#folktaleweek

✨ Folktale Week — Day 7: DAWN ✨

I reached the final day — and I’m so happy I made it this far. This week was challenging, magical, and honestly very healing. Even if I skipped one prompt, I stayed true to my pace, and I loved every moment of creating these pieces. ✨🌿

For DAWN, I painted a Zorya, one of the Slavic goddesses of the morning light.

She rises over a field of flowers, radiant and ethereal, her presence filling the landscape with soft beams of sunlight. The field glows around her as the first rays of day break through — warm, gentle, and full of promise.

In Slavic mythology, the Zoryas are celestial maidens who guard the sky and mark the passage of time. The Morning Zorya opens the gates for the sun at dawn, welcoming a new cycle of life, light, and protection.

She is the quiet beginning, the golden breath of a new day.

✨ Folktale Week — Day 6: STORM ✨

For STORM, I painted Dodola (also called Perperuna), in an Art Nouveau style: she dances beneath a tempest, her gown flowing like water and shifting in a holographic shimmer. Golden lightning spirals through the dark clouds above, as if drawn by her own divine energy. 🌩️✨

In Slavic myth, Dodola / Perperuna is the goddess of rain, and the beloved wife of Perun, the thunder god. According to the lore, when Dodola milks her heavenly cows (the clouds), rain descends upon the earth.

Some traditions say Perun and Dodola’s relationship is stormy — in certain stories, she is even taken by a rival, and he searches for her through the skies.

There is also a beautiful folk ritual: young girls in a village would dress in vines and flowers, dance through the streets, and have water sprinkled over them — in a symbolic way, they embody Dodola and call for rain.

Storm: I giorni della Merla for @folktaleweek This prompt was pretty simple as an idea, but I wanted to avoid the classic bird covered in ash. I decided to represent Winter as a Knight with a profile similar to a bird, and choose one of the versions of Giorni della Merla tales, diffuse in all of Italy.

One version tells of the pranks the month of January played on a blackbird with splendid white plumage, unleashing rain. January was originally 28 days long, so the blackbird, to avoid suffering the cold of the month that played pranks on her, decided to stock up on supplies and not leave the nest for those days.

So January extended its duration by another three days (29, 30, and 31), the "blackbird days," to unleash its wrath on the blackbird with rain, snow, and freezing winds that would bring down the temperatures. So the blackbird sought refuge in a chimney for three days.

Charm: Sass di Biss for @folktaleweek

My favourite piece. Inspired by my grandpa's homeland, is an old tale about a stone in the Forest.

✨ Folktale Week — Days 4 & 5: BOOK + CHARM ✨

I decided to merge Day 4 (Book) and Day 5 (Charm) — partly to ease the pressure, and partly because these two themes belong together so naturally in Slavic tradition.

I take my time with each illustration (sometimes… a lot of time ✨), and I wanted to enjoy the process instead of rushing through it.

For this piece, I painted a Volkhvitsa (Волхвица) — a wise woman, healer, witch, and keeper of old knowledge in Slavic folklore.

She holds an ancient book and reads from it, releasing a red, embroidered smoke that rises like living magic.

The floating patterns are both spell and tradition: the woven language of charms, protection, and the memory of those who practiced before her.

A “charm” can be a spoken incantation, a ritual gesture, or even an embroidered symbol — so I wanted the magic to feel stitched, sung, and lived all at once.

Book: I Musicanti del SacroMonte

This is a Legend that I've discovered while searching for something fitting to the Book's Theme.

"While the cross (which today is located in the 13th chapel) was being erected amid great popular fervor, a select group of musicians appeared out of nowhere and accompanied the entire service with songs and hymns of extraordinary beauty. No one had ever seen them before, and since they magically disappeared again at the end of the service, it was always believed that those musicians were angels sent by the good God."