May Night, or the Drowned Maiden by Nikolai Gogol. Short summary

5 seconds

A young Cossack finds the mermaid’s stepmother, who once ruined the girl. For this, the drowned woman helps him marry his beloved.

1 minute

The young Cossack Levko comes to the beautiful Ganna. He loves her and wants to marry her, but his father does not allow it. It turns out that he himself is in love with the girl.

The young people talk about the abandoned house. Levko tells them that a young woman lived there who had been quarreled with her father and driven out of the house by a witch of a stepmother. With grief the girl drowned herself and became a mermaid.

One day she dragged the stepmother under water, but the cunning witch turned into a mermaid. According to legend, when the mermaid meets a man, she asks him to find her stepmother among the mermaids. Otherwise he will be threatened with death.

Levko comes to an abandoned house and falls asleep. He sees the mermaid, who asks him to find his stepmother among her friends. Levko complies with her request, and she gives him the paper.

Waking up, he sees a letter in his hand. There, an important superior orders Levko to marry Ganna. The young man’s father undertakes to carry out the order.