Three Mistresses of Fate

There is an old Slavic belief that the third night after a baby is born three Mistresses of Fate will come to foretell its destiny. Much like the three fairies from the tale of the Sleeping Beauty they will bless the baby with good fortune and much like this fairytale one of them will do her best to curse the baby. To keep the baby safe and her or his fortune blissful my grandmother gave my mother the same advice her mother gave her. Every woman after the child is born should keep three things by her bedside: a mirror, a silver knife, and a woolen thread.

The mirror will be used by the first Deity to predict the health and beauty of the girl, and his strength if it is a boy.

The second one will use the woolen string to tell how long will be the child’s life and the third one and most important one will use the silver knife to seal his fate.

For you and me this could be as real as the fairies from the Sleeping Beauty. That is not the case with my Grandma.

The morning I was born she told my mom she would come to visit us the very next day but she failed to mention her very big and old silver knife. It was an old cooking knife her mother used before her and her mother before her for the same purpose as she intended to. Needless to say, it did not go well from there. They did not let her put it next to me nor my mother.

She started to beg the doctor’s to let her leave her mirror and her woolen strings. Nobody found anything wrong about that so they let her have it her way.

The third important night Grandma called my Dad to bring any kind of knife with him. It was not important it could be a pocket knife, a wooden knife she did not care and prayed that the Mistresses of Fortune would not curse me with an ill fate.

My dad assured her that he had a tiny pocket knife with him.

She repeated “Do not tell more lies! You are also lying to them! They know and now and they will have a right to claim her. Part of her soul will be forever stuck with them.”

I could honestly say now after this incident Grandma was not as welcomed by my mother, a devoted Christian, to our home.

On the other hand, during my childhood, I kept having the most peculiar dream. Almost every night I would walk different paths with a tall dark woman by my side. There was nothing particularly terrifying about my dream.

We would just walk together side by side every night and still I would wet myself every time I dreamt about her.

It took me a long time to complain about this to my parents I remember being visited by various doctors, priests and eventually by grandma Vesna.

She told me this story and I told her about my dream and the dark lady. She explained to me that She would interfere if I would let her do so. Nonetheless, to say I did. That night Grandma took her knife and we slept together in the same room: I, grandma and my unknown lady.

I have never dreamt about it again and Grandma never told me what she actually happened.

Simona Djukovska, 23, Macedonia