The nobleman showered Grigori with praise, and a great feast was held in his honor. But the physician, and the mayor, and the rich neighbor were not pleased by this turn of events. They had all long benefited from the nobleman’s favor, and they did not like to see him turning to a new adviser.
They began to whisper in the nobleman’s ear, tales of bizarre doings in the mountains. They claimed Grigori played with dark magic and that he had used that very magic to heal the nobleman’s son. They brought forth witnesses who said they had seen Grigori talking to beasts and making corpses dance for his amusement. Though his son and his wife pleaded for mercy, the nobleman could not ignore such terrible charges and had Grigori taken to the wood and left there overnight to be devoured by beasts.
As dusk fell and the creatures of the wood began to howl, Grigori was afraid, but he whispered to his Saints for guidance. When he knelt to pray, he saw that, at his feet, were the bones of others who had been brought to the wood to face a death sentence. From those bones, he fashioned a lyre, and when the animals drew near, he played a sad and haunting tune that rose from his fingertips and up into the branches, the melody hanging in the air like mist. The wolves ceased their slavering and laid their heads upon their paws. The snakes hissed contentedly, lying still as if upon a sun-warmed rock. The bears curled up and dreamed of when they were cubs and all they knew was their mothers’ milk, the rush of the river, and the smell of wildflowers.
In the morning, the soldiers returned and when they found Grigori alive and well, the nobleman’s son declared, “You see? This must mean that he is holy.”
But the physician, and the mayor, and the rich neighbor all said it was yet another sign that Grigori trafficked in dark magic, and that if he was allowed to live, the nobleman and his family would most certainly be cursed.
Grigori was taken to the wood once more, and this time his hands were bound. Night fell, and the creatures of the wood howled, and unable to play his lyre, Grigori was torn apart by the very beasts who had slept so peacefully at his feet the night before.
He is known as the patron saint of doctors and musicians.
SANKT VALENTIN
Just days before her wedding was to take place, a young bride fell ill, and though she fought valiantly and was tended to with love and care and many prayers, she perished. These were the worst days of winter, and because the ground was too cold to give way to shovels or picks, no proper grave could be dug. The girl’s family was too poor to afford a mausoleum. So they dressed the girl in the silks that would have been her bridal gown and laid her down upon a slab in the icehouse, her hands folded over her breast, her fingers clutching a bouquet of leaves and winter berries. Each day, her family would sit awhile and visit with her, and the young man who should have been her groom came to weep over the body long into the night.
When the first thaw arrived, a grave was dug on hallowed ground and the girl was lowered into it, a plain headstone marking her place of rest.
But the next morning, when the girl’s mother went to visit her daughter’s grave, she found a snake curled upon the headstone, its scales gleaming black in the sun. The woman stood shaking, fresh flowers in her hands, too afraid to approach, until finally, tears on her cheeks, she gave up and returned home.
All spring, the grieving woman would visit the cemetery with a new bouquet in hand. The snake would lift its flat head at her approach and sometimes slither down the stone to the gently mounded dirt. But it never left the girl’s grave and so no one could come to pay their respects—not her mother, not her father, not the heartbroken young man who had loved her.
The woman went to the church and prayed to Sankt Valentin, the patron saint of snake charmers and the lonely, and that night, Sankt Valentin spoke to her.
“Go to the grave,” he said, “lie down on the ground beside the snake, and all will be revealed to you.”
The woman trembled. “I cannot!” she pleaded. “I am too afraid.”
But Sankt Valentin’s voice was steady. “You can choose faith or you can choose fear. But only one will bring what you long for.”
So the next day, the woman walked to the cemetery, and when she saw the snake lying in the new green grass that had sprung up over her daughter’s grave, she didn’t turn away, but still shaking, made herself lie down on the damp earth. The serpent lifted its head, its glittering eyes like mourning beads. Certain it was about to strike, the woman prepared to feel the snake’s bite and join her daughter in the next life.
But instead, the serpent spoke, its slender tongue tasting the air.
“Mama,” it said, “it is I, the spirit of your lost daughter, returned to tell you of my plight. I did not die of natural illness, but from poison, fed to me in what was meant to be medicine by the man who swore he loved me until I told him I did not love him any longer and did not wish to be his bride. He laughed over my corpse in the icehouse, and now he is afraid to visit this grave, for he knows the Saints will not allow a murderer to feign honest prayer on hallowed ground.”
The woman wept, and let the snake curl gently around her wrist, and told her daughter she loved her. Then she marched down to the town and found the man who had claimed to love her daughter.
“You must go with me to the cemetery,” she said, “and pay your final respects to my daughter, who would have been your bride and whom you swore to love.”
The young man protested. Hadn’t he already visited her countless nights in the cold of the icehouse? And wasn’t there a snake said to be lurking around the headstones?
“What righteous man fears a snake?” she demanded. “What man professes love, then will not speak his prayers on hallowed ground?”
The townspeople agreed and wondered why the young man resisted. At last, he submitted and followed her to the cemetery. When his footsteps slowed, she seized his hand and dragged him along the path. They passed through the gates and on to the girl’s grave, where the snake lay curled upon it.
“Go on,” said the woman. “Kneel and speak your prayers.”
As soon as the young man opened his mouth, the snake uncoiled and sprang up, biting him right on the tongue. He died with the black tongue of a murderer, and was buried in unconsecrated ground, and was mourned by no one.
The snake was never seen again, but a quince tree grew beside the young bride’s grave and lovers often met beneath its branches, when the weather was warm enough.
It is customary for the mothers of brides to offer prayers to Sankt Valentin, and seeing a snake on your wedding day is known to be good luck.
SANKT PETYR
Instead of going to services on his Saint’s day, a boy in the village of Brevno chose to sneak away with a jug of his father’s cider and lay down to snore in the chicken yard. While he slept, a demon crept into his mouth and slid down his throat, and when he woke he was not the same boy he had been. He bit his mother’s cheek and set fire to the village school. He gnashed his teeth and tore up the prayer books in the chapel. When at last the boy fell asleep in his bed, a priest was called to speak holy words over his dreaming body and drive the demon out.
The thing that emerged from the boy’s mouth was wet and gray as a slug, and though it thrashed and howled, it eventually let go its hold on the boy’s insides. But the priest had failed to seal the house shut and the demon fled through an open window.