SNEGUROCHKA — Derived from the Russian sneg, snow, the Snow-Maiden, a character who appears in several Russian fairy tales. In The Winter of the Witch, it is also Morozko’s nickname for Vasya.

SOLOVEY — Nightingale; the name of Vasya’s bay stallion.

TEREM — The word refers both to the actual location where highborn women lived in Old Russia (the upper floors of a home, a separate wing, or even a separate building, connected to the men’s part of the palace by a walkway) and more generally to the Muscovite practice of secluding aristocratic women. Thought to be derived from the Greek teremnon (dwelling) and unrelated to the Arabic word harem. This practice is of mysterious origin, owing to a lack of written records from medieval Muscovy. The practice of terem reached its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Peter the Great finally ended the practice and brought women back into the public sphere. Functionally, terem meant that highborn Russian women lived lives completely separate from men, and girls were brought up in the terem and did not leave it until they married. The princess whose father keeps her behind three times nine locks, a common trope in Russian fairy tales, is probably derived from this actual practice.

TRINITY LAVRA (THE TRINITY LAVRA OF SAINT SERGEI) — Monastery founded by Saint Sergei Radonezhsky in 1337, about forty miles northeast of Moscow.

TUMAN — Mist; the name of Sasha’s gray horse.

ULUS — Nation, tribe, followers.

UPYR — The Slavic version of a vampire. More monstrous and less elegant than the Western European variant.

VAZILA — In Russian folklore, the guardian of the stable and protector of livestock.

VEDMA — Vyed’ma, witch, wisewoman.

VERST — In Russian, versta (the English word verst derives from the Russian genitive plural, which is the form most frequently used in conjunction with a number). A unit of distance equal to roughly one kilometer, or two-thirds of a mile.

VLADIMIR — One of the chief cities of medieval Rus’, situated about 120 miles east of Moscow. Its founding is said to date from 1108, and many of its ancient buildings are still intact today.

VLADIMIR ANDREEVICH — Called “the Bold” (khrabriy), he is the most well known of the princes of Serpukhov. He got his moniker for his courage in fighting in Dmitrii Donskoi’s wars, and was also Dmitrii’s first cousin and close adviser. In The Winter of the Witch, he is the husband of Vasya’s sister Olga.

WRITING ICONS — A direct translation of the Russian phrase. In Russian, one uses the verb to write (pisat/napisat’) for the making of icons.

ZAPONA — An ancient outer garment worn by maidens over a long-sleeved shift. It was just a rectangular length of fabric folded in half at the shoulders and with a round opening for the head. It was not sewn together on the sides, but belted at the waist.

To my brothers

By birth and by adoption