WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Hi, Rebecca Shear here. This week we're bringing you an encore edition of Circle Round.

It's a high adventure tale from the far north, and it's definitely

become a listener favorite. We'll be back with a new episode next week.

Think about what winters are like where you live.

Are they chilly and snowy, or are temperatures more moderate?

Today's story takes place in a spot where winters are intense,

thanks in part to a supernatural spirit with a very cold shoulder.

Woo-hoo! Woo-ha! a very cold shoulder.

I'm Rebecca Shear and welcome to Circle Round, where story time happens all the time.

Today our story is called The Blizzard Wizard.

Versions of this tale have been told among the indigenous peoples of far north Siberia,

near the Arctic Ocean. Some really great people came together to bring you our adaptation of this folktale, including Vivian Lyra Blair, who stars as young Princess Leia in the Disney Plus

Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And grown-ups, you can see Vivian in the new feature film, The Boogie Man.

So circle round, everyone.

For the Blizzard Wizard.

In the far north, where the vast, treeless tundra reaches as far as the eye can see, a long-haired girl named Ayanna

lived with her mother, a talented seamstress. In Ayanna's part of the world, most of the year it was

winter, which meant plenty of long nights and short days. So soon after Ayanna greeted the sun

as it peaked its head above the horizon, hello, she bit it farewell as it dipped back down again.

Goodbye, son. But winters weren't just dark in Ayanna's part of the world.

They were cold.

...