A May Night

Characters

• Levko Makohonenko — young Cossack and son of the village headman: A musician in love with Hanna who leads the night’s prank and helps the drowned maiden identify the witch.
• Hanna Petritchenka — Levko’s beloved: A seventeen-year-old girl who loves Levko but awaits his father’s consent to their marriage.
• the village headman, Javtuk Makohonenko — village headman and Levko’s father: A one-eyed, vain, overbearing official who blocks his son’s marriage and boasts of meeting the empress.
• the drowned maiden — ghost of the Cossack captain’s daughter: A dead young woman who asks Levko to find her cruel witch stepmother among the drowned maidens.
• the witch stepmother — antagonist in the drowned maiden’s legend: A witch who destroyed her stepdaughter and hides among the other drowned maidens.
• Kalenik — drunken village Cossack: A comic drunk who cannot find his house and mistakenly lands at the headman’s.
• the brandy-distiller — overseer sent to build the distillery: The headman’s squat, superstitious, talkative guest, who tells the story of the dumpling-eating corpse.
• the clerk — the village clerk: The headman's helper in the night hunt for the lads, and a butt of the general laughter.
• the sister-in-law — keeps house for the widowed headman: She watches the headman jealously and is locked up by mistake in the lad's place.