Song of Freedom

About the Book

It’s time for the Wind Whisperers to make their annual journey to the top of Crystal Mountain, a sacred place of gathering, to awaken spring. Melashka is one of the twelve female volunteers participating in this arduous trek. The trip goes horribly wrong when the demon of the swamp, Mara, kidnaps the whole group. Chuga loves his sister, Melashka, with all his heart and needs to save her and the others. But first, he must melt the heart of winter and awaken spring. A story about the love a brother has for his sister, this folktale was written to bring kidnapped children home.

About the Author

Olha Onyshko is an American Ukrainian award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter and author. “Song of Freedom or How the Wind Whisperers Saved Spring” is the second book from Onyshko’s Six Elements Series and is dedicated to the power of sound. The first one, “Legends of Water”, is about the power of water, connection with the forces of nature and memories of home. The upcoming third book of the series “The Origins of Rainbow” is about the power of light and color. The series reflect Olha’s desire to awaken power of Six Elements and bring a new possibility of healing and rebirth to everyone who needs it. Being an immigrant herself, Onyshko asked Ukrainian artists, fleeing the war, to illustrate her books in order to support and preserve their artistic style and identity in a new land. Olha learned of the Wind Whisperers when she was still a student and visited a town of Bolekhiv from a local poetess, Kateryna Kuybida. Since then her imagination was captured by beings who “knew the secrets of the world, could fly with the winds, yet looked like common people living in the villages of the Carpathian Mountains”. The inspiration for the character Melashka became Mariya Illyuk, a legendary storyteller of Dzembronya, a village in the highest mountains in the Carpathians. The author shares her love for the majesty of the mountains. Onyshko originally wrote this story in 2015, but with the start of the war in 2022 and the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children, the story took its own turn. Now the legend offers encrypted ancient spells of Wind Whisperers to return the divine order in hearts and lands where it’s needed.