright; the answer the tale honours is not complaint but grace under pressure—a softness that is not weakness but the strength to keep kindness even when the world is all edges. In such houses, Father Frost brings more than jewels; he leaves a weather that warms from the inside out.
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