Enchanted Musicians

The novel is set in the sixteenth century in the town of Zhuravno on the Dniester, where a young nobleman, Matvii Domnytskyi, has just become engaged to a young lady in a marriage arranged by their parents to secure peace between two noble families, though Matvii himself feels no warmth toward the match. One evening, while grazing horses with other shepherds by the river, he hears unearthly music and then sees three enchanted musicians on magnificent horses, followed by a mysterious lady with fiery hair. With a single dazzling glance, the woman wounds Matvii straight through the heart — and from that moment a wound remains on his chest, while his life is turned upside down. He breaks off the engagement, disappears from his family home, and from then on wanders the world in search of the strange Lady, gradually passing beyond the bounds of ordinary human existence.