so there’s this girl named Oksana
\nwho is sweet and kind and clever
\nand lives in a small house with her father
\nand her stepmother
\nand her stepsister
\nand already we can see right where this is going<\/p>\n
OF COURSE Oksana’s stepmother doesn’t like her
\nand makes her do all the housework
\nand wear her stepsister’s old clothes
\nher stepsister is named Olena by the way
\nwhich sounds like a brand of margarine<\/p>\n
somewhat unusual for this type of story
\nis the fact that the heroine’s father is alive and well
\ninstead of nobly dead somewhere and unable to defend his daughter
\nno
\nhe just doesn’t give much of a shit
\nparenthood fail<\/p>\n
so one winter the snow is particularly bad
\nand Oksana’s family runs out of money
\nthe story just presents this as fact
\nwithout stating the connection between deep snow and insolvency
\nso your guess is as good as mine<\/p>\n
and to nobody’s surprise
\nOksana’s stepmother insists that she be sent away
\nso her father
\nwho is really whipped
\ntakes her to a cottage deep in the woods
\nand says he’ll see her in springtime
\nwhen the money thaws out<\/p>\n
and although Oksana is very frightened
\nshe is also brave and resourceful
\nbecause when was the last time you heard a fairy tale
\nwhere the protagonist was an idiot
\nand totally unable to cope
\nthat would be a very short fairy tale
\nbecause the protagonist would wind up as troll snacks
\nor be turned into a newt and NOT get better
\nor otherwise meet a messy end
\nlet’s see Disney make a heartwarming movie out of THAT
\nwoo tangent<\/p>\n
anyway<\/p>\n
so Oksana collects wood and builds a fire
\nand makes a snare out of branches and catches a snow rabbit
\nand digs under the snow and finds roots and berries to eat
\nand melts snow for drinking water
\nOksana may be distantly related to Bear Grylls<\/p>\n
when night falls Oksana lays down near the fire and goes to sleep
\nbut in the middle of the night
\nthere’s a knock on the door
\nman, the jehovah’s witnesses are everywhere
\nno wait
\ndifferent story
\nthere’s a knock on the door
\nand Oksana gathers up her courage
\nand a big stick
\nand answers the door
\ninstead of doing the sensible thing and hiding in a closet until morning
\nfairy-tale protagonists may be plucky and resourceful
\nbut they don’t have the common sense that god gave a doorknob<\/p>\n
and there’s nothing there
\nand just as Oksana is breathing a sigh of relief
\nshe looks down
\nand there’s a cow head on the doorstep
\nlooking at her expectantly
\nas they do<\/p>\n
so Oksana gasps and says “who are you?”
\nand the cow head says “I am Cow’s Head”
\nbecause it may be supernatural
\nbut it is not very creative<\/p>\n
so Cow’s Head says it is cold and hungry and would like to come in
\nand Oksana
\nwhom we have already seen is a little light in the common sense department
\nsays sure
\nand Cow’s Head asks her to lift it over the threshold
\nand place it near the fire
\nwhich she does
\nthe story does not address how it made it to the front door and knocked if it can’t move<\/p>\n
then Cow’s Head tells Oksana that it is hungry and asks her to feed it
\nwhich she does
\nand the story also does not address where the food goes
\ninasmuch as there is no stomach attached to the head
\nso use your imagination<\/p>\n
and finally Cow’s Head wants to sleep
\nso Oksana covers it with her blanket
\nit is essentially the creepiest babydoll ever<\/p>\n
Oksana falls asleep in the corner of the cottage
\nand when she wakes up Cow’s Head is gone
\nbut where it had slept was a large trunk
\nfull of beautiful clothes and gold and jewels<\/p>\n
and at that very moment
\nher father appears at the door
\nhaving nutted up and come back to get her<\/p>\n
so Oksana returns home
\nrich and happy
\nand soon marries her true love
\nand lives happily ever after<\/p>\n
and as a postscript
\nthe story notes that Olena decided to try the same thing
\nand went to sleep in the cottage
\nbut when Cow’s Head showed up
\nshe was too lazy to serve it
\nand when she woke up all her possessions had turned to dust<\/p>\n
the moral of this story is when a disembodied cow head shows up on the doorstep at midnight you should make it comfortable<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
so there’s this girl named Oksana who is sweet and kind and clever and lives in a small house with her father and her stepmother and her stepsister and already we can see right where this is going OF COURSE Oksana’s stepmother doesn’t like her and makes her do all the housework and wear her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-peculiar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15432"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15439,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15432\/revisions\/15439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}