Thus many a title in Croatian newspapers the last week or so. There are many variations, as well. Here one reads that Zagreb is shackled by snow, there that Split is shackled by snow, and over yonder that Slavonia is shackled by snow. In short, everything is shackled by snow. Other terms are not used. For instance, nothing is paralyzed or seized or halted by snow. At first I was annoyed by the omnipresent term, but then it crossed my mind that it has deep historical roots. It goes way back, too. All the way to the arrival of the Slavs to the European sub-continent, when many were shackled for true. Chances are that it is also popular across much of Central and Eastern Europe, where Slavs have settled.