The old babushka, her face as creviced as the earth after a long drought, and clothes the color of the earth, but clean and rubbed thin by the many washings, but never enough to remove all of the fleas, sat her young grandchildren before her. She told them the tale that her own grandmother had told her when she was no older than five, but she remembered it as if it was just yesterday. She began her story in a thin crackling voice, speaking with shriveled lips from a mouth that held no teeth. The children sat quiet and attentive.

"There was once three brothers who lived in the rich fertile northern lands of the Vistula," she began her tale. "The river was very good to them. The river was full of fish, and the forests were full of game. But they soon came to realize that there was becoming too many of them. They were becoming crowded with all of their children and they were afraid they would wear the land out, and fish the rivers out, and then they would all starve.

"But as brothers they wished nothing more than to settle the issue peacefully. There names were Rus, Lech, and Czech.

Then one day they decided that something would have to be done, or they would be so many that they would all have to struggle for the fish from the rivers, and the game from the forests. The three brothers, Rus, Lech, and Czech, went into the forest. Lech climbed the highest tree that they could find, and from atop his perch swaying in the wind he looked into the lands around them. He yelled down to his brothers that in the east was a great fertile steppe and rich river valleys and enough land for a family to grow for centuries. His brother Rus said that sounded just fine to him and he gathered his family and his herds, and they moved off into the east. They are now the great nation of the Russians.

"Lech then looked to the south. He yelled down to his brother Czech that the land there had mountains and valleys and rivers and a much brighter sun that would be warmer than the wind swept land they were all accustomed to and the land would allow for a large family to prosper, and Czech said that sounded fine to him, and he gathered his family and his herds and he moved them to the south. They are now the great nation of the Czechs.

"Then Lech looked to the west and he saw dense forests and a fierce looking people and the last thing he could do was turn his family to the west to be devoured by those people.

"To the north was the sea.

"As he pondered his choices while climbing down from the tree, he spied a bird's nest, and everything suddenly became clear to him. Since his brother Rus and Czech had already left and taken their families with them, then there would be enough land for his family to remain just right where they were. He started a new city in the middle of the forest and he called it Gniezno, or 'bird's nest', and it is still a city today and Lech's family soon grew into the tribe of the Poliane."

She looked at children that were of her blood and she was delighted that there was so many of them, and she sat back in her chair, nodded her head, and just before she took her afternoon nap she had one more thing to say to her children's children.

"Have many children. Or Rus or Czech will want this land back. Or the Germans will come and take it away from you."

--- The Nazi Virus by Philip J. Welch. Available from the INSURGENT, $20 post paid