Fleeting are man's days on earth. The great road starts thereafter. Among the living there is scarcely anyone who would exchange this world for anything, even in one's remotest thoughts. Destiny is such that we meet all sorts of people, encounter  adventures, experience ups and downs...
  In this respect, I count myself among the luckiest - befriended as I am by the chosen... If others often only dream of catching a glimpse of them, I have been fortunate to be bounded to many by years of friendship and each has become part of my soul.
   It was the work of destinys, now I wouldn't hesitate to say it aloud, that this story enveloped in a mythical shroud occured in my life.
In this temporary world I met and befriended her: the daughter of Vazha-Pshavela, Gulkan Razikashvili.
   I wrote down her narratives for months, conversed with her, adored her... For three years she was constantly on my mind.
   I felt my heart was drawn to Chargali and I gravitated there if only I had time.
   I had so much to ask her, and my memory was so alive to every single sound uttered by her.
   “My father's feet are in the same riverbed as mine. And we also traversed the years in the same way”, she told me from the very beginning.
   To me her words had a touch of haughtiness at first, but then I understood there was no room for haughtiness or falsifiaction in them.
   Gulkan was the rightful heiress of her incomparable father, attested by every sound and word streaming brilliantly out of her.
   “They say there is no other bard of nature in the world as my father”,  she confessed to me with a sense of doubt-inflected pride.
   I am a student of folklore and in the hills and dales of Georgia have crossed paths with too many people advanced in their years. Their life-stories have been as diverse as the heart-strings I came to strike.  Meeting Gulkan, however, was something different. It was my first encounter with one who held death in derision and could not care less.
   “I don't dread the approach of death. It is old age of which I fear”, she said.
   Gulkan was born in Vazha's house. Thanks to her we see Vazha's image, are admitted to the presence of his soul and attend myriad rituals.
   Among the customs and rites, which Gulkan narrates, the memories of New Year in Chargali and her acting as first-footer seem particularly timeless.
   Congratulations on the advent of New Year to you, my dearly cherished country and boundlessly beloved people.
   Let us for a fraction of second look back to the homestead of Vazha Pshavela and see what was going on there a century back in those blissful days.

Eter Tataraidze
 

   For the first-footer's* arrival a cake was baked  Khartgoga. Another cake met the first-footer in the doorway. Three times the first-footer would roll it to the hearth. If the cake landed upright, things would go well that year. But if the cake landed upright three times, a wave of happiness would then flood the house...
   Our first-footer was Bachana's son, Pavle, and good luck his foot bore us...
   Our grandparents had a stroke of genius: on New Year's Day they would searchingly peer through the ashes: the sign of a hoof meant the cattle would thrive. The harvest too was read in these ashes... Once my aunt told me: “Come, see the ashes”. I went and looked and there it was  the tip of a hoof.... Then the first-footer would come and say:    “In with my foot and in with God's blessing. May my foot be the footprint of an angel, may your fields flow with riches, as well as everything you grow and beget...”
   New Year's Eve was called Litania.
   Father would tell me: "Gulkan, my dear girl, this evening is time for a nut game. Bring me nuts and walnuts, as many as you can, I'll spread them out for you and you'll play. For the winner I'll bake two fortune cakes. Then we'll fill a bowl with honey and butter and start our meat-dumplings. Dear girl, New Year is dawning, pray play the accordion and let the children dance"...
   And, indeed, my father would scatter walnuts for the children...
   The accordion...the accordion... overflowing as it was with music!..
   "We do this so that joy and cheer will always be with you, dear girl", he would say.
   Then he would assemble us on the threshing floor, accordion in hand and dancing in full flow. Himself he had to write and dared not keep us in - we would have blown up the place!...
   "Don't use your fists today or you'll quarrel all year".
   Our neighbours' children kept flooding into our home, because of the accordion...
   Thus I advanced through the years... cawing foolishly every now and then:
 
 In our master's courtyard
 A tree sprang up into a poplar,
 Grapes blaze on its top branch
 Beckon women,
 Bagrat's women
 Often they come to the poplar...
 
   But more often I would sing... What did I like most?
 
 - God bless you, dear fellow,
 Don't let dogs tear me to bits!
 - Undo I won't dog's mouth,
 If be you therein...
   And another song, which we sang on New Year's night:

 - Full-hearted you are
 And astride a hearty roan you ride,
 Why don't you throw me a glance
 Why should my eyes weep at fields!.
 - Can that be you, dear maid,
 Who to me goddess did play,
 Beware, lest I have you
 Wriggling through needle's eye.
 
   And blowing did my cool go...
   Then Nina would come, daughter of Kidulaant Bzaka (his name was Khoshia actually, but he was called Bzaka): “O' girl, good your foot was as fine as gold to us. Do come round in the morning”.
   But father would send me nowhere...
   “My dear uncle  she would beg him  My dear Luca, pray let her come to our place, her foot was as fine as gold to us”...
   I'll tell you about another trip as well.
   My father equipped me with a walnut bowl for the next morning - Mkhvivnura. He filled it with meat-dumplings  fifteen of them. Father's dumplings were something else, juicy and full of pepper and greens. He filled my pockets with sweets too and gave me a bottle of wine...
   Theirs was the dog from hell!
   Approaching the homestead I cried out: Ninooo!
   The dog ran at me in a frenzy. I threw the wine bottle first but missed the devilish mark. Then I flung the dumpling bowl. Accursed was the dog, did not care a damn for it... Down the frozen land rolled the dumplings that father had made...
   Nina rushed out: "O sister, O sister, did it try to get you?"
   Like hell it did, sister, I kept it shaking off...
   “May the Father of Lights bless your luck and the New Year give a boost to your life...”
   Then we would kiss each other and fool around...
   Bzaka filled my father's bowl with meat-dumplings. And I retraced my steps homeward.
I was a first-footer with feet of gold....