Summary

Frost – On a cold winter night, the elderly Dunya, nurse to a family with four children, is beginning to tell the children a story when they are interrupted by the sudden arrival of Marina, the children’s mother. She tells the rest of the family about the difficulties one of the ewes is having in giving birth – and then, when she sees Dunya’s unhappiness at being interrupted, to tell the story of Morozko, or King Frost. The children are uneasy, with narration describing how the legendary Morozko comes after vulnerable children on cold winter nights. Dunya calms them with her story, in which the beautiful and wise Marfa befriends Morozko, much to the disappointment of her wicked stepmother, who sent her to marry Morozko in the hope that she would be killed by his cold. When the stepmother sees how Morozko has...