Cross of Lada-Virgin Mary- A symbol of Love, Harmony and Happiness in the family, the people called him Ladinets. As an amulet, it was mainly worn by girls in order to have protection from the "evil eye". And so that the strength of the power of Ladin was constant, he was inscribed in the Great Kolo (Circle).
Ladinets, also known as the Harmony of the Feminine, is a female Amulet that brings the female essence to harmony. Calmness and joy in the soul are immediately reflected in the appearance - you become more beautiful and attractive, and most importantly - healthier.
The amulet gives peace, joy and self-awareness as a Woman.
The red ray remains unchanged in any case, the color of the second ray changes depending on the sign of the Zodiac.
Fire - Aries, Leo, Sagittarius,
Water - Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces,
Earth - Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn,
Air - Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
For the elements of the Earth - the classic black color (many embroider dark green).
For the element of Fire, black is also used (many embroider dark brown).
For the element of Air - blue.
For the element of Water - blue or turquoise.
Ladinets are usually embroidered in combination with roses.
A girl, a woman who was presented with the amulet Ladinets or the Harmony of the Feminine, should, after receiving the gift, walk in a skirt and dresses for 40 days !!! Even at home, you need to wear bathrobes or sundresses, in trousers, shorts, etc. it is forbidden! This applies to yourself as well! It is very important!
Another Ladinets is a popular and simplified name for the amulet "Kolo-Ladnik".
Ladinets is a couple to Kolyadnik (Rodovich). Together they personify the feminine (Ladinets) and masculine (Kolyadnik) principles, and form a heavenly family.
The Slavs called the Goddess Lada the great Mother Goddess, or the Woman in Childbirth. It is Kolo (circle, feminine) and 8 elements (the symbol of infinity) that emphasize the feminine character of the amulet, harmony and the embodiment in eternity of all living things and things.
Kolo-Ladnik or Ladinets can be seen paired with Kolyadnik inside the family home - these are symbols of the giving and receiving beginnings, they personify the unity of a man and a woman, and are twisted in a whirlwind of solar movement, which is embodied in 2 amulets.
Ladinets is given to a woman, and regardless of her marital status. If Ladinets is worn by an unmarried girl, a girl, he reveals femininity, feminine qualities and character traits in her. For a married woman, Ladinets will help give birth to healthy children, promote family well-being, keep Peace, Harmony and Consent in the house.
The Cross of the Lada of the Virgin (Ladinets) is a Symbol of Love, Harmony and Happiness in the family. This amulet was worn mainly by girls in order to have protection from the "evil eye". In order for the strength and power of Ladin to be constant, the amulet was inscribed in the Great Kolo (Circle).
If there is a Ladinets amulet in the house, Trouble will never befall him. For this pattern, the traditional colors are blue and emerald green.
When to embroider: 10, 14 lunar day.
NATURAL ELEMENTS
Solar symbolism is the symbolism of the solar element, the sun, the solar light gods.
The gods of the sun in Slavic paganism are Dazhdbog, Svarog, Khors. They are light, that is, representing the power of the Rule of the gods. Rule - the upper, heavenly world in Slavic mythology. The Slavs represented the Rule as an ideal world, where the laws of justice and honor prevail. Many Russian words tell us about this: correct (as in Prav), spravny (with Prav), rule (in justice), right (in both meanings). Solar symbolism is one of the brightest in the Slavic tradition. Among the solar signs, perhaps, there is not a single one that is harmful. On the contrary, all signs are associated with the acquisition of both material and spiritual goods, their multiplication. The sun in paganism is also an all-seeing eye, which is why, if there was a need, they committed a crime at night - maybe the gods of the Rule will not notice; therefore, evil spirits and dark wizards are activated at night. In the sunny time of the day, on the contrary, the light forces that help man and nature predominate. However, this is only one side of the coin.
Sun
The image of heavenly waters was only a part of a more general picture of the world, where the sky-water layer was only a distant background, and the main thing was the sun in its measured path across the firmament of the middle sky.
It is extremely important to note that in the entire decor of Russian huts of the 18th-19th centuries, throughout the vast expanse of the twelve northern provinces of Russia, the solar signs abounding in this decor were never placed above the sky-water zone, that is, they did not violate the ancient Slavic ideas about the upper sky. The zone of movement of the sun since the Eneolithic was the middle sky, separated by firmament from the sky-water zone of the upper sky.
This ancient picture of the world was observed with amazing rigor in the system of architectural decoration: the path of the sun across the middle sky is emphasized by the fact that artificial, special boards, “towels” that did not play any constructive role, descended vertically down from the chapels, were used to show solar signs.
The positions of the luminary at sunrise and sunset were indicated by the placement of solar signs at the lower end of both piers, and they thus turned out to be in overall composition pattern below that part of the chauffeurs, on which the "heavenly abysses" were depicted. Sometimes here, too, to show the morning-evening positions of the sun, they resorted to using two vertical "towels" at the edges of the piers.
Sometimes the path of the sun was marked not by three standard positions, but additionally by several more intermediate signs attached to the lower edge of the piers. The daily course of the sun in these cases was marked by twelve solar signs.
Consider the solar signs that were part of the general defense system of the Russian house from ghouls and navi.
First of all, it should be said that in these three positions (morning, noon and evening), the sun signs were depicted not just as one of the elements of decoration, but quite meaningfully, with a deep symbolic meaning. This is confirmed by the fact that they were almost never placed separately, but always in combination with other symbols - the earth, the sown field, sometimes water. The mutual position of different symbols in one complex additionally emphasized the daytime movement of the sun.
The solar signs themselves are represented by several types. The most stable is a circle with six radii ("Jupiter's wheel"). There is a circle with a cross inside it, and sometimes with eight rays. The rising or setting sun can be shown as a semicircle (arc upwards) with three rays.
Of particular interest are numerous signs depicting a "running" sun: several arcuate lines arranged radially are cut inside the circle; they give the impression of a rolling wheel with curved spokes. The direction of the curvature is always the same: the upper line in the circle has a bulge to the left, the lower one to the right, which determines the position of all the intermediate spokes of this solar wheel. Sometimes the movement of the sun is expressed by only three such arcs, but usually there are many.
Next to the symbol of the sun, one or another symbol of the earth, the field is almost always adjacent.
The sign denoting the earth is an ancient, still Eneolithic symbol of the field and fertility in the form of a rhombus or square, set at an angle and divided into four parts. It stably existed for several millennia and is well reflected in the Russian medieval applied arts, in church decorative painting and is presented in ethnographic material, mainly in the patterns of the bride's wedding clothes, which once again testifies to the connection with the idea of fertility.
The second group of signs depicts plowed land in the form of a large rectangle or rhombus, drawn along and across. Rectangles and rhombuses, formed by rows of small holes, were depicted on the huts of the huts. In addition, rhombuses are almost always carved on the edge of the berths.
a) "Towels" of the morning, noon and evening complexes with security marks;
B) Midday complex image of the entire daily sun (three daytime suns and two nighttime and white light - in the center);
C) Morning security complex of patterns: the symbol of the night sun on the “towel” and the rising sun on the berth;
D) "Towel" with the image of white light;
E) "Towels" of the midday complex with two suns and a cross
Sometimes the sun is shown as having already risen, above the earth; in these cases, the land is shown not as a rectangle, but as a sign of fertility - a crossed square. In the complex of the lower ends of the piers, the sun is very often depicted as “running”, which is quite consistent with the visual perception of the course of the sun - at sunrise and sunset, the movement of the luminary, rapidly rising or falling relative to the horizon, is especially noticeable.
Noon. The midday sun was depicted on the facade of the hut, at the very top, under the dominant figure of a gable horse, but, as already mentioned, still below the "abyss of heaven", which was the upper sky. In order to leave the sun in its proper tier, the old craftsmen attached a short “towel” board to the tong, hanging vertically down the facade. It was at the lower end of this “towel” that the midday complex of solar signs was located.
The midday complex has always been richer than the morning-evening ones. Most often, two suns were depicted here, just as on the calendar the month of the summer solstice (June) was indicated not by one cross, like other solar phases, but by two crosses.
Two suns one below the other could be the same (usually with six rays), but one of them could be given in the dynamic form of a running wheel. In some cases (in Christian times), an image of an Orthodox cross was placed above the suns, giving clarity to the semantics of solar signs - they were also sacred and had the same power as the cross used to drive away demons.
On some "towels" the entire daily course of the sun was depicted: at the top there are three daily positions of the sun (morning, noon and evening), below are two positions of the night underground sun, and in the center is a huge radiant circle, symbolizing the “white light”, the Universe, illuminated, according to Russian people of the XII-XIII centuries, “with an intangible and inscrutable light” .
Symbols of the earth, as a rule, are absent in the midday composition, but sometimes they are still depicted. In these cases, they are necessarily associated with the sun: either the sun shines on the earth approaching it (from above and below), or a small symbol of the earth is placed between two running suns, and it turns out to be, as it were, comprehensively illuminated.
Perhaps the fundamental sign of solar symbolism. For the first time, this symbol, along with some other symbols of Germanic paganism, was appropriated by Adolf Hitler for his fascist power. Since then, it has become customary that if the swastika is, then we are talking about fascism. In fact, the swastika has nothing to do with the outrage called fascism. This sign is an image of the sun, an appeal to the bright gods; it brings goodness and justice to the world of Reveal, carries a huge charge of light magical energy.
The classical Sanskrit name of this symbol comes from the Indo-European root "su/swa", which means "associated with good". Let us remember the bird Mother Sva (the patroness of Rus'), the god Svarog, Svarga - the habitat of the bright gods of Slavic myths. The word "light" belongs to the same root. Among the Slavs, the swastika was called Kolovrat or solstice. However, Kolovrat still begins with six rays. Since kolo is a circle, a ring, a wheel, a well, a bun. Kolovrat in all ages and among all peoples was a symbol of the sun, there is even reason to believe that the sun in ancient times was called exactly “kolo”.
Also, some authors associate it with the unity of statics and dynamics. Moreover, only a rotating swastika has a dynamic meaning. If it rotates clockwise (to the right), then it symbolizes the desire for everything related to life, with positive qualities and an active masculine principle; rotation counterclockwise, on the contrary, indicates dying, the denial of all positive and passivity of behavior. Absolutely opposite is the interpretation of the direction of rotation of their swastika by the Greeks (who called this sign "tetraxele" - "four-legged", "four-pointed"), since they learned about the swastika from Slavic peoples unfriendly to them and decided that what the Slavs - Rule, they - Hades . Hence a lot of confusion with the direction of rotation and the direction of the rays of the swastikas. The swastika is not only a four-beam sign. There are also swastikas with 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 or more rays. Each type of swastika has its own specific magical meaning. Let's look at some types of swastikas.
The six-pointed cross enclosed in a circle is the thunder sign of Perun.
This sign was very widespread, it was known by the Scandinavians, the Celts, and the Slavs. We can see the thunder sign in the ornament of Russian spinning wheels and on huts right up to our time. They cut it out on them for a reason. In huts, it was carved on a kokoshnik (a board hanging from the end of a ridge) as a magical lightning rod.
Also, the thunder sign - a sign of courage, military prowess - was the magic sign of the Russian squad. This sign can be found on helmets, armor plates. This sign was also embroidered on a men's shirt.
The eight-ray Kolovrat is a sign under which the revival of Slavic paganism is now taking place.
You can see it on the banners of modern pagan communities. Such an honor was given to this sign not by chance. This is a sign of Svarog, the creator god, the god of wisdom. It was Svarog who created the Earth, people (through Dazhdbog), gave people many knowledge, including metal and a plow. The sign of Svarog is a sign of wisdom and higher justice, a sign of Rule. Also, the stake of Svarog is a symbol of the universe. The device of the universal wheel of Svarog is very difficult. Its center is on Stozhar-Stlyazi - the celestial axis. It rotates around Stozhar in one day and makes a revolution in a year. The very slow rotation of the wheel leads to a change in the zodiacal epochs. Such a revolution of the wheel lasts 27 thousand years. This time is called the day of Svarog.
Trixel is a three-branched swastika. In the north, a “broken” one is used, that is, a trixel that does not have connections between the rays. Its magical meaning is not known very accurately. This is a sign of "that which leads", a sign that guides the development of an event in the right direction. This is a rune associated with the direction and orientation of human activity. Simply put, this sign orients a person in life, serves as a kind of guiding star for him. Also, some scientists associate this sign with time and the god of time, among the Slavs - with the Number God, and the three rays of the trixel - with three legs bent at the knees (running), but this definition is very superficial: it is based only on the Greek interpretation of the name of the sign: tri - "three", kselos - "bone, limb".
Following the Greek terminology, the four-armed swastika is called a tetraxel.
So, the main forms of the solar symbolism of the swastika are considered. However, there are also many other solar symbols that are less characteristic of the Slavic peoples, for example, the "dragon's eye" - a three-beam swastika with connected rays, used in Wales (Great Britain) in earth magic; the so-called "Celtic version" - a swastika with wavy curved rays inscribed in a circle, a sonnenrad (by the way, it was the emblem of some SS divisions), a "cross of initiation" and many others ...
Also a solar symbol. We do not attribute it to the swastika very conditionally - the cross is also a swastika, only without rays receding to the side. The cross has become one of the most famous Christian symbols. And not only. For example, Catholic missionaries preaching in China saw crosses depicted on the statues of Buddha, whose teaching arose about six centuries before Christianity, and Spanish conquistadors witnessed the veneration of the cross by North American pagan Indians as a fusion of Heavenly fire and Earthly fire.
The word "cross" comes from the common European root cru, which means "curved". We can observe this root in the words circle, curve, steep. Crux is Latin for "cross". There is another version that the word "cross" comes from the Slavic root "kres" - "fire" (compare: kresal - a tool for kindling a fire).
Archaeological evidence suggests that the cross was revered as a symbol as far back as the Upper Paleolithic. The cross is a symbol of life, heaven and eternity. The correct (equilateral) cross symbolizes the principle of connection and interaction of two principles: female (horizontal line) and male (vertical). Crosses are also divided into a straight line, i.e. having horizontal and vertical lines, and an oblique one, having two diagonal lines, with a straight cross personifying a male aggressive creative principle, an oblique one representing a softer creative principle.
A straight cross can also serve as a primitive model of the World Tree, where the vertical line is the World Tree, and the horizontal line is the world of Reveal. Accordingly, a cross with a horizontal line shifted upward indicates the location of the world of Rule on the Tree, downward - the world of Navi. Naturally, these crosses have a corresponding magical meaning.
Consider the main types of crosses characteristic of the Nordic tradition.
The Celtic cross, or kolokryzh, most accurately demonstrates the similarity of the cross with the swastika and all the conventionality of their separation. Look at the six- and eight-beam kolovrats presented in this work. In addition to the number of rays, these signs do not change anything. Despite the fact that this cross is called Celtic, it is known to almost all Indo-Europeans, including the Slavs. The history of the Celtic cross has at least 8-9 millennia. The Celts especially revered this cross. The Celtic cross was also called the "cross of the warrior", "the cross of Wotan" (Odin).
The twelve-pointed cross is a cross with a crossbar on each beam, or a swastika with rays extended to the left (for a dark one - to the right). The purpose of this cross is protection from external influences. Also, many researchers talk about this sign as a magical sign of the Family. It is also called the "helm of terror". This symbol was widespread in ancient times: there is archaeological evidence for this - many amulets with a "helmet of horror" were found in the territories of the Scythians, Mordovians, Indo-European peoples; in the Middle Ages, they decorated the walls of houses and wooden products, as well as often church utensils. The most powerful symbol among the "helms of horror" is the so-called Aegishjalm (Scandinavian name), or the Cross of Invincibility - this symbol surpasses all others in its effectiveness.
Abysses of heaven
The magical system of protection from evil spirits provided for the image not only of the sun and its path through the sky, but also the sky itself as a reservoir of rainwater, necessary for the growth of all living things.
So, the upper contour of the gable pediment of the Slavic house was the sky, along which the sun makes its daily path from the lower left end of the roof up to the gable of the roof, to its “ridge” and further down to the lower right end of the roof.
The firmament consisted of two heavens - water and solar-air, separated by a transparent "firmament of heaven". As for rain, the ancient Slavs believed that rain moisture is taken from the heavenly water reserves stored in the upper sky, located above the middle sky, through which the sun and moon move. The reserves of water in the sky were called "heavenly abysses" in the Old Russian language. Heavy rain, downpour was defined by the phrase: “the abysses of heaven opened up”, that is, the heavenly water opened up, received freedom and rushed down to the earth.
The “firmament” in the medieval sense held the “abyss of heaven” somewhere in an inaccessible height above the airspace of the ordinary sky. This bifurcation of the sky was reflected in the Russian language in the words "heaven" (singular) and "heaven" (plural).
The heavenly abysses of the upper sky were almost always depicted on the sides of house roofs. The most common is a wavy ornament or a pattern of towns, which at a distance are also perceived as waves. Usually the waves of the hackneyed "firmament" go in 2-3 rows, as if emphasizing the depth of the water sky. Very often, along with wavy lines, small circles are depicted, symbolizing raindrops.
Prichelina with the image of wavy jets are known in the Novgorod region, in the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Ulyanovsk, Gorky, in the Russian villages of Karelia and in a number of other places in Central Russia and the North.
Another symbol depicted along with heavenly water was the symbols of female breasts. They are known to us from the Novgorod prichelinas of the 11th-15th centuries. The breasts were depicted either in the form of a pattern, where this plot is repetitive, or as paired images of two breasts, carefully marked by the carver, but also forming a wavy pattern in their repetition.
Sometimes the motif of the female breast was conveyed by rounded protrusions on the lower edge of the chapels (going continuously or in pairs, with intervals between pairs), but much more often it was depicted in the form of small jagged (stepped) towns, which at a distance, for a person looking from below, gave a complete illusion that symbolic figure of the chest, which was so carefully and naturalistically carved by the Novgorod carver of the times of Yaroslav the Wise.
Eneolithic farmers imagined rain streams as a stream of milk from the Mother Goddess. And initially, the Slavic pagans revered two heavenly goddesses-children, whose cult was then combined with the veneration of the male heavenly deity - Rod and even survived it, surviving until the 19th century. in a whole series of peasant embroideries.
In medieval Russian, words such as "chest" and "pile" were very close. "Dewy breast" - dew drops that help plants drink heavenly moisture - "dew birth drops." Russian pagans XII-XIII centuries. it was believed that the dew falling from heaven in the form of a mist-cloud is sent by Rod, the god of the sky, precisely as the moisture of life.
The prichelins of Russian huts were decorated in two or four rows. The top row was most often occupied by a zigzag line, a stable ancient symbol of water, in this case - "the abyss of heaven", inaccessible rain reserves. Below there was a row of towns or paired images of female breasts, obviously associated with the idea of the heavenly goddesses in labor, who, according to the ancient hunters, gave birth to “small deer”, and according to the farmers, shed rain on the fields. These two main rows were sometimes interspersed with rows of through round holes depicting raindrops. Towns and semicircles of the lower row were often supplied with the same circles.
Often there is (moreover, in different remote places) a combination in one row of semicircles-breasts with a circle in the middle and short zigzags between them. Here, obviously, the teeth between the semicircles can be interpreted as adding the symbol of water to the image of cloud-breasts.
So, in the patterns of the huts, two ideas inextricably linked with each other were shown: firstly, the presence of rainwater reserves in the upper sky (above the firmament), and secondly, the transfer of this water down to the ground to the plowmen, shown by means of a mythological symbol breasts of heavenly goddesses, irrigating the earth with "birth" "breasts of dew."
Fire
Fire ... Probably, even the most urban person at least once in his life looked at a live fire, not from a gas stove or a lighter, but a real one, which is in a stove or a fire. A spectacle that captivates the eye and mind. Naturally, in a pagan, fire evokes the same feelings.
Fire for a pagan is not just a chemical process, it is a sacred phenomenon. The concept of sacrificial fire (earthly fire) is directly related to this phenomenon - the smoke from the sacrificial fire carries the essences of the victims to Iriy (essences because it is difficult to say that, for example, a pancake has a soul or not, but any object has an essence ). There is also heavenly fire - the fire of the heavenly forge of Svarog. Torah is one of the main creative forces. Let's draw some analogies with the Sun and plasma and the Big Bang theory and the period of the formation of the Earth, when active tectonic processes and volcanic eruptions took place on it. It would also be appropriate to recall the fiery sword - a symbol of justice and Rule, which many heroes of fantasy and historical characters are armed with. contemporary works. Even the Jedi Knights from the George Lucas films, who are essentially pagan, are armed with lightsabers.
There is also a Navi fire, here we will draw analogies with the Christian cult, in which sinners who are in hell are roasted by devils on fires in seven cooking modes for these very sinners (see “ Divine Comedy» Dante). This primitive belief about the unfortunate fate of sinners has its roots in a wider and more justified pagan idea of Nava fire. A pagan associates Nav with an underground fiery kingdom (remember the Greek Hades) - and by the way, no one is fried there, just an underground fire is understood as an element. Here it would be appropriate to recall the fire-breathing dragons and snakes - they are also the children of Navi. The fire of Navi can be interpreted as a regressive, destructive force that burns goodness and light. After all, you can burn your heart with love (heavenly fire), or you can burn your soul with drunkenness and deceit.
Now let's look at the graphic images of these signs. The signs of fire, especially the heavenly forge, are quite difficult signs to perform and understand.
They represent, as a rule, four-part swastika-shaped signs, but this is not quite a swastika, because the fire does not spin anywhere, the rays, but rather even the flames are located differently than the swastikas. They are associated not only with the formation and orientation of human activity (at any level) in the right direction, but also with giving it necessary force. The second aspect is disclosure. It is obvious that both aspects are interconnected - it is impossible to realize the plan without revealing oneself to the world. From these signs the rune of fertility and heritage is made.
Flint - a means for obtaining and maintaining fire - in Ancient Rus' was a common and familiar household item.
A device for producing fire, an oval-shaped metal plate with open ends, which are bent inward or outward in such a way that rings are formed - “antennae”. In earlier times, in Russian life, a flint was known, which had the shape of a dagger without a handle, with blunt edges and a sharp end. Its length ranged from 9 to 30 cm. To obtain fire, it was necessary to have flint and tinder in addition to flint. The man who made the fire struck the flint with a flint, and the sparks that appeared at the same time were caught on the tinder lying in a box with a lid - a tinderbox. The fire flared up in a box, from where it was transferred to birch bark, straw, tow, pine coals or seryanka - homemade matches. The fire was extinguished after its use by closing the lid of the box.
Fire obtained with the help of flint and flint is considered especially beneficial for humans. He brings happiness and prosperity to the house. In the Russian countryside, there were a number of prescriptions on how to handle fire so as not to anger it, not to offend, not to stain its purity. It was impossible to spit into the fire, urinate in it, throw various garbage, sewage into it, trample underfoot, extinguish it. The fire could only be blown out or waited for it to die on its own. If these rules are violated, then the fire will punish the whole village with a fire, and the person who offended the fire with a fire, a red rash on his face.
Ideas about fire and its magical properties were also transferred to the tool for making fire - flint. In Russian fairy tales, a tinderbox is an object that serves to evoke spirits, and also acts as an intermediary between “our world” and the other world. Usually the hero of a fairy tale summons spirits by striking flint and flint.
Water
Water, one of the creative elements, is very interesting from a pagan point of view, it has a lot of sacred aspects, which cannot but be reflected in its symbolism. First, water for a pagan is what gives life to all living things. With the help of life-giving heavenly water, grasses and forests turn green in spring, crops ripen, everything blooms, bears fruit and ears. According to an ancient myth, earth was born from water, brought in the beak of the World Duck. Water carries the sacred meaning of purification. A pagan washing himself in a bath washes away not only physical dirt, but also spiritual dirt - a shell of vice, darkness, hatred. A ritual is created, because the sacred action of rebirth, the renewal of a person is performed - like the renewal of the skin and body of a person in a bath, the soul, his aura is renewed. Ablution was performed before important matters - the priest must necessarily wash in the bath to perform the ceremony, a person must wash, for example, before the wedding - first of all, not for beauty, but so that dark forces do not interfere with the ritual. The warrior always washed both before the battle and after it, so that the battle would not be affected by all the same forces. And the third, but by no means the last, aspect of the meaning of water for a pagan is its flow. Everyone knows the proverb that you cannot enter the same river twice. Many do not understand it - for them the river is a blue line on the map. For a pagan, the river is a stream of water - the water has flowed away, and the river is different. That is, the flow of water is a kind of indicator of time. No wonder they say: "how much water has flowed under the bridge since then", meaning that a lot of time has passed. So flowing river water is also a sacred comparison with time - water inevitably flows away, just as days, years, centuries flow away.
Accordingly, the symbols of water have different meanings.
Life-giving water is heavenly water, or, as the ancients called it, “heavenly waters”. Rain, watering the field, gives vitality to plants, fills them with juices. Also associated with heavenly water is the idea of a cornucopia. Rains water the earth, the earth gives birth to succulent grasses, which means that there is something to feed the cattle, there is plenty of milk and meat, bread is earing in the fields and fruits and vegetables are ripening. Sometimes a cornucopia is depicted with water pouring out of it. The word "rain" is related to the word "Dazhd" - one of the names of the great god - the giver of blessings and the progenitor of people Dazhdbog. By the way, the name Dazhdbog came from two roots - “sales”, that is, to give, do good, help, and actually “god”. Unlike river rainwater, it symbolizes the male fertilizing principle.
A completely different water is river water, unlike rain water, it basically came just from under the ground - from springs, springs. By the way, the spring was considered a sacred place - to desecrate it was the same as to desecrate the temple. After all, water is “born” in the spring - coming from the bowels of the earth, it flows from the spring in a thin stream, the stream connects with another, they connect with the third - this is how a mighty river turns out. Some springs had miraculous healing properties. Again, this is not fiction - it has been scientifically proven that water enriched with salts and minerals flows from some sources, which is very beneficial for health.
Since spring and river water flows, it is depicted as wavy horizontal stripes. River water, unlike rainwater, and along with a thread, can act as a symbol of the flow of time, life. The water flows away along with the moments that have gone forever into the past. This is the truth of life… Water is not just destiny, this leading force, that is, in water there is a sacred symbolism of fate, something that cannot be avoided, however, as a rule, in a positive sense. Flowing water, moving forms a stream and carries along.
There are many amazing legends about magical rivers, they will seem familiar to you from fairy tales - this is the Iry milk river flowing from under the stone of Alatyr (which is on Buyan Island) - it symbolizes not anything, but the Milky Way. The Milk River is a poetic representation of the outskirts of our galaxy. Many legends are connected with the Milky Way and the Milky (White) River, most of them with stories about life after death. However, in these stories, another river appears - Smorodina, the fiery river. It separates the Java world and the “great expanses of Navi” (the saying is “Naviy Shlyakh”, the community “Bor”). Baba Yaga, familiar to many, if not all, guards the borders of Navi.
With this knowledge, many plots of fairy tales become clear - the hero crosses the fiery river and ends up with Baba Yaga - this is a plot that is somewhat similar to the ancient Greek story about Orpheus and Eurydice. And the swan geese carried away brother Ivanushka from sister Alyonushka. Vanya died, and his sister rescued him from the clutches of death.
The idea of Kalinov Bridge is also connected with mythical rivers. Kalinov Most is a multifaceted and very complex concept. It is associated with the subtle states of the human soul - love, high feelings. In later times, “Meeting someone on the Kalinov Bridge” meant to love (see the article by V. N. Vakurov “Kalina hot”, Russian Language Abroad magazine, No. 4, 1990). However, not everything is so rosy. In fact, on the Kalinov Bridge passes main battle of the human soul between the beginning of the Rule and Navi - a battle with oneself (our life is an eternal struggle). The brilliant Russian artist Konstantin Vasiliev very accurately depicted this duel. A real man in the soul there is always a warrior, a warrior of the spirit, if he is not a warrior, then he is a reptile, both figuratively and in literally, that is, a snake, a worm. In the battle on the Kalinov Bridge, it is very difficult to win a complete victory, to destroy one side or another in oneself, just as one cannot be absolutely kind, absolutely wise - therefore, the heavenly chamber of Rule cannot defeat the forces of Navi in any way.
The Slavs considered water to be the element from which the world was formed. Without the life-giving power of light, motionless water fills space in the form of snow and ice, but when light and warmth awaken it, it spreads and, under the influence of light, gives birth and nourishes the annual world. On this basis, the Slavic light-worshippers revered water and inhabited it with various deities (moraine, water, mermaids). They also idolized special female water creatures - coastlines, the cult of which is directly connected with water. Worshiping water deities, the Slavs cleansed themselves with water as a sacred element, made sacrifices to water - flowers, food, chickens. All sacrifices were left on the shore so that the water could take them away.
Worship of the coastline, as well as ghouls and vampires, is one of the most ancient period the stories of the Slavs: evil vampires who need to be driven away and coaxed with victims, and good coastlines who need to “put down trebs” so that they can help a person.
Numerous fabulous images living water and living fire. Living water heals wounds, gives strength, restores life. The Slavs contrasted "living" water with "dead" water. "Dead" water was sometimes called "healing": it splices together the dissected parts dead body, but does not yet resurrect it. The "living" water returns to him life. The folk epic tells that the killed heroes are first sprinkled with "dead", and then with "living" water.
Rain in the folk tradition is an object of reverence and magical influence. Power over rain, like other elements, is attributed to representatives of another world - the dead, and especially the gallows and drowned, who are considered the owners and leaders of the clouds - the heavenly herds of cows, bulls, oxen, etc. To drive away thunder and hail clouds, the Serbs turned to the latter in the village to a drowned man or a gallows, calling him by name and conjuring to take his “beefs” away from the fields and lands.
During the drought, the inhabitants of Polissya mourned the mythical drowned Makarka, stirring the water in the well with sticks and crying: “Makarko-son, get out of the water, pour tears over the holy land!” Wells, springs and other reservoirs, according to folk beliefs, are connected with heavenly waters as communicating vessels, therefore, the impact on earthly waters causes the "opening" of heavenly waters. During a drought, they went to springs, wells and rivers, consecrated the water and prayed, wishing for rain.
Often they went to abandoned springs, cleaned them, pouring water on each other, causing rain. They went around villages, fields, performed prayers at a well or river. In the Zhytomyr region, it was customary to walk around an old well to stop the drought: three widows walked in front, one carried an icon, the other bread and salt, the third accompanied them. Everyone joined hands, prayed, asked to send rain. The well was circumnavigated three times, only women participated in the ceremony.
In Polissia, poppy seeds were often poured into the well, money, salt, garlic, consecrated herbs, grains of wheat and rye, prosphora were thrown into the well, consecrated water was poured, all the water was scooped out of the well, etc. clay pots, and in many villages of Polesye it was believed that the pot should have been stolen - from neighbors, foreigners, from potters. They used to say in Go-melytsin: “That’s how it doesn’t rain, then we’ll steal somewhere ... smooth, but down the well - bang! And they also say it will rain.” This method turned out to be more effective when the ceremony was performed by a widow or when the pot was stolen from the widow. In the Chernihiv region, a pot of borscht was stolen from the oven and thrown into a well. The motif of borscht is typical for widespread children's songs about rain: Meni porridge, toby borscht, schob ischov thicker wood"; "Go, go, to the plank, to the glazed miner." Sometimes the stolen pots were first smashed and then the potsherds were thrown into the well.
Close to this method of causing rain are the Bulgarian and Serbian methods of protection against "tiled magic": they stole the products of labor or tools for their manufacture from tilers and brick-makers and threw them all into the water. This action was understood as the removal of damage (“closing the rain”), which was supposedly caused by tilers. They, like potters, were considered the culprits of the drought because of their involvement in the element of fire (firing pots, tiles) and professional interest in dry weather (for the sake of drying their products).
In Western Bulgaria and Eastern Serbia, a special ritual is known to be performed during a drought in order to bring rain: the girls sculpted a clay doll named Herman ( male figure up to 50 cm in size with a hypertrophied phallus) and then, imitating a burial, they buried the doll on the river bank or threw it into the water, lamenting: “Oh! Herman, Herman, Herman died of drought for the sake of rain. In such mourning rituals, tears were magically likened to rain. In Polissya, with the same purpose and with the same motivation, the frog's funeral ritual was performed: during a drought, children caught a frog, killed it, dressed it in clothes made of rags, put it in boxes, cried over it as if it were a dead woman, and buried it at the spring; a cross was drawn on the "grave" by hand. Instead of a frog, they could kill some other small animal or insect - cancer, snake, bear, louse, etc. The snake and insects were sometimes hung on a tree or fence. They believed that after that it would rain.
Ritual dousing with water during a drought had an even more direct magical meaning. People poured water on each other, saying: “How water pours on you, so that rain pours on the ground” (Zhytomyr region). This was done by the river or by the well. Sometimes they poured water on people who, according to popular beliefs, had a special magic power: a pregnant woman (symbolizing the mother of the earth), a shepherd (the ruler of the earthly herd, capable of influencing the heavenly “herds” of clouds), priest (the same symbol of the shepherd-shepherd). In Polissya, the corners of the hut were also poured over.
Dousing could also be of a redemptive nature, it was used when the cause of the drought was considered a violation of certain prohibitions. So, in the north of the Zhytomyr region, the drought was explained by the fact that some woman in the village on the Annunciation, contrary to a strict ban, baked bread. Then, in order to atone for this sin and remove the punishment (drought), three women gathered, each took two buckets of water, went into the house to the “culprit”, poured out all the water in the middle of the hut and poured water on the outside corners of the house, and in some places poured water on the woman herself .
The ritual of pouring water over (or destroying) the grave of an unclean (false) dead person, if he, in violation of the prohibition, is buried in a cemetery, also has a redemptive character. Sometimes such a grave was dug up, and the corpse was thrown into the river. The Serbs removed the cross from some unmarked grave, carried it into a river or stream and strengthened it so that it would stand until the water carried it away. When they installed the cross, they said three times: “The cross into the water, and the rain on the field! A cross from an unknown grave, rain from an unknown mountain! In Polissya, a towel from icons was stolen from one of the neighbors, soaked in water and hung in its original place (secretly from the hostess). Helped from drought and gauze, which tied the jaw of the deceased: they carried it into the field, burned it there and asked: “For us, Lord, send rain!”
In Polissya and the adjacent regions of Belarus and Russia, to cause rain, they performed the ritual of “plowing the river”: during a drought, they plowed or harrowed a dried river bed, or simply dragged a plow along the bottom. Symbolic plowing could also be done right on shallow water: in Surozh district they chose beautiful girl at the age of 15, they stripped her naked, hung her with wreaths and forced her to harrow the water in this form. In our time, a similar method of making rain is noted in the Grodno region: old women gathered, stole a plow from the collective farm yard, brought it to the river - only women.
Some harnessed, while others drove. Sometimes, instead of the river, they "plowed" the road or dug holes on the road, symbolically "opening" the water (Polesie).
Since the drought was understood as a natural disaster, general protective measures could be used to stop it, which helped in cases of pestilence, illness, fire, etc.: plowing a village or a roadside cross, bypassing the village and fields, making a harsh linen, towel, or installing ordinary crosses . Another method of causing rain, which was purely magical in nature, was the destruction of an anthill. The anthill was raked with a stick, just as they beat the water in the well; while the sprawling ants symbolized and magically evoked raindrops. This method is known in Polissya and among the southern Slavs. The Serbs, raking the anthill, uttered a special spell: “How many ants, so many drops!”
Pagan ways of making rain, especially at the wells, were severely condemned by the church.
To stop the rain, they performed various stopping or averting actions: they threw an egg into the yard, carried or threw it into the yard, under the house, on the roof of a bread shovel, poker, bread bowl, burned Trinity greens, consecrated willow, etc. in the oven. prolonged rains was considered a desecration of the water. For example, in Bosnia they thought in this case that there was something “nasty” in the water - once thrown into the water bastard or killed, and the rain will not stop until the corpse is taken out of the water.
During bad weather, women left the house, took out a wedding shirt and, naming the drowned people from the village by name, asked them to take the bad weather away from the fields. Widely known children's songs such as "Rain, rain, stop ..." undoubtedly go back to magical, incantatory texts.
Air is one of the elements of the universe (like earth, water, fire); the sphere of stay of souls and invisible demonic beings. In folk beliefs, ideas about air and breathing, breath, and wind converge. The space filled with air is larger than the earth; the sky "rests" or "hangs" in the air.
Air serves as a conductor, a medium through which damage is sent, disease spreads. The appearance of evil, unclean air is associated with a moment of complete calm, an eclipse of the moon, etc. People who find themselves under open sky, it is prescribed to fall face down on the ground so as not to "grab this air."
In the form of steam, air or smoke, the soul leaves the dying.
Among the Eastern Slavs, they say about the agony of a person: the spirit is out, the spirit has gone out or the steam has gone out. Air, steam emanating from the deceased can be dangerous to others. There are many bylichkas in Polissya, which tell how a passer-by sees a couple over a fresh grave, taking on the images of a woman in a white dress, a pillar (or a fiery air column), the deceased himself. This ghost pursues a person when the wind blows in his back, and, having caught up, sits on a prisoner and kills. Escaping from the spirit, you must not stop, you should hit it backhand, run against the wind and hide around the corner, but you can also dispel it with clothes, especially a white scarf.
In Western Belarus, after the death of a person, everyone left the hut and opened the stove so that the air would go up. The well-known custom in Polissya to “raise the air” (usually on the fortieth day after death) is associated with the idea of the Orthodox that the souls of the dead rise into the air and stay there for forty days, after which they fly to higher spheres, to be judged by God, etc. e. In one of the villages of the Sumy region, they “breathe” on the grave of the deceased: those present take the corners of the tablecloth and lift it up three times with the words: “The body is in the pit, the soul is with us, we are home, the soul is uphill!” .
Many demonological characters living in the air, including the disease, have the appearance of steam, wind, air column, thick smoke, gas, etc. So, according to Belarusian beliefs, a witch, after drinking a wonderful liquid, becomes light as fluff and rushes about. through the air, through the wind. Spirits dangerous for a person, causing a strong wind, a whirlwind, a tornado, can lift a person into the air and throw him down, tear him apart in the air, etc. The view of the air as a habitat for demons is also inherent in the Christian book tradition.
Earth
Niva - idiogram of fertility
Mother earth, mother nature... Everyone knows such phrases, but few people thought about why they say so. But this expression came to us from paganism. There is nothing surprising in the fact that our pagan ancestor called the earth mother, she is the giver of all blessings. She feeds, and waters, and clothes, and warms. Earth in union with Heaven (in folk mythology they are spouses) gives us the world in which we live ... Naturally, a lot is said about the earth in folk legends. Goddess of the earth, fertility and fate - Makosh. Her name is formed from two roots: Ma - "mother" and kosh - "purse, store of wealth." Such a decoding gives a clear idea of how our ancestors treated Mokosh and the earth itself. The earth is associated with the feminine - firstly, the earth is capable of giving birth to life, and secondly, its sisters, Dolya and Nedolya, spin the threads of fate (Share spins a happy fate, Nedolya - unhappy), because the thread is a symbol of life. Doli's thread is soft, smooth, Nedolya's is flimsy, thin, like the fate of a person. When the thread breaks, the person dies.
An indispensable attribute of Mokosh is a cornucopia, which once again speaks of its significance for people and their relationship to the earth.
Let's talk first about the symbolism of fertility. It is represented by a very characteristic pattern - a rhombus (or square), divided inside into four more rhombuses. This field. Small diamonds are seed holes. If dots are depicted in small rhombuses, this means that the field is sown - this is a symbol of fertility. If the small diamonds are empty, then the field is not sown. These symbols have a corresponding magical meaning. Countless variations are possible with diamonds, squares and dots. In general, a rhombus (square) with a dot in the middle is something that can give birth, something that is a source of well-being and abundance.
An empty rhombus is the same, but not able (not fertilized) to give birth. Fortune-telling "to a good place" was used up to late XIX c., that's how they guessed, for example, in Belarusian village: on the entire proposed site of the estate, a large square was drawn on the ground, then it was divided crosswise into four parts. The head of the family went “to all four directions”, brought four stones from four fields (and carried them under a hat on his head or in the bosom of his naked body) and laid them out in the centers of small squares. As a result, an ideogram of fertility appeared on the site of the future estate, which has come down to us since the Eneolithic and is found on Russian wedding embroideries even at the beginning of the 20th century. Bread, a sown field, pregnancy - these concepts for the ancient Slavs were identical and directly connected with the image of the "home universe", and through it - with the cosmos, with the harmony of the world.
Then the owner stood in the center of the crosshairs - in the center of the universe, in the place of the World Tree - and, baring his head, prayed, moreover, with an indispensable appeal for blessing and help to the dead ancestors. Instead of stones, heaps of grain were sometimes poured. Grain, on the other hand, often outlined the contours of the future house, “fastening the corners”. Heaps of grain or bread were placed in the corners. Three days later they came to look: if the fortune-telling objects (pebbles, grain or bread) turned out to be undisturbed, then it was possible to build.
Such divination, like the sowing of bread, was performed exclusively by men. Women never participated in it.
sprouts
The scheme of the first sprouts is usual: inside the heart-shaped shell, a "krin" with three processes or a sprout with five leaves, resembling a fern, was depicted. It is possible that the so-called "krin" (lily) in this case depicted a seed with a burst shell (two bent lateral spurs) and a bud, a future sprout. The bud-sprout is often reddish in color, differing from the spurs of the shell. The plant is given in the dynamics of growth, in its initial phase; such a “krin” is a spell for the entire future development of the seed. These pictograms were usually placed in the central circle, giving them more importance than the seeds. The four-part composition of four fern leaves reflects the real appearance of the spring fern, the leaves of which are directed in all directions. The sacred nature of the fern is well documented in folklore: beliefs about the blossoming of the fern on the Kupala night.
The heart-shaped scheme (point up) has become a stable form of expression of the agrarian essence of the ornament.
Seed pictograms do not occupy the central circle. Germinating seeds are sometimes arranged in groups of four.
Flowers
As a secondary plot on women's jewelry, there are small flowers with four petals. The floral character of these miniature images is emphasized by the color of the petals in red and white or red and blue.
One of the main plant plots is a stable scheme, which presents a conditional plant (usually with two roots, well rooted) with branches and petals widely spread apart. Above the formed crevice in the plant, an oval "grain" of pollen is depicted. The importance of the pollination process is emphasized by the disproportionate amount of pollen penetrating the plant and the obligatory red coloration.
On late cassocks, under a flourishing cross, an oval grain is depicted, and on reverse side plaques four flower cups, pollinated by oval pollen.
There is such a legend. The white-flammable stone Alatyr was revealed at the beginning of time. He was raised from the bottom of the Milky Ocean by the World Duck. Alatyr was very small, so the Duck wanted to hide it in her beak. But Svarog uttered a magic word, and the stone began to grow. The duck could not hold it and dropped it. Where the white-combustible stone Alatyr fell, the Alatyr mountain rose. It is a sacred stone, the center of the knowledge of the Vedas, the mediator between man and God. He is both “small and very cold” and “great as a mountain.” Both light and heavy. He is unknowable: "... and no one could know that stone, and no one could lift it from the earth." When Svarog hit Alatyr with his magic hammer, gods were born from the sparks. On Alatyr, the temple of the Most High was built by the half-horse Kitovras. Therefore, Alatyr is also an altar, a stone-altar to the Almighty. On it, the Almighty Himself sacrifices Himself and Alatyr turns into stone.
According to ancient legends, Alatyr fell from the sky, and the Laws of Svarog were carved on it. So, Alatyr connected the worlds: the heavenly - the heavenly and the revealed - the valley. The book of the Vedas, which fell from the sky, and the magical bird Gamayun also served as an intermediary between the worlds. Both the Book and the Bird are also Alatyr.
In the earthly world, Alatyr is revealed by Mount Elbrus. This mountain was also called Bel-Alabyr, White Mountain, Belitsa. The White River flows from Elbrus-Alatyr. Near Elbrus was in ancient times the White City, lived here Slavic tribe belogorov. Alatyr is associated with the heavenly world, Iriy, Belovodie, that is, with paradise, through which milk rivers flow. Alatyr is a white stone.
The river Baksan flows from Elbrus. Until the 4th century n. e. it was called the river Altud or Alatyrka. These names contain the root "alt", which means "gold" (hence - "altyn"). Therefore, Alatyr is also a magic stone, the touch of which turns everything into gold. This is the Golden Mountain, Mount Zlatogorka and Svyatogora. So, Alatyr is the Holy Mountain.
There is also a stone Alatyr in the Urals on the Iry mountains, from where the sacred Ra-river originates. And at its mouth on the island of Buyan there is also a stone Alatyr, which heals from diseases and gives immortality. The Altai Mountains were also called Alatyr-mountains, the Golden Island of the Sun in the Northern Ocean was also called Alatyr-Island.
Alatyr is not only a mountain or a stone - it is the sacred center of the World. It is triune, therefore it means the path of Rule between Yavu and Naviu, between the valley and the mountain worlds. It is two-in-one - both small and large, and light and heavy. He is one, because all worlds are united in him. He is unknowable, like Rule. This is the original stone.
In past centuries, embroidery for peasants was never just an ornament. On the contrary, Slavic ornaments were considered a powerful magical tool capable of creating order out of chaos. In order for life to develop according to the desired scenario, a person had to have a supernatural image, as if a reduced “model” of well-being. This role was played by elements or woven household items made by hand or by the closest people.
Of course, the products were made not just like that, but according to strictly observed canons. When embroidering motifs, not only the exact execution of the element was required, but also the quality of the stitches, equally beautiful from the front and back sides, without knots. From this, the magical power of the product increased many times and formed an even and strong energy field around the owner.
Different had a different meaning from each other in terms of subject matter. Each element of the ornament performed a specific function: protection from diseases, assistance in spiritual quests, family preservation, etc.
For example, in the Sverdlovsk region, it was customary for loved ones to embroider something with the following symbol:
It means "Unity and harmony of male and female principles", serves to strengthen love and family ties. And the female amulet "Blessing of Mother Earth and Ancestors" (Tver Region) looks like this:
These on clothes gave the woman the belief that she would have many healthy, strong and smart children, and her youth would not fade for a long time.
“Blessing of the grains in the field by the Sun” (Perm Territory) by contemporaries can be interpreted as a talisman for successful business and success in studies, mastering new knowledge:
There is another symbol - "The Holy Union of the Sun and the Earth." Our ancestors believed that this ornament guarantees a bountiful harvest.
In the Yaroslavl region, a light curtain over the cradle, clothes of children and teenagers were often decorated with such embroidery:
It is called "Blessing of the Seven Elements": fire, water, earth, air, matter, spirit and mind. Served to protect children from all misfortunes.
"True love" is already a wedding talisman from the Perm region:
Slavic ornaments, on which S-shaped figures are embroidered, depict pairs of white swans. And the red motifs between them form the repeating symbols of Mother Earth. They bless the couple, grant protection from any harm, true and eternal love based on friendship, respect and care.
Ritual embroidery for expectant mothers "Healthy pregnancy and happy motherhood" from the Perm region looks like this:
It's like a graphic spell for a healthy pregnancy and easy delivery - Mother Earth's blessing for the woman in labor and the baby.
In the computerized era, you will not find outfits with such embroidery, except that in winter you can see mittens with ornaments on a child. And yet, the ancient art of embroidery has not gone into oblivion, it is being actively revived. Slavic ornaments attract not only with their beauty, faith in their magical power is still alive. This, of course, is good, so it survived folk art. And a new wave of interest in the knowledge of our ancestors will certainly resurrect symbolic art.
History of costume, armor
Traditional symbolism in Slavic embroidery and amulets
Ancient images in folk art. A fabulous bird, a proud horse, a female figure, an outlandish tree, radiant circles... Who and when came up with these images, passed down from century to century? What did they mean?
Even our distant ancestors decorated their products with the simplest ornaments. Man tried to figure out how the world works, to find an explanation for the incomprehensible, mysterious, mysterious. He sought to attract the good forces of nature to himself, and protect himself from the evil ones, and he did this with the help of his art. A person expressed his concepts of the world with conventional signs: a straight horizontal line denoted the earth, a wavy horizontal line denoted water, a vertical line turned into rain; fire, the sun were depicted with a cross. From these elements and their combinations, the pattern was built.
The ancient farmer endowed natural phenomena actions, feelings inherent in living beings, dressing them in the form of birds, animals, fantasy creatures. Thus, a person expressed his ideas about the world in images. Centuries passed - Russian embroidery did not disappear, passing from generation to generation.
The sun has long been revered by all agricultural peoples. "It is not the earth that gives birth, but the sky," says a Russian proverb. How elegantly, festively look items of peasant life, decorated with solar circles - symbols of the sun! The image of the sun occupies one of the main places in the decoration of the home. The sun in the form of round rosettes, rhombuses, horses can be found in various types of folk art.
The Russian peasant from time immemorial lived by the earth. He associated the earth, its fertility with the image of the mother. The female figure is a deity who expressed ideas about the earth that will give birth, and about the woman - the successor of the family. They call this image in different ways: the great goddess of the earth, fertility, the mother - the cheese of the earth, Makosh, which means "mother of a good harvest."
The female figure is always associated with symbols of fertility: a tree, birds, animals, solar signs. Look how conditionally it is solved. Branches often sprout from the body of the goddess, and instead of her head she has an image of a rhombus - ancient sign sun. Sometimes her figure resembles a tree.
An excellent example of the use of ornament is folk embroidery. Towels, wedding valances, tablecloths, curtains, festive shirts, white canvas sundresses, light outerwear, hats and scarves were decorated with embroidery.
There is an assumption that those parts of the costume were decorated with embroidery, through which, according to our ancestors, evil forces could penetrate the human body. Hence the main meaning of embroidery in antiquity is protective. The collar, cuffs, hem, neckline were embroidered with a protective pattern. The fabric itself was considered impenetrable to evil spirits, since objects richly equipped with incantatory ornaments participated in its manufacture. Therefore, it was important to protect those places where the enchanted fabric of clothing ended and the human body began.
Embroidery was carried out mainly with red threads, it was given special importance. Its shades are varied: scarlet, currant, poppy, lingonberry, cherry, brick... The seams used to make ancient embroideries are countable. That is, for each stitch, the threads of the fabric are counted. The pattern is not previously transferred to the fabric, but only its place and size can be outlined with large stitches. The most widespread are such countable seams as "painting", "set", "counting smoothness".
Cotton threads are best suited for permanent protection from the evil eye and spoilage. Silk is good for maintaining clarity of thought, helping in difficult career-related situations. Linen has a calming effect, it "works" especially well when using ancient symbolic patterns - when depicting the sun, stars, birds, trees.
Wool protects those people who, alas, have already been touched by evil. It closes breakdowns in your energy. Wool embroidery is performed on clothes in the neck, heart, solar plexus, lower abdomen, that is, where the main human chakras are located. Wool is usually used to embroider silhouettes of animals (those that you like, to which you intuitively reach out), less often - trees and fruits. Do not embroider with the hair of birds and stars. But the sun is quite suitable, it will constantly protect you from the cold and darkness in life!
Attention! It is not necessary to embroider several different protective patterns on one thing, it is better to choose a separate thing for each of them - otherwise the result of such embroidery will be some kind of energy confusion. This also applies to the material from which the threads are made - it is not necessary to use several types of material in one pattern. In addition, you should know: it is customary to make protective embroidery smooth, without knots - knots break the energy connection of embroidery with its carrier, making it difficult for the smooth flow of energies.
It is important to do protective embroidery without knots, as the knots break the energy links of the embroidery with the carrier. Locations of embroidery: traditional - circular (collar, belt, sleeves, hem). Non-traditional, that is, any that perform different protective functions:
- protection of the love sphere - red-orange patterns, in which circular and cruciform shapes predominate;
- protection small child from adversity - the silhouette of a horse or a rooster, threads are red or black; for an older child, a schoolboy - a blue-violet gamut, which protects against severe mental overwork;
- blue or golden-green embroidery helps successful business in any field of activity.
Protect with your own hands
When creating amulets, you must follow some rules. Rule one. Wards cannot be crafted for yourself. Rule two. No one can force anyone to make an amulet for themselves or beg to do so. Amulets are made only of good will and from a pure soul. Rule three. The strongest amulets are those that are made, made for you by your blood relatives: father, mother, brother, children. Marital ties are traditionally not considered consanguinity, but if the marriage is harmonious and happy, mutually created amulets also have great power.
By the way, there’s no need to invent anything here: the most powerful marital amulets are wedding rings. True, it is better if they are, as of old, silver, and not gold. In addition, wedding rings must be smooth, without any patterns and stones. Unlike other magical items, wedding rings lose a significant part of their magical power from inserts made of stones, even precious ones. Wedding rings must be worn constantly, without removing them even during sleep. A ring removed by at least one of the spouses weakens the protective forces, these rings are so inextricably merged together. This is an example of the so-called paired magic items.
Rule four. You need to be very careful about the choice of materials for amulets, because often the material (stone, wood) that is good for you is completely unsuitable for the person you are creating this amulet for. Rule five. In the process of creating an amulet, you must constantly think about the person for whom you are making it, keep his image in front of your mind, feel his energy, mood, character, needs.
If you strictly follow all five rules, it is likely that the amulet you made will really be able to protect its owner from many troubles and misfortunes. The safest, most affordable and convenient materials for making amulets are ordinary threads: woolen, linen, cotton. And the simplest amulet has long been considered embroidery. She was traditionally present on any fabric, towel, clothing. The main thing in embroidery-amulet is color and pattern. The color scheme should correspond to the part of the spectrum that the embroidery is designed to protect.
Charm embroidery of children's clothes of the Slavs
Children's clothes were usually sewn from old clothes of parents - not only and not so much because it has already been washed many times and therefore soft, will not hurt, will not rub the child's skin, but because it has absorbed parental energy and strength, and will protect it with it. , will save the child from the evil eye, damage, misfortunes. The girl's clothes were sewn from the mother's clothes, the boy, of course, from the father's, thus prejudging the correct development depending on the sex - the girl was given the power of motherhood, the boy - the male power.
When the children grew up and already acquired some kind of their own protective power, they were supposed to have their first shirt, from novelty. This was usually timed to coincide with the time of the first age initiation - at three years. From the age of twelve, the girl received the right to wear her own (albeit still girlish) clothes, the boy was entitled to the first port pants.
Since for children under three years of age the clothes were often altered from the parental ones, the protective embroidery, of course, remained the same, parental. It was not only inconvenient and impractical to change it, but also impractical - after all, in addition to the protective function, it also provided a link between generations, kinship and continuity. So, if the child's father was a hunter, then the amulets on his clothes were associated with hunting, and it was they who were transferred to the boy with these clothes. In the same way, the craft was “transferred” to the girl along the female line. Or rather, not the craft itself, but the strength of many years of parental experience in it protected the child. Everyone protects in their own way, right? The weaver will protect the fabric with a special pattern, the spinner - with nauzes, the hunter - with the fang of an animal ... And the result will be the same.
But the protective embroidery for the child's own clothes already differed from the amulets of adults. Firstly, the color of the embroidery for children was always red, while for adult clothes it could be different. So, women often used in embroidery, in addition to red, black - the color of mother earth, thus trying to protect their womb from infertility. Men, on the other hand, often needed blue or green colors for a talisman - blue protected from death from the elements, green from wounds. The kids didn't have it. It was believed that children are under the care and protection of a kind. On the shirt of a girl-girl, embroidery mainly went along the hem, sleeves and necklace, and on a married woman - chest, collar, embroidery along the hem was wider - it also reflected a new relationship, belonging to the husband's clan.
The main protective symbols for the girl were: the patron goddess of fate, the symbol of the clan, wood ornaments, the symbol of the patron saint of her birthday, the symbols of the earth (again, different from female symbols lands - for those, it seemed to be either plowed or already sown) and women's crafts.
Boys (like girls) up to the age of twelve wore shirts without belts. The main symbols protecting the boys were considered: symbols of fire, solar symbols, images of totem animals, of course, also a symbol of the patron family and the patron spirit of the birthday, bells, bells and symbols of male crafts.
Until the age of majority, boys and girls could also wear common amulets. Passing initiation at the age of twelve, the boy's amulets changed, became (like the girl's) more gender-specific. A belt appeared and, of course, there were fewer amulets - after all, their own strength grew.
Images of the Gods already appeared in the embroidery (for children they were simply too strong, not allowing the child to develop their “immunity”), not so much for protection, but for patronage, for young girls - symbols of fertility, for young boys - military. Of course, neither the girl nor the boy needed them. In addition to embroidery on clothes, many items often served as children's amulets that were hung over the baby's cradle, girl's or boy's bed, then worn on the shoulder or on the belt. All this performed not only protective and protective function, but also served as a link between man and Nature.
ornaments
Ornament arose long before the advent of writing. This is confirmed by the fact that even an ancient man, who dressed in animal skins, warmed himself by the fire, dug dugouts for himself, decorated household items with ornaments. On clay vessels, tools of labor of ancient people, one can see the simplest patterns: dots, straight lines, wavy lines, rhombuses. Reading signs is a difficult task. Scientists solve mysteries like this. It is known that the ancient man was a hunter. He knew that the strength of the beast was in the tusk - this is his weapon. The tusk or its cut was drawn in the form of a rhombus. This sign contained strength and power. Therefore, the ancient man painted it on his body, the objects that surrounded him.
Diamonds running into each other are a sign of a happy hunt, good luck, a sign of life, fertility. In order for the fields to be generous in harvest, a person asked Heaven, the Sun and the Earth for good luck, cast spells. To do this, he repeated patterns. And also: wavy lines symbolized water; horizontal - the ground; oblique - rain crossing the path to the sun; the points between them are grains thrown into it.
Often, ancient masters depicted signs that denoted the sun. This solar signs. The sun has received a great variety of image options over the millennia. These include a variety of crosses - both in a circle and without it. Some crosses in a circle are very similar to the image of a wheel, and this is no accident: a person saw how the sun moved, that is, "rolled" across the sky, like a fiery wheel. The perpetual motion of the heavenly body was marked with a hooked cross, a swastika. The swastika meant not only the moving sun, but also the wish for well-being. Especially often it is found in northern embroideries like towels and shirts, as well as in swearing weaving.
Many secrets can reveal ancient ornaments. Solving them, we begin to understand that the language of the symbols of the ancestors conveyed to us their attitude to nature. Bowing before her, as if asking her for mercy, protection, patronage, the ancient master used his hand to draw out peculiar spells in the form of an ornament. Note that the people carefully selected from a variety of signs and carefully kept only those that, in their opinion, contributed to the good, good harvest, abundance, good luck.
The essence of amulets exactly corresponds to their name: their vocation is to protect people, especially during the years of hard times, during periods of military conflicts, terrorist attacks and other hardships. In other words, to protect its owner from any directed negative impact, whatever it may be and wherever it comes from. Negative influences can be purely physical influences- such as diseases (caused, by the way, often not only by natural causes, but also overcome us due to the evil eye or damage). Amulets can protect their owner from any impact on his psyche, soul, and emotional sphere. They will protect you from the imposition of someone else's will, love spells, suggestions from the outside and from severe depression.
Amulets are experimentally selected magical objects for many centuries, having studied which our ancestors came to the conclusion that they can protect, protect us from unfriendly forces. Amulets are different. These are beads, bracelets, protective embroideries on clothes, the patterns of which are stylized symbols of the ancient gods or patrons of the family, decorations on windows, shutters, platbands, above the porch and roof, above the gates of the house.
Today we have practically lost the everyday protection skills that our ancestors used. And this can hardly contribute to our quiet life. With the disappearance of strong everyday protection, we find ourselves very easy prey for malevolent forces from the shadow world. They easily penetrate our lives, and most often we do not even notice it. We go to the doctors, complaining of weakness, irritability, insomnia, general malaise, that "something is wrong with me, doctor, is going on." How can a doctor help us in these cases? Yes, nothing - such ailments are not at all his profile.
The impact of amulets is associated with the colors of the spectrum of the human aura. Putting on a charm of the appropriate color, we get the opportunity to quickly patch up energy breakdowns in one or another part of the aura, which can be dangerous to our health and even life. From the point of view of a person who is able to see the aura, it will look like an increase in the glow of a certain color of the aura when putting on the amulet (more on colors will be discussed at the end of the article).
What amulets can we use? Of course, your personal amulets, inherited in the family, will be the most powerful: earrings, rings or rings, beads - any thing that, according to legend, brings happiness in family life. More often, such items are passed down the female line - rings and earrings, less often through the male line - knives, belt buckles. If your family does not have such things, you will have to choose them yourself, and this is not easy if you do not have pronounced psychic abilities. Therefore, let's talk about the simplest, but at the same time very effective tool. These are protective embroidery. Flowers and figurines should be embroidered, carrying a traditional guarding meaning: silhouettes of a horse, dog, rooster or a fabulous bird with a female face. These symbols come from the time of the cults of pagan gods and symbolize our friendly protectors. magical creatures. It is especially convenient to use protective embroideries and appliqués for children's clothing, as it is difficult for kids to constantly wear beads, rings or bracelets.
SIGNS
1) The wavy line is a sign of Water. Rain is depicted vertical lines, rivers, underground waters - horizontal, "heavenly abysses" - horizontal.
2) Thunderbolt (six-pointed cross in a circle or hexagon). Sign of Thunder (and Perun). Used as a talisman against lightning; is also a military amulet.
3) A square (or rhombus), divided by a cross into four parts - (plowed field). If there are dots inside - a sown field. These are signs of the Earth and fertility.
4) Kolokres (a cross in a circle). Sun sign. a barrier and aversion of evil, a sign of closeness.
5) Krada ("lattice") - a sign of Fire. Krada is a sacrificial or funeral pyre.
6) Cres (equilateral cross: straight or oblique) - a sign of Fire (and the God of Fire - Aguni).
7) Month - Sign of the moon, month. Known pendants "moon".
8) A cockscomb with seven protrusions is a sign of Fire.
9) Cornucopia. Sign of wealth, abundance.
10) Yarga (swastika). Otherwise - a bell. There are a huge number of font options. Yarga is a sign of the Sun (and, accordingly, the Gods of the Sun: Khors, Dazhdbog, etc.). According to the direction of rotation (salting / anti-sun), the sign of the bright Sun (Yavi sun) and the sign of the dark Sun (Navi sun) are distinguished. The Sun of Reveal is a beneficent, creative Force; The Sun of Navi is a destructive Force. According to Slavic myths, after sunset, the Sun illuminated the Underground (Nav), hence the name. We know that the Sun is not under the Earth at night, but it is difficult to doubt that the Sun has a destructive aspect... There are two interpretations of determining the direction of rotation of a sign; the traditional one, as far as I know, is this: the ends of the rays are bent against the direction of rotation.
11) A tree (most often a Christmas tree) is a symbol of the interconnection of everything in the world, a symbol of long life.
12) Spiral - a symbol of wisdom; if the color scheme is blue-violet - intimate knowledge. The most powerful repulsive sign for all the dark entities of the shadow world - if the color is red, white or black.
13) The triangle is a symbol of a person; especially if accompanied by small dots or circles from the top. Symbol of human communication.
GODS
Woman with raised palms: Makosh.
With omitted: Lada.
Most often they are depicted with deer on their sides. These goddesses were identified with the two northern constellations - Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. As you know, in Rus' these constellations used to be called Elk.
LIVING CREATURES
1) The bull is a sign of Veles.
2) The wolf is a sign of Yarila.
3) Raven - a sign of wisdom and death, Veles.
4) Tree - a sign of life and fertility; or - the Universe (World Tree).
5) The serpent is a sign of the Earth, wisdom, Veles. Associated with the Underworld.
6) The horse is a sign of the Sun, the Solar Gods.
7) Swan - a sign of Mary, death, winter.
8) The bear is a sign of Veles.
9) Deer (vazhenka) or moose cow - a sign of the Goddess of Fertility (Rozhanitsa).
10) Eagle - a sign of Thunder, Perun.
11) Rooster is a sign of Fire, Aguni.
12) Falcon - a sign of Fire, Aguni. There is an opinion that the "trident" (the coat of arms of the Rurikids and modern Ukraine) is a stylized image of a falcon in flight.
13) The cuckoo is a sign of life, Alive.
14) Goat - a sign of fertility, fertility.
15) The pig is a sign of fertility, abundance.
COLORS
Specifically, the colors of the amulet are associated with the protection of one of the seven human chakras. Red - for the lowest, located in the coccyx area and responsible for the genitourinary system, rectum, musculoskeletal system. Orange - for the second, located a few fingers below the navel, responsible for sexual energy and the kidneys. Yellow - for the third chakra (solar plexus area) - the center of vital energy, which is also responsible for all the organs of the abdominal cavity. Green is for the fourth, heart chakra. It controls the activity of not only the heart, but also the lungs, spine, hands, and is responsible for our emotions. Blue - for the fifth, throat, responsible for the respiratory and hearing organs, throat and skin, as well as human creativity. Blue is for the sixth (the "third eye" zone), which is responsible for our intellectual abilities. Violet - for the seventh (temechko), connecting us with the Higher powers, with God.
1) White. Associated with the idea of Light, purity and sacredness (White Light, White King - king over kings, etc.); at the same time - the color of Death, mourning.
2) Red - Fire, (and the Sun - like heavenly Fire), blood (life force).
3) Green - Vegetation, Life.
4) Black - Earth.
5) Golden - the Sun.
6) Blue - Sky, Water.
7) Violet is rare in Russian embroidery.
Knowledge is most often hidden in symbols, images, numbers, notes, letters, patterns. Speech, song, rituals, embroidery, carving are woven from signs and images. Not everyone knows their deeper meaning, but the feeling of harmony, measure and beauty through creativity are the right steps to the truth. And everyone can master it.
Solar embroidery, "Deer with a tree of life", - Nevreva Claudia Petrovna
Symbolism is a legacy of the history of mankind, when people began to express their thoughts, their worldview through conventional signs. The study of ancient cult symbols reveals the spiritual world human societies in the preliterate era. Similar cult symbols and ornamental motifs are widespread. Quite often, similar or even identical elements are found among related and unrelated peoples.
Mass migrations of people contributed to the dissemination of ideas and experience. But sometimes even a small tribe of aliens passed rich information to the population. Therefore, the migration of the spiritual phenomena of culture: language, myths, rituals, religion took place on a larger scale than the migration of people. It is difficult to trace the history of symbolism. Is it because the materials used for the images are not durable? bark, leather, wood, clay. Most examples of the symbolism of antiquity have come down to us from 2-1 thousand BC. e., when there was already a departure from the use of symbols and began to be used as an ornament or as sacred signs fixed by custom.
Ancient symbolism is a layering of motifs belonging to different eras, and interweaving of plots of various ethno-cultural origins. It is difficult to establish the chronological sequence and geographical ways of their distribution. And yet, in the exhibits and traditions that have come down to us, along with the general picture of the world, there are their own original shades. There is a great similarity in patterns among the East Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples.
Symbols, signs, ornaments - amazing book about the life and beliefs of our distant ancestors, the leaves of which for the most part lost. And, apparently, what was left to remain, what is eternal.
Ornament is the language of millennia, it is older than all works of art. Academician B.A. Rybakov said this about it: “Looking at intricate patterns, we rarely think about their symbolism, rarely look for meaning. It often seems to us that there is no more thoughtless, light and meaningless field of art than ornament. Meanwhile, in the folk ornament, as in ancient writings, the thousand-year-old wisdom of the people, the rudiments of its worldview and the first attempts of man to influence the mysterious forces of nature were deposited.
Our material world is currently decorated with floral and plot ornaments, but the most ancient ornament is geometric.
Rosettes of different types are a favorite ornament in architectural decoration and applied art. The disk served as a designation of the sun in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, although it must be borne in mind that in the Bronze Age a circle, a disk and a rosette could mean the sky. B. Rybakov believes that the sign in the form of a six-beam rosette ^ was obtained as a result of a combination of a circle, supposedly symbolizing the sun, and a snowflake scheme, supposedly symbolizing the sky. Both the Slavs and the Dagestanis depicted a six-petal rosette on salt shakers, and salt is a product associated with the sun. The socket-wheel is almost always depicted on a spinning wheel.
The Rigveda says that the sun "rolls like a wheel". The sun is compared to a wheel in Slavic, Polish and Lithuanian songs. Such a sign can be found on an old boat, wagon, chariot, on everything that moves. All European peoples, having Slavic influence, retain the tradition of lighting the wheels on Ivan Kupala and letting them go from the mountain into the river as a symbol of the fading sun from that day on.
A wheel with teeth and a cross means the sky, rain clouds and the sun. In the Rigveda, the sun is called the divine eye, in the mythology of the ancient Greeks the sun was represented as the eye of Zeus, among the ancient Germans - Odin, among the ancient Egyptians the sun and moon were the eyes of Horus, among the Romans - the eyes of Jupiter. But all of them are connected with the concept of "light-eye". In this case, the luminary was designated by a circle with a dot and a small circle inside.
In the sun, our ancestors felt two principles - male and female. The feminine is indicated by a circle, the masculine by a square or a triangle (which is rare).
Spinning wheels with the image of the Universe - the Earth and the Sky ("white light")
Sometimes the sun is depicted through a spiral - the movement of the sun across the sky.
Zigzags and divorces can often be a symbol of heavenly water if there is a cross among them
In Ancient Rus', fire was called Svarozhich, and the sun was called the son of Svarog, that is, fire and the sun had the same epithets. The fires lit at the festivities of the summer and winter solstices symbolize the heavenly fire-sun. This is confirmed by the fact that there were customs to light the wheel at the top of the pole or roll it burning down the hill. Ritual fires were lit not only on holidays, but during any disaster, in order to propitiate the god who was embodied in fire and was considered the source of these disasters. At the same time, it was supposed that nine various breeds tree and for 9 people to participate, and the number "9" was associated with the god of the underworld. On These examples show that fire can be the personification of the sun, and god, and the underground ruler. The burning of the wheel on the pole is the union of heaven and earth by fire.
Geometric figures that make up the simplest patterns once carried a great semantic load, personifying the forces of nature and being security signs. They decorated all household items, clothes and the house itself.
In rhombuses, crosses, squares, dots, repetition in certain numbers is observed first of all. Counting, rhythm help to feel and explain the structure of the world. Numbers are elements of a special numerical code with which you can represent the whole world and a person, that is, numbers can be one of the images of the world. These numbers are: 3 - the image of the Absolute, the divine Trinity, three spheres of living space (heaven, earth, underworld), time (past, present, future). The number 4 is an image of integrity, an ideally stable structure: 4 cardinal points, 4 elements, top-bottom-right-left, 4 seasons. 5 - sacred number - 4 sides + center - balance. The number 7 has become a symbol of harmony. Through it, mankind has been given 7 colors of the spectrum, 7 notes in music, 7 days in a week. From the product of the numbers 3 and 4, the number 12 arises - 12 months, 12 zodiac constellations. Accordingly, all these numbers, and not only in the ornament, are considered lucky.
The number of teeth, rhombuses, crosses was necessarily associated with this series of magic numbers or a multiple of them.
The laws of the cosmos, the mutual influence of the elements and their connection with man were also reflected in the ornament. And more often the elements are depicted in their correct combination: fire - air, earth - water. Earthly images were placed below, heavenly images above. The laws were also reflected in the observance of color (in embroidery, painting). There were no invented and unnatural shades, only the colors of nature, and arranging them in folk costume corresponded to the trinity of the world (the bottom from the earth is darker, and the higher, the brighter the color).
In Slavic arts and crafts, a cross is often found. A straight equilateral cross is an image of the sun. The terminal cross is associated with earthly fire, which was represented as a kind of heavenly fire. If the cruciform patterns in the center of the circle and square can also mean the illuminated four cardinal points, then the swastika 4-6-8-1 2rays is always the sign of the revolving sun. And they still call it a rot. Kolovorot is an ancient Slavic sign of the sun. It is considered a talisman against all dark forces. The word "kolo" in Russian means "circle", "wheel", "turn" - rotation. An equilateral cross is a sign of justice, goodness, balance. More often he is depicted with tips rotating to the right - this is a sign of active, real justice.
In the design of Russian fairy tales, we can often see a symbolic dome - this is a diagram of the sky. Ancestors represented the sky as a transparent dome, and under it life. In the domes, as a rule, the letter "Ж", called in the Slavic alphabet "lives" - "life". The letter is made up of plant weaves, also symbolizing endless life. In the arches you can also see scenes from the life of gods and people, scenes of sacrifices. On the diagram we see Simargl (Semargl).Semargl from the word "seed". He was portrayed as a winged dog guarding crops and seeds. Semargl was also the personification of "armed good", fiery, always ready to protect peaceful fields. Later, the archaic Simargl was called Pereplut. It was associated with the roots of plants and is closely related to the theme of water - mermaids. Under the domes, mermaids were also depicted - winged maidens, at that time they were deities of irrigation of fields, rains or damp morning fogs.
Knot weaves are often found in Russian ornamentation and the design of capital letters - red. Among other peoples, the dome of the sky was depicted as a circle, with waves or a cross - the sun and rain clouds.
Schemes of the water element are recognizable and varied. The ancient water ornament is geometric, this is the time when people could not draw smooth lines. They especially liked to decorate bowls for water, drinking, wine, sacrificial bowls with such a pattern. Rhythmically and in a special way, the “traveling wave” of different slopes looks beautiful. Divorces on the bowls can also have a free character (the Trypillian bowls). Favorite and snake theme. The snake among the Slavs is a symbol of the first water, spring, warmth. Seasonal calendars often reflect the image of snakes. Snake means spring, summer, rain. Consider a few more examples of water-themed symbolism.
Single, double and triple clouds carrying heavenly moisture were depicted with and without rain. In carving, such patterns are usually called "heavenly abyss". Rain clouds also look like a woman's breasts, because rain was considered heavenly milk that feeds the earth.
In all patterns, the theme of the fertility of the earth prevails. First of all, these are images of women in childbirth, giving harvest and benefits. The bottom of such an image is decorated, as a rule, with a seed or sprout.
The rhombus among the ancient Slavs was revered as a universal symbol of fertility and childbearing, i.e. a symbol of the feminine in nature, inextricably linked with the ideas of the Mother-ancestress, who was also thought of as Mother Nature. IN geometric ornament this is embodied in a diamond shape with hooks on the top and bottom tops. Women simply call it "frog" or "rhombus-frog".
With the transition of the nomadic tribes to settled life, pens-sheds, fenced with poles, and log-houses appeared. The greatest discovery was made - the principle of the quadrupleness of time, space (four cardinal points, four seasons) was discovered. From here, the rhombus was associated among the ancients with ideas about the cyclical nature of time, when a person was already aware of the beginning and end of a certain period; I was also aware of the basic provisions in the daily movement of the sun - sunrise, zenith, sunset. As in nature, in a person's life, periods of birth, prosperity, maturity, fading - old age are successively replaced. Generation succeeded generation, just as nature flourished and died from year to year.
But the cycle that people live in their “age”, nature experienced before their eyes several dozen times .. Therefore, the ancient farmers saw in nature only a regular repetition. Not change, not disappearance, but repetition was the defining motive of their consciousness and behavior. And this is conveyed in the image of a rhombus with hooks on the tops.
B. Rybakov, who writes: “The ancient man saw the ubiquitous bone images of female progenitors covered with a rhombic pattern of natural origin, inherent in the very structure of the tusk from which the sacred figure was cut.
The rhombic pattern, therefore, united two important concepts in the eyes of the primitive hunter: the mammoth (the source of life, satiety, prosperity) and the sacred image of a woman (a symbol of fertility, continuation of life, counting kinship). The rhombus and rhombic meander in themselves became symbols of vitality and prosperity, the first ideogram of Life and Good in the history of human thought.
On the other hand, for the farmer, 4 cardinal points were associated with the sides of his rectangular dwelling. It is known that in the hut the logs in the log house were stacked with the remainder, this remainder looked like a horn, a fork. The Russians even have a riddle: “Outside - horned, inside - kamola” (hut). With the laying of the first crown, space was ordered, its isolation, impenetrability for external, evil forces was ensured, chaos turned into space (that is, order). It is noteworthy that even when the hut was cut down without a trace, the first crown, the ground one, was necessarily horned. Apparently, the immediate proximity to the "underworld", the "house of the dead" required security from such a neighborhood, from possible evil "intrigues" of the "inhabitants of the underworld". Moreover, the earth was given the remains of enemies killed in battles during raids, and the ancient Slavs burned their relatives on a funeral pyre. Burials of the log type are also known. Hence it is clear why the presented rhombus motifs with sides extended at the corners, with a marked middle, called “rhombus-burdock” (also known as “small lattice”), symbolized a log house, a fenced space with a hearth or an altar - the habitat of ancestors.
And a rhombus of a different configuration of three pairs of intersecting lines is a funeral or sacrificial pyre, which was a sign of the Sacred action during burning - according to the belief of ancient people, contact with ancestors is established during this rite.
A rhombus with dots is a sign of a sown field. Crosses are often seen at the ends. This is a typical four-part scheme for spreading the good in 4 directions.
Very often in geometric woven ornaments there is a motif of a hand (palm). This motif played big role in the art of the ancients among many peoples. The palm - the hand - was synonymous with the brush (bundle) of plants, which was relevant for the consciousness of early farmers. According to Russian subject embroideries, a female figure is well known, often depicted with enlarged palms and with a head - a radiant rhombus, with solar rosettes in the middle of the figure. Academician B.A. Rybakov associates with the embroidered goddess the weekly festival of light - Sunday. This goddess could be only the Great Goddess, and such a title has been preserved in Russian folklore behind Lada.
Lada was revered as the goddess of marriage, marriage, fun, consolation and all prosperity. Her, Lada, is still in many traditional rites magnify, sing songs, hands on hands or hitting the table. Apparently, by clapping their hands (palm - Lada) or hitting the table with their palms, the pagans thus “established” a connection with the deity, asking her for a cheerful, blissful life. And the image of crossed palms on the patterns of towels are signs this deity.
Serpentine pattern. Trypillian culture bowls
The land in the sense of a plot that yields a crop was represented in the form of squares, rectangles covered with a dense grid, i.e. sown. Grains were placed between the strips of earth and water. The main theme of the Earth, fertility, childbearing prevails in the Russian pattern. The image of the Earth is a favorite in embroidery.
TREE. The image of the sacred tree is found among all the peoples of the world. In one of the Russian fairy tales, the hero climbs a tree to heaven. Siberian shamans put a tree in a ritual place and performed actions near it. On the Christian holiday of the Ascension of Christ, Russians baked small stairs from dough and imagined that one could ascend to heaven by a tree or stairs. The bible calls sacred tree"Tree of Life", while it is said that it is "in the middle of the garden", under the clouds) which means the center of the world. In the hymns of the Rigveda and the Edda, a snake dwells between the roots of a tree. The roots of the Tree go to unknown depths, its top goes to the sky. The snake is a symbol of time, spiral movement and repetition, wisdom and caution, and it all starts from the roots of a person, nation, humanity. Therefore, you can find the image of the Tree entwined with the Serpent.
The world tree was thought to be the embodiment of the Great Mother of the world — the Earth. The motif of determining the fate of people is associated with the tree. In the Rigveda, the World Tree was compared with a woman giving birth. Among the peoples of the world, the Tree in the form of a woman is represented by a snake-footed and sun-headed one. Among the Slavs and Latvians, at cult holidays, the girl stood on one leg - this is the pose of the incarnation of the Mother of the World - the Tree, holding the whole world. In India, standing on one leg expresses the idea of fertility. In Rus', the birch became the tree of the goddess. In spring, girls bring gifts to birch trees, tell fortunes on them, dress one of the girls with birch branches, a wreath and dedicate songs to Lada, Lelya, asking for love and marriage, childbearing. In ancient times, if a child was already punished, then with a birch rod, as a ritual of sacrifice for sins, so that Mother Fate would not get angry. |
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| Abyss of heaven (rain clouds) |
In the most ancient dwellings of the Slavs, there was always a tree-pillar holding the roof. The pillar tree symbolized a woman, the ancients always believed that a house, a dwelling rests on a woman. The pillar supports the roof of the house, like a world tree - the sky. The world tree is the pillar of the universe, the pillar supporting the sky.
Plant motifs predominate in wood carving and embroidery of the southern Slavs. Endless sprouts of sacred herbs and flowers are shown in the process of germination and flowering. Sprouts are depicted, as a rule, strong, strong, and they are guarded either by a lion or a bird of Syria, since only they are trusted to guard the infinity of life. Vegetable world- the image of Reveal, manifested life, sprouts and flowers? symbol of earthly life. The images of plants are different, it depends on which plants are considered pure, sacred in a given area. In the south - rose, periwinkle, in the middle lane - cornflower, fern, in the north - coniferous twigs, bathing suit.
Labyrinths and spirals. Meander-spiral images date back to Paleolithic times. One of the oldest spirals on a mammoth tusk was found on the territory Western Siberia. Spiral motifs were found on the banks of the Desna, in Pskov and Tver, in the White Sea region, on Solovki, in all corners of the earth. Especially a lot of them among the Indians. On a bronze statue of a Lithuanian pagan god Perkunas - Perun has many spirals. He holds a bundle of spirals in one hand and a wheel in the other. Spirals are popular among Russians in jewelry, especially on temporal rings. They can be found in brooches, diadems, buckles. Spiral ornament is a favorite image in Russian traditional embroidery. The women of Novgorod loved to decorate their headdresses with spirals. | |
| Trypillia figurines with grain imprints or with signs of a sown field |
Deities with a spiral, sitting astride a wolf, were found on the territory of Russia, Prikamye. The images of the wolf and the snake were the embodiment of the demons of the underworld. And the labyrinth is a trap, the path along which you need to find a way out. But the labyrinth is also considered a home, a fortress. The labyrinth of many nations also reflects the sky. The floor in many temples is made like a labyrinth. Is the floor ground? reflects the sky. Both the Sky and the Underworlds, where everything is subject to perpetual motion, repetition through the life and destinies of people, were presented to the ancestors in the scheme of the labyrinth.
“Spiral codes were passed down from generation to generation, from people to people, from worldview to worldview, from religion to religion. The spiral is one of ancient symbols Universe. And the cosmos itself is dotted and permeated with spirals - galaxies, vacuum quantum vortices. According to the torsion theory, the Universe as a supercomputer forms with the human brain a kind of biocomputer that works in accordance with the torsion laws, that is, according to the principles of the same twisted spiral. 0
