"One for Sorrow" is a traditional children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies one sees determines if one will have bad luck or not. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20096. Lyrics There is considerable variation in the lyrics used. The following is perhaps the most common modern version: :One for sorrow, :Two for joy, :Three for a girl, :Four for a boy, :Five for silver, :Six for gold, :Seven for a secret, :Never to be told. Origins The rhyme has its origins in superstitions connected with magpies, considered a bird of ill om...

And Quiet Flows the Don or Quietly Flows the Don (Тихий Дон, literally "The Quiet Don") is an epic novel in four volumes by Russian writer Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov. The first three volumes were written from 1925 to 1932 and published in the Soviet magazine October in 1928–1932, and the fourth volume was finished in 1940. The English translation of the first three volumes appeared under this title in 1934. The novel is considered one of the most significant works of Russian literature in the 20th century. It depicts the lives and struggles of Don Cossacks during the First W...