30 Day Song Challenge | Day 18: Song You Wish You Heard Often on the Radio

I’m skipping over the “Hear Often on the Radio” challenge because, as I write this, I don’t listen to the radio much anymore due to a static-y reception. Probably by the time this post publishes, we’ll have settled into our new home in town, where the reception (and the Internet! Whoohoo!) will be better. But it’s been so long since I tuned in regularly that I’ve forgotten which songs the local classical station played often.

However, one I would like to hear on a regular basis is “Dance of the Birds” from Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden.”

Incidentally, this piece inspired the following scene from my WIP Ice and Snow:

Yokúl* cocked his head as the sound of rapidly-jingling bells met his ears. Bells… and music. Then a chorus of beautiful female voices took up a rollicking chant, and that, blended with the music, brought to mind a sleigh-ride amid falling snowflakes. Curious, he followed the sounds up the mountain, concealing himself behind a snow-capped boulder near a level place on the sheer, craggy face. Peeking over the top of the boulder, Yokúl spotted a group of the loveliest maidens he had ever seen—all of them dressed in glittering white, like the sun on a field of frozen snow—dancing in a ring not twenty feet from his hiding-place. All of them had the same pale skin and white hair—both tinged with blue—as Yokúl himself, and as they twirled and skipped and flung their arms wide in the steps of their dance, wisps of snow swirled about them like confetti.

These must be Snow-faeries, Yokúl mused.

The maidens sang the song he had heard, sometimes breaking into a call-and-echo in their lively chant. But he could discover no musicians anywhere, and so he deemed that, either they were hidden, or the music had been magicked up specially for this dance.

Suddenly, another voice—strong and noble, yet at once soft and ethereal—floated through the air, joining those of the maidens. Then the owner of the voice appeared from the mouth of a cave in the mountainside, clad in a long robe or coat of powder-snow, resembling the ermine- or rabbit-fur some Human women liked to wrap themselves in. This lady, however, was no Daughter of Eve, for she possessed the same glacial complexion as the Snow-faeries. Her shining white hair was pulled back from her face in a smooth roll on each side, twisted into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck, with little tendrils at her temples and across her forehead. She wore a dainty tiara, shining like silver ice, set with a stone as blue as the ice in the coldest parts of the world, glittering like a diamond in the light.

The lady continued to sing even as two Snow-faeries approached and removed her heavy coat. She lifted her arms and danced into the open circle of maidens, the crystal, blue and silver beads on her flowing white gown sparkling as she moved. The maidens joined hands and danced in a ring about her and repeated their song, this time with the lady singing a sprightly descant. As they danced, more snowflakes whirled around them, which the lady caused to shoot upward and fall gently down to earth again with the motions of her hands.

Yokúl crept slowly higher on the boulder, his fascinated gaze fixed on the lovely maiden with the crown. He recalled hearing rumors in the village about the reclusive Snow Queen, who was said to live high on a mountain. Some even said that many young men had gone in search of her, never to return. A few old gaffers declared that the Snow Queen had a heart as cold as ice, and that anyone who so much as looked upon her was doomed to die—how, exactly, no one knew for certain. One fellow said she simply froze intruders into solid statues of ice. Another declared that she used her magic to throw them off the mountain. Others said she had an army of imps who did the throwing for her.

But as Yokúl watched her and her handmaidens dance, saw their smiling faces and how gracefully they moved, he found it hard to believe this lady could really be capable of such cruelty. But then, Adam’s Race were always apt to tell tall tales about things they don’t understand, he mused.

The dance ceased, and the Snow Queen and her handmaidens raised their arms as one person, sending a fountain of snow shooting up to the sky. Smooth gray clouds had formed overhead during the dance (which Yokúl had failed to notice until this moment), and they absorbed all the snow and drifted off, no doubt to deposit their load elsewhere.

A chunk of the snow covering the boulder suddenly gave way under Yokúl’s hand, and he tumbled forward. The boulder happened to be on a slope, so down rolled Yokúl, head-over-heels, his clothes gathering snow along the way, straight for the circle of Snow-faeries. He passed right between two of the Snow Queen’s handmaidens—giving them quite a start—and crashed into the heels of Snow Queen herself before she had time to do more than look behind her. The snow he had accumulated burst off in a minor explosion, most of it coating the hem of her gown. Yokúl lay flat on his back, staring up into the upside-down face of the Snow Queen, who peered at him with a sort of cold curiosity.

Yokúl flashed her a sheepish half-smile. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” he quipped.

* Yokúl = Derived from Jokul Frosti, the Icelandic name for Jack Frost.