iron, the time of the construction of the first fortifications, etc.), one can catch the dynamics of pagan ideas, identify the stages of their development. Studies of the history of paganism have shown that the evolution of religious ideas took place not by their complete change, but by layering the new on the remaining old. As a result, the ethnographic material revealed relics of the ideas of Paleolithic hunters (the cult of bear paws, "proboscis monsters" - mammoths in fairy tales, etc.), the Mesolithic (single forest hunters), the first farmers of the Eneolithic, and much more from the subsequent, closer time to us.
In the middle of the II millennium BC. an array of Proto-Slavic tribes begins to take shape and separate in a wide strip from the Oder to the Dnieper. Their religious ideas, as far as can be judged from archaeological data, fit into the general scheme of primitive agricultural tribes. This means that the primitive religion of the Praslavyans is a cult of the deification of nature (with remnants of totemism observed in it), developing on the basis of animism and magic, and as the economy grows, there is a transition from the cult of the animal ancestor to the cult of the human ancestor. In Slavic paganism, much of what should be attributed to the common Indo-European unity was deposited; some of the earlier hunting ideas have been preserved, although all this does not yet bear precisely the Slavic specifics; it is acquired in the process of evolution of paganism.
At the very beginning of the XII century. The Russian writer, a contemporary of Vladimir Monomakh (maybe a pilgrim, hegumen Daniel) gave an interesting periodization of Slavic paganism, dividing it into four stages:
1) the cult of "ghouls" (vampires) and "shorelines" - the dualistic animism of primitive hunters of the Stone Age, inspiring all nature and dividing spirits into hostile and benevolent;
2) the cult of the agricultural celestial deities of the Family and "childbirth". Historically, two "women in labor" precede the Rod; these were the goddesses of the fertility of all living things, who later became the matriarchal goddesses of agrarian fertility (Eneolithic). The genus is a further, patriarchal stage in the development of the same ideas, which degenerated in the Bronze Age into primitive agricultural monotheism. 12th century author believes that the cult of the Family was inherent not only to the Slavs, but also to many peoples of the Middle East and the Mediterranean. It is assumed that in the sources Rod also appears under the name of Svarog (literally "Heavenly" - an archaic form) or Stribog ("God the Father" - a form known since the 10th century). In all likelihood, another of the guises of the supreme heavenly deity was the Indo-European Dy. The cult of two "ro-zhanitsy" survived the cult of the Family,
3) the cult of Perun, who in ancient times was the god of thunder, lightning and thunder, and later became the deity of war and the patron saint of warriors and princes. When the state of Kievan Rus was created, Perun became the first, main deity in the princely-state cult of the 10th century.
,4) after the adoption of Christianity in 988, paganism continued to exist, moving to the outskirts of the state.
The Slavs held on to the patriarchal tribal structure for a very long time. Therefore, it is natural that they also retained a family and clan cult in the form of veneration of ancestors, associated with a funeral cult. Throughout the territory inhabited by the Slavic tribes, there are numerous burial grounds and mounds with burials. Funeral customs were complex and varied: cremation (especially among the Eastern and partly among the Western Slavs; among the southern Slavs it is not attested), the position of a corpse (everywhere from the 10th to 20th centuries), they were often buried or burned in a boat (a relic of a water burial). A burial mound was usually poured over the grave; different things were always laid with the deceased, during the burial of nobles they killed a horse, sometimes a slave, even the wife of the deceased.
All this is connected with ideas about the afterlife. The word "paradise" - a pre-Christian and common Slavic word - meant a beautiful garden, which apparently depicted the afterlife; but it probably wasn't available to everyone. Of pre-Christian origin, of course, the word "inferno" (literally "heat", "fire"), possibly meaning the underworld, where the souls of the evil ones burn. Subsequently, the Christian doctrine of the future life blocked these ancient ideas. On the other hand, beliefs concerning the relationship of the dead to the living were remarkably firmly held, and they are not entirely similar to Christian ones; those who died a natural death ("pure" dead) and those who died an unnatural death ("impure" dead) were distinguished. The former were called "parents" and were revered, while the latter were feared ghouls. The veneration of "parents" is a real family (and earlier tribal) cult of ancestors, it is attested by medieval authors (Titmar of Merseburg wrote: "They honor household gods");
partly it has been preserved as vestiges to the present day. Suffice it to recall Russian commemorations, Belarusian dzyads, Serbian and Bulgarian stranglers, when they commemorate the dead in cemeteries. ,
Another trace of the cult of ancestors that once existed is the fantastic image of Chur (or Shchur). The exclamations “Chur!”, “Chur me!”, “Chur, this is mine1” apparently meant a spell, calling Chur for help. Perhaps the images of Chur were made of wood, which is hinted at by the Russian word "churka" - a stump of a tree. And finally
the last vestige of the ancient family and clan cult of ancestors is the belief in brownies, which has survived to this day where the patriarchal family structure lasted longer.
The attitude towards the shady dead, who had not the slightest relation to either the family or the tribal cult, was completely different. The unclean were simply feared, and this superstitious fear was generated either by fear of these people during their lifetime (sorcerers), or by the unusual cause of their death. In superstitious ideas about these unclean dead, there are obviously very few animistic elements: the Slavs were afraid not of the soul or spirit of the dead, but of himself. This is evident from the fact that, until recently, folk superstitious methods of neutralizing such a dangerous dead man lived: in order to prevent him from getting up from the grave and harming the living, the corpse was pierced with an aspen stake, a tooth from a harrow was driven in behind the ears, etc .; in a word, they were afraid of the corpse itself, and not of the soul, and believed in its supernatural ability to move after death. The unclean dead were also attributed a bad influence on the weather, for example, they could cause drought; to prevent it, the corpse of a suicide or other ghoul was dug out of the grave and thrown into a swamp or the grave was flooded with water. Such unclean dead were called ghouls (a word of unclear origin, perhaps purely Slavic, since it is found in all Slavic languages), among the Serbs - vampires, among northern Russians - heretniks, etc. Perhaps the ancient word “Navie”1 (“Navii”) meant just such unclean and dangerous dead, in any case, the Kiev Chronicle contains (marked 1092) a story about how the frightened people that happened in Polotsk explained by the fact that "Se Navier (the dead) are beating Polochans." The ancient church teaching "The Word of John Chrysostom" also speaks of some rites in honor of these dead: "they make fire and sing in the middle." The Bulgarians still have navi - these are the souls of unbaptized people. Hence, probably, Ukrainian Navkas, Mavkas. Against all these vampires, ghouls, navi, there have long been conspiracies and magical means.
Written sources preserved the names of ancient Slavic deities, and some of them - later lost - had something to do with agriculture. These included the solar deities Svarog, Dazhdbog, Hora; probably, there was also a cult of the goddess of the earth, although there is no direct evidence in favor of this assumption. It is possible that the thunder god Perun, who later became a princely god in Rus', was also associated with agriculture; whether he was revered by the peasants is unknown. The patron saint of cattle breeding was Veles-Volos, at the same time
There is an assumption about the opposition that existed in antiquity, reality (existing, daytime, sunny) - and chav (night, dark).
the god of the underworld and the dead, it was in his name that they swore. Belee was considered the god of wealth and trade; hence it is clear why his statue was on the market square in Kyiv, Veliky Novgorod, Rostov, and obviously in Kazan.
On the island of Ruyan (Rügen), an intertribal god of war, called Svyatovit, was revered. He lived in the heavily fortified village of Arko-ne, in a shrine full of treasures, he had a white horse and a squad of three hundred cavalry soldiers. Another god on Ruyan was Rugevit, in the temple there was a statue of him with seven faces; there was also a statue of Porevit with five heads, and in another shrine there was a statue of Porenut with five faces. In Szczecin and Volhynia, the three-headed god Triglav was revered. In Wolgast and Havelberg they worshiped Yarovit. A common feature of these seaside deities is their militancy, attributes - a warrior's shield or sword, a war horse, and military banners as emblems. All of them patronized the Baltic tribes in their fight against the German invasions.
From the messages of the Arab author of the second half of the 9th century. Ibn-Rusta knows that all Slavs worshiped Fire - according to Massudi (X century), they revered the Sun. The Slavs revered both earthly and heavenly fire in the form of a flaming solar disk, calling the deity of fire Svarog, and the sun - Svarozhich, and the second name possibly refers to the son of Svarog. The latter was worshiped by both Western and Eastern Slavs as a divine blacksmith. There is nothing surprising in the fact that in the pantheon of the early medieval Slavs, the main places are occupied by Svarog and Svarozhich.
The goddess of happiness Sreka among the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, apparently, is a rather late mythical creation; she borrowed some features from Fortune and Tyche. She acts as fate, like Fatum and the parks; during the festivities, libations were made in her honor, and during trade transactions, coins were donated to her.
Modern studies of the ancient Slavic pantheon testify in favor of the existence of Thracian Rus. V. Shcherbakov, mentioned in the previous juction, in his works “Asgard and the Vans”, “Asgard is the city of the gods” writes the following: “All the gods of the Eastern Slavs (in Kievan Rus) are the gods of the Trojan-Thracians: the Thracian Per-kon is Perun, Stribog is the god Satre of the Thracian Sat-Rov tribe, Dazhdbog is the Asia Minor Tadi, Dazh, Tadaena ... Kupala is the Phrygian Cybele, etc. ”
Tall, physically strong Thracians (who called themselves Russ) believed in the immortality of the soul. With such a people (as well as with the Celts) it was difficult to fight; it is clear that they were part of the Roman legions. At the beginning of a new era, the stream of Thracians moved north, occupying all the lands suitable for agriculture, up to the banks of the Dnieper (there were
thousands of treasures of the 1st-2nd centuries, in which there are many Roman awards to Thracian legionnaires) It was on the right bank of the Dnieper that Kievan Rus was later formed - a kind of Thracian Rus.
The word god itself is primordially Slavic, common to all Slavic languages, and also related to the ancient Iranian boga and the ancient Indian bhaga. The main meaning of this word, as linguistic data shows, is happiness, luck. ”) and “y-god” (“y” is a prefix meaning the loss or removal of something); Polish zboze - harvest, Lusatian zbozo, zbze - livestock, prosperity Over time, ideas about luck, success, luck were personified in the image of a certain spirit that gives good luck. As early as the beginning of the 15th century in Moscow, at a royal wedding, one boyar said to another, whose brother was married to the tsar’s sister, arguing with him over the place: “Your brother has God in a kick (that is, happiness in a kichka, in his wife), and you don't have a god in your kick."
Another common Slavic designation for a supernatural being is a demon. This word, apparently, meant at first everything supernatural and strange (compare the Lithuanian baisas - fear, the Latin boedus - terrible, disgusting). Until now, the words “mad”, “rage” are preserved in the Russian language. After the adoption of Christianity, the word "demon" became a synonym for an evil spirit, equivalent to the concept of the devil, Satan. The same fate befell the concept of the devil. But the pre-Christian meaning of this image is unclear, just as the etymology of the word "devil" is not entirely clear. Of the various attempts to explain it, the most plausible is the assumption of the Czech Karel Erben. He raises it to the Old Slavonic krt, which sounds in the name of the West Slavic god krodo, in the names of the house spirit among the Czechs kret, among the Poles skrzat, among the Latvians krat. Apparently, the same root is in the word "karachun" ("korochun"), which is also known to all Slavs and some of their neighbors. This word has several meanings: the winter holiday of Christmas time, ritual bread baked at this time, as well as some kind of spirit or deity of winter, death. “Korochun grabbed him” in Russian means: “he died.” Probably, the ancient Slavs believed in some deity of winter and death, the personification of winter darkness and cold. But the root "krt" has almost disappeared, and "chrt" - the devil - has been preserved in almost all Slavic languages as the personification of evil supernatural power and has become synonymous with the Christian devil.
During the formation of the early feudal Slavic states, by absorbing various tribes, the reorganization of the pagan cult also took place, the transformation of tribal cults into state ones. In the official cult, the entire ensemble of deities from
separate tribes, among which the god of the tribe that has carried out political consolidation dominates, and it is not without interest that this process falls on the 10th century
According to Thietmar, in the metropolitan Radogoshche Velesov, a number of deities headed by Svarog are concentrated in one sanctuary. The cult of Svyatovit, obviously, spread among the Pomeranian Slavs precisely in connection with this socio-political process of state formation. Among the Eastern Slavs, an attempt to create a nationwide pantheon and a state cult was made by Prince Vladimir of Kiev. According to the chronicler Nestor, in 980 he gathered on one of the hills of Kiev a host of idols of various gods (Perun, Veles, Dazhdbog, Khors, Stribog, etc.) and ordered to pray and make sacrifices to them. Some researchers believe that these Vladimir gods were from the very beginning princely or retinue gods and their cult had no roots among the people. However, the solar deities Hora, Dazhdbog and others were also folk deities, as the history of the religion of the Slavs testifies; Vladimir only tried to make of them, as it were, the official gods of his principality, in order to give it ideological unity.
But the prince himself was not satisfied with the attempt to create his own pantheon of Slavic gods, and just eight years later he adopted Christianity from Byzantium and forced the whole people to do so, since the Christian religion was more in line with the emerging feudal relations. Although slowly, overcoming the resistance of the people, it spread among the Eastern Slavs. The Western Slavs, under great pressure from the feudal-royal power, adopted Christianity in the Roman Catholic form.The spread of Christianity was accompanied by its fusion with the old religion. The Christian clergy themselves took care of this in order to make the new faith more acceptable to the people. The old agricultural and other holidays were timed to coincide with the days of the church calendar. The old pagan gods gradually merged with the Christian saints and for the most part lost their names, but transferred their functions and attributes to these saints. So, Perun continued to be revered as a thunder deity under the name of Elijah the Prophet, the cattle god Veles - under the name of St. Blaise, etc.
However, the images of "lower mythology" turned out to be more stable. They have survived to the present day, although it is not always easy to distinguish what in these images really comes from ancient times, and what has accumulated on them after.
All Slavic peoples have beliefs about the spirits of nature. Spirits - personifications of the forest - are known mainly in the forest belt: Russian goblin, Belarusian Leshuk, Pushchevik, Polish spirit of the forest, pine forest. They embodied the fearful hostility of the Slavs.
a farmer to a dense forest, from which land had to be won for arable land and in which a person was in danger of getting lost, dying from wild animals. The spirit of the water element - Russian waterman, Polish waterman, Lukitsky water husband (water wife), etc. - inspired much more fear than the relatively good-natured joker goblin, for drowning in a pool, a lake is much more terrible than the danger of getting lost in the forest. The image of a field spirit is characteristic: Russian midday, Lukitskaya naturalist, Czech midday, etc. This is a woman in white, who supposedly appears to be working in the field in the midday heat, when custom requires a break in work: midday punishes the violator of the custom by turning his head or how something else. The image of noon is the personification of the danger of a sunstroke. In the mountainous regions of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, there is a belief about the spirits of the mountains guarding treasures or patronizing miners.
More complex and less clear is the image of a pitchfork, especially common among the Serbs; it is found in both Czech and Russian sources. Some researchers consider it to be common Slavic, others still only South Slavic. Pitchforks are forest, field, mountain, water or air maidens who can behave both friendly and hostile towards a person, depending on his own behavior. In addition to beliefs, pitchforks appear in South Slavic erotic songs. The origin of the image of the vila is unclear, but there is no doubt that different elements are intertwined here: the personification of natural elements, and, perhaps, ideas about the souls of the dead, and the power of fertility.
More clear is the question of mermaids. This image, even more complex, is known to all Slavs. It arose as a result of the influence of ancient and early Christian rituals on the Slavs. The very mythological image of a mermaid - a girl living in water, a forest or a field - is late: it is attested only in the 18th century; it is largely the personification of the holiday or ceremony itself. But this image merged, apparently, with the ancient purely Slavic mythological ideas:
the mermaid loves to lure people into the water and drown people, mermaids embody women and girls who died in the water, etc. Obviously, the new complex image of the mermaid has replaced the original Slavic ancient images of coastlines, vodonitsa and other female water spirits. All these mythological representations of Slavic paganism still live in folklore and literary works.
The roots of healing magic go back to the most ancient era, which among the Slavs, as well as among other peoples, was associated with folk medicine. The church teachings mention, although very unclearly, healing-magical rites, they also talk about the animistic images associated with them:
ki, they bring the demon, and the demon, the verb shaking, they create, repelling ... ”(E. Anichkov). As you know, the use of quackery remedies was preserved among the Slavic (as well as among other) peoples until modern times. Various symptoms of the disease were personified in the form of special evil creatures mentioned in healing conspiracies: “shaking”, “fire”, “yellowing”, “lomey” and etc.
Protective magic was also widely practiced among the Slavs - the use of various kinds of amulets was common, for example, broken teeth of a bear, already revered by the Proto-Slavs, or Easter eggs, symbolizing resurgent life. For divination, horses were used in Shchecin, Radogoshch and Arkon shrines. They told fortunes according to a variety of signs, threw wooden cubes with marks, led a horse between spears driven into the ground. It is clear that here it was impossible to do without sorcerer-priests.^
The question of the ancient Slavic clergy, performers of religious rites is very unclear. The ritual of the family and clan cult was most likely performed by the heads of families and clans; the public cult was in the hands of special professionals - the Magi. It is possible that already with the emergence of grandiose tribal sanctuaries in the VI-IV centuries. BC. the Proto-Slavs formed some groups of priests-sorcerers who organized the ritual of the “event”, led the process of pagan worship and performed fortune-telling. They made wise calendars, knew "features and cuts", kept in memory myths that date back at least to the Bronze Age. The Magi were close to the tribal nobility, and, perhaps, were part of it; probably, the supreme priestly power also belonged to the "bright princes" of the tribes.
The common name of the Slavic priests was "wizards" or "wizards", but, judging by the branching of the terminology, there were many different categories in the entire priestly class. There are well-known magicians-clouders, those who were supposed to predict and create the weather necessary for people with their magical actions. There were magicians-healers who treated people with traditional medicine; the clergy recognized their medical success, but believed that it was a sin to turn to them. There were sorcerers-keepers who led the complex business of making amulets-amulets and, obviously, ornamental symbolic compositions. The work of this category of magi can be studied as archaeologists on numerous
The Polish “prince” comes from the same stem as the Russian “prince”, but it means not a secular, but a spiritual leader, it is possible that the roots of this split date back to the times when secular and spiritual power was concentrated in one hand
ancient ornaments, which simultaneously served as amulets, and ethnographers based on remnant embroidery plots with the goddess Mokosh (the patroness of women's work, spinning and weaving) and the goddesses of spring, riding horses “with a golden plow”, and numerous symbolic patterns.
It is quite possible that the Magi of the highest rank, close to such guardians in their knowledge of pagan cosmology, led the creation of complex and comprehensive compositions such as the famous Zbruch idol. In addition to the magicians-sorcerers, there were also women sorceresses, witches (from "know" - to know), enchantresses, "indulgences". An interesting category of sorcerers were blasphemers, narrators of "koshchyun"1 - myths, keepers of ancient legends and epic tales. The storytellers were also called bayans, charmers, which is associated with the verb "bayat" - to tell, sing, conjure.
In the ancient Slavic religion, undoubtedly, there were sacred and sacrificial places, and in some places real sanctuaries and temples with images of gods, etc. But only very few are known:
Arkonsky sanctuary on the island of Rügen, sanctuary in Retra, pre-Christian sanctuary in Kyiv (under the Church of the Tithes). In sacred places, a cult was performed, the main part of which was the offering of sacrifices, sometimes human.
The Slavic "kotyup" can go back to the word "bone" - one who manipulates bones, a sorcerer.
The ancient, pre-Christian religion of the Slavic peoples is still far from sufficiently known to us. Scientists began to be interested in it from the end of the 18th century, when the national consciousness of many Slavic peoples was awakened in general, and interest in folk culture and folk art began to manifest itself in European literature. But by this time, all the Slavic peoples, who had long been converted to Christianity, had managed to forget their ancient beliefs; only some of the folk customs and rituals that were once associated with these beliefs have survived.
The ancient Slavs were never united either politically or economically, and they could hardly have common gods, common cults. Obviously, each tribe had its own objects of veneration, and even each clan had its own. But, of course, much was the same or similar among different tribes.
Funeral cult and family-clan cult of ancestors
The Slavs kept the patriarchal tribal system for a very long time. According to the Kievan Chronicle, "I live each of my kind and in their places, owning each of my kind." Therefore, it is natural that they also retained a family and clan cult in the form of veneration of ancestors associated with a funeral cult.
Throughout the territory inhabited by the Slavic tribes, there are numerous burial grounds and mounds with burials. Funeral customs were complex and varied: cremation (especially among the Eastern and partly among the Western Slavs; among the southern Slavs it is not attested), corpses (everywhere from the 10th-12th centuries), they were often buried or burned in a boat (a relic of water burial). A burial mound was usually poured over the grave; different things were always laid with the dead, during the burial of nobles they killed a horse, and sometimes a slave, even the wife of the deceased. All this is connected with some ideas about the afterlife. The word "paradise" - a pre-Christian common Slavic word - meant a beautiful garden, which apparently depicted the afterlife; but it probably wasn't available to everyone. Subsequently, the Christian doctrine of the "future life" blocked these ancient ideas; perhaps only Ukrainians have preserved a vague mythological belief about some blessed country - viry (iry), where birds fly away in autumn and where the dead live.
On the other hand, the beliefs concerning the relationship of the dead to the living were remarkably strong, and they are not at all like Christian ones. The dead were divided very sharply into two categories. This division, preserved in beliefs at least among the Eastern Slavs, was perfectly defined by D.K. Zelenin: one category - "pure" dead who died a natural death: from illness, old age - they were usually called, regardless of age and gender, parents ; the other - the "unclean" dead (dead, mortgaged), those who died an unnatural, violent or premature death: the murdered, suicides, drowned people, drunkards (who died from drunkenness); this also included children who died unbaptized (the influence of Christianity!), And sorcerers. The attitude towards these two categories of the dead was fundamentally different: the "parents" were revered, looked at them as the patrons of the family, and the "dead" were afraid and tried to neutralize.
The veneration of "parents" is a real family (and before, obviously, tribal) cult of ancestors. It was attested by medieval authors (Titmar of Merseburg: "domesticos colunt deos" - "they honor the household gods") and partly preserved as remnants to this day. Russian peasants commemorate their parents on certain days of the year, especially on parental Saturday (before Shrove Tuesday, as well as before the Trinity), on the rainbow (post-Easter week). Belarusian peasants celebrated the holiday of dzyads (that is, grandfathers who died) several times a year, especially solemnly in the fall (mostly on the last Saturday of October). They diligently prepared for the holiday, cleaned and washed the dwelling, prepared ritual dishes; Dzyads were invited to take part in the meal, which was always very solemn. Serbs and Bulgarians still manage - and not only peasants, but also townspeople - stranglers, commemoration of the dead in cemeteries, where they bring food, eat and drink on graves, and leave some to the dead. Whether they look at the dead as patrons of the family is unclear. But before, of course, they looked like that.
The custom of celebrating family glory (Krano Ime), which has survived among the Serbs to this day, must also be considered a relic of the ancient family-clan cult of ancestors. Glory copes on the day of the Christian saint - the patron saint of the family; but the very nature of the holiday and its origin are undoubtedly pre-Christian, and before it was celebrated, apparently, in honor of the ancestors - the patrons of the family.
Another trace of the cult of ancestors that once existed is the fantastic image of Chur or Shchur. It is very likely that this was a revered ancestor. His cult is not directly attested, but convincing traces of him have been preserved in the Slavic languages. Exclamations "Chur!", "Chur me!", "Chur, this is mine!" meant, apparently, a spell, invoking Chur for help; now it is preserved in children's games; Ukrainian (and Polish) "Tzur tobi" - also in the sense of a spell. The verb "shun" means to keep aloof, that is, as if to be protected by Chur. And the word "too" obviously comes from the concept of Chur, as if guarding some boundaries, the borders of the ancestral land, probably. That Chur-Schur was exactly an ancestor is evident from the word "ancestor", great-ancestor. Perhaps the images of Chur were made of wood, which is hinted at by the Russian word "churka" - a stump of a tree *.
* (See A. G. Preobrazhensky. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1958, pp. 1221-1222.)
Finally, the last remnant of the ancient family-clan cult of ancestors is the belief in the brownie, which has survived to this day, especially among the Eastern Slavs, where the patriarchal-family way of life lasted longer. Brownie (house-keeper, homemaker, owner, neighbor, etc.) is the invisible patron of the family; according to popular beliefs, he is in every house, he usually lives under the stove, behind the stove, under the threshold; humanoid; monitors the economy, patronizes hardworking owners, but punishes the lazy and negligent; requires self-respect and small sacrifices - some bread, salt, porridge, etc.; loves horses and cares for them, but only if their color is to his liking, otherwise he may ruin the horse. The brownie can appear in the form of an old man, a deceased owner, or even a living one. In his image, as it were, the well-being and trouble of the family and economy were personified. The preservation of this image from the ancient era is explained by the stability of the patriarchal way of life in Russian and Belarusian peasant families; among Ukrainians, this way of life has been preserved weaker, and therefore faith in the brownie has faded. The Western Slavs have similar images: skrzhitek - among the Czechs, Khovanets - among the Poles.
Unclean Dead
The attitude towards the "unclean" dead, who had nothing to do with family or tribal cult, was quite different. The unclean were simply feared, and this superstitious fear was obviously generated either by fear of these people during their lifetime (sorcerers), or by the very unusual cause of their death. In superstitious ideas about these unclean dead, there are apparently very few animistic elements: the Slavs were afraid not of the soul or spirit of the dead, but of himself. This is evident from the fact that, until recently, folk superstitious methods of neutralizing such a dangerous dead man lived: in order to prevent him from getting up from the grave and harming the living, the corpse was pierced with an aspen stake, a tooth from a harrow was driven in behind the ears, etc .; in a word, they were afraid of the corpse itself, and not of the soul, and believed in its supernatural ability to move after death. Bad influences on the weather, such as drought, were also attributed to the unclean dead; to prevent it, they dug out the corpse of a suicide or another dead person from the grave and threw it into the swamp or filled the grave with water. Such unclean dead were called ghouls (a word of unclear origin, may be purely Slavic, since it is found in all Slavic languages), among the Serbs - vampires, among northern Russians - heretics, etc. Perhaps the ancient word "Navie" (" navy") meant just such unclean and dangerous dead; at least, in the Kyiv Chronicle there is (under 1092) a story about how the frightened people that happened in Polotsk explained the pestilence (epidemic) by the fact that "Se Navier (dead) beat the Polochans". The Bulgarians still have navia - these are the souls of unbaptized children. Hence, probably, Ukrainian Navkas, Mavkas.
Community agricultural cults
Next to the family and tribal forms of cult, the Slavs also had communal cults, connected primarily with agriculture. True, there is no direct and clear evidence of them, but numerous and very stable remnants of the agrarian cult have been preserved in the form of religious and magical rites and holidays, timed to coincide with the most important moments of the agricultural calendar and subsequently merged with church Christian holidays: Christmas time falling on the time of the winter solstice (Christmas and New Year cycle); carnival at the beginning of spring; spring rites, now attributed to Christian Easter; the summer cycle of holidays, partly dedicated to Trinity Day, partly to the day of John the Baptist (Ivan Kupala); autumn brotherhoods - communal meals after harvesting. All these customs and rituals of the agricultural cycle are very similar among all Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic peoples. They once arose, in all likelihood, from simple meals, games and holidays dedicated to the beginning or end of certain agricultural works (V. I. Chicherov showed this well in his studies), but magical rituals and superstitious ideas were intertwined with them. Agricultural magic was either initiatory ("first day magic" - customs and divination on New Year's Eve), or imitative (rites during sowing, for example, burying a chicken egg in a furrow, etc.). These magical rites persisted until recently.
Much less clear is the question of those personified images of deities - the patrons of agriculture, which the Slavs undoubtedly had. True, there are names in the literature of some mythological creatures allegedly patronizing agriculture (Koleda, Yarilo, Kupala, Lel, Kostroma, etc.), and former authors wrote a lot about them, especially supporters of the mythological school. But all these images are very doubtful: they were either formed under the influence of Christianity (Kupala is John the Baptist, because the people associated Christian baptism with bathing; Lel - from the Christian "hallelujah"), or are a simple personification of holidays and rituals (for example, Koleda - from the ancient holiday of Kalends, which coincided with the Slavic winter Christmas time).
Old Slavic pantheon
Written sources preserved the names of ancient Slavic deities, and some of them - later lost - apparently had something to do with agriculture. Such were, presumably, the solar deities Svarog, Dazhdbog, Khors. Apparently, there was also a cult of the goddess of the earth, although it is not directly attested. It is possible that the thunder god Perun was also associated with agriculture (this name, it seems, is an epithet and means "striking"), who later became a princely god in Rus'; whether he was revered by the peasants is unknown. The patron of cattle breeding was undoubtedly Beles (Volos) - the cattle god.
The female deity Mokosh mentioned in Russian sources is very interesting. This is not only almost the only female image attested in the ancient East Slavic pantheon, but also the only deity whose name has been preserved among the people to this day. Mokosh, apparently, is the patron goddess of women's work, spinning and weaving. In the northern Russian regions, there is still a belief that if the sheep molt, this means that "Mokosh shears the sheep"; there is a belief that "Mokusha goes around the house during the Great Lent and disturbs the spinning women" * .
* (G. Ilyinsky. From the history of ancient Slavic pagan beliefs. "Proceedings of the Society of Archeology, History and Ethnography at Kazan University", vol. 34, no. 3-4. 1929, p. 7.)
The religious and mythological significance of Rod and Rozhanitsy, who, according to various sources, were worshiped by the ancient Slavs, is unclear. Some researchers see in them generic ancestral spirits (Rod is the ancestor), others - the spirits of birth and fertility. According to B. A. Rybakov, Rod in the pre-Christian era managed to become the supreme deity of all Slavs; but this is doubtful.
In general, did common Slavic deities exist? There was a lot of discussion about this. Many authors, in their romantic-Slavophile enthusiasm, considered almost all known mythological names, even the most dubious ones, as the names of common Slavic gods. Subsequently, it turned out that some gods are mentioned among the Eastern Slavs, others - among the Western, and still others - among the southern. Only the name of Perun is repeated among different groups of Slavs, but, as already mentioned, this is just an epithet of the thunder god. Svarog and Dazhdbog are often considered common Slavic, sometimes Beles; but this is all unreliable.
One can also speak about the cult of tribal gods only presumably. Some names, apparently, of tribal or local gods of the Western, especially the Baltic, Slavs are given by medieval writers and chroniclers Adam of Bremen, Titmar of Merseburg, Samson Grammatik and other authors. It is possible that some of these tribal gods have become more widely known and may have become inter-tribal. Such was Svyatovit, whose sanctuary stood in Arkon, on the island of Ruyan (Rügen), and was destroyed by the Danes in 1168; Radgost was the god of the Lutichs, but traces of his veneration have been preserved even among the Czechs. Triglav was a Pomeranian god. The tribal gods Rugevit (on Ruyan), Gerovit, or Yarovit (in Wolgast), Prov (among the Wagrs), the goddess Siva (among the Polabian Slavs), and others are also known. Among the Serbs, Dabog, who later turned into an antagonist, was a tribal patron christian god. Many other names of deities have survived, but they are doubtful.
"God", "Demon" and "Damn"
Salu the word "god" is primordially Slavic, common to all Slavic languages, and also related to ancient Iranian baga and ancient Indian bhaga. The main meaning of this word, as shown by the data of the language, is happiness, luck. Hence, for example, "god-aty" (having a god, happiness) and "y-god" ("y" is a prefix meaning loss or removal from something); Polish zbože - harvest, Lusatian zbožo, zbože - livestock, prosperity. Over time, ideas about luck, success, happiness, luck were personified in the form of a certain spirit that gives good luck. Even at the beginning of the XV century. in Moscow, at a royal wedding, one boyar said to another, arguing with him over a place: "Your brother has God in a kick (that is, happiness in a kick, in his wife), but you have no god in a kick": the brother of the second boyar was married on the king's sister *.
* (See V. Klyuchevsky. Course of Russian history, part 2. 1912, p. 195.)
Another common Slavic designation for a supernatural being is a demon. This word, apparently, meant at first everything supernatural and terrible (compare the Lithuanian baisas - fear, the Latin foedus - terrible, disgusting). Until now, the words "mad", "rage" are preserved in Russian. After the adoption of Christianity, the word "demon" became a synonym for an evil spirit, equivalent to the concept of the devil, Satan.
The same fate befell the concept of the devil. But the pre-Christian meaning of this image is unclear, just as the etymology of the word "devil" is not entirely clear. Of his various attempts to explain, the most plausible is the old assumption of the Czech Karel Erben: he raises it to the Old Slavic krt, which sounds in the name of the West Slavic god Krodo, in the names of the house spirit among the Czechs křet (skřet), among the Poles skrzatx among the Latvians krat. Apparently, the same root is in the word "krachun" ("korochun"), which is also known to all Slavs and some of their neighbors. The word "krachun" ("korochun") has several meanings: the winter holiday of Christmas time, ritual bread baked at this time, as well as some kind of "spirit or deity of winter, death." "Korochun grabbed him" in Russian means: he died .
One might think that the ancient Slavs believed in a certain deity of winter and death, perhaps the personification of winter darkness and cold. There are traces of some kind of bifurcation of the krt-crt image, which may be associated with the beginnings of a dualistic idea of a light and dark beginning. But the root "krt" has almost disappeared, and "chrt" - the devil - has been preserved in almost all Slavic languages as the personification of all sorts of evil supernatural powers. The devil has become synonymous with the Christian devil.
The development of tribal cults into state
When the Slavic tribes, as class stratification began to move to state forms of life, conditions arose for the transformation of tribal cults into national and state ones. Perhaps the cult of Svyatovit among the Pomeranian Slavs spread precisely in connection with this. Among the Eastern Slavs, an attempt to create a nationwide pantheon and a state cult was made by Prince Vladimir of Kiev: according to the chronicle, in 980 he collected on one of the hills of Kiev a host of idols of various gods (Perun, Veles, Dazhdbog, Khors, Stribog, Mokosh) and ordered pray to them and make sacrifices. Some hypercritical researchers (Anichkov) believed that these "Vladimir gods" were from the very beginning princely or retinue gods and their cult had no roots among the people. But this is unlikely. The solar deities Khors, Dazhdbog and others, the female goddess Mokosh, apparently, were also folk deities; Vladimir only tried to make of them, as it were, the official gods of his principality, in order to give it ideological unity. It must be assumed that the prince himself was not satisfied with the attempt to create his own pantheon of gods of Slavic origin - just 8 years later he adopted Christianity from Byzantium and forced the whole people to do so. The Christian religion was more in line with the emerging feudal relations. Therefore, although slowly, overcoming the resistance of the people, it spread among the Eastern Slavs. The same thing happened to the South Slavs. And the Western Slavs, under great pressure from the feudal-royal power, adopted Christianity in the Catholic form from Rome.
The spread of Christianity was accompanied by its fusion with the old religion. The Christian clergy themselves took care of this in order to make the new faith more acceptable to the people. The old agricultural and other holidays were timed to coincide with the days of the church calendar. The old gods gradually merged with the Christian saints and for the most part lost their names, but transferred their functions and attributes to these saints. So, Perun continued to be revered as a thunder deity under the name of Elijah the Prophet, the cattle god Veles - under the name of St. Blaise, Mokosh - under the name of St. Paraskeva or St. Friday.
"Lower mythology" of the Slavs
But the images of "lower mythology" turned out to be more stable. They have survived almost to the present day, although it is not always easy to distinguish what really comes from ancient times in these images, and what was layered on them later.
All Slavic peoples have beliefs about the spirits of nature. Spirits - personifications of the forest are known mainly in the forest belt: Russian goblin, Belarusian Leshuk, Pushchevik, Polish duch lesny, borowy. They personified the fearful hostility of the Slavic farmer to the dense forest, from which he had to win land for arable land and in which a person was in danger of getting lost and dying from wild animals. The spirit of the water element - Russian water, Polish topielec, wodnik (topielnica, wodnica), Czech vodnik, Lusatian wodny muž (wodna žona), etc. - inspired much more fear than the relatively good-natured joker goblin, because the danger of drowning in a whirlpool, the lake is much more terrible than the danger of getting lost in the forest. The image of a field spirit is characteristic: Russian noon, Polish poludnice, Lusatian pripoldnica, Czech polednice. This is a woman in white who seems to be working in the field in the midday heat, when custom requires a break in work: noon punishes the violator of the custom by turning his head or in some other way. The image of noon is the personification of the danger of a sunstroke. In the mountainous regions of Poland and Czechoslovakia, there is a belief about the spirits of the mountains guarding treasures or patronizing miners: skarbnik among the Poles, perkman (from the German Bergmann - mountain man) among the Czechs and Slovaks.
More complex and less clear is the image of a pitchfork, which is especially common among the Serbs (among the Bulgarians - samovila, samodiva); it is found in both Czech and Russian sources. Some authors consider it original and common Slavic; others are still only South Slavic. Pitchforks are forest, field, mountain, water or air maidens who can behave both friendly and hostile towards a person, depending on his own behavior. In addition to beliefs, pitchforks appear in South Slavic epic songs. The origin of the image of the vila is unclear, but there is no doubt that different elements are intertwined in it: here is the personification of the elements of nature, and, perhaps, ideas about the souls of the dead, and the power of fertility. The word itself, apparently, is Slavic, but its etymology is debatable: from the verb "viti" - to drive, fight, or from "viliti" - to rush about in a stormy dance (Czech vilny - voluptuous, lustful, Polish wit - scarecrow, scarecrow, wity - nonsense, crazy antics).
The question of the origin of the image of the mermaid is clearer, although the latter is even more complex. The image of a mermaid, or at least some similar one, is known to all Slavs. They argued a lot about him: some considered the mermaid to be the personification of water, others believed that the mermaid was a drowned woman, etc. Now, however, it can be considered proven that the word is not of Slavic, but of Latin origin, from the root "rosa".
The most detailed study of East Slavic mermaids belongs to D.K. Zelenin *; he collected a huge amount of factual material about these beliefs, but his view of their origin suffers from one-sidedness. Already from the time of the works of Mikloshich (1864), Veselovsky (1880) and others, it became clear that it was impossible to understand the beliefs about mermaids and the rituals associated with them, if we do not take into account the influence of ancient and early Christian rituals on the Slavs. Among the peoples of the Mediterranean, the spring-summer holiday of the Trinity (Pentecost) was called domenica rosarum, pascha rosata, in the Greek form ρoυσαλια. These Greco-Roman Rusals were transferred along with Christianity to the Slavs and merged with the local spring-summer agricultural rites. Until now, the Bulgarians and Macedonians know mermaids, or mermaids, as summer holidays (before Trinity Day). The Russians also managed the mermaid week (before the Trinity), as well as seeing off the mermaid; the mermaid was portrayed by a girl or a straw effigy. The very mythological image of a mermaid - a girl living in the water, or in a field, in a forest - is late: it is attested only from the 18th century; it is largely the personification of the holiday or ceremony itself. But this image merged, apparently, with ancient purely Slavic mythological ideas, and quite diverse ones at that: here is the personification of the water element (the mermaid loves to lure people into the water and drown people), and ideas about women and girls who died in the water, about unbaptized dead children (unclean dead), and beliefs about the spirits of fertility (mermaids in the South Great Russian beliefs walk in the rye, roll on the grass and thereby produce bread, flax, hemp, etc.). Obviously, this new and complex image of a mermaid replaced the original Slavic ancient images of coastlines, vodonitsa and other female water spirits.
* (See D.K. Zelenin. Essays on Russian mythology. Pg., 1916.)
The modern Slavic peoples have preserved many other superstitious ideas about supernatural beings, partly hostile, partly benevolent to man. They personified either the fear of the elements of nature, generated by the underdevelopment of material production, or social conditions. Some of these ideas go back to the pre-Christian era, others arose in relatively new conditions of life; among the later ones are, for example, Ukrainian beliefs about evil spirits - small spirits personifying the unfortunate fate of a poor peasant. Under the influence of the Church, most of these mythological images were united under the collective name of evil spirits (among Belarusians - unclean).
Ancient Slavic cult and its servants
The question of the ancient Slavic clergy, performers of religious rites is very unclear. The ritual of the family and clan cult was performed, most likely, by the heads of families and clans. The public cult was in the hands of special professionals - the Magi. The word itself has not been satisfactorily elucidated, despite numerous attempts. There is an opinion that it reflected the connections of the Slavs with the Celts ("voloh", "valakh" - the former designation of the Celts), or with the Finns (from the Finnish velho - a sorcerer), or even with the Germans (vo "lva - a prophetess). In any case case, the connection of the word "sorcerer" with the word "magic", "magic" is undoubted. But who were the Magi? Simple sorcerers, shamans or priests of the gods? Were there any differences, ranks, specialization between the Magi? It is difficult to answer this. However, other designations for performers of religious and magical rites have been preserved: a sorcerer, sorcerer, prophetic, accordionist, soothsayer, sorcerer, etc.
There is evidence that after the adoption of Christianity in Rus', the Magi acted as defenders of the old faith and at the same time as leaders of anti-princely and anti-feudal uprisings (for example, in 1071). And this is understandable, because Christianity came to Rus' as a purely feudal-princely religion. In later times, all Slavic peoples retained sorcerers, sorcerers, warlocks, who were credited with secret knowledge, intercourse with evil spirits. But along with them, specialists in healing magic associated with folk medicine, healers (whisperers, sorcerers), have survived from the ancient era. In folk beliefs, they distinguished themselves from sorcerers and often opposed themselves to them, arguing that they act with the help of the power of God, and not evil spirits.
It is very characteristic that among the Russians foreigners were considered stronger sorcerers and healers: Finns, Karelians, Mordovians, etc. This phenomenon, however, is known to other peoples.
In the ancient Slavic religion, undoubtedly, there were sacred and sacrificial places, and in some places real sanctuaries and temples with images of gods, etc. But only a very few are known: the Arkon sanctuary on the island of Rügen, the sanctuary in Retra, the pre-Christian sanctuary in Kiev (under tithe church).
The question of mythology and the general character of the Slavic religion
Unfortunately, ancient Slavic mythology has not been preserved at all, although it probably existed. The scarcity of the remnants of the ancient Slavic religion prompted some researchers to consider this religion pathetic, miserable in comparison with the religions of other ancient peoples. "The paganism of Rus' was especially miserable," said, for example, E. V. Anichkov, "her gods are pitiful, her cult and morals are rude" * . But the point, apparently, is simply the insufficient study of the religion of the ancient Slavs and the scarcity of sources. If we knew as much about it as about the religion of, for example, the ancient Romans, the Slavic religion would hardly have seemed to us more miserable and miserable than the Roman one.
* (E. V. Anichkov. Paganism and Ancient Rus'. SPb., 1914, p. XXXVI.)
It is not so much the lack of records dating back to ancient Slavic fables, but the lack of effort to develop dry legends about this subject, which is the reason that we still do not have a systematic description of these gods. The writers who were shortly after the enlightenment of Christianity by the Slavic tribes had reason to mention little or be completely silent about idolatry, which had not yet been completely exterminated, and can be respected by many as the faith of their fathers.
But there is no danger for us to seek out, develop and present the fabulous dogma as fully as possible: for this narrative for us is nothing but food for curiosity; and if we can draw anything of the most important from it, then from the creation of gods by man, naturally in his own image, that is, according to his national property, customs, way of life, degree of enlightenment, and even the activity of fantasy, sowing the first producer of all in every kind of fiction, we can better recognize the intelligent and moral appearance of our ancestors. Images, deeds, even the names of the gods of a certain people, the essence of how many properties thereof.
Among the Indians, a meek people, the gods are meek and kind; the evil ones are deprived of power, at least they spread it in no other way than furtively from the good gods overseeing them. The happy Achaian sky-worship, the gaiety of the habits of the inhabitants, the lively imagination, made the gods and their deeds connected with them, funny, pleasant, and one might think, even during the time of the idolatry of the Greeks, for pleasant and often useful tales, revered. The barbarism that reigned in Tauris elevated Diana to the degree of the goddess (perhaps the deity so called by the Greeks, and otherwise called there), demanding the blood of wanderers.
Diversely for each country on the globe, the open natural heavens, various aerial phenomena, the dissolution of air, the fruitfulness of the earth proceeding from it, both in quantity and in the quality of products, the very earthologist of those countries, added to the property of the people, contributed to the consideration of these dreamy creatures. Why, considering in a reasonable way the fables of the ancient Slavs, it is hopeful that we will open a few veils of antiquity, hiding from us the property of their mental outlines about the things around them, the range of knowledge, morals, and although somewhat, the very way of their thoughts.
Describing a work of fantasy or daydreaming, I think that I will not sin if, despite the voids and shortcomings encountered in her works, I will fill it with my own ancient fantasy. True, worn or faded places in ancient paintings, corrected with new colors, albeit in an old fashion, reduce the price of paintings; but is nothing better than something? And isn’t Fidas’s Venus better with arms and legs forged in the taste of this famous ancient master than if only her torso were left, and that may still be knocked out in places?
It is known that by correcting or correcting the ancient Greek and Latin writers, they made them the best, but are all the corrections made in a hit on the author's word or thought? And maybe others did not, under the guise of editing the manuscript, corrected by the author himself in words and thoughts, for which he himself would be able to thank.
I move into the vast and varied realms of fantasy of the ancient Slavs; Wandering through them, I will begin to collect whole dreamy ideas and their small particles, and these latter, in accordance with their structure, supplement them with the material of this same kingdom and according to the laws of imagination or dreaming.
Although the origin of the gods or the Slavic feogony has not been preserved for us; which, of course, should have been in its time; however, from the properties of the gods, or better, natural things, their deeds and phenomena, we can also conclude about the dreamed origin of these. "Edda" somewhat clearly tells about the rank, the order in the origin of the Celtic gods; from the Greek feogony, their genealogy is more familiar to everyone than his own to a young German baron. The Slavs lived in the vicinity of both, and it turns out that in their dreams they imitated both of them, and maybe they were originals in both of them. And so I, following both the Greek dividers of the gods, so especially delving into the actual Slavic fables, and searching for almost vanished regarding this line, I divide from the very nature of these gods into lofty, underworld, earthly and water.
1 . And so, among the most exalted gods, I will put the deified beings outside the earth, but on it only showing their actions, tangible to man.
And such gods will be:
Perun, ether movement, thunder.
Golden Baba, silence, peace.
Svetovid, sun, vital warmth.
Znich, initial fire, ether.
Belbog, good and good start.
Strong god, strong god.
Dazhbog, well-being.
Belly, life saving
Ice, war.
Kolyada, peace.
Delight, pleasure.
Lada, beauty.
Her children:
Lela, love.
Paul, marriage.
Did, matrimony.
Didylia, procreation.
Mertsana, dawn goddess of the harvest.
2 . Earthly ones, whose properties are abstracted from earthly useful products, for a person's vital needs, or only for the pleasures of these employees, and whom they seem to have been patrons.
Trigla, earth.
Volos, Mogosh, gods patronizing cattle.
Kupala, earthly fruits.
Rodomysl, giver of good advice.
Sva, goddess of fruits.
Zevana, goddess of hunting.
Chur, god of the boundary.
Prone, or Prove, the god of divination.
Rodegast, god of hospitality and cities.
Kors, god of drunkenness.
Yassa
Pozvizd, god of storms and winds.
Dogoda, marshmallow.
Zimtserla, or Zimsterla, spring.
Zimerzla, winter.
3 . The underworld gods, which represent revenge and execution, inheriting lawlessness and vice.
Niy, who rules over the underworld.
Chernobog, god of vengeance.
Yaga Baba.
Kikimora, god of sleep.
4 . Watery, whose power extends over the waters, these are:
The king of the sea. Mermaids.
Miracle of the sea. Watermen, water devils.
Perfume:
Goblin. Where.
Brownies. Damn.
Stany. Demons.
Slimes.
Demigods, or heroes:
Polkany. Magus.
Woloty. Volkhovets.
Slavyan. Rudotok.
The lakes are burned:
Ilmer.
Student.
Rivers:
Bug.
Don.
However, the purity of the mind of the Slavic people may include the fact that their faith, of many pagan / I do not say all / is the purest. For their gods are natural actions, having an influence on a person by their beneficence, and serving to fear and execution of iniquity, evenly deified as natural properties and perfections.
Having penetrated this, the creator of Vladimiriyada says so in it:
In what the North recognized the sacred deities;
These were the actions and properties of Nature,
Human weaknesses, blind passions of the heart.
And one could also add good and beneficial deeds to this.
In all their fables there is not a single god who could be considered an offended person, as we find among the Greeks (I'm not talking about the Romans, who took everything from them), and their models of the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Assyrians. And this must be attributed to the natural light of their minds, that mortals cannot be immortal. The situation is simple, but, it seems, badly enlightened by the peoples who boast of their enlightenment, and by our teachers in many respects.
However, it seems that the Supreme Being was not unknown to the Slavs, the Almighty Being, all-creating, and in a word, the God of the gods and to this particular name was God. The rest were, as it were, subordinate to him, or more, face-shaped properties of nature. God, as the giver of light, warmth, fertility of the earth and the revivalist of nature, is called Svetovid; and abstractly, this same will be the god of enlightenment and the light of the mind. The god who causes thunder and lightning is called Perun; he is in abstraction, there is a god frightening with the fury of ethereal-fiery blows, lawless ones. Bel-god, or a good god, is the giver of all blessings. A strong god, one of the properties of the Most High, a truly moral deity.
But all this from the description in particular of each god will be seen with obvious clarity. I will only mention something about the goddess Lada and her children. There is nothing, it seems, more witty than the beauty of Lada being the mother of her four children; their number is full; there is nothing to add, but subtraction is an imperfection. Beauty, Lada, has the first son of Lelya, that is, love; Lelei is followed by a second, Polella, or marriage; what is more moral than love to end in marriage; but this is still dissatisfied; the son follows, the god of married life, and this is Dido, whose wife Didylia, the goddess of childbearing, patronizes this unclean life. There is nothing more beautiful than this family; because there is nothing generally more approved, and it is the truth itself, presented in different faces.
Here is a picture showing that the Slavic fables were reasonable, while their gods were personified from abstract concepts, and, moreover, often witty and always true. If we take away the fabulous names, then now we do not think differently, and our ancestors; it even seems that this way of thinking is common to all enlightened peoples. Beauty, love, marriage, marriage, childbearing are, for all people, concepts and actions interlocking. The sun does good to earthly nature; thunder induces fear; golden nature, common mother of people; goodness, strength, almsgiving, life-giving, flowing from above, are the ideas of the ancients, on which they created the temple of their polytheism.
GODS HIGH
Perun
Terrible Slavic deity. He was revered as the producer of all aerial phenomena. His hand controlled thunder and lightning. It seems that the Slavic Perun is just as decent as Homer's Zeus, the application of the "cloud chaser". This deity was especially revered in Kyiv and Novgorod. In the first, his temple was built on a hill above the Borichev Stream. G. Kheraskov in "Vladimiriad" describes this temple as follows:
This temple, a terrible temple, over the Borichev current,
It stood built on a high hill;
Smoking rose before the idol smoke,
Dried blood was visible before him.
And he is elsewhere:
The proud temple of Perun was built high,
He spread shadows far over the mountains:
Before him always burns an inextinguishable flame,
At the entrance, the cornerstone is approved,
And named the stone of death by the people;
He is drenched in black blood everywhere;
On it, that unfortunate victim trembled,
The ferocity of the priests that nourished:
There are deadly weapons hanging,
Vessels are filled with blood.
Vladimir, upon taking autocracy over Russia, built many temples in honor of this deity. Standing above the Borichevsky stream, it can only be renewed and decorated by it, being built from the most ancient times. Didn't the very name of this stream come from the paternal name of Perun?
The first settlers of Kyiv, being of Sarmatian origin, and having come there, probably from the Scandinavian Peninsula, brought with them the Celtic gods. Borich may be called Perun, as was Odin, the son of Bor, which is why both the hill and the stream or stream are called Borichev; for Bor was the father of the gods, or rather the father of Odin, the lord of the Scandinavian gods. The Celtic priests themselves claimed to be descended from this Bor.
Perun, in the real sense of the word, takes on a thunderous arrow, or more naturally, on lightning, on an electric jet, or on a thunderous spark. But it seems more likely that the common word got its start from its own name of the god of thunder. Perun seems to come from the word Torym or Torum, which in the Sarmatian language means the Most Highbeing, god. The idol of this deity was not made of one substance. The camp was carved from wood; the head is cast in silver; and ears and mustaches are sculpted from gold; the legs are forged of iron; in his hand he held something that looked like lightning, which was represented by combined rubies andcarbuncles. Before him burned an unquenchable flame, for the negligence of which the priest was punished by death, which consisted in burning him as an enemy of this deity.
In "Vladimiriad" it is described somewhat differently from this; however, quite in accordance with such a high deity:
This gloomy temple contained a terrible idol,
He wears a golden crown, crimson porphyry;
Twisted in the hand of Perun he held,
With which he threatened to strike in anger;
Golden on his forehead had great horns,
Silver chest, had iron legs;
His high throne burned with rubies,
And he was called the god of all gods.
From this description it appears that he was a terrible thundering deity; and therefore, in the moral sense of the lawless, the executioner and destroyer. He was also revered as a lord among the gods, and strong; in a word, the producer of everything terrible in nature for man.
The vast globe of his earthly face trembles.
It strikes with thunderbolts, it shines with lightning,
Murder is on the forehead, death is on the eyes.
His crown is a snake, his clothes are fear.
"Vladim".
Therefore, the sacrifices were consistent with the imaginary properties of the king of the gods. Cattle were slaughtered in honor of him... Superstition, foolishly revered as an essential part of itself, sacrificed to him, that is, a beard and head hair, shaving them.
Of the things dedicated to him, there were entire forests and groves, from which the taking of any knot was considered sacrilege worthy of death.
Except for many countries and cities in which shrines were dedicated to this god, the most magnificent one was in Kyiv above Borichev Stream, erected by Prince Vladimir, or better decorated. Another no less magnificent was in Novgorod, which was built by his uncle Dobrynya, a posadnik or governor granted to them in Novgorod. Both of them received their end after the enlightenment of Russia with Christianity, as well as the idols of Perunov, and Kiev was overthrown - into the Dnieper, and Novgorod - into the Volkhov.
Here, by the way, I will attach an excerpt from an ancient or ancient article of a composed hymn:
The gods are great; but terrible Perun;
Horror induces a heavy foot,
As he preceded his lightning
Cloaked in darkness, wrapped in whirlwinds,
Terrible clouds are leading.
Steps on a cloud - lights from under the heels;
He looks at the earth - the earth trembles;
He looks at the sea - boils like a cauldron.
Scary! Turn your anger away from us!
Throwing a handful of hail in a thousand measures;
Only from the heel of his clouds blushed;
A heavy foot rumbled deafly.
Who shook the mountains, the sea and the earth,
And only the top of the riza flashed.
golden mother
As Perun was an angry god, so disgusting to him was the Golden Mother, or otherwise, Baba was the goddess of peace and quiet. Her idol was made of gold in the form of a woman; and from this she received her name, as well as from the property attributed to her. In her arms she held a baby, who was revered as her grandson, and from whom she was named Baba, that is, Grandmother. This grandson was Svetovid. Around the idol were a great many musical instruments, on which, during her festivities, praises were sung to her. Her most glorious temple was built by the river Obigo or Obega. Here she gave answers; wherefore, this temple was revered as a prophetic one, and was in great glory. She was so sacredly revered that no one dared to pass by her idol without sacrificing something, and if he had nothing, then at least a piece of his dress with earthly worship offered. This goddess seems to have been the same as the Celtic Frigga or Freya, to whom alone the prophecy is attributed: “The only Frigga knows the future, but does not reveal this to anyone,” the words of Odin given in the Edda.
Svetovid
A deity that was among the Slavs in great veneration. He had two glorious temples in the North: one on the island of Rugen in the city of Ahron, and the other in Kholmograd, which relies on the very place where the village of Bronnitsy is, on the hill located there, on which the church of St. Nicholas.
His idol was made of huge wood. He had four faces, one for each country of the world. He didn't have a beard; his curls were curled; his clothes were short. In his left hand was a bow, and in his right a horn forged from metal. At the hip he had a great sword in a silver scabbard; on the side hung the saddle and bridle of his horse, also of exorbitant size. This idol stood in the middle of the temple, hung with magnificent red curtains. He gave answers through the mouth of the priest once a year. At that time, this chief priest entered the sanctuary of this god, holding his breath, and, if necessary, either went out, or only put his head out of the sanctuary. This one-year holiday coped with lengthy solemn ceremonies. It began at the end of the harvest, which will be in the month of Serpen or August.
And then the people gathered in front of the temple, drove a lot of cattle, both as a sacrifice to their God, and for the celebration of this famous holiday of theirs. A day before the solemn day, the commanding priest himself swept the temple of this god. The next day, the priest took from his hand a horn of light, filled with wine for a year, predicted the fertility of the next one, because how much was lost in it; for they believed that if much of the horn was lost, then the year would be barren; if it is not enough, then it was necessary for him to be fertile. And pouring out this wine before the feet of Svetovid, he filled this horn with new, and drank in honor of him, praying that he would grant abundance, wealth and victory to enemies in everything. Then, having filled this sacred horn with new wine, putting it into his hand, praying together with all the people; after which numerous sacrifices were brought to him, from oxen to sheep. After these sacrifices were made, a huge round cake made of gingerbread dough was brought in, in which a person could fit.
In this pie, the servant of the Svetovids, having entered, asked the people, did he see him? - People answered that they didn't - then turning to Svetovid, he prayed to him that at least a few of them would see him next year. Here it seems that the priest, hiding in a pirogue, represented the sun at a distance from our hemisphere, or winter time; and then prayed Svetovid for his return. Since not only the name, but all the signs show that this god was the image of the luminary that animates our world. Four faces, there are four years, or seasons. Arrows and a bow, like the Greek Phoebus - Apollo, meant the rays of the sun. The white horse dedicated to him marked the visible movement of this beneficent luminary; horn in hand, abundance flowing everywhere from its sacred warmth; the sword meant him as the god of the protector and patron of the Slavs.
After this ceremony, with great reverence, many cattle were sacrificed; and then the priest, having made a lengthy instruction to the people, encouraged them to diligently revere and sacrifice to this god; and for this he promised them earthly fruitfulness, health, victory against enemies on land and sea. Sometimes, to this idol they sacrificed the captives of their enemies as to their protector god in battles; this inhuman rite was performed in this way: a slave (it is clear from everything that he was from military people) was dressed in a shell or in full armor; they put them on a saddled horse, whose legs were tied to four piles, as well as an unfortunate horse, and putting firewood under it, burned them both. The priests assured the people that such a sacrifice was pleasing to Svetovid.
It seems that with this they wanted to arouse in the people the greatest cruelty towards their enemies, in which they hoped to use his victories over them, which brought considerable profit to the priests; for from any military booty, Svetovid probably brought no more than a third. That most seems to be very natural, considering only the circumstances of that time, where the idolatrous priests alone had free access to the mysterious sanctuary of the sciences, while gross ignorance was the common lot of the common people; and therefore the influence of the former on these latter must have been omnipotent, and which is notallowed them to penetrate the greedy priestly species. At the end of all the rites of worship and sacrifice, the people began to eat, drink and be merry...
A white horse was dedicated to Svetovid, on which no one except the first priest could sit. With this horse, even to the hair, everything was sacred, and under the danger of losing life, it was not allowed to pull a single one out of the tail or mane. They assured that Svetovid rode on it to defeat their enemies. And this was confirmed by the fact that when in the evening they left the horse cleaned, in the morning they found it sweaty and polluted; from which they concluded that Svetovid rode it to defeat their adversaries. Depending on whether Svetovid's horse was more or less tormented, it was thought that the battle would be such a success. This horse also served as a soothsayer, whether to start or not to start, whether it would be good or unfortunate to continue the war.
For divination, six horses were placed in front of the temple, two in a row and at a certain distance. To each two they tied a spear across as high as the horse could step over. Before the horse was led between the spears, the priest with well-known rituals prayed to Svetovid, reading many specially composed prayers for him. Then, with reverent rites, he took the horse by the bridle and led it through three transverse spears. If the horse walked forward through them with its right foot and, moreover, through all three without getting tangled, then they promised themselves the most prosperous end to the war. Otherwise, they trembled about every misfortune; and looking at this postponed the war itself.
The Temple of the Svetovids was very rich; for in addition to various contributions, he received a third part from military booty, and three hundred horsemen fought directly from Svetovid, they brought all the booty they received. The fate of the Rugen Svetovidov temple and its idol was that Voldemar, the Danish king in 1169 A.D., having taken the island of Rugen and the city of Ahron, ruined and robbed the temple, and having stripped the idol, ordered it cut and burned. As for the Kholmograd Svetovidov temple, it had the same fate with other idol temples, being destroyed after Russia accepted holy baptism.
Znich
Under this deity, the Slavs understood the initial fire, or life-giving warmth, which contributes to the production and protection of all creatures. The Slavs about this initial and life-giving fire had the same thoughts as the Parsis or Gebry about their sacred fire, believing it to be the life-giver of all living beings.
And indeed:
He shines in adamant
In the yacht, he will light up;
It burns in cold ice
Rumbles in a dark cloud.
Proud heads of the Siberian
Raises the cedars to the clouds;
In grasses lives low;
Gives beauty to flowers.
Fortress, cheerfulness puts into a lion;
In the tiger, the desire, the heat.
Everything gives birth, grows, nourishes,
And everything is a gift.
He is the soul of all nature;
He is the beginning of all things.
The Slavs saw him everywhere; marveled at him; but not being Eulers, they could not interpret and explain it: could such a subtle thought arise in their simplicity and little enlightenment that this initial fire, initial heat, is even the cause of fire itself, heat itself: is it ether? that subtle substance, diffused throughout nature, forming adamant and being in it, giving color to a rose, the growth of a cedar, shining in the ice itself, and which a slight concussion in a thing produces warmth, and a strong heat either melts it, or devours it with a flame? - They, like other peoples living in simplicity, made a deity from this creature, incomprehensible to them, naming it Znich.
Now let's talk about this initial fire as a Slavic deity. Znich had no image; but only there was an inextinguishable fire, like the Westin fire in Rome. Temples containing this sacred fire were located in many cities. This inextinguishable fire received sacrifices for itself, which, like Svetovidov, consisted of part of the greed received from the enemy. He also sacrificed prisoners. And from this we can conclude that military fervor and courage were attributed to Znich's action. Those who were in serious illnesses also resorted to it, wanting to get relief. The servants of Znich, showing themselves inspired or inspired by this deity, in his name gave the infirm answers containing the means to heal them. In conclusion, I will attach a description of this deity from the Vladimiriad:
Then the brave Znich, shining all from the outside;
He said: these intentions are distasteful to me.
I light the huts and illuminate the thrones;
In the essence of fire, I give life to the Russians,
I feed, I warm them, I see their insides.
Belbog
The name itself means its good. In other dialects of the Slavic language, Beltsy Bug was also called, which means the same thing.
He was depicted as covered in blood, and covered with a great multitude of flies, which seems to be a sign of the feeder of creatures, in his right hand he held a piece of iron.
He had a temple on the island of Rugene in the city of Ahron, where he, just like Svetovid, was honored, especially from the Slavs who lived near the Varangian (Baltic) Sea.
They did not donate blood to him, but feasts, games and various fun were sent in his honor. Under this deity, our forefathers understood the blessings bestowed on creatures by nature, which preserves them. It is true that the mob revered by it what it felt, that is, the idol itself; but the ministers or interpreters of their faith, of course, understood in an abstract sense the goodness of nature, the daughter of a good king and the father common to all worlds.
strong god
Among all the ancient peoples, the bodily fortress was revered as a gift sent down from above; and therefore such people among the Greeks were demigods, i.e., born of a father or mother immortally, and back to one of the two mortals. The Greeks called them heroes; that the Slavic-Russians denoted the word hero. This word, according to the explanation of one of our connoisseurs of national history, is a Tatar batyr, and means a strong man; one could believe this if before the communication of the Russians with the Tatars it had not been in use; rather, it is composed of the Slavic god of the Sarmatian tyr or tirar (according to his own interpretation) stepson; that the very thing, both in name and in meaning, is closer to the concept of a hero; and I better believe that the Tatar batyr is a Russian spoiled hero.
Under this deity, the Slavs honored the gift of nature of a bodily fortress; it was the face-formed Greek Mars or Ares. His image was in the form of a man holding a dart in his right hand, and a silver ball in his left, as if through that letting know that the fortress possesses the whole world. Under his feet lay a lion's and a human's head, since both serve as the emblem of a bodily fortress.
Dazhbog
This deity was just as noble, the giver of all earthly blessings, wealth, happiness and prosperity. They sacrificed to him only with fervent prayers and asking for mercy from him; for doing good requires nothing but petition and gratitude. G. Kheraskov decently names him in "Vladimiriad" - "Dazhbog prolific", when they believed that they receive all sorts of benefits from him, as from an inexhaustible source. He had a goddess in Kyiv. He served as an emblem of well-being, which the ancient Romans idolized.
Stomach
This deity was in reverence among the Polyan Slavs, his name means life-giver or life-saver. It was another Slavonic Vishnu. And just as the very name of the Greek Zeus or Jupiter is derived from the Greek word for life, did not both peoples draw the initial concepts of these creatures from the same beginning? And didn’t the Greeks transform theirs into a formidable being, when they preserved the name of the glade and the concept of a life-guard and a life-giver connected with it? This deity was near the meadows of the first class, and had its own temples. However, the concept of a life-preserving creature seems to me more accurate and purer than the concept of a god-doctor, whether it was Apollo, or his son Aesculapius. This deity is mentioned only in Polish antiquities; that is why I call him the own deity of the Polyanian Slavs.
Ice
The Slavs prayed to him for success in battles, and he was revered as the head of military operations and bloodshed. This ferocious deity was presented in the form of a terrible warrior, armed in Slavic armor, or all-weapon. At the hip is a sword; spear and shield in hand. This deity had its temples; the war brought him casualties. Going against their enemies, the Slavs prayed to him, asking for help, and making promises to bring him abundant sacrifices after defeating the enemies. It is likely that this deity received more bloody sacrifices than other paramount ones; and in a more venerable sense, courage, immortality and courage.
However, the ancient Slavs cannot be reproached with human sacrifices, while, as we see the ancient Greeks, they made such sacrifices, and, what is even worse, they sacrificed their cognates, children. The Irmenzul temple, stained with human blood among the Germans, the Syrian Moloch, Norman stones, prove that in primitive rudeness, or after falling into it, almost all peoples possessed a bloody superstitiousness. In addition, the Slavs (not to mention all generations, but meaning those accustomed to warfare and bloodshed) sacrificed only enemies to their gods.
From the ancient chroniclers it can be seen that, far from the temples of Leda, they honored him in a sword or saber, taken out of the scabbard and stuck in the Earth, worshiping him and praying for help.
Here it seems appropriate to mention the Slavic former heroes before Rurik. The most ancient is Prince Slaven. This name seems to be a common noun, meaning the Slavic prince, or his own, but given to him from the glory he acquired; for the Slavs before him had their own name. His children, the glorious Magus, who fought with the peoples who lived along the banks of the Volkhov River, formerly called the Mutnaya River, and his brothers Volkhovets and Rudotok. The famous Burivoy, who fought with the Varangians (sea robbers, maybe Norman, not Russian), the wise Gostomysl, his son, hero and legislator.
But what kind of Slavic and Slavic-Russian heroes were, it can be seen from the following fabulous heroic narrative.
The fairy tale begins
From Sivka from Burka
From the courka thing
For honor and glory
father's son,
To the remote knight,
brave knight,
good young man,
Russian prince,
that all forces
Whip, beat;
Mighty and strong
Kicks out from horses;
And Baba Yaga
Throws on the floor;
And the stink of Kashchei
Keeps on a leash;
And the snake Gorynych
Tramples with feet;
And the red girl
Far away the sea
In the thirtieth earth
From under the ominous eyes
From under strong locks
Rus takes away to white.
Will the good guy come out
In an open field?
He whistles, he barks
Whistling heroic,
Cry of youth:
“You, goy, be a horse, my!
You, sivka, you, burka,
You're a curmudgeon!
You stand in front of me
Like a leaf before grass."
To the whistle of the heroic,
To the cry of the youth,
Wherever it comes from
Gray-brown horse.
And gray-haired.
Where the horse will run
There the earth will tremble:
Where will the horse fly?
The whole forest will be noisy there.
On the flight of a horse from the mouth
It blazes with flames;
From black nostrils
Light sparks throws;
And smoke from my ears
How it blows pipes.
Not a day, not an hour
In one minute
Before the knight will be.
Our good fellow
Sivka will stroke.
Put on the back
Sedelce Cherkasy,
Bukharan booty,
On the neck of the bridle
From bedow silk
From Persian silk.
Buckles in the bridle
From Krasnov gold
From the Arabian
In the buckles of the foam
From blue damask.
Bulat overseas.
The silk will not tear;
Bulat will not bend;
And red gold
Will not rust.
At a good young man
Shield on chest
On the right hand is a ring;
Mace under the arm
Silver;
And under the left sword
With a pearl
Heroic hat;
On the hat is a falcon.
Behind the quiver
With hardened arrows.
Well done in battle
Both the bat and the archer:
Not afraid of the sword
No arrows, no spears.
He sits on a burqa
remote flight;
He will hit the horse
On steep hips
Like hard mountains.
The horse rises
Above the dark forest
To thick clouds.
He and the hills and mountains
Passes between the legs;
Fields and oak forests
Tail covers;
Runs and flies
Over the lands, over the seas,
To distant lands.
And what a good horse;
That's the good guy:
Can't see, can't hear
Can't describe with a pen
Only in a fairy tale.
Here is an image of a Russian hero! Here is an example of ancient Russian epic poetry!
Kolyada
Under this god, our ancestors understood the world and the bliss accompanying it, and therefore the holidays in honor of this deity were celebrated with games and fun. They began at the end of the month of studenya, or December 24th. In winter, perhaps, holidays were established for him, so that the Slavs never fought at this annual time, but enjoyed peace due to military labors. Singing, dancing, games and various amusements were sacrificed to this eternal, merry, all-good deity, and everywhere waving abundance.
The holidays were celebrated by those dedicated to him in feasts and gaiety. The current guesswork of girls about Christmas time, it seems, even then existed; for when is it better to think about love and marriage, if not during rest, peace, enjoying the abundance of rich autumn? However, they prayed to this deity, asking him for peace, silence and abundance in earthly fruits and livestock. Equally, after dealing with the enemy of the world, thanksgiving was brought to him, and his holidays were celebrated with feasts and fun. The courier celebrations began in honor of him from the evening of 25 students. A remnant of these still survive between us. That evening, girls (indeed, young guys) gather, and coming under the window to each hut, they sing the following song, which, judging by the syllable, seems to be very ancient.
Here she is:
The grapes are red why recognize?
Why the house of Ustin Malafeevich?
At his yard all the silk grass,
At his court all silver tyn;
Its gate is oak;
Underarms fish teeth.
In the yard he has three towers:
In the first chamber, let the moon shine;
In the second tower there is a red sun;
In the third tower, stars are frequent.
That the moon is bright, then Ustinov's house;
What is red is the sun, then his Julitta;
That the stars are frequent, the children are small.
God forbid Ustin Malafeevich
Marry sons from greyhound horses;
God forbid Ulita Khavronievna
To give out daughters from a high tower.
Give, sovereign, carolers;
Our carol is neither a ruble nor a half,
Our carol is only half a Altyn.
After singing these songs, carolers receive a few money, or more trinkets baked from wheat dough; and in other places, young guys caroling, they take out a bucket or more of beer, which they pour into a barrel they carry with them.
All the so-called Christmas games are the remains of the ancients in honor of the god of the world of celebrations. At this time, girls are wondering about their betrothed, that is, their future husbands determined by fate; they sing sacred holy songs, named after Christmas time, which I do not quote here because they are too well known to any of my readers.
Delight
Joy on the forehead, a blush on the cheeks, smiling lips, crowned with flowers, dressed negligently in a light robe, playing kobza, and dancing to the voice of ony, there is a god of fun and life's pleasures, a companion of Lada, the goddess of amenities and love.
A delight that seduces with one glance...
"Vladim".
He was revered as the patron of all pleasures and amusements. It seems that this deity initially depicted mental and bodily pleasures; but as everything abstract among the people is transformed into sensual and rough, the mental into the material, then Delight was also revered as the god of luxury, feasts, comforts, amusements, amusements, and especially dining, obvious pleasures, like Kors drunkenness. A sensual man loves to adapt everything to his passions, which he back-attributes to everything extracted from sensuality and passions. Finally, I will say that at all feasts (in which, just like in drinking, all human bliss was supposed in antiquity), this deity was invoked and implored.
Lada, Lelya, Polelya, Did, Didiliya. Here is a wonderful family, such as the Greek playful imagination could not invent! What is more natural than beauty with your children, love, marriage or combination, married life and childbearing?
Lada
The goddess of beauty and love was most revered in Kyiv. Vladimir, before his baptism, being in love and collecting beauties everywhere, highly honored this Queen of love. He erected for her a splendid and embellished temple on Mount. G. Kheraskov describes it this way:
Temple of Ladin proud of its colorful pillars,
Woven from roses hung around with flails.
Goddess holding a child in her hand
Appeared in beads and in a myrtle wreath;
Her hair is loose, like gold;
For her generosity, flowers are brought in payment.
"Vladim", song III.
and in another (11) song:
And in it (the temple) depicts the majesty of heaven.
There are seven steps, and seven around the idol of pillars...
From this write-off of Piita it is clear that her temple was magnificent, and perhaps more magnificent than Perunov.
Lada was portrayed as a young beautiful woman, in a pink wreath; her hair was golden; dressed in Russian clothes, girded with a golden belt and adorned with pearls. She held the baby by the hand, which is the god of love Lelya.
And Lada, golden-haired with a baby, is visible.
Kheraskov.
The service of this pleasant goddess was similar to her properties. They sang to her in honor of the song and brought incense aroma and flowers.
The Russian epic creator describes it this way:
Girls, surrounding the idol in a slender rank,
With tenderness they sang the honor of the goddess:
“Oh, our youth that keeps the flowers!
Give us, Lado, a peaceful marriage to us!”
The mastics in front of her burned like a cloud,
And the name Ladino was repeated a hundred times.
At that time the cymbals thundered with a loud sound;
The maidens are sacrificial, making a chain of hands,
The dancing began with songs around the idol.
Come before the altar and priestesses and priests,
Wearing crowns for the maidens of the goddess,
Whose heads are sacredly laid,
The prince is obliged to repair love in respect.
Vladimir watered, starting the rite like this,
And hands and forehead with holy water.
Here is a description of the service to the goddess of love, which does not require any addition: because in another place the author of "Vladimir Reborn" added it like this:
Redder than the dawn of the maiden
They are already carrying flowers to the temple of the queen's love;
A beautiful meadow turns into a platform,
And the young maidens of the idol became round.
The number of burning stars they depict,
Who surrounds the shining moon...
One among these shines more than all ...
The crown was prepared for her by the first lot,
Which the prince or the priest lays on the maidens.
Developing the few words that have remained in our annals about the fables of the Slavs, we can conclude that this goddess was given the greatest veneration in Kyiv during the reign of Vladimir until he was enlightened by the divine light of Christianity. Being, according to the ancient chroniclers, a woman-lover, he paid great honor to the goddess of love, and the rites of service described by the creator of the Vladimiriad may have been established under him; and this because these rites served him as an aid to the selection of the most beautiful of the maidens.
Lelya
A fiery god, scattering or throwing sparks from his hand. His strength was in the kindling of love. He is the son of beauty, just as naturally beauty gives birth to love. He was portrayed as a golden-haired, like his mother, fiery, winged baby: the property of love to ignite. He threw sparks from his hands: love inflames hearts, isn’t it sparks, as it were, coming from the eyes, from the lips of a beautiful or better beloved (because in the language of love beauty is called that each of those who are inseparable in specialness passionately likes) person? He was always with his mother: it is very natural for love to always be with beauty; beauty always produces love. He is the eldest son of Lada: when two sexes are combined, love precedes everything else. However, Mr. Kheraskov gives him, in the likeness of Eros, a bow and arrows:
The son of Ladin flutters his wings in the air,
And strains the bow with feathered arrows.
This is followed by Brak, who is the second son of Lada and is called Polelia.
Paulel
The second son of the goddess of love. Every pure and virtuous love entails marriage. Why the Slavs invented, or better, they covered the truth with a cover of this fiction. This deity, smiling in a thorn wreath, gives a thorn wreath with an outstretched hand, and in the other holds a horn of drinking fidelity. He is naked, like his brother, but dressed in a thin robe or shirt. This deity also had its own goddesses in Kyiv, although it was revered in other places. Kheraskov defines it this way:
Polel gaiety escorted the goddess;
In it, Kyiv adored marriage unions.
Did
Here is the third child of the mother of love, married life; this one, like his brother, is always young. Because the matrimonial relationship, established by nature for the reproduction of the human race, should not weaken or grow old. Spouses cease to be spouses only when the heat of love fades little by little: then they become friends. This last bond is broken only by death. He is dressed in full Slavic clothing; a wreath on it of cornflowers; he caresses holding two doves in his hands. This god had his own temple in Kyiv, and married people prayed to him for a prosperous marriage and childbearing.
Didylia
Also from the Lada family. She was revered not only as the patroness of successful childbirth, but also as the sanctioner of infertile women. Why did they resort to it for prayer, both fraught and fruitless. Her idol represented a young beautiful woman, having a bandage adorned with pearls and stones on her head like a crown; one of her hands was unclenched, and the other was clenched with her back or fist. The most distinguished, above others, her temple was in Kyiv. This goddess ends the Ladino family, whose invention is very natural, complete, true and beautiful. The Greeks gave Venus one Eros or Love: Cymen and Hymen were alien to her; and Juno ruled over the birth. But the Slavic imagination, being more correct, although not so lively and volatile, made up of all these one perfect family.
Flicker
Under this name, the Slavs understood the dawn. Therefore, we can give it the same applications that Homer, writing off from nature, applies to his dawn; he calls it "ore-yellow dawn", sometimes "golden crimson". It appears to him twice a day. When Phoebus leaves for the sky; then in the morning, lifting up the gloomy veil of the night with his pink fingers, he shows for a short time his golden-purple clothes. As soon as Phoebus enters the sky, he hides again; and another time, as soon as Phoebus approaches the western gates of her house, she opens them to him and meets him, waits until she passes, and until then her golden-purple robe is visible, until she again releases the veil of night. But the Slavic dawn, when serving this service to Svetovid, sometimes comes out at night to frolic over the fields, fluttering over
maturing classes. And then they call her Zarnitsa. And as they believed, and still believe now, that lightning contributes to great abundance and to the speedy ripening of harvests, then it was revered as the patroness of cornfield fruits. And therefore they prayed to her for the harvest of bread. Her sign, as the goddess of the harvest, is a class wreath; like the dawn, blushed and in golden-purple clothes, which consists of a vast cover or veil covering the back half of the head, pinned at the chest or extending to the ground. This goddess was especially revered by the villagers.
EARTH GODS
Triglav
Also abbreviated as Trigla. This goddess did not have a temple in cities and villages, but he was on the fields of Kyiv; her idol represented a woman with three heads. The Slavs, it seems, acted prudently, not containing the temple of the goddess, who depicted the earth, among the dwellings. Its three heads mean the three principles that make up the globe, that is, earth, water and air: for the existence of fire was supposed to be outside the earth. This is evidenced by Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven. There is nothing better than this guess, how to put a temple of the earth under the open sky, since the very image of this temple and the goddess meant the earth. Moreover, its three heads can represent mountains, valleys and forests. In an abstract sense, this goddess, it seems, depicted the continuation of time, the present, the past and the future.
Hair
Due to the benefits received from cattle, of which this god was revered as a patron, after Perun, the god of horror, Volos, the giver of great benefits and benefits to people through the preservation of cattle, was given the greatest reverence. The very name means it is great: for Veles, through the interpretation of the word, means great, that is, great, and Volos, volitional, that is, the owner. This high veneration of the Slavs towards him can be seen in the chronicles from the treaties of Svyatoslav with the Greeks, when the Greeks swore an oath to keep the peace by kissing the cross and the Gospel, and Svyatoslav, taking out a saber from the scabbard, swore over it by Perun and Veles the god of cattle. The name of Veles, as the guardian of cattle, is still preserved in the consonant name of St. Vlasius, or simply Vlas, whom the villagers call the cow god, just like St. Egor, horse and sheep. He with bull horns, in simple clothes, holds a cup of milk in his hand: for he preferred to patronize cattle. Cows and bulls were sacrificed to him. In Kyiv, shrines were erected to him, evenly in other cities Kheraskov had his temples as follows about this idol:
There Veles flock god ...
Which matches my description.
Mogosh
And this, according to Nestor, is also the god of cattle: however, it is necessary to notice the difference between Mogosh and Veles. The first is a god of cattle, the other is small, such as sheep, goats, and so on. And since the benefits received from small livestock consist firstly in skins and then in meat, then the image of this god will be corresponding to that: with a shaggy goat beard, with ram horns, in a sheepskin coat on the inside, in the hands of a stick or a shepherd's staff, in his feet should have a lamb. This god also had his temples in the cities; and was revered most of all by the villagers.
Kupalo
A cheerful and beautiful god, dressed in light clothes and holding flowers and field fruits in his hands; having a wreath of swimsuit flowers on his head, the god of summer, field fruits and summer flowers, Kupalo. He is revered as the third according to Perun and the second according to Veles: for in cattle breeding, earthly fruits of all serve to the maintenance and food of humankind.life, and constitute its abundance and wealth. Mertsana loved the fields, flying to them at night, playing and frolicking over them, and maybe with the very classes, her favorite plants, which she contributed to the ripening: this same deity cared for the abundance and prosperous ripening of all field growths. It is likely that upon bringing the classes to maturity, Mertsana left them and entrusted the further care of them to Kupala. And he had to protect them from bad weather, strong winds, and patronize the farmers who collect them. Or, since Mertsana only went to admire them at night, it would turn out that Kupalo took over daytime care. Be that as it may, but the very sacrifices made to him before the start of the harvest prove that, in addition to other field works, he also patronized the cornfields.
The celebration was established for him in the month of the worm 23 and 24 days. Then young people of both sexes in wreaths and aprons (garlands) from bathing suits and other flowers danced around the fire while singing songs, often jumping over it. These songswere either in honor of Kupala, or in them only his name was sung. Such songs still continue to this day in some villages and villages. More than eight hundred years have passed since Russia accepted the Christian faith, and all the same, the traces of the ancient fables of God still cannot be erased: the gods formed by him according to his own likeness, passions and customs are so dear to man!
Rodomysl
The deity of the Varangian Slavs, the patron of laws, the giver of good advice, wisdom,red and smart speeches. At the beginning of city meetings or gatherings related to the prosperity of the city, or to the aversion of a threatening common misfortune, they prayed to him, making sacrifices. With every important undertaking that requires wisdom, Rodomysl was called upon. This deity had its own temples in the cities near the Varangian Sea. His idol represented a man in meditation, resting his forehead with the index finger of his right hand; in the left hand is a shield with a spear. This deity seems to be the same as that of the Celts Bidder, the god of wisdom and eloquence.
Sva
Actually the goddess of autumn and garden fruits. Depicted as a naked woman with full nipples, hair hanging down to her knees, and holding an apple in her right hand and a bunch in her left. Superstition, which made gods out of everything, out of the goodness of the air, temperance of the weather, and an ordinary fruitful year, formed a special deity for itself, as if blessing its gardens and vegetable gardens, and prayed to him and asked him for protection. However, the image of this goddess is witty. Her nakedness depicts the state of nature in the fruitful part of the year; full nipples and long hair, the common nurse of all creatures, abundant in everything; the apple serves as an emblem of a mother who does not care for her dear children, while the bunch is a luxury that hopes for everyone. Sva was a deity not only of garden fruits, but also of the very time of their ripening, autumn. She was especially revered by the Slavs who lived near the Varangian (Baltic) Sea.
Zevana
Goddess of Animal Catching. And truly the Slavs, who lived in almost all of Russia among the forests, and hunted by catching animals, this goddess was not of the last importance. Vekshi (vekosh and nogaty) and martens (kuns) in ancient times were not only their clothes (here we are talking about the Drevlyansk Slavs, that is, who lived in the forests), but they were also used instead of a walking coin. This goddess is depicted in a marten coat, the top of which is covered with squirrel skins. On top, instead of an epancha, the skin of a bear is put on, whose head serves instead of a shishak. In the hands of a bow, stretched with a blunt arrow or a trap, next to it are skis and beaten animals, as well as a horn and a knife. There is a dog at the feet. Catchers poured to this goddess, asking her for happiness in hunting. Temples were built for her in the forests. In honor of her, a part of the booty obtained by hunting was brought.
Chur
He was revered as the god of the boundary. He had no temples; but was a mental deity. He was asked to preserve the boundaries in the fields. In the mind's mind, perhaps the stones laid down to determine between the fields of boundaries did not represent it? The word "chur" is still used today, meaning the prohibition of any action. This word is mysterious among sorcerers, with which they again drive away the called devil. In conclusion, I will say that I do not vouch for my word reproduction: I only hinted at my guess, and for this the guess is not yet self-true.
Prove
It's also called Prono. These two words have similar meanings. Prove or Prov, prognostic, prophesying: Prono from the word to know, that is, to foretell, or to penetrate. He was revered by the Provendian and Pomeranian (i.e., Pomeranian, Primorsky, Pomeranian) Slavs. They considered him the second in Svetovid, to whom they gave the greatest reverence. The idol of this deity stood on a tall leafy oak, in front of which an altar for sacrifices was placed; around the oak, the ground was dotted with two-faced, three-faced and four-faced blockheads. It seems that under this deity, the Slavs meant predestination, which governs the world and disposes of the future. However, it was not the priest who predicted through the mouth of God, but they thought that Prove himself, having moved into the priest, spoke through his mouth. Captives were sacrificed to him: after the slaughter, the priest sharpened their bloodinto the bowl and nibbled; and from this they believed that he received through that a greater power for divination. At the end of the sacrifice, and receiving a favorable prediction, idol worshipers began to eat, drink and have fun.
Radegast
He was also adored by the Varangian Slavs. He was revered as the protector of cities. His idol was like a Varangian Slav, armed with a spear, holding in his left hand a shield with an image of an ox's head on it; wearing a helmet, on which was represented a rooster with outstretched wings. All these signs mean in him the guardian of the city: a spear, a slayer of enemies; shield, governor and protector, bull's head, strength and fortress; cock, vivacity and vigil in the preservation of the cities, which among the ancient Slavs (just like the Greeks and Italians of the ancients) each constituted a particularly special nationwide or state.
Radegast, as his very name explains, means the destroyer of enemies. He, in addition to other sacrifices, brought human blood. Being evenly revered by the soothsayer through the priest, he had to give part of the barbarian sacrifice to his servant, who, when carving from the unfortunate sacrificed blood, bit it, as if communicating with God through that. At the end of the sacrifice and prediction, a public feast began, after which they played musical instruments and danced. Here we will note once and for all about all the Slavs who lived near the Varangian Sea, that their gods were as inhuman as they themselves.
The Slavs, when they settled on these shores, and having mixed with the Pomeranian Finns, who hunted raids and robberies on the Varangian Sea, they adopted their barbaric trade from these, and also traveled around the seas for robberies. And this very exercise reduced or completely destroyed in their eyes the horror and disgust for unnatural victims, since, according to the known laws of nature, the habit of strengthening becomes second nature. Svetovid himself, a meek and beneficent god, was dared to bring human blood; finally, let us add that, when slaughtering both animals and people, they dreamed of sacrificing the soul to the gods, which among all unenlightened peoples was supposed to be in the blood; wherefore the blood was the most holy offering to the idol.
Kors
Here is the patron saint of beer and mead hunters. A naked, puffy wreath on it is woven from hop wattle with leaves; the bandage on it is hoppy. In his right hand he holds a ladle from which he wants to drink; around it lie piles of skulls from broken jugs; he himself sits on a fragile, upside down barrel. The Slavs prayed to him, speaking at drunken fights. For in ancient times, not only among the Slavs, but also in the whole of Europe, he was revered as a hero who could outdrink everyone. Then, as in our cleansed times, drunkenness not only did not bring shame, but he also had to endure ridicule, who either did not drink, or could not drink much.
Caesar says the same thing about the Germans, that they drink a drunken drink, brewed in a certain way (beer) to excess, and whoever drinks more than others, he receives a great honor. But didn't the Persians say the same in honor of Alexander, that he was brave, beautiful, smart and outdrank everyone? This vice among the Greeks for a long time (and hardly even now) was revered as a virtue, or rather boasting and youthfulness. Anacreon, singing love, together with her glorifies his horns, from which they used to drink, and in the form of these very horns there were pokals made of metal or wood. But our ancestors, especially warriors, loved to drink at solemn feasts from the skulls of their worst enemies killed by them, as a sign of triumph over them. And this custom is actually not Slavic. Almost all semi-enlightened peoples, whose main exercise was in war, acted in this way. An example of this is the Celts (Danes), the Normans (Swedes), and so on. And even now this custom is preserved among many savage peoples.
Yassa
Deity of the Slavs of the Polans and Herts.
Pozvizd
Fierce god of bad weather and storms. The Russian epic poet says this about him:
There whistle; storms, like a robe, entwined around ...
And here is an old concept about him:
From the brady it rains torrentially,
Evil mists roll from the mouth.
Will Pozvizd shake his hair?
Falls to the ground in stripes
Niv fighter, large hail.
Will he wave a cold floor?
Starry snow is falling in flakes.
Does it fly in a cloudy country?
Before him there will be a noise and a whistle;
Regiment of winds, storms rush behind him,
Calling dust and leaf to the sky;
The hundred-year-old oak cracks and bends;
Bor tends to the ground with grass,
Rivers tremble on their banks.
Is it spinning in bare rocks?
Whistles, roars, roars, rages.
Will it hit the rock with its wing?
The mountain will tremble; cliff falls:
And thunder rolls in the abysses.
So, Pozvizd has a ferocious appearance, his hair and beard are tousled, his coat is long and with wide wings. He, like the Virgilian Aeolus, should be given a residence on high mountains. He had a temple on the field near Kyiv: because superstition thought that this fictitious and educated god from the acts of nature could fly into this inn built for him. The people of Kiev spread his power; they revered him not only as the god of storms, but also of all air changes, both good and bad, useful and harmful. Why did they ask for the gift of red days, and for the aversion of bad weather, which was revered by those under his power and control. And even more likely it seems that they prayed to him not so much for giving them good, but so that he would not harm them, for which reason and all harmful gods were revered. In Vladimiriad, Pozvizd thus boasts of his strength:
I will move the clouds and disturb the waters,
I will bring down rivers of rain and hail to the earth.
I will resort to my inherent ferocity in storms;
I will bring down the city, I will refute the royal court ...
Dogoda
Here is a sweet deity, the opposite of the fierce Pozvizd! Young, ruddy, fair-haired, in a cornflower blue wreath with blue gilded butterfly wings on the edges, in silvery bluish clothes, holding a thorn in his hand, and smiling at the flowers, flying over them and waving them, is the Slavic god of a pleasant spring time; quiet, cool breeze, Dogoda. He had his own temples, and they sacrificed songs and dances to him.
Zimsterla
Under this name, our ancestors revered the goddess of spring and flowers. She had her own goddesses, and her holidays were in the month of bloom (April): because spring begins in the southern countries of Russia from this month. This goddess, although sometimes hiding, but in due time appears again in her former youth. She is depicted as a beautiful girl, dressed in a light white Russian dress, girded with a pink belt intertwined with gold; on her head is a wreath of roses; holding a lily in his hands, he sniffs. Her chest is all open; a chicory necklace around her neck. Floral shoulder strap. Flowers were sacrificed to her, which, gathering in ladles, were placed in front of her as an idol, as well as the temple on her holidays was cleaned and strewn with flowers.
Dogoda is always in love with this goddess, as well as with her gifts.
Zimerzla
Goddess is harsh. Breathing cold and frost. Her clothes are like a fur coat made of hoarfrost woven together. And as she is the queen of winter, the purple on her is made of snow, woven by her frosts, her children. On the head is an ice crown, humiliated by hail. This goddess was prayed for the moderation of her cruelty.
HELL OR UNDERGROUND GODS
Chernobog
A terrible deity, the beginning of all misadventures and fatal cases, Chernobog was depicted dressed in armor. With a face filled with rage, he held in his hand a spear ready to defeat, or more - to inflict all sorts of evils. This terrible spirit was sacrificed in addition to horses, not only captives, but also people specially provided to him for this. And how all national disasters were attributed to him; then in such cases they prayed and sacrificed to him for the aversion of evil. Mr. Kheraskov describes this terrible false god as follows:
Noisy with weapons comes Chernobog;
This fierce spirit left the bloody fields,
Where he glorified himself with barbarism and rage;
Where the bodies were scattered as food for the animals;
Between the trophies where death weaved crowns,
They sacrificed their horses to him,
When the Russians asked for victories.
Strong god, was the god of bodily strength, courage; Ice, god of war, courage and military prowess, god of victorious glory; But this terrible deity delighted in bloodshed and fury. They erected altars of gratitude to those, as if for the military gifts sent down by them, and prayed to them, asking them to give strength to protect themselves and drive away enemies: but Fear and Horror built temples to this terrible spirit. He was asked only about the aversion of evil, as its source; but they did not hope to find goodness in him, and they did not look for it.
From some descriptions it is clear that his temple was built of black stone; an image made of iron, in front of which stood an altar for the burning of victims. The platform of his temple, they say, was filled with blood; which is likely when they represented him as such a brutal and blood-drinking creature.
Niy
I see the fiery Niy:
In it, hell, Russia hoped to be a judge.
He fiery held in his hands on the sinful scourge.
"Vladimirada"
The mental representation of the immortality of the soul and hope embedded in man by nature itselflife after death, in which a happy or unfortunate state depends on a vicious or virtuous present life, provided a means for all peoples to invent gods who avenge after death for the iniquities committed in this life. As well as those who spent their lives piously here, but were persecuted by a fierce fate without pity, and suffering innocently, the reward prepared for them in the future life consisted in the most beloved pleasures especially loved by the people.
The Celtic paradise of heroes or Valhalla delighted the chivalrous spirit of the saints with their militarygames like battles, in which the slain at the onset of dinner time again awakened from mortal sleep, and went with the winners without any enmity to the same table, where they treated themthe most delicious dishes prepared from boar meat, and they ate beer to excess; at the end, they always returned again to their knightly exercises. But the wicked were all at the mercy of Midgar and Fernis, or their very existence disappeared.
The Slavs believed (following the example of many other peoples) a place of execution for the lawless within the earth. A special implacable and ruthless god Niy was assigned to them as a judge and executor of executions,
Who has his throne within the earth,
And surrounded by a boiling sea of evil.
"Vladimirada"
This judge of the dead was also revered as a sender
Night terrible ghosts.
"Vladim."
From the oral traditions left in the old fairy tales, it is clear that the idol of the Chernobogs was forged from iron. His throne was a cornerstone of black granite, carved as a sign of his sovereignty, had a jagged crown on his head, a lead scepter and a fire-like scourge in his hand.
They sacrificed to him not only the blood of animals, but also human, especially duringany public misadventures.
Stribog
A deity who punishes the wicked in the underworld, and the scourge of atrocities in this world. He is also the destroyer of everything visible, like the Indian Siba, or destroyer, just as the god the Preserver of the Belly resembles the Indian deity Vishnu. Those who deserved to be damned indulged in his revenge.
Yaga baba
This is a very evil, old and powerful witch or sorceress, she looks terrible. She doesn'tlives in hell as much as in this world. Her house is a hut on chicken legs, it stands and turns itself. Our ancient heroes always looked after her lying on a bench; her nose hangs through the garden (the pole in the hut is reinforced for hanging). This old sorceress does not walk, buttravels around the wide world in an iron mortar (i.e., a scooter chariot); and when she walks in it, she forces her to run faster, striking with an iron club or a pestle. And so that for reasons known to her no traces of her could be seen, then they rush after her special tomortar made with chalk and broom.
kikimora
God of sleep and night ghosts. They were imagined many; and according to this, they can be honored as servants and ambassadors of the Nievs. Their origin is given from the human race; they also live in houses; common people believe that they spin at night in the dark, and although they themselves cannot be seen, they claim that the movement of the spindle is heard. In fact, either a cat is sniffing at that time, or worms are sharpening a tree, or cockroaches are crawling. However, these spirits are not dangerous; they do no harm to anyone, although sometimes they disturb, but not so much as brownies, whom the common people consider the most restless pranksters. Kikimoras, according to connoisseurs who are subtle in this matter, are the essence of the female gender, and from communication with house spirits they continue their own and the last generation. They live in houses, having been sent there for the appointed time; but their fatherland is hell.
WATER GODS
king of the sea
Dominion over the seas was entrusted by the idol-worshipping Slavs to a special deity, calling him the king of the sea. Being as ancient as the sea itself, it has a crown of sea ferns; travels the seas in a shell carried by sea dogs; in one hand he has an oar, a sign of taming the waves, in the other a prison, a sign of their excitement. His abode is in the depths of the ocean, where the halls and throne are depicted by Mr. Lomonosov:
In the side inaccessible from mortals,
Between high flinty mountains,
What we used to call by sight shallows,
A valley stretched out covered with golden sand:
Pillars around his huge crystals,
On which beautiful corals twined around.
Their heads are made of twisted shells,
Surpassing the color of the arc between thick clouds,
What does the thunderous storm show us when it is tamed;
Platform of asp and pure azure,
Chambers from one carved mountain;
The tops under the scales of the great fish are mounds;
Headdresses of the inner cover of the craniocerebral
Countless beasts in the depths of the possible.
There is a throne with pearls studded with amber,
On it sits a gray-haired Tsar like waves.
In the bays, in the ocean stretches his right hand,
He commands the waters with a sapphire scepter.
Royal clothes, porphyry and fine linen,
That strong seas bring him before the throne.
"Petriada"
He was especially honored by the Pomeranian Slavs, the Varangians, i.e., sea riders, begging for a happy voyage on the waves.
Miracle of the sea
Servant and messenger of the King of the Sea. It seems to be quite similar to the Triton of the Greeks.
HALF-SPIRIT
This is the general name I give to such imaginary creatures, whom they imagined to be neither completely incorporeal nor corporeal, and which, as it were, lived in their elements, others in forests, in rivers, in whirlpools, and so on. They are the essence:
LOSHI, inhabitants and guardians of forests. These are of special quality. When they walk through the forest, they are equal with the forest; when they walk through the grass, they are equal with the grass; and sometimes they appear to people in human form.
WATER SPIRITS, or Grandfathers live in the deep places of the rivers, where they have magnificent houses. They carry away people bathing in those places, especially boys, whom they teach to live in their homes; and these later in time take the place of these Grandfathers. As well as the goblin take away young children, and, having raised them in their forest monasteries, make them their own successors.
Brownies, which live in houses and yards. If in which house the Brownie falls in love with the owner, then he feeds and grooms his horses, takes care of everything, and at the owner's own beard weaves into braids. Whose house does not fall in love with, there ruins the owner to the root, transferring his cattle, disturbing him at night, and breaking everything in the house.
MERMAIDS, semi-spirits of the feminine gender. They usually live in rivers, from which they often come ashore in red weather, where they sit and comb their green hair with a comb; but as soon as they notice someone walking, they immediately rush to the bottom of the streams.
BOGATYRS
They were revered not as gods, but as people gifted before the other highest gifts of heaven, or, like the Greeks, their demigods. These were:
VOLOTY, giants of exorbitant size and strength. From the tales of the ancients it is clear that in addition to strength, they also had the gift of invulnerability. However, it should be noted that the ancient Slavs, under the name Volotov, understood the Romans. The glory of the strength and power of the Roman people presented them to their imagination as giants; and therefore they made themselves special tall, invincible creatures from the Romans.
POLKAN, also a hero, but only of a wonderful physique. He was half a husband; and from the waist to the bottom of the horse. Run extremely fast; was clothed in armor; fought with arrows. It seems that many were Polkans.
SLAVYAN. The prince of the Slavs, the brother of Vandal, was revered as a demigod. He was credited with strength, courage and excessive bravery. Upon arrival, with his family and the Slavs, he built the city of Slavyansk on the Volkhov River; after the destruction of which by the Varangians, after a few time it was built again, but already under the name of Detinets, after the destruction of Detinets, Novgorod was erected in its place.
VOLKHV WITH BROTHERS. The Magus with the brothers Volkhovets and Rudotok were the children of Slaven, all three heroes. But Magus was a great magician. He not only traveled along the Volkhov River, so named after him, and before that it was called the Mutnaya River, and along the Russian Sea, but even sailed for prey in the Varangian Sea. When he was in Slavyansk, when the enemy approached, turning into a great serpent, he lay down from shore to shore across the river, and then not only no one could drive along it, but there was even no way to escape.
Lakes: ILMER and STUDENETS
Rivers: BUG and DON
were adored along with other deities. Huge black forests along the banks were dedicated to them, where, under the death penalty, not only did the shooter or birder not dare to enter for their trades, and the fisherman did not dare to catch fish, but the water itself was not otherwise allowed to be drawn from them by the coastal inhabitants, as if they were young maidens, cleanly dressed in colored clothes, who took water with reverence and deep silence. These red young women believed that the sacred forests were not filled with modest Spirits, which every loud word, as a sign of disrespect for the deity, transferred to the guardians of the pagan religion, and meek sighs of love whispered into the ears of their lovers. Preferably, a fat ox, according to the color of the waters, was sacrificed to them, when, with the terrible roar of its waves and the howling of ferocious winds, they terrified people who predicted destruction for themselves from that. The ancient Slavs did not build temples in honor of the adored rivers and lakes; but the sacred rites were usually celebrated on the shore. The most magnificent celebrations took place in the spring, when the waters, having destroyed their winter fetters, appeared to their astonished admirers in full majesty. The people fell down. The prayers began. Immersed people in water with great rites; religious enthusiasts, in the heat of their zeal, voluntarily drowned themselves in a sacred river or lake out of reverence. Fragments that have survived to us from old manuscripts and folk songs in honor of water deities confirm what I have said here, and Lomonosov thinks that the Slavs and the very name of the god came from the sacred river Bug.
TEMPLE OF SVETOVID
Shimmer still rested in the arms of the King of the Waters; The clock guarded the entrance and exit from the sun to the house, and the eternal Svetovid rested on a golden bed in the arms of Trigla, as Rurik and Oleg ascend the illuminated hill, where the temple of Svetovid ascends, a temple exalted and worthy of God glorified in it! The high priest Svetovidov, the Theologian, accompanied by the priests, is coming to meet him. Rurik proceeds to the gates of the temple; but he is surprised to see them shut up. “They cannot be opened,” says the Bogoved, “until the first rays of the sun hit the face of God; and then the sound of the trumpet will announce his presence. When the last ray descends from the face of Svetovidov, the voice of a mournful horn and a deaf tambourine announce the hiding of a beneficial star from us. A gloomy day in our laws is equal to night.” The night was bright and similar to a winter day, when the sun shines with weak rays through the hoarfrost.
The prince, in anticipation of the first rays on the review, went around the temple, wanting to inspect it. From the bottom it seemed small to him; but Rurik was surprised to find it huge. It was a circle of 1460 paces. Twelve huge jasper pillars of the Krinth rank supported the canopy of its roof; their headpieces were of gilded copper. Three hundred and sixty windows and twelve gates were closed with copper shutters. At each door stood two priests with trumpets. On the copper gates were depicted twelve famous good deeds of the god; how, for the benefit of naked people, he produced a ram, which at the same moment rushed towards them, and offered them his wave; how, having subdued the indomitable ox and giving them service, he invented for them the plow and all agricultural implements; how he fights and defeats the Black God, who kidnapped his children, the twins Dazhbog and Zimtserla.
There you can see the Sea Miracle, the child of Chernobog, how, having turned into a great cancer, he wants to steal the sun; but scorched by its burning rays, it will fall - and with a strong blow of its ridge, it sprays the current Volkhov like a drop, and making a hole in the ground, produces the Russian sea. Here, a terrible lion, with a copper tail and diamond teeth, steals cattle from Veles, and makes this god tremble; but Svetovid smashes him with a blow of a golden samosek, takes his tail (from which snakes were born) and teeth, and places them in the sky, where we still see them and call them a lion. Here is depicted his love with the beautiful Triglav, and the torment of Chernobog, in love with her. Svetovid, playing the harp, sings tender verses to her; she crowns him with a cornflower blue wreath, and Zimtserla, Lada, Seva and Mertsana dance around them. Ruddy-cheeked Didilia with flowing golden hair, in a scarlet light robe, brings them golden heavenly honey, the drink of the gods, in a diamond bowl. Lelya, sitting next to the harp, listens and smiles slyly. Dido, having risen into the air, shoots heavy arrows at Chernobog. Bel-god, hovering above them on a cloud, smiles pleasantly.
There Perun holds great scales, which he lowered from heaven to resolve the cruel feud between Belbog and his children, And between Chernobog and his children, when a cruel battle began between them, which was supposed to destroy the world; when Niy furiously shook the earth, spewing flames from it, the Miracle of the Sea shook the shores, and Yaga, the daughter of Chernobog, armed with an iron club, rode on her winged chariot and knocked mountains down. But the great Perun wanted to reconcile them and sent one of the Lightnings serving him to announce his will. Then the Belbog clan sat in one scale, and the Chernobog clan in another. Perun lifted the scales, and the cup with Chernobog ascended above the dark clouds; but the bowl with the children of Belbog remained on the ground. - In another place, it was clear how Svetovid struck the great Scorpio when this kidnapped his daughter Zimtserla, mourned by Dazhdbog. Niy, in vain, hid from fear, and Svetovid returned Dazhbog to his sister and wife. But the evil Niy, taking revenge on him for this, sent down the night, fierce scum, snow, blizzards to the earth ... Svetovid, hitting all of them with golden arrows, drove back to the region of Niy. Niy, still burning with anger against him, sent a house spirit to kill his beloved horses; but Svetovid created a silver-horned and wavy-ribbed bold goat, and let it go to exterminate this spirit. - On the tenth doors, the god of light is depicted, a stream from the mountains, from golden water carriers, abundant water, from which the beginning of the river is accepted: the Volga, the Dnieper, the Dvina, the Don, and glorious lake Ilmen. He inhabits them with fishes, letting each kind come in pairs. Envying this, the Sea King sent a whale to devour them; but Striba struck him at the same time with a spear invented, and taking it out, put it on the spot where the temple of the Svetovids stands; the hill was made up of whale dust. - Such were the images on the doors.
The temple was built of light gray wild stone. The overhangs from the wall to the pillars were measured in two large steps, having six steps to rise. The roof, in a hemisphere, consisted of gilded copper. In the middle of it stood a copper gilded idol of Svetovid; along the edges on four sides, four idols carved from marble were placed. In the east there is an idol of Flicker, the goddess ruling over the beginning of the day and always preceding the Sun, the daughter of Dazhbog and Zimtserla, the goddess of spring, the wife of the King of the Sea; her position was to open the gates of Svetovid to his heavenly home when he appeared in the world.
Svetovid gave her a crown of a single star for distinction; and her robe is golden crimson. Joy always shone on her ruddy cheeks, and in feasts she offered heavenly honey to the gods. Flicker, as well as Svetovid, is everlasting. To the south was placed the idol of Kupala, the son of Mertsana and Seva. He had the appearance of a young man, in short and light clothing. The fire of fruitfulness blazed in his eyes; whatever he touched, everything gave birth: not only animals, cattle, fish and reptiles, but even. trees and grass. He had a dwelling in the south. Only rods were sacrificed to him by burning, with songs and dances: what was the fruitful fire and gaiety depicted. At his feet is a rabbit; in the hand a flaming fire; on his head is a wreath of flowers, called bathing suits after his name. Dogoda, his brother, is the most amiable, gentlest and most beautiful of all gods. The idol Dogodin stood in the west.
His hair flutters over his shoulders: a wreath of thorns; blue wings behind his shoulders, and a thin blue robe on him. A smile is always on his ruddy face. He is so loved by everyone that he boldly kisses Lada herself; in his hands he fanned. The idol of the Fierce Pozvizd stood in the north. His face is wrinkled and angry. The head is wrapped in a patch of polar bear skin; frozen beard; deerskin clothing; legs are shod in eiderdown leather. He held a fur in his hands, ready to untie for an outpouring of frost, storms, snow, hail, rain and bad weather. He was considered the god of all winds. They say that his dwelling is on the edge of the north, on the Scandinavian mountains, where he has his throne, and where he has many children, like him cruel. This god, being the son of Strong God, has fun, raising storms, sinking ships, breaking trees, sending scum and bad weather everywhere.
He often demands people as sacrifices for himself. - These were the four idols that stood on the roof of the temple. On the hill, up to three hundred and fifty triangular altars were placed in a proportionate manner. Meanwhile, as Rurik examined and questioned the Bogoved about the meaning of what he saw, a voice of trumpets rang out from the twelve gates and the gates opened... and divine fear embraces their soul: they see the face of Svetovid, shining like copper in a furnace. The Great High Priest - as usual, is dressed in four thin chitons, one longer than the other: in crimson, green, yellow and white; in fear, on which twelve exploits of Svetovid are skillfully embroidered; in a golden crown adorned with seven precious stones, he held in his hand a golden cup filled with the purest wine spirit. Twelve priests surrounding him held a great silver tub, which had three different legs: one like an eagle, another like an ox, and the third like a whale.
Other priests made up seven singing faces and twelve faces in trumpets and horns trumpeting and beating tambourines, and four faces playing on strings and harp. Then the great high priest approached the throne, knelt down, and lifting up the golden cup, read prayers; after that he touched the cup to the horn in Svetovid's hand: the spirit of wine flared up, and the vaults shook from the voice of trumpets and horns, from the sound of tambourines, from the ringing of strings, harp and guns, and from the voices of singers who exclaimed: "Glory!" Meanwhile, the Theologian brought a flaming cup to the Prince, who, having accepted it, poured it into a silver tub, and the azure flame of a pleasing sacrifice soared before God. And then the seven faces, although all around one by one, led by the first song-maker, sang like this:
FIRST PERSON AND TURNOVER
Clear moon at midnight
The stars shine bright at night,
The moon silvers the dark waters,
The stars make the sky blue;
SECOND FACE AND TURNOVER
It warms and nourishes us;
Pozvizd is afraid of him;
Take a look - Zimerzla runs from
eye,-
And Zimtserla comes down to us.
How beneficial it is for us!
THIRD FACE AND TURNOVER
In the east it is joyful to see him:
When the overview appears,
The golden door then opens
His hallowed halls.
He comes from the tower high,
From high, from heaven,
Like a mighty knight with victory.
Svetovid! We worship you!
THE FOURTH PERSON AND TURNOVER
How cheerful the whole creature is here,
Meeting the father and the king!
Heads lift trees;
The flower and the grass were refreshed;
Birds flutter, sing,
Give glory and honor
I lift up your name.
FIFTH PERSON AND TURNOVER
Tremble with joy
Fields of glassy waters;
Ice is bright, sparks are sweeping,
Behold his coming...
The forest worships him
Syrbor bows to the ground;
The wind does not move the leaves,
And dubrova does not make noise;
River rapids only read:
"Great, great Svetovid!"
SIXTH FACE AND TURNOVER
The gods are great; but terrible Perun!
Horror induces a heavy foot,
Like him, in the forefront of the terrible
thunderstorms,
Cloaked in darkness, wrapped in whirlwinds,
Terrible clouds lead behind him;
Steps on a cloud - fire from under the feet;
Rizoy will wave - the firmament will turn purple;
Look at the earth - the earth trembles;
Look at the sea - it boils with foam;
The mountains lean like a blade of grass before him.
Your terrible anger you from us
turn away!..
Throwing a handful of hail into a thousand measures,
Just set foot, already a thousand miles away;
Only from the heel of his clouds blushed,
The foot is strong, the sound is deaf
(He shook the earth and the sea)
And behold the last flashed the floor! ..
Quiet, kind Svetovid!
come back,
Comfort us helpless and orphans!
It's nice how he insults us
Marching in distress to comfort people.
SEVENTH FACE AND TURNOVER
Celestials revered
For their valor and power;
But all virtues are more excellent
Virtue with mercy, with meekness;
In mercy omnipotence,
Omnipotence Svetovidovo.
King of the stars, we bow to you,
We bow before you! -
CHORUS
Only one clear sun warms.
How beneficial it is for us!
Svetovid! We worship you
I lift up your name.
Kohl is great, great is Svetovid,
Marching in adversity to console
of people!
King of the stars, we worship you
We bow before you!
Therefore, twelve faces playing on trumpets, horns and tambourines surrounded the interior of the temple, singing solemn songs in honor of Svetovid.
The loud trumpeting ended, and four young virgins entered; each in the hands of a box. One was in a crimson dress, with a blue sash over her shoulder; the head is trimmed with leafy thorns. The other is dressed in green, having a red baldric, on her head a wreath of myrtle; the third is in gold-colored, having a wreath of classes and a crimson baldric; the fourth is in a white dress, in a silver veil (tiara), a golden band. The first, kneeling, and taking flowers out of the box, scattered them in front of Svetovid; another offered different fruits; the third class and grapes; fourth golden crown. Soon string playing and singing began, and at first each face played especially, and each maiden danced in front of Svetovid; then all four faces, uniting, played songs, and four maidens danced.
Svetovid's face became lighter; at the end of the dance, the idol hesitated. The high priest, the twelve priests, the jubilants, the singers, the players, the trumpeters, the forthcoming prophets and creators fell to the ground; and then rivers Svetovid:
Your name is from the west to the east,
And from my limit to the north is your limit;
May your glory fill the world;
Like sand on the shore, so is your flame;
I will count your age for a thousand years;
And may every person bow down to you!
The songwriters collected these verbs, wrote them on a golden board and handed them to Rurik: after reading them, he gave them to the prophets for interpretation.
Then the face of Svetovidovo lost its radiance, and the faces proclaimed the departure on trumpets, horns and tambourines. Generous and pious Rurik ordered to bring Svetovid on all altars according to the white will and sacrificial meat to divide the army and the people. - Oleg marched to do this; the Grand Duke, with the Bogoved, went to his chamber, for an interview with the high priest about everything he had seen, and to inform him of the essence of the faith of the Slavs.
Modern historians call the Slavs a group of tribes that inhabited the territories of Central and Eastern Europe and spoke the so-called "Slavic" dialects. The etymology of the word "Slavs" is unknown, but most researchers are sure that it comes from the ancient name of the Dnieper River - Slavutich, and it was by the name of this huge river that the peoples living in its valley were named. Now more than 100 tribes are considered Slavic, and all of them are divided into three main groups according to the region of residence: southern Slavs, eastern Slavs and western Slavs.
It is customary to refer to the South Slavic peoples the ethnic groups that inhabited the Balkan Peninsula (modern Romania, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc.). East Slavic tribes are considered to be those who lived on the territory of modern Ukraine (except for the Crimea and the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, where the Turkic peoples lived), Belarus and the European part of Russia, and the Western Slavs include more than 50 ethnic groups that inhabited the territories of modern Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, etc. The tribes that are now commonly called Slavic really had many similar social norms and rules, beliefs and cultural traditions, and also spoke similar languages. However, due to the fact that all these peoples lived scattered over a vast territory, the culture and religion of different Slavic tribes differ significantly.
Beliefs and gods of the ancient Slavs
The religion of the ancient Slavs before the baptism of Rus' was pagan, in the beliefs of all tribes traits of animism and polytheism
. However, unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Slavs paid much less attention to the cults of individual gods, and revered, first of all, the spirits of nature. For example, in the religion of the Eastern Slavs there were many spirits, demons and various supernatural entities, but most of them were not personified and did not have names - people simply asked for the mercy of the spirits of the forest, rivers, etc. In addition to animism, that is, the spiritualization of nature and objects surrounding world, in the religion of the ancient Slavs also took place polydemonism
- belief in "demons". However, unlike modern Christians, the Slavs did not consider demons to be evil spirits, but supernatural entities that are "shadows" or souls of living and inanimate objects (trees, stones, fire, etc.), but can exist separately from such objects.
Another striking feature of the religion of the ancient Slavs was totemism - . Often the totem animals of the Slavic tribes were an elk, a bear or a wild boar, but unlike the beliefs of the Hindus, in the religion of the Slavs there was no categorical prohibition on killing a totem animal. Later, totemic beliefs were woven into a polytheistic belief system, and animal totems began to be considered accompanying gods or even their incarnations: for example, the Slavs believed that Perun, the thunder god, was accompanied by a boar.
In the religion of the ancient Slavs there were not so many personified gods, and different tribes honored both "common" deities and 2-3 of their own. As for the religion of the Eastern Slavs, their most revered gods were:
- Perun is the god of thunder. patronizing warriors and rulers
- Veles - the god of wealth and animal husbandry, the patron of merchants and travelers; some tribes also revered him as the god of the dead
- Makosh - the goddess of fertility, water and fate, the patroness of women in childbirth and the personification of the feminine
- Svarog - the god of sky and fire, one of the most ancient gods
- Dazhdbog - god of warmth and sun, patron of farmers
- Lada - the goddess of beauty and love, as well as the goddess of summer and harvest
- Lelya - the daughter of Lada, the goddess of spring and the keeper of the sown grain from freezing
- Simargl - the god-keeper of crops, depicted in the form of a winged dog
- Khors - the deity of the sun, is considered borrowed from the Iranian tribes.
There were no "official" priests in the religion of the ancient Slavs - their functions during various ceremonies, as a rule, were performed by the elders of the tribe or older men and women in the family. Rites associated with the worship of the gods were carried out either in the fields and in houses (rituals associated with asking for a harvest, wealth in the house, easy childbirth, etc.), or in temples located in groves or on hills. temple
Eastern Slavs consisted of two parts - the place where the idol of the deity was located, and the place of the altar for. As an altar, a large fire was most often used, on which the victims were burned. In history, there are references to the cult of Perun, which was observed by warriors and princes, and it was to this god that they prayed and brought gifts before each military campaign and in gratitude for the victory. It should be noted that cult of Perun
, like the cults of other Slavic gods, included mainly the sacrifices of various animals, but in rare cases people were also sacrificed (in the annals there are references to the fact that Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich himself performed human sacrifices before the adoption of Christianity and the baptism of Rus').
Holidays and cults of the ancient Slavs
The ancient Slavs led a predominantly agricultural lifestyle, so it is natural that agricultural cult
occupied an important place in their beliefs. The agricultural cult in both the southern and eastern Slavs included many rituals and rituals associated with the worship of the gods and the celebration of the main points of the agricultural calendar. This cult belongs to the community cults of the ancient Slavs, which means that most of the rites were performed with the participation of all members of the community. And now, more than a millennium after the advent of Christianity, in the traditions of our people there are many holidays that were part of the agrarian cult of the ancient Slavs. These holidays include:
- Maslenitsa - a holiday of farewell to winter and meeting with spring
- Ivana Kupala - summer solstice
- Kolyada is the day of the winter solstice, "the turning of the sun from winter to summer."
In addition to holidays and rituals, the agricultural cult of the ancient Slavs included the so-called "farming magic" - and superstitious ideas aimed at predicting and increasing the future harvest. The most common among most Slavic tribes were such magical rituals as burying a chicken egg in a furrow during sowing, reading a special plot while plowing a field, etc.
Another significant cult in the religion of the ancient Slavs was ancestor worship
, because all the Slavs believed in an afterlife, namely, that souls after death go to another world "viria", but they can influence living people. A manifestation of the cult of ancestors was the tradition of commemorating deceased relatives on memorial days, as well as the veneration of "home gods" - a separate family. From the belief in household gods, according to historians, the still surviving beliefs about domoviks
- guardian spirits of the house.
The cult of ancestors also included funerary cult , since the ancient Slavs believed that the easy way for viriy depended on the correct funeral rite. In the Slavs, it was customary to burn the bodies of the dead at the stake, and bury the urn with ashes in the family mound. It should be noted that the cult of ancestors concerned only the "pure" dead - those who died a natural death from old age or illness or fell on the battlefield. But the "unclean" dead ("dead") - suicides and those who died a violent death or from drinking, were afraid, they tried to neutralize them with the help of special rituals, and then - to forget about them.
A.L. Barkova
In Slavic fairy tales, there are many magical characters - sometimes terrible and formidable, sometimes mysterious and incomprehensible, sometimes kind and ready to help. To modern people they seem like a bizarre fiction, but in the old days in Rus' they firmly believed that in the thicket of the forest there was a hut of Baba Yaga, a Serpent abducting beauties lives in the harsh stone mountains; they believed that a girl could marry a bear, and a horse could speak with a human voice - in other words, that the whole world around was permeated with magic.
Such a faith was called paganism, i.e. “folk faith” (“people” is one of the meanings of the ancient Slavic word “language”).
The pagan Slavs worshiped the elements, believed in the kinship of people with various animals, and made sacrifices to the deities inhabiting everything around. Each Slavic tribe prayed to its gods, the religion of the northern (Baltic and Novgorod) Slavs was very different from the religion of the Kyiv and Danube Slavs. There have never been common ideas about the gods for the entire Slavic world: since the Slavic tribes in pre-Christian times did not have a single state, they were not united in beliefs either. Therefore, the Slavic gods are not related by kinship, although some of them are very similar to each other. The pagan pantheon created under Vladimir Svyatoslavich - a collection of the main pagan gods - also cannot be called pan-Slavic: it mainly consisted of South Russian deities, and their selection did not so much reflect the actual beliefs of the people of Kiev, but served political goals.
Due to the fragmentation of pagan beliefs, which never reached their peak, very little information about paganism has been preserved, and even then it is rather meager. Researchers learn about the higher Slavic gods, as a rule, from Christian teachings against paganism; about “lower” mythology (beliefs about various spirits) - from folklore (tales, rituals); a lot of information is obtained thanks to archaeological excavations of places of pagan prayers and the found treasures of women's and men's jewelry with pagan symbols. In addition, comparisons with the ancient religion of neighboring peoples, as well as with epic tales (for example, Russian epics) that are not directly related to religion, but retain echoes of myths, help to correctly comprehend the material received.
The most ancient Slavic beliefs and rituals are based on the deification of nature. Metropolitan Macarius wrote reproachfully in the 17th century. About the pagans: “These are their wicked places of worship: the forest, and the stones, and the rivers, and the marshes, the springs, and the mountains, and the hills, the sun and the moon, and the stars, and the lakes. And to put it simply, everything that existed was worshiped as God, and honored, and sacrificed.”
Beliefs of the hunting age
Animal deities.
In a distant era, when the main occupation of the Slavs was hunting, and not agriculture, they believed that wild animals were their ancestors. The Slavs considered them powerful deities to be worshiped. Each tribe had its own totem, i.e. a sacred animal worshiped by the tribe. Several tribes considered the Wolf as their ancestor and revered him as a deity. The name of this beast was sacred, it was forbidden to say it out loud, so instead of “wolf” they said “fierce”, and they called themselves “lutichi”. During the winter solstice, the men of these tribes put on wolf skins, which symbolized the transformation into wolves. So they communicated with animal ancestors, from whom they asked for strength and wisdom. The wolf was considered a powerful protector of the tribe, the devourer of evil spirits. The pagan priest who performed protective rites also dressed in an animal skin. With the adoption of Christianity, the attitude towards pagan priests changed, and therefore the word “wolf-dlak” (that is, dressed in a dlaka - a wolf skin) began to be called an evil werewolf; later, the “wolf-lac” turned into a “ghoul”.
The owner of the pagan forest was the Bear - the most powerful beast. He was considered the protector from all evil and the patron of fertility - it was with the spring awakening of the bear that the ancient Slavs associated the onset of spring. Up to the XX century. Many peasants kept a bear's paw in their homes as a talisman-amulet, which was supposed to protect its owner from diseases, witchcraft and all kinds of troubles. The Slavs believed that the bear was endowed with great wisdom, almost omniscience: they swore by the name of the beast, and the hunter who broke the oath was doomed to death in the forest.
The myth of the Bear - the owner of the forest and a powerful deity - is also preserved in Russian fairy tales, where the heroine enters his house in the dense thicket of the forest, becomes his wife, and their son Bear's Ear turns into a mighty hero, the conqueror of monsters.
The true name of this beast-deity was so sacred that it was not pronounced aloud and therefore has not come down to us. Bear is the nickname of the beast, meaning "honey badger"; in the word “lair” the more ancient root “ber” has also been preserved, i.e. "brown" (lair - ber's lair). For quite a long time, the bear was revered as a sacred animal, and even much later, the hunters still did not dare to pronounce the word “bear” and called him either Mikhail Potapych, or Toptygin, or simply Mishka.
Of the herbivores in the hunting era, the Olenikha (Moose Elk) was the most revered - the most ancient Slavic goddess of fertility, sky and sunlight. In contrast to real deer, the goddess was thought to be horned; her horns were a symbol of the sun's rays. Therefore, deer antlers were considered a powerful amulet against all evil spirits at night and were attached either above the entrance to the hut or inside the dwelling. By the name of the horns - "plow" - deer and elk were often called moose. An echo of the myths about the celestial Elks are the folk names of the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - Elk and Elk.
Heavenly goddesses - Deer deer sent newborn deer to the earth, pouring like rain from the clouds. Chronicler of the 12th century. He wrote: “It happens ... a cloud, and small deer fall in it, and grow, and disperse over the earth.”
Among domestic animals, the Slavs revered the Horse more than others, because once the ancestors of most of the peoples of Eurasia led a nomadic lifestyle, and in the guise of a golden horse running across the sky, they imagined the sun. The image of the Sun-horse was preserved in the decoration of the Russian hut, crowned with a ridge - an image of one or two horse heads at the junction of two roof slopes in combination with the sign of the sun. An amulet with the image of a horse's head or just a horseshoe, like other solar symbols, was considered a powerful amulet.
Humanoid deities
With the passage of time, man was increasingly freed from fear of the animal world, and animal features in the images of deities gradually began to give way to human ones. The owner of the forest turned from a bear into a shaggy goblin with horns and paws, but still resembling a man. Leshy, the patron saint of hunting, was left on the stump of the first game caught. It was believed that he could lead a lost traveler out of the forest, but if he was angry, he could, on the contrary, lead a person into a thicket and destroy him. With the adoption of Christianity, the goblin, like other spirits of nature, began to be perceived as hostile.
The deities of moisture and fertility among the Slavs were mermaids and pitchforks, pouring dew from magic horns onto the fields. They were talked about either as swan girls flying from heaven, or as mistresses of wells and streams, or as about drowned mavkas, or as midday women running around the grain fields at noon and giving strength to the ear. According to popular beliefs, on short summer nights, mermaids come out of their underwater shelters, swing on the branches, and if they meet a man, they can tickle to death or drag them to the bottom of the lake.
household deities
Spirits inhabited not only forests and waters. Many household deities are known - well-wishers and well-wishers, at the head of which was a brownie, who lived either in the under-furnace or in a lapta hung for him on the stove. The brownie was transferred to a new house in a pot with coals from the old stove, while repeating: “Brownie, brownie, come with me!”. The brownie patronized the household: if the owners were diligent, he added good to the good, and punished laziness with misfortune. It was believed that the brownie treated cattle with special attention: at night he allegedly combed the manes and tails of horses (and if he was angry, then, on the contrary, he tangled the animals' hair into tangles); he could “take away” the milk from the cows, or he could make the milk yield plentiful; he had power over the life and health of newborn pets.
Faith in the brownie was closely intertwined with the belief that dead relatives help the living. In the minds of people, this is confirmed by the connection between the brownie and the stove. In ancient times, many peoples believed that it was through the chimney that the soul of the newborn entered the family and that the spirit of the deceased also left through the chimney.
Images of brownies were carved from wood and represented a bearded man in a hat. Such figurines were called churami (shurami) and at the same time symbolized the deceased ancestors - great-grandfathers, ancestors. The expression "Stay away from me!" meant a request: "Ancestor, protect me!". The ancestors of the family - grandfathers - were its reliable and caring defenders.
In Rus', they believed that the brownie's face was similar to the owner of the house, only his hands were covered with wool. In Belarus and neighboring regions, the brownie is revered in the form of a real snake living under the stove; housewives call such a gospodarik snake and feed it with milk. The custom of keeping snakes in houses has been known to all Slavs since ancient times: snakes were considered the guardians of seed grain, because mice are afraid of them. Archaeologists find images of snakes on many objects, for example, on vessels with grain.
In some northern Russian villages, there were beliefs that, in addition to the brownie, the housekeeper, the cattleman and the kutny god also take care of the household (these well-wishers lived in the barn and looked after the cattle; they were left some bread and cottage cheese in the corner of the barn as a sacrifice), as well as a barn - keeper of stocks of grain and hay.
Completely different deities lived in the bath, which in pagan times was considered an unclean place. Bannik was an evil spirit that frightened a person, almost drove him to suffocation in a bathhouse that was heated in black, i.e. with an open hearth inside and without a chimney. To appease the bannik, after washing, people left him a broom, soap, water; a black chicken was sacrificed to the bannik.
