Monday, November 18, 2013

a walk in the forest


What I learn from Postcrossing. This postcard arrived today from Dasha in Siberia.

Barnaul band type pine forest
This is in the Altai region where there are around 13,ooo lakes. There are five pine forest bands, with this one being the largest. It stretches for 400km but is as narrow as 15km wide in some spots.



There is an old legend about pine forests telling of the God of Wind that was flying above these lands in the Altai region and saw a beautiful girl with a wonderful name, Aigul (it means 'Moonflower' and is common in Kazakhstan). He decided to take her to his castle beyond the clouds and cajole her to marry him by showering her with marvelous presents. But the girl knew that it would be very hard to love him as the Wind frequently changed his character and mood, was frivolous and often flew away from home. Aigul heard the Wind sneaking up to her while smelling the unusu­al flowers he carried and scared of being torn off her native land she rushed home along the meadow. But the Wind turned into a hurricane, ran the beautiful runaway down, picked her up and took her away to his celestial chambers. Aigul was crying and where her drops of tears fell there appeared small lakes. The green bands from her braids flew down to the ground and where they dropped there grew forests to show her brothers the way to find their sister. Whether they found her or not nobody knows…

source with slight adjustments to the translation

7 comments:

  1. Well her instincts were certainly 'on spot'.

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    Replies
    1. I guess if you live on the land, you become more in tuned to its vagaries.
      we've lost some of that.

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  2. Replies
    1. isn't it?! and I like that the outcome is left open.

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  3. That strikes me as a really sad story about how the lakes and forests started.

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    Replies
    1. it is sad... but then most of these sort of tales usually are.

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  4. The resulting forest (as seen in the postcard) looks quite enchanting.

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