Croatian Tales of Long Ago - Stribor

Are you comfortable, dear? The following story has many twists and turns, so make sure that you are properly cozy.

The one who caught your eye, that is Stribor. I consider him a bubbly, bouncy, and generally breezy individual. Usually he tends to overdo the bubbling, bouncing and above all breezing.

Do you know that during one particularly lush summer he blew Gerovit's pants away? It was an exceptionally passionate summer for Vesna and Gerovit, so Gerovit did not have enough strength left to chase Stribor and, hence, he survived. Oh, and Vesna... She likes Stribor quite a bit. When Gerovit embarks on his journey toward the earth, Stribor whips out zephyr's wings made especially for her so she could meet her lover. She laughed so gleefully at Gerovit's and Stribor's race that the forests blossomed for the second time that year. What a beautiful season that was.

But don't be fooled my dear, Stribor can be merciless, too. That same year, some humans hunted down and killed the azure Rusalka. Upon hearing the news, Perun thundered through the skies for days on end obscuring the Sun's warm glow and leaving the earth gloomy and dank. Looking down on Earth he got an idea. He appointed Stribor to inflict on humans the most severe punishment he could think of. And he gave them years upon years of snow and ice. The whole land was covered with a crackly white winter mantle. And in the Stribor's forest, the very place where the atrocity happened, only reptiles remained. In their bodies squirmed sinful souls who had a share in Rusalka's death. Nothing could set them free but the grace of humans same as them. But humans stayed away from that forest for decades.

And then someone came...