His eyes were blue

His eyes were blue. Their precise shade fluctuated, seeming to reflect the changing hue of the sky above. Sometimes when the weather was cloudy the eyes were paler, almost colourless but yet never grey; there was always a shade of hopeful colour, easy to miss unless searched for. But when in deepest midsummer the sky was hot and clear, with dancing waves of heat escaping back up into the atmosphere; then the eyes were mirrors, reflecting the blue above them. Deep and life-warming, almost dark yet brilliant still.

His forehead was broad and clear. Not yet furrowed but fine-lined enough to define and give some gravity to the face which narrowed away below it. His body was long and slender without being thin, strong and muscled without being bulky. His skin was an easy brown, acquired from just being outside, as if the sun and the skin had reached an amicable agreement, an equilibrium between man and his environment.

As the sky was reflected in his eyes, so the seasonal changes were to be seen throughout his body. Spring saw his lean, pale arms strengthening; bared half way to the elbow. Sleeves rolled back for working hard in the vegetable garden, the fields and the barns. The fields would become green with the promise of new crops and animals were growing and multiplying with hope and potential.

By summer the fields were full of golden waves of wheat moving in the breeze like a blond mane. Whole fields perfectly synchronised in the dance, brushed this way and that, as the sun worked its magic on lengthening stems and swelling seed heads. The arms were now fully exposed, the muscles hardened to work and the skin a deep sun-ripened brown. The long-lit days meant long work-hours. The light brown hair was fading to gold to straw to pure white-blond. The hands were tough and forever dirtied, despite washing. The skin was covered with cuts and scars, criss-crossing the previous years’ to make a complex patchwork of little white lines.

Then came autumn and with it the pivotal harvest. The fields were shorn of their golden locks leaving behind the bald earth. The potential was reaped, stores were prepared and laid away for the coming winter. There was close anticipation of the long hours spent closed in at home, fires burning up the stockpiles of wood and stomachs burning up the stores of food. Long awaited days of rest, most labour curtailed by the lack of natural light. But there was also the tinge of sadness at the passing of glorious summer that was matched by the hint of cold in the atmosphere; the annual climatic climax has passed and now begins the steady downward decent into winter. The bare earth was once again covered, but this time in chilling white. Stillness. The tanned arms faded to white, hidden away until the thaw.

Baba Yaga

“Baba Yaga is a very ugly and ancient hag who hides away deep, deep in the enchanted forest. Don’t ask me where, for how would I know such a thing? As if I would want to know where to find such a creature - only a fool would go seeking her out for no good reason! At nights she flies around in a mortar, which she steers using the pestle like a rudder. Her feet are crammed in very tightly, so tight they only just fit. With her broom of silver birch she sweeps away the tracks behind her so she can never been traced. The rest of her stands tall and straight, right up out of the mortar, tilting forwards as she flies. Oh, what a sight she makes! Her wild hair screams out behind her, silver and black and long. Her arms and legs are scrawny and brown, but do not be deceived - her strength is unbeatable. Her long crooked nose and bedraggled garments, her crazy eyes shining yellow in the gloomy, dim moonlight - sharp cat-like slits reflecting any light which penetrates the thick forest canopy, like a flash to blind you. To seek out Baba Yaga is a very dangerous thing to do, but then some people are driven to desperate measures. And sometimes, just sometimes, she provides guidance, although it is such that people rarely care to hear. Those who seek her must be totally pure of spirit and thought. And mostly she will lock people up, enslaving them to do her housework, threatening to eat them, or even their children, unless they complete the impossible tasks she sets them.”
“She lives in a hut which has no windows. There is a door, but it will only show itself if a magical phrase is uttered. And would you really want to go through it? Once you are through it would probably disappear and you would be enslaved inside for good. Baba Yaga herself enters and leaves by the chimney but she is never burnt by her own fire, because she is magical I guess. The hut is raised up high on a set of giant chicken legs, which dance and move the hut around at her command. So she never stays in one part of the forest for long. You never know where you might accidently meet her... take care! There are three riders to be found around about the hut. One is dressed all in brilliant white, and sits upon a white horse with a white harness – he is Day. The second is a red rider, he is the Sun. The third is all in black, and he is Night. The hut is surrounded by a palisade made of human bones. Atop of each pole is a human skull. Well, nearly each pole – there are a few spaces left for potential future victims... ghoulish light seeps out of the empty eye sockets, as if desperately seeking escape...”