The Toy Domovoy

*Domovoy — An East Slavic household spirit, guardian of home and family who blesses the household; a distant cousin of the Scottish "Brownie".


The Domovoy was a toy — or, more precisely, a souvenir. He had been given to Mam; (the lady of the house) for some holiday or other.
She cooed over him — "Oh, how lovely!" — and set him on a shelf.

"A strange place..." thought the Domovoy and slowly began to settle in.  First he looked around and blessed his new Home and the household, as was his due.

The people of the household, too, were strange from his — the Domovoy's — point of view.
They were fussy somehow, always rushing somewhere. In the morning at the sound of the alarm they jumped up quickly, hurried one another along, and ran off to some mysterious place called "Hurry-up-or-we'll-be-late"
No prayer, no blessing of the morning sun.
And so the Domovoy did all of it for them himself. He thanked the sun, blessed the coming day, his new Home, and everyone living in it.
So what if he was only a toy? No one had canceled his important ancestral duties.

Sometimes his favorite days came, the ones called "Finally-the-weekend" No one set the alarm in the morning, and all the people slept in long and happily.

The first to get up, as usual, was Mam;. She went to the kitchen to make breakfast. The house rarely smelled of pies — and truth be told, what pies could there be with a life like this? Well actually, there were pies too, sometimes. For the Domovoy this was a real delight! He especially loved those rare days when everyone sat down together at the table, no one was rushing anywhere, everyone laughed, joked and chatted at their ease.
And the Domovoy invisibly took part, embracing all the household with his blessing, savoring the scent of fresh baking and cozy family warmth.

The Domovoy wished with all his heart for happiness to live in the Home. It did not matter to him that people considered him a toy. He loved and blessed them for real.

And that, after all, is what matters most:
To love truly and wholeheartedly. Even when no one is watching...


Marina Bogdanova-Vul

Translation of Ellora Bogdanova