Challenging Poetry

Moldova: the hero of the story

whose story was it
tragedy and triumph?

in the hunt, three came
together—Dragos and Molda
and the aurochs, swift and strong,
who, maddened caught a dog
in his mighty horns and smashed it to
the river.

Dragos killed
the aurochs, and dismounted
by the river to mourn his dog,
and so Dragos ruled.

Molda, the dog,
drowned, and gave the river
and the country her name.

but no one remembers
the name of the aurochs
whose story it was.


Author's Note ▶︎

In one of the legends of the founding of Moldova, this story is told. For some reason, I was struck by the fact that the reason that they were hunting was an aurochs (a kind of ox--swifter and angrier than our modern cattle--more like hunting a bull with horns that are wider than I am tall) that is now extinct--some interesting research there). A lot is made of Molda, the dog who drowned (I'm not sure that the aurochs was responsible, but it seems likely given how they respond to being hunted) and to Dragos, who founded the principality that became Moldova, but the being that brought everything together isn't named. Moldova still uses the aurochs as a heraldic symbol.