Snow Maiden

Once upon a time,

There was a girl and she went to school and tried to do good, so she went and lived with a man. After all there was nothing else to do and that was what was supposed to happen, because your parents couldn't take care of you always. So he drank and she worked at the gas station and had babies and sometimes there were beatings and sometimes there were other women and the Earth swallowed up all her tears for her. Sometimes it was too cold and sometimes it was too hot and the plumbing never worked right and her man didn't come home for days at a time.

Then the house caught on fire. The man died instantly. Maybe all the alcohol in his body made him burn up so fast. The rescuers came and they tried to pull the woman out. She said, “No, no, my children are already snowflakes,” and would not let them pull her out. The rescuers tried to pull her out again, but again she would not let them, “No, no, I deserves this! I am an Indian!” So she burned up.

The Rain came and all her ashes were washed down through the wreckage of her home into the dirt. It bothered all the little creatures—the bugs, and the moles—that lived down there. So they gathered up all her ashes and put them into a big pile on top of the ground. Then the rain came down and washed and carved and pitted the pile as the creatures watched. Finally, an old Frog said, “It looks like a bird.” And so it was. The woman's ashes became a great and terrible Bird and carried her to her Fathers and Mothers in Heaven.

Later, when I learned about European Saints, I understood this story.