The foundations and therefore, along with many peculiar features, also have many similarities with the primitive religion of the Germans, Greeks, Lithuanians and Persians. The people are relatively young, early and quickly adopted Christianity, the Slavs did not have time to develop a completely finished mythological system. On the other hand, their mythological views were not fixed in such integral works as the poems of Homer and Hesiod or the "Edda" of the Scandinavians, but were preserved only in songs, fairy tales, riddles and other works of folk art that do not stand in a complementary relationship in terms of content, on which in addition often lies the obscuring and distorting stamp of later beliefs. The legends of the Slavs about the creation of the world and man, views on the meaning of their deities and the names of the latter means that they differ among different tribes. Coordinating and complementing these options, one can generally establish the following scheme of Slavic cosmogony and mythology.
Gamayun, a prophetic bird. Painting by V. Vasnetsov on the theme of Slavic myths. 1897
Gods of Slavic mythology
They are based on dualism, i.e., the recognition by the Slavs of a good beginning in the person of Belbog and a subordinate to him, but still a harmful element - in the person of Chernobog. By the combined creative forces of both gods, the world arose from the boundless airspace or celestial ocean, in the midst of which there was a bright iriy(paradise) or Buyan Island, blessed home of the gods. Then a man was created by Belbog from clay, and Chernobog did not fail to make his unclean contribution to the nature of the new creation. Envying the power of Belbog, Chernobog tried to fight him, but was defeated and transferred his hatred to the first person (androgyne), who possessed titanic powers and lived in harmony with Belbog. In the absence of Belbog, he intoxicated a man “at the table of God” with the wine he invented and by this brought on him the wrath of Belbog, which had the result of the physical and moral grinding of the human race.
Shunning the evil inevitable in the world, Belbog (otherwise called Prabog or simply god, Belun, Svarog, Rod, Triglav, Diy) did not rule the world himself. With his wife Diva, the goddess of the earth, he reigned beyond the clouds, leaving the rule of the world and the possible struggle against evil to the four lower world rulers. Between them, the first place in Slavic mythology was occupied by Perun, the heavenly ruler, a powerful and angry black-haired god with a fiery mustache and beard, protecting and protecting people and waging a continuous fight with Chernobog with the help of a thunder hammer, a bow - a rainbow and arrows - lightning. The wife of Perun, Simargla, Zhiva or Siva, was the goddess of lightning, summer thunderstorms and fertility. He ruled over the water and air elements, according to the myths of the Slavs, Stribog, the father of the winds and the god of the sea, along with whom, among the people, the elemental sea deity stood in memory - the Waterman, an ugly and angry giant, with his frantic dance raising a disastrous storm on the sea.
Baba Yaga. Character of Slavic mythology. Painting by V. Vasnetsov, 1917
This was followed by the king of fire: Zhizhal of the Belarusians Svarozhich or Radagast Pomeranian, the god of hospitality and the keeper of the hearth, and the ruler of the underworld, Niy of the Poles, Sitivrat or Karachun of other Slavs, a gloomy winter deity, the husband of the goddess of death and the deadly winter cold, Morana. Below the named world lords stood in the Slavic myths the offspring of Perun: his son, the god of the sun Khors, Dazhdbog or Lado, the most revered deity of the Slavs, the husband of the sea princess Lada or Kupala, the goddess of spring, rain and fertility, and his brother Veles or Volos, the god of the month, the inspirer of singers, the "Veles grandchildren", and the patron of herds and wild animals. The host of the highest gods was closed by the sons of Horsa, Lel and Polel, the gods of lawful love and marriage; Chur, guardian of borders, patron of trade and all profits, and Yarilo, a priapic deity of sensual love and fertility.
Spirits and mythical creatures among the Slavs
In addition to these deities of a higher order, Slavic mythology knew many earthly, elemental spirits. All nature was represented in it as inhabited by supernatural beings. The forest was dominated by angry and quick-tempered, but honest and did not do unreasonable evil. goblin. In the waters lived water grandfathers and beautiful, but crafty seductresses - mermaids. Spirits lived in the mountains pitchfork, sometimes insidious and vicious, but who loved heroic prowess and patronized brave warriors. Women in labor, goddesses of fate, who predicted their fate to newborns, were hiding in a mountain cave, etc.
Mermaids emerge from the water before Trinity. Painting by K. Makovsky, 1879
Temples and priests among the Slavs
The Slavs shared the beliefs of other Aryan tribes in the immortality of the soul, the afterlife retribution for good and evil deeds, and the end of the world, but the legends about this merged so early and closely with Christian ideas that it is very difficult to isolate purely pagan elements from this amalgam. Slavic mythology reached its greatest development among the Pomeranian Slavs, who, according to medieval German annalists, had luxurious temples, precious idols and a more powerful priestly estate. Regarding the cult, other Slavs did not retain specific indications, but the widespread existence of temples and priests cannot be doubted and is directly attested for the main cities of Rus' in the times preceding the adoption of Christianity.
Zbruch idol. Monument of Slavic paganism, dating from about the 10th century
Literature about Slavic mythology
F. Buslaev, "Essays on Folk Poetry and Art"
Afanasiev,"Poetic views of the Slavs on nature"
Averikiev, "Mythical antiquity" ("Dawn", 1870.)
Batyr, monograph about Perun
"Belarusian songs" Bessonova
Kvashnin-Samarin, "Essays on Slavic mythology"
Word and myth. mythological creatures
(mermaids, goblin, brownies, etc.) Conspiracies.
Ideas about the world order, time and space
The study of ancient literature involuntarily accustoms to the idea that pagan mythology is certainly something like ancient Greek myths with their complex branching plots, gods, “heroes” like Hercules or Achilles, etc. Focusing on this type of myth, you also look for human characters in other nations in their mythology and their entertaining adventures, such as the journey of the Greek Argonauts, the history of Perseus and Andromeda etc.
Meanwhile, mythological consciousness as such manifests itself incomparably more diverse than in the above cases. The holistic plot of Slavic myths, understood in the above narrow sense, was practically not preserved: the pagan Slavs did not yet have a written language, and then, from the moment of the adoption of Christianity, the church began to fight against pagan ideas, which was a powerful means of ousting ancient myths from the folk cultural and historical memory.
Chronicles, various sermons and "teachings" of Christian clergy directed against paganism, etc. documents have preserved fragments of myths, cited mainly in the order of illustrations.
However, philologically observing the language, its words and phrases, one can also penetrate the ancient culture, mythology. Moreover, it is here that the original level of mythological representations lies, as it were.
A.A. Potebnya in his writings repeatedly recalled the linguist and mythologist M. Müller, according to whom, “Mythology is only a phase, moreover, inevitable, in the development of language, if language is taken not as a purely external symbol, but as the only possible embodiment of thoughts ... In a word , mythology is a shadow that falls from language on thought ... Mythology in the highest sense is the power of language over thought ... " 78 .
The myth is able to contain already word or a short expression. As A.N. Afanasiev, “The seed from which a mythical legend grows lies in pristine word." According to A.A. Potebny, who cited these words of the predecessor, “it is probable in advance that the simplest forms of myth may coincide with the word, but the myth as a whole legend may suggest myth as word» 79 .
Russians, for example, are used to the fact that rain goes. This is a linguistic metaphor, but the figurative nature of the turnover in everyday life has long been no longer recognized. Meanwhile, among the Poles, the rain is falling (deszcz pada). Just as modern Russian children are still able to “recognize” long legs in the streams of rain stretching from the clouds crawling across the sky, as if walking on the ground, so ancient people, people from the time of the “childhood of mankind”, confidently did this. With the idea that came from the era of East Slavic paganism that it is raining, it is capable of walk, as a living being, in the first centuries of Christianity, the clergy in Rus' even tried to fight, but they could not do anything with the language element.
In French, the expression il pleut is still used to express the same meaning. It is translated into Russian as “it is raining”, but literally means “he is crying”. Who is he? Naturally, a deity living in heaven (and from a Christian point of view, a pagan demon).
Further, Losev comments on his example in the following way: “Here, one can say, all the cards of mythological thinking are revealed, which in new languages are hidden under the pronouns of the 3rd person. So it really is. The true subject of the impersonal sentence for ancient thinking is the demon, which is still thought blindly sensually, animally instinctively, undifferentiated, which still remains at the level of a sensually perceived object, is not yet fully reflected in thinking, but is only implied by it unconsciously and therefore does not named and cannot even be named. Yes, and in Russian it will not be a mistake to say that in a sentence It's getting light it is subject" 81 .
The imagination of the ancients surrounded the pagan deity living in the sky with other celestial beings. For example, clouds could be mistaken for grazing heavenly cows, and black clouds that instill fear in people are already for someone else, hostile and evil, or for heavenly mountains, or again for cows (black). Naturally, the rain then is heavenly milk.
The name of the cow Burenka, which is widespread in Russia, is most likely etymologically related to the word "storm" (and not the adjective of the color brown, brown). What is especially interesting, according to Vasmer, the word "storm", in turn, is related in some Indo-European languages to the verb, which means "mooing", "mooing" in them - that is, then Burenka, apparently, "mooing" or "roaring". Moreover, such conservation in the modern word of ancient mythological ideas is by no means a rare phenomenon. Academician Nikita Ilyich Tolstoy(1923-1996) listed such nicknames of cows that he met (in Ukraine) similar to Burenka: Cloud, Khmara, Thunderstorm, Raiduga, etc. 82 Let's add here the often encountered cow nickname Zorka (that is, "dawn").
A.A. Potebnya emphasizes: “When a person creates a myth that a cloud is a mountain, the sun is a wheel, thunder is the sound of a chariot or the roar of a bull, the howling of the wind is the howling of a dog, etc., then there is no other explanation for these phenomena for him” 83 .
Animal beliefs in general, everything in nature (stones, trees, water, fire, etc.) was considered alive. Hence, for example, the worship of trees. Saint Stephen of Perm destroyed at the beginning of the 15th century. a kind of “purple birch”, which was worshiped by the local tribe of pagan Zyryans. For the Slavs, the pine was a sacred tree - they still try to locate cemeteries under pine trees (as, indeed, in general under the trees). Among the sacred trees, of course, belonged to the oak.
The bottom line is that everything in the myth, no matter how fantastic it may be, was perceived by the ancient Slavs as the complete truth, as an objective picture of the surrounding world. With the mythological perception of the surroundings, everything around comes to life, filled with miracles. In this world of miracles, one must be constantly on the alert. Forest, water, air are inhabited by supernatural beings, animals can talk, etc., etc.
Accordingly, this is the world of mighty knights, possessing incredible strength for a simple person. The first collectors of Russian epics still found in their folk performers people with atavistic features of mythological consciousness.
Folklorist A.F. Hilferding said: “When a person doubts that a hero could carry a club of 40 pounds or put a whole army on the spot, epic poetry is killed in him. And many signs convinced me that the North Russian peasant singing epics, and the vast majority of those who listen to him, certainly believe in the truth of the miracles that are imagined in the epics ... Sometimes the singer of the epics himself, when you make her sing with the arrangement necessary for recording , inserts his comments between the verses, and these comments testify that he fully lives in thought in the world that he sings about ” 84 .
For the ancient Slavs, contact with the sphere of the supernatural was an undoubted, clear and simple matter.
A person believed that in the forest he should be wary not only of predatory animals, but also of goblin, water, coastlines, mermaids, etc. Procopius of Caesarea wrote about the Slavs in the 6th century. n. e .: “They revere rivers, and nymphs (that is, mermaids. - Yu.M.), and all sorts of other deities, make sacrifices to all of them, and with the help of these sacrifices, fortune-telling is also performed.
Mermaid(from st.-glory, rousali - “pagan holiday of spring”; after the adoption of Christianity, it turned out to be a week earlier trinity, where is bulg from. rusaliya - "week before Trinity"). Usually a mermaid is the spirit of a drowned woman, living in the water, but able to go ashore and even climb trees.
A number of mythological creatures among the pagan Slavs were associated with the calendar cycle.
The language has preserved ancient mythology in a very multifaceted way. So, A.A. Potebnya, in her work “On the share and creatures related to it”, shows on extensive material that, according to the ideas of the pagan Slavs, “share” and its antipode were not “share” (that is, in modern terms, “happiness” and “misfortune” ). Moreover, Potebnya believed, “ God may mean the giver of the share" 85 . Identify the Share with the concept fate hardly true: as Procopius wrote about the Slavs, "they do not know fate and generally do not recognize that it has any power in relation to people."
Likewise, famously, grief (or grief-unfortunateness), need (need), trouble, etc., were also not abstract concepts, as they are now, namely “humanoid, less often zoomorphic creatures” 86 . These creatures could walk the world. It is even known that famously was one-eyed. Grief drew people into drinking, drinking with them and then also suffering from a hangover. In one tale, a man managed to lure grief into a pit and filled it with a stone, in another he stuffed the need into a vessel and drowned it in a swamp. Trouble people in fairy tales often wear on their shoulders. Truth and falsehood, part (fate), chance, fate, etc., seemed to be approximately the same to the imagination of people.
Sinisters were small evil spiritual beings, according to popular belief, hiding behind the stove and letting misfortune both on the house and on the people living in it. The Ukrainian wish for misfortune reads: “Boday you have been beaten!”
The figure of the brownie (or “owner”) also living in the house, according to pagan ideas, is not so unambiguous. The pagan Slavs believed that, depending on the specific circumstances, he could show both a hostile and a benevolent attitude towards people living in the house.
The evil kikimora could be either a brownie, or a forest, or a swamp. Her appearance was conceived as humanoid (usually an ugly little old woman).
Ghouls (ghouls) were, according to the ideas of the pagan Slavs, the dead coming to life at night, sucking blood from living people (in the West, this kind of fantastic creatures are called "vampires").
The death of a person entailed a complex system of rituals among the pagan Slavs. So, the burial often took place in a sleigh (even in summer). The burial was followed by a mass ritual celebration (feast), accompanied, if a warrior died, by magical military games, and a feast (strava) equally ritualized in its composition.
Mauritius Strategist noted that after the death of a husband, his wife usually passed away: “Most of them consider the death of their husband their death and voluntarily strangle themselves, not counting being a widow for life.” 87
The place of the afterlife dwelling of the spirits of ancestors was called Navi. The Eastern Slavs built the so-called “domovins” on the graves - “wooden log houses (1.5 x 2 m) with a gable roof and a small window, the thickness of one log” 88 . Various gifts were placed in these houses to the deceased ancestor at his remembrance.
As L. Niederle notes, “in the ancient Russian church teachings”, where Slavic baths are mentioned, “one can read an interesting thing: the people prepared a bath for their ancestors, which, however, the Russian people still do in some places” 89 .
The spirits of ancestors in general were mystical beings of a special order for people. From the spirits of the grandfather and the woman they waited for help and instructions on how to act in this or that life situation. One of the most ancient spiritual beings was the genus. Women in labor helped at the birth of children, influenced the fate of newborns. Orthodox priests of the first centuries fought with them, their cult - this cult was so deeply rooted 90 .
Pagan Slavs believed in their own resurrection after death. Sometimes they seem to have associated it with the idea of reincarnation. A researcher of the pagan funeral rite cites, for example, a curious Russian proverb, borrowed from the dictionary of V.I. Dahl: "Don't beat the dog, and she was a man" 91 .
According to many data, one can feel that in the minds of the Slavs of the first centuries of our era quality side prevailed over the quantitative, specific over the abstract. However, this is a fairly common feature of the psychology of the ancients. It was very clearly manifested in the methods of counting.
It is difficult to say "to what extent" the Slavs were able to count in the pre-literate era 92 . But it is clear that they did it in many ways different than we do. The ancient Slav easily oriented himself and would say, for example, that there are three pines, five firs and two birches in front of him. However, it is unlikely that he would understand what they want from him if someone undertook to insist that all this amounts to ten trees. Such generalizations by abstraction are made quite automatically by modern people, but the consciousness of the ancients "worked" differently. For an ancient person, pine, spruce, birch, oak, etc. - were qualitatively different plants, and it was psychologically difficult for him to place them in a single row 93 .
Ancient people were very sensible about the word. They took it for granted that a word is a potential deed. In their representations, the word was given magical power. A.A. Potebnya wrote about it:
“The word is the deed ... Therefore, it is decent to sing a man's song only for a man, a stonefly - only for a girl, a wedding song - only at a wedding, a lament - only at a funeral; who knows the conspiracy agrees to communicate it only to the initiate, not for profanity, but for serious use. 94 .
On the meaning of the word for ancient people Academician Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev He speaks:
“If, in all the more or less important functions of his spiritual and even physical life, a person saw a mysterious manifestation of some unknown, supernatural power hiding in him, then, of course, the word, as the highest, completely human and predominantly rational phenomenon of his nature was most charming and sacred to him. It not only nourished in him all the cherished family sympathies for antiquity and tradition, for the family and tribe, but also aroused reverent horror and religious awe”; “This integrity of spiritual life, reflected in the word, is most clearly defined and explained by the language itself; because the same words express concepts in it: talk and think, speak and do; do, sing and enchant; talk and judge, judge; talk and sing; talk and conjure; argue, fight and to swear; speak, sing, act and treat; speak, see and know...
Our ancestors felt in the word “guess” a combination of two concepts: to think and speak ... “fortune-telling is a secret verb”, that is, a secret word, not only a thought in general, but also a mysterious saying, as well as divination, because guess means to tell fortunes, and together to utter incomprehensible words - to guess " 95 .
Poetically romanticizing the scientific problem, the famous figure of Russian symbolism Vyach. Ivanov wrote:
“Symbolism in the new poetry seems to be the first and vague recollection of the sacred language of the priests and sorcerers, who once acquired the words of the popular language with a special, mysterious meaning, discovered by them alone, by virtue of the correspondences they alone knew between the innermost world and the limits of public experience.”
According to Ivanov, the ancient “priests and sorcerers” “knew other names of gods and demons, people and things than those that the people called them, and in the knowledge of true names they laid the foundation of their power over nature. They ... alone understood that the "mixing bowl" (crater) means the soul, and "lyre" - the world, and "cave" - birth ... that "to die" means "to be born", and "to be born" means " die”, and that “to be” means “to be truly”, i.e. “to be like the gods”, and “you are” - “there is a deity in you”, and the non-absolute “to be” of popular word usage and worldview refers to the illusion of the real being or potential being...” 96 .
Of course, in reality, much of what Vyach. Ivanov, the situation was more complicated and generally different, but in itself the fact that many verbal formulas of the ancient pagan magicians turned into poetic images after millennia is an indisputable fact. What is now a conditional artistic metaphor could once be part of a witchcraft conspiracy.
The rites of the calendar-agrarian cycle basically contained pagan conspiracies and prayers of various forms for a good harvest. In Slavic folklore, the so-called "calendar poetry" in general was originally entirely associated with pagan magic. Carols, stoneflies, Kupala, Rusal, stubble, etc. chants objectively carried a great aesthetic beginning, but nevertheless they were sung by ancient people by no means for their artistic delight.
One or another specific magical function appears in many words and verbal expressions coming from antiquity with invariable constancy. As an example, we can point to the following fact, which is not without interest. Exploring such a phenomenon of pagan Slavic magic as "fencing space with a voice from harmful and evil spirits", N.I. Tolstoy says: "Russian chur, which was shouted out to protect against evil spirits, created, according to the ideas of the ancient Eastern Slavs, the same enclosed space that was discussed above. Word chur was abusive, obscene. The first and oldest function of swearing was protection from evil spirits, about which there is already a considerable amount of evidence. 97 .
The conspiracies and spells of the pagans contain huge differences from Christian prayers. Pagan "priests and sorcerers", various sorcerers, etc. turned not to God, whom they did not know, but to dark forces, the soul-harming essence of which, unfortunately, was not clear to them.
Without making any comparisons, here I would only like to point out that the basis of a Christian’s prayer is also a person’s belief that deeds can be born from his word. More than a hundred years ago, the holy righteous John of Kronstadt wrote in his diary “My Life in Christ”:
"Word creature! Remember that you have a beginning from the word of the All-Creator and in conjunction (through faith) with the building word, through faith, you yourself can be a material and spiritual builder”; “Remember that in the word itself lies the possibility of doing; only one must have firm faith in the power of the word, in its creative ability. 98 .
Orthodoxy, as you know, does not deny the certain effectiveness of pagan witchcraft verbal texts, however, it clearly indicates that the "help" to the practicing sorcerer comes from evil satanic forces. Such “help” is fraught with great danger:
“Who practices what word,” wrote St. Peter of Damascus, - he receives the property of that word, although the inexperienced do not see this, as they see those who have spirituality " 99 .
The pagans (and pagan Slavs, of course, were no exception to this) were defenseless against the power of the darkest forces of the spiritual plane. However, the East Slavic world eventually got out of their "control" as a result of the adoption of Christianity along the Greek model.
The already cited researcher indicates that the posthumous existence of a person was often thought by the Slavs somewhere in outer space:
“The moon, month and stars are common cosmic signs on medieval Yugoslav tombstones. A comparative analysis of them reveals an eloquent picture of the aspiration of the spirit of the dead into space, its path to the sky, along the Milky Way, to the Moon and stars in the “eternal world” ” 100 .
The world of dead ancestors could also be imagined as located somewhere in the bowels of the earth. At the same time, “Regardless of the underground or cosmic location, as well as beyond the horizon, beyond the sea, its nature seems to be some kind of terrestrial” 101 .
The idea of the resurrection of people after the death of the pagan Slavs was suggested by the invariably repeating change of natural cycles. Time seemed to go in a circle. People have watched all their lives how nature dies in winter (leaves fall from trees, grass turns yellow and dries, etc.), but then it is reborn (trees turn green again and grass is born again). This naturally aroused the hope that something similar was happening to people.
Not without interest How many the ancient Slavs saw the seasons of the year, following natural changes. L. Niederle wrote: “The Slavs distinguished four seasons: winter, yar - spring, summer, esen - autumn ...» 102 . N.I. Tolstoy was of a more cautious opinion, pointing out that “we have a lot of ethnographic data at our disposal that the Slavs in antiquity, and in rural, rural areas almost to the present day, divided the year not into four, but only into two large annual segments - summer and winter. <...>Thus, the archaic folk system of division of the “round” year does not coincide with the generally accepted and known system. 103 .
The day was divided by the ancient Slavs in half - into day and night (day, apparently, mystically corresponded to summer in their pagan rites, and night to winter). The day could also be divided into two halves based on the observation of the sun rising from sunrise to the zenith point and then descending from the zenith to the horizon line (clocks began to be distinguished only in later times). The activation of evil spirits was supposed not only at midnight, but also at noon, “at a very dangerous time of the day,” according to N.I. Tolstoy. About midday evil spirits N.I. Tolstoy wrote: “The evil that appears at this moment even has its own special name. Russians have a female floorat bottom- a terrible, ugly or, conversely, a very beautiful woman, appearing in the fields at exactly noon during the flowering and ripening of bread, and a male floorat stall, dangerous for small children. In Polissya floorat zennik- the ghost of a man who died an unnatural death, a terrible, black man who appears at noon. In the Gomel region (village of Velikoye Pole, Petrikovsk district), children are not allowed to go to the river at noon, “so that the noonday is not dragged away,” that is, the water one that appears at noon ... (Further N.I. Tolstoy on examples demonstrates the "pan-Slavic character of this character." - Yu.M.) <...>Noon lasts a very short time, in fact, one moment, and at this moment noon or noon can, according to popular ideas, strike a person, then the threat disappears, while midnight with all its dangers is only the beginning of the dead period of the night, which lasts until the first roosters" 104 .
The night under Ivan Kupala stood apart in the pagan calendar. Many special rituals are associated with it. This is “the night of the presence and revelry of evil spirits ... this is also the night of honoring the land, which is fruitful and has prepared its harvest” 105 .
3. Slavic mythology, its features.
1. The essence of Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology is a set of mythological ideas of the ancient Slavs (Proto-Slavs) of the time of their unity (until the end of the first millennium AD). Slavic mythology and religion were formed over a long period in the process of separating the ancient Slavs from the Indo-European community of peoples in the II-I millennium BC and in interaction with the mythology and religion of neighboring peoples. Actually Slavic mythological texts have not been preserved: the religious and mythological integrity of "paganism" was destroyed during the Christianization of the Slavs. It is only possible to reconstruct the main elements of Slavic mythology on the basis of secondary written, folklore and material sources.
Actually Slavic mythological texts have not been preserved: the religious and mythological integrity of "paganism" was destroyed during the Christianization of the Slavs. It is only possible to reconstruct the main elements of Slavic mythology on the basis of secondary written, folklore and material sources. Before the adoption of Christianity, almost all East Slavic mythology was within the framework of a phenomenon called "Old Russian paganism, so we can draw information about it from ancient Russian written sources." However, it should be noted that, firstly, the religion of the ruling elite and the common people always differ significantly, and, secondly, the sources, as a rule, consider characters of the upper level, pagan deities, and the characters of lower mythology usually remain on the sidelines. .
Scientists reconstruct Slavic mythology according to various sources. First, there are written sources. Texts by Byzantine authors of the 6th-10th centuries: Procopius of Caesarea, Theophylact Simocatta, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Leo the Deacon and others. Western European authors of the 9th-13th centuries: Bavarian Geographer, Titmar of Merseburg, Helmold. A special place is occupied by the Tale of Igor's Campaign, which reflects a significant layer of pagan myths mentioned by the heir and bearer of pagan culture - an anonymous songwriter. All these texts do not contain any coherent expositions of mythology or individual myths.
Secondly, written sources of the XV-XVII centuries and folklore sources of the XVIII-XX centuries, which are less close to paganism, but contain a number of information from earlier sources that have not come down to us, as well as detailed records of legends, fairy tales, epics, conspiracies, bylichki and anecdotes, proverbs and sayings, according to which it is possible to reconstruct ancient myths. Among folklore stories, epics about Svyatogor, Potyk, Volga (Volkh), Mikul are usually attributed to paganism; fairy tales about Kashchei the Immortal, the Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga, Alyonushka and Ivanushka.
Archaeological sources are more reliable, but less informative: data from excavations of places of worship, finds of idols, ritual objects, jewelry, pagan symbols, inscriptions mentioning pagan gods or pagans, remnants of sacrifices and ritual actions. No less important are the data of linguistics, comparative religion and the study of mythological subjects from other peoples.
Slavic mythology and religion were formed over a long period in the process of separating the ancient Slavs from the Indo-European community of peoples in the II-I millennium BC and in interaction with the mythology and religion of neighboring peoples. Therefore, naturally, in Slavic mythology there is a significant Indo-European layer. For example, these are the images of the god of thunder and the fighting squad (Perun), the god of the other world (Veles), elements of the images of the twin deity (Yarilo and Yarilikha) and the deity of Heaven-Father (Stribog). Also Indo-European in essence are such images as Mother-Cheese-Earth (Mokosh), the solar deity (Dazhbog), and some others. In the first millennium BC. e. and in the first half of the 1st millennium, the religion of the Slavs was significantly influenced by the Celts and the steppe Iranian-speaking population (Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans). Some researchers suggest Celtic-Slavic parallels between the deities Dagda and Dazhbog, as well as Macha and Makosh. The Eastern Slavs had deities of presumably Iranian origin in their pantheon - Khors, Semargl, etc.
The beliefs of the Slavs and the Balts were very close. This applies to the names of such deities as Perun (Perkunas) and, possibly, Veles (Velnyas). There is a similarity between the mythologies of the Slavs and the Thracians. There is also a lot in common with German-Scandinavian mythology: the motif of the world tree, the cult of dragons, and so on. In the same period, with the division of the Proto-Slavic community, the tribal beliefs of the Slavs began to form, which had significant regional differences. In particular, the mythology of the Western Slavs was significantly different from all others.
2. The universe of the ancient Slavs
A lot of data about the universe of the ancient Slavs can be given by the so-called "Zbruch idol", which because of this is sometimes even called the "encyclopedia of Slavic paganism." This tetrahedral stone statue is oriented to the cardinal points. Each side is divided into three levels - apparently, heavenly, earthly and underground. At the heavenly level, "deities are depicted, on the earthly level - people (two men and two women, like deities), and in the underground - some kind of chthonic creature holding the earth on itself" .
In a universal way, synthesizing all the relationships described above, the Slavs (and many other peoples) have the world tree. This function in Slavic folklore texts is usually played by Vyriy, the tree of paradise, birch, sycamore, oak, pine, mountain ash, apple tree. Different animals are confined to the three main parts of the world tree: birds (falcon, nightingale, birds of a mythological nature, Divas, etc.), as well as the sun and moon, are associated with the branches and the top; to the trunk - bees, to the roots - chthonic animals (snakes, beavers, etc.). With the help of the world tree, the triple vertical structure of the world is modeled - three kingdoms: heaven, earth and the underworld, a quaternary horizontal structure (north, west, south, east, cf. the corresponding four winds), life and death (green, flowering tree and dry tree, tree in calendar rituals), etc.
Fragmentary information about the attitude of the ancient Slavs can be obtained from ancient Russian literature. In particular, the Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh speaks of Irey, a distant southern country where birds fly away for the winter. With the help of ethnographic materials, we can find out that Irey was later identified with paradise in the people's memory. It also says: “On the Sea-Ocean, on the island of Buyan, there is an oak Karkolist, on that oak sits a falcon, under that oak a snake ...” Thus, the Slavs imagined the Universe: in the center of the World Ocean there is an island (Buyan), on which, in the Center of the World, there is a stone (Alatyr) or the World Tree grows (usually oak). On this tree, as can be seen from the plot, a bird sits, and under the tree there is a snake. Such a picture is very similar to the German-Scandinavian one and to that presented in The Tale of Igor's Campaign.
The earliest information about the deities of ancient Russian paganism can be given to us by the materials of the treaties between Rus' and the Byzantines concluded after the campaigns in 945 and 971. The conclusion of these treaties is described in the ancient Russian chronicles, and there we are primarily interested in the oaths that the Russians took. The joint mention of Perun and Volos in this oath gave rise to numerous speculations - some compare Perun with weapons and war, and Volos with gold and trade, someone associates Perun with the ruling elite (or Varangians-Rus), and Volos with simple people (Slavs and even Finns), others generally oppose Volos to Perun. Otherwise, the data of this oath do not give anything new, with the exception of the passage about gold, which has already been discussed above, in the section “The Universe of the Ancient Slavs”.
3. Cults of deities
3.1. Hierarchy of characters in Slavic mythology
According to the functions of mythological characters, according to the nature of their ties with the collective, according to the degree of individualized incarnation, according to the peculiarities of their temporal characteristics and according to the degree of their relevance for a person within Slavic mythology, several levels can be distinguished.
The highest level is characterized by "the most generalized type of functions of the gods (ritual-legal, military, economic-natural), their connection with the official cult (up to the early state pantheons)" . The highest level of Slavic mythology included two Proto-Slavic deities, whose names are authentically reconstructed as *Rerun (Perun) and *Veles (Veles), as well as a female character associated with them, whose Proto-Slavic name remains unclear. These deities embody military and economic-natural functions. They are interconnected as participants in a thunderstorm myth: the god of thunderstorm Perun, who lives in the sky, on top of a mountain, pursues his serpentine enemy, who lives below, on earth. The reason for their strife is the abduction by Veles of cattle, people, and in some cases, the wife of the Thunderer. The persecuted Veles hides successively under a tree, a stone, turns into a man, a horse, a cow.
Knowledge of the full composition of the Proto-Slavic gods of the highest level is very limited, although there is reason to believe that they already constituted a pantheon. In addition to the named gods, it could include those deities whose names are known in at least two different Slavic traditions. Such are the ancient Russian Svarog (in relation to fire - Svarozhich, that is, the son of Svarog). Another example is the ancient Russian Dazhbog.
A lower level could include deities associated with economic cycles and seasonal rites, as well as gods who embodied the integrity of closed small groups: Rod, Chur among the Eastern Slavs, etc. It is possible that most of the female deities who reveal close ties with the collective (Mokosh and others), sometimes less anthropomorphic than the gods of the highest level.
The elements of the next level are characterized by the greatest abstraction of functions, which sometimes allows us to consider them as a personification of the members of the main oppositions; for example, Share, Likho, Truth, Falsehood, Death, or the corresponding specialized functions, such as Judgment. With the designation of share, good luck, happiness, the common Slavic god was probably also associated. The word "god" was included in the names of various deities - Dazhbog, Chernobog, etc. Many of these characters appear in fairy tales in accordance with the time of the fairy tale and even with specific life situations (for example, Woe-Misfortune).
The heroes of the mythological epic are associated with the beginning of the mythologized historical tradition. They are known only from the data of individual Slavic traditions: such are the genealogical heroes Kyi, Shchek, Khoriv among the Eastern Slavs. More ancient origins are guessed in the characters acting as opponents of these heroes, for example, in monsters of a serpentine nature, the late versions of which can be considered the Nightingale the Robber, Rarog-Rarashek. Fairy-tale characters are, apparently, "participants in the ritual in their mythologized guise and leaders of those classes of creatures that themselves belong to the lowest level: such are the baba-yaga, koshchei, miracle-yudo, the forest king, the water king, the sea king" .
The lower mythology includes different classes of non-individualized (often non-anthropomorphic) evil, spirits, animals associated with the entire mythological space from home to forest, swamp, etc. , kikimors, small vessels among the Western Slavs; from animals - a bear, a wolf.
The dualistic principle of opposing favorable and unfavorable for the collective was sometimes realized in mythological characters endowed with positive or negative functions, or in personified members of oppositions. These are: happiness (share) - misfortune (non-share). There is a significant difference between male and female mythological characters in terms of functions, significance and quantity: the small number of female characters in the pantheon, relationships such as Divas - divas, Genus - women in labor, Judgment - judges. The role of the feminine in magic and witchcraft is especially significant.
In contrasting the land - the sea, the sea is of particular importance - the location of numerous negative, mostly female, characters; the home of death, disease, where they are sent in conspiracies. Its incarnations are the sea, ocean-sea, the sea king and his twelve daughters, twelve fevers, etc. The positive aspect is embodied in the motifs of the arrival of spring and the sun from behind the sea. Another one is superimposed on the indicated opposition: dry - wet (later - Ilya Dry and Wet, Nikola Dry and Wet, a combination of these signs in Perun, the god of lightning - fire and rain). The opposition between fire and moisture is embodied in the motives of the confrontation of these elements and in such characters as the Fire Serpent (in Russian epics about Volkh Vseslavievich, in fairy tales and conspiracies, in the Serbian epic about the Fire Wolf Serpent), Fire Bird (fabulous firebird). The mythological incarnations of the opposition day - night are night-lights, midnight-nights and noons, Dawns - morning, noon, evening, midnight. Sventovit's horse is white during the day, splashed with mud at night. A special role in Slavic mythology was played by the images of an old witch such as a Baba Yaga and a bald old man, grandfather, etc. The opposition between old and young is associated with the opposition of ancestors - descendants and rituals of commemoration of ancestors, "grandfathers", as well as the opposition of elder - younger.
One should be very careful when comparing epic characters with mythological images. However, the two main characters of the "epics" - Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich were repeatedly compared with the pagan gods - Perun and Dazhdbog, respectively. The very name of Muromets is symptomatic - Ilya. The prophet Elijah, as already mentioned, replaced Perun in the popular mind. Dobrynya is usually considered a late incarnation of Dazhdbog. This is confirmed by some similarity of names, and serpent feat.
3.2. The process of studying the characters of Slavic mythology
Russian Slavs only under the influence of the Varangians came to the idea of depicting their gods in idols. The first idols were placed by Vladimir, Prince of Kyiv, on the hill to Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, and in Novgorod, Dobrynya - to Perun over the Volkhov. Under Vladimir, for the first time, temples appear in Rus', probably built by him.
One of the most important sources on Slavic, more precisely, Old Russian pagan mythology, is a chronicle story about the so-called “pagan reform” of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, when he installed idols of six most important deities in Kyiv: “And Vladimir began to reign in Kyiv alone, and put the idols on hill, outside the terem courtyard: a wooden Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, Khors (and) Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargl and Mokosh. Perun, as you can see, is in the first place in the list, he starts the list of gods, so it is quite logical to consider him the main and most important of the deities (at least for the prince and squad). The names Khors and Dazhbog are next to each other in the list, and in some versions of the annals they are not separated, like other deities, by the union "and". Therefore, it is quite logical to assume some similarity, connection (or even identity) between these deities, since both of them are solar, associated with the sun. Stribog and Simargl, apparently, were not as significant as Perun and Khors with Dazhbog, since they are mentioned after them. Mokosh, apparently, is a female deity, and therefore closes the list. Of the six deities on the list, two have undoubted Iranian roots - Khors and Simargl. This is explained by the fact that the pantheon was installed in Kyiv, and the Sarmatian and Alanian tribes that dissolved in them had a great influence on the Eastern Slavs of South Rus'.
"The Tale of Igor's Campaign" is the most unique monument of the ancient Russian epic tradition. It contains a lot of mythological data, although it was created already in the XII-XIII centuries. This is explained by the so-called "Revival of paganism" - a phenomenon of a pan-European scale, which also took place in Rus'. The reasons for it were that paganism had already almost disappeared and no longer posed a threat to Christianity, so they stopped being “afraid” of it. On the contrary, it began to play a completely different role in culture - aesthetic, archaizing, national-ideological. The "Word" refers, as a rule, to the "grandchildren" of various deities - artistic phrases-metaphors for a synonymous replacement or epithet.
The narrator Boyan in the "Word" is called the grandson of the god Veles. Based on this passage, Veles is considered the ancient Russian pagan patron of poetry and singer-storytellers. The winds in the "Word" are called the grandchildren of Stribog. Based on this passage, Stribog is considered the god-lord of the winds.
The Russian people, from the prince to the farmer, are called the grandchildren of Dazhbog in the Lay. Based on these two passages, we can say that Dazhbog was generally a rather significant deity in Ancient Rus', which personified the well-being, peace and unity of the Russian land. In the excerpts, the word “sun” is replaced by the name Khors, on the basis of which we can say that Khors was the personified sun in ancient Russian paganism.
In addition, in the "Word" there is an epic image of Prince Vseslav, endowed with various supernatural abilities. This is a rather "archaic mythological image of a shaman-warrior, characteristic of the transitional period from the primitive communal system to military democracy." The image of Prince Vseslav is related to the image of the epic Volkh Vseslavevich or Volga.
A fragment of the Ipatiev Chronicle, which is an insert from the Slavic translation of the "Chronicle" by the Byzantine historian John Malala, is remarkable primarily for its mythological plots, or rather, the plot about Svarog and Dazhbog. The Slavic translator thus translated the names of Hephaestus and Helios, respectively, so we can judge some connection with fire and, possibly, the blacksmithing of Svarog, and the solar character of Dazhbog. The plot of the mythological insertion from the Chronicle into the chronicle itself, unfortunately, cannot tell us anything about Slavic mythology.
3.3. Serving the cult of the ancient Slavs
The sacred places of the pagans could be various natural objects. The pagans came to special stones with “footprints”, went to sacred groves, made sacrifices from the labors of their hands to rivers and lakes, threw gifts at the bottom of wells, stuck objects into tree trunks, climbed to the tops of hills and mountains, barrows and barrow complexes were tribal temples, on which idols sometimes stood.
The simplest form of a specially organized cult place among the Slavs is cult sites with idols and sacrificial pits. Such places were supposedly called "trebishcha", on which they "made trebs", that is, they performed what was necessary to glorify the gods. Sacrificial pits were located on the outskirts of the villages and did not have fences. Sometimes several idols-drops were arranged in a geometric order on the cult sites: the main idol stood in the center or behind, and the secondary idols stood around or in front. The attributes of idols were their name, sacred number (indicated by other objects or signs), color and various things: a hat, a helmet, a sword, a club, an ax, a shield, a spear, a horn, a ball, a stick, a ring, a cross - the oldest symbol of fire, "horom arrow", bowls. Sometimes the attribute is "individual objects that are associated with a specific idol: oak, hill, fire, horse, ants, dogs, bear". In the temples, there is a division of the altar, on which the treb is brought, and which could be paved with stone, and the sacrificial fire, which was located aside, behind the fence, and where various kinds of gifts were also burned.
In the last period of pre-Christian paganism, temple buildings and large complexes arose. Significant settlements with ditches, ramparts and tyn are being erected around the temple. Inside the settlement, there remains an unbuilt sepulchre, where mass ceremonies are held, gifts are left, and a fire burns. In addition, long houses are erected for holidays and family gatherings.
Upon the adoption of Christianity, the popular consciousness of the Slavs mixed the new faith with the old, partly merged their gods with Christian saints, partly reduced them to the position of "demons", partly remained faithful to their tribal gods.
Slavic mythology is characterized by the fact that it is comprehensive and does not represent a separate area of \u200b\u200bthe people's idea of \u200b\u200bthe world and the universe (like fantasy or religion), but is embodied even in everyday life - whether it be rituals, rituals, cults or an agricultural calendar, preserved demonology (from brownies, witches and goblin to banniks and mermaids) or a forgotten identification (for example, the pagan Perun with the Christian saint Ilya). Therefore, almost destroyed at the level of texts until the 11th century, it continues to live in images, symbolism, rituals and in the language itself.
Chapter 1
The tree - world, or cosmic - is an image typical of the mythopoetic consciousness, embodying the model of the world. In mythopoetic texts and ancient visual arts, the corresponding images act as symbols of parts of the world tree. Birds, most often an eagle, are associated with the crown of the tree. The middle part corresponds to hoofed animals - deer, elk, cows, horses, occasionally - bees, and in later mythological traditions - a man. Reptiles - snakes, frogs - as well as mice, fish, fantastic ones correspond with the roots of the world tree. The image of the cosmic tree reflects not only the spatial structure, it has a universal meaning for the mythological consciousness. With the help of this image, in relation to the category of time, the past, present and future are distinguishable. In genealogical refraction, for example, it links ancestors, the present generation, and descendants. For the archaic worldview, other correspondences to the three-part tree structure are also possible: three parts of the body (head, torso, legs); three types of elemental elements (fire, earth, water), etc. Thus, for each part of the world tree, a number of special features can be determined. Actually, thanks to the image of the world tree, a holistic view of the world and the definition of a person's place in the universe were possible.
According to mythological ideas, the world tree is placed in the most important, sacred point of the world space - its center. In Russian folklore texts, the image of a tree quite clearly appears as the center of the universe. The same set of spatial objects - ocean-sea, island, tree, stone - which are elements of a horizontal model of the world, the center of which are the last two images, is also known to other folklore genres: in particular, a fairy tale-mystery. The image of the world tree in them can be represented as a cypress, oak, birch or just a tree, and performs the function of a communication channel between the worlds.
The structure of the tree corresponds to the ideas about the tripartite organization of the space of the universe. When dividing the world tree vertically, the lower, middle and upper parts are distinguished - roots, trunk and crown, corresponding to the main zones of the universe: the heavenly kingdom, the earthly world and the underworld. In mythopoetic texts and ancient visual arts, the corresponding images act as symbols of parts of the world tree. Birds, most often an eagle, are associated with the crown of the tree. The middle part corresponds to ungulates - deer, elk, cows, horses, occasionally - bees. And in later mythological traditions - a man. Reptiles - snakes, frogs - as well as mice, fish, fantastic monsters correspond with the roots of the world tree.
The image of the cosmic tree reflects not only the spatial structure, it has a universal meaning for the mythological consciousness. With the help of this image, in relation to the category of time, the past, present and future are distinguishable. In genealogical refraction, for example, it links ancestors, the present generation, and descendants. For the archaic worldview, other correspondences to the three-part tree structure are also possible: three parts of the body (head, torso, legs); three types of elemental elements (fire, earth, water), etc. Thus, for each part of the world tree, a number of special features can be determined. Actually, thanks to the image of the world tree, a holistic view of the world and the definition of a person's place in the universe were possible.
According to mythological ideas, the world tree is placed in the most important, sacred point of the world space - its center. In Russian folklore texts, the image of a tree quite clearly appears as the center of the universe. It is especially often found in conspiracies, where a mental journey is made to him pronouncing the text.
1.1 Creation of the world
Myths and mythopoetic texts produce different models of the creation of the world. In the mythologies of different peoples, the motive of its generation in an unusual way is widespread: from parts of the body of the creator of god and man. At the same time, sometimes the creator himself or perishes - sacrificing himself. The motif of the emergence of the world from primordial waters is almost universal, often identified with chaos: the creation of the Universe is carried out from foam, silt, earth and sand in the ocean. In the myths that reflect this model, the process of creation can take place as a result of the volitional act of the creator himself or in response to someone else's request. The Creator, as some kind of first being, can have a divine cosmic nature. Among different peoples of the world, the creator sometimes appears in the form of an animal or a bird diving into the waters of the primordial ocean and taking out the earth from there.
Cosmogonic legends of a dualistic nature were widespread among Russians. In them, the motif of the joint creation of the earth by God and his adversary Satanail, or Idol, the Evil One, and the ideas of the official Christian dogma, are also evident in them. In the Kyiv legend, for example, there is a motif of God's creation of Satanail, which excludes their equality in the creative process. Often, as significant images, elements of Christian culture are introduced into the narrative, and it is affirmed as fruitless - the activity of the enemy of God.
So, in one of the legends, after two unsuccessful attempts by Satanael to get the earth out of the water, God tells him to bow to the icon of the Virgin and Child, which is located on the seabed. This time the devil brings the earth and gives it to God, but hides a part behind his cheek. God scatters the earth on the eastern side - and a "wonderful, beautiful earth" is created. The devil, on the other hand, scatters his land on the north side - and the land is created cold, stony, not grain-bearing. At the same time, archaic images and ideas about the cosmogonic process are sometimes preserved in these later legends. This is both the initial situation of the beginning, when “there was neither sky nor earth, but only darkness and water”, and the image of primordial waters, with the inseparability of the elements in them, perceived in the peasant consciousness like “kvash”, liquid dough, and even the image the bird that creates the world.
1.2 Legends about heavenly bodies
According to legend, the earth is flat, like a plate, at the edges it converges with the sky. Vladimir peasants believed that the sky looks like a huge vaulted ceiling, which is connected to the earth "at the ends of the world." Heaven was created by God to live there together with angels, cherubs and saints. This happened on the third day of creation. In many places it was widely believed that in addition to the sky visible from the earth, there are several other vaults of heaven. Depending on local ideas, there are only three, seven or eleven of them, and God lives on the last of the heavens. The well-known folk expression “to be in the seventh heaven” is connected with these ideas, meaning “to rejoice”, “to be happy”. The sky, according to popular belief, has a flat shape, like the earth. The place of their contact is very far away, where no one has reached. Here is a boundless, eternally raging sea. This place is reached only by the souls of the dead with the help of angels. The sky has holes through which rain falls on the earth and stars come out. In some places, the sky was represented as consisting of a certain solid substance, confirming this opinion by the fact that Elijah the Prophet rides across the sky in his chariot. Sometimes the peasants believed that the sky was a hard shell of smoke. Between heaven and earth there is a canopy - a "cloud" like a canvas, which does not allow the earth and all life on it to burn out. In some places, it was believed that the vault of heaven covers the whole world, and its ends flow into the sea, hiding at its bottom. On the shores of this sea lives an unusually strong people, whose people are distinguished by one-eyedness. Russians and Ukrainians were told in places that where at the end of the world the sky rests on the ground, women put spinning wheels on the edge of the sky after work or rolls when washing clothes on the river.
In many places the peasants were convinced that the heavenly bodies were made of fire. The main one, according to traditional ideas, is the sun. The people often called him "the king of heaven." The sun illuminates and warms the earth during the day, and at night it hides outside the earth, as if bypassing it and, in the morning, reappears in the east. In some places, among the Eastern Slavs, the sun was represented by a huge spark, which is unknown how it is kept in space, or a fiery fireproof ball. In some places, the celestial body was represented by a large wheel and it was believed that it could even be reached by hand when it descends at sunset.
There were also widespread ideas about his departure for the night for the land, for the mountains, or "to the next world." Almost universally, the people were convinced that the earth stood still, and the sun moved around it. At noon, it rests a little, and in the evening it goes to rest altogether. At night, the daylight sleeps, and rises in the morning. The Ukrainians were told that once upon a time, where the sun rises, an extraordinary beauty panna lived. Before the luminary ascended to heaven, she washed him and dried him well. Therefore, in former times the sun shone much brighter. According to the mythological consciousness, the sun could be personified and perceived as a living being in the form of a man stealing his wife among people!
Everywhere, the month was recognized as the second most important heavenly body after the sun. Folk memory has preserved mythological ideas about their kinship: most often it was believed that the sun is the elder brother of the month. This opinion was reflected in the riddle about the month and the sun: "The younger one leaves, and the older one comes." The duty of the month is to illuminate the earth at night when the sun is at rest. Sometimes the night luminary was perceived as a heavenly stone. It is no coincidence that the month is guessed in a riddle through the image of a stone: "Stone is a flame." The Ukrainians believed that it was made of the same material as the sun, and they were the same size - "no more than the back wheel in a cart."
On the moon you can see spots in the form of two people and a tub. These spots are usually associated with the biblical story about Cain and Abel, which received a peculiar form in the popular mind. According to one of the legends, the brothers in the meadow were stacking hay in a cart. They quarreled, and Cain pierced his brother with a pitchfork. By the judgment of God, neither land, nor water, nor any other place could shelter the fratricide. Only a month, disobeying God's will, gave him shelter at home. Since then, the month bears the imprint of the terrible sin of Cain. In the moon spots, the peasants see the image of the murder of one brother by another. The explanation of the phases of the moon is sometimes associated with this plot. In the Podolsk province, it was said that the moon, because it depicts the murder of Abel by Cain, God judged every month to be born, grow and die. After her death, she descends into hell, melts there, is purified and then born again. The lunar phases are explained among the people in a different way: on the moon there is a special damper, which is in charge of St. Yuri, he either raises or lowers this damper. The moon, like the sun, in the mythopoetic consciousness was often personified in the image of a man: a man or a woman. She is depicted as such, for example, in the riddle genre: “Chubby-faced, bright-eyed / Walks, walks, comforts people”; "Chubby, white-faced looks in all mirrors."
There were different ideas about the nature of stars. There was a widespread perception of the stars as candles that God lit in the sky. Often the stars were considered as infant souls and souls of righteous people who look from the sky at their relatives. In some places the stars were thought of as the children of the sun, sometimes personified as little boys. Similar ideas about the relationship of celestial bodies were reflected in the ritual poetry that accompanied the Christmas ritual of caroling. In carol songs, with the help of a metaphor, a peasant family is depicted as a heavenly family: the father is called the “red sun”, “small kids” - “frequent stars”. Sometimes the owner of the house, the hostess and their children correspond, respectively, with the images of a bright month, a red sun and frequent stars. According to the peasants, the stars were created by God to illuminate the earth and are arranged in such a way that they can freely move from one place to another. In cosmological concepts, stars are also likened to nails in the dome of the sky, which is reflected in the texts of riddles: “The blue ceilings are nailed with golden nails”; "The sieve is beaten, upholstered in gold." The peasants believed that the stars revolve around the main "nail" - the North Star. It is no coincidence that the people called the building the word "stozhar", which meant "a pole that was stuck into the ground in the middle of a haystack for its stability."
According to popular notions, the stars are inextricably linked with human destinies. There are as many stars in the sky as there are people on earth. With the birth of a person, a star “lights up”; it grows with him and then falls to the ground or goes out when he dies. If a person’s star is “strong”, then he copes with all his troubles, and if “weak”, then it is very difficult for him in life. The popular notion “to be born under a lucky star” is connected with these ideas.
1.3 Legends about the creation of the first people
The legends about the creation of the first people that existed among the Eastern Slavs are late in origin and, for the most part, are a transcription of apocryphal book legends. However, they preserved archaic mythological ideas about the unity of the elements that make up the macrocosm - the world order and the microcosm - a person as a likeness, a reflection of the Universe. Thus, in the translated monument of ancient Russian literature Paley, it is noted that God created man, taking the material of eight parts corresponding to natural phenomena: from the earth - the body, from the stone - bones, from the sea - blood, from the sun - eyes, from the cloud - thoughts, from light - light, from wind - breath, from fire - heat.
The most common Eastern Slavic ideas about the origin of man directly go back to the biblical motif of the creation of man from the earth, from clay. However, making the first people out of clay or dough is not the only way. The language material - phraseological data - as well as the folklore texts of the Eastern Slavs allow us to reconstruct other "handicraft" models of people's creation. In folk expressions such as “badly tailored, but tightly sewn”, “not sewn with a bast”, “tailored to one block”, the motive for creating a person with the help of sewing is obvious.
The motif of making people with the help of sewing skills, as well as technological methods of other crafts, can also be traced in the fairy-tale tradition. In one of the tales, for example, Baba Yaga, who is at war with Russian heroes, has unusual workers in the underworld who make an army for her. These are magic blacksmiths, tailors, weavers, shoemakers. A blacksmith hits a sledgehammer once with a hammer - a soldier, another knock - another. A tailor or a seamstress “once pricks a needle towards and away from himself - a soldier with a horse”, over the “hoop” (hoop) “waving a needle - a hero will jump out” or “a Cossack with a lance”. The weaver girl “as soon as she throws a duck, a hero will jump out” or “waving a shuttle, a soldier with a cleaver will jump out.” The shoemaker "pricks with an awl, then a soldier with a gun, sits on a horse, becomes in service."
Most of the legends on this subject are of a dualistic nature. Significant influence on their formation was provided by such monuments of ancient Russian literature as Palea and the apocryphal legend “How God created Adam”. In Belarusian legends, the process of creating a person repeats the scheme of the creation of the earth: the material for the creation of the first person, at the request of God, is taken by the devil from the bottom of the sea. The legends of all three East Slavic peoples consistently repeat the motif of the dual nature of man - divine and diabolical. God makes man, but Satan corrupts God's creation.
In another legend, the devil, wishing to make himself the same person that God created, sets to work, but he ends up with a wolf. Some texts reflect the traditional evaluative characteristics of the components of a person and along the way explain the origin of some features of animals, in particular dogs.
East Slavic legends about the creation of people, dating back to the biblical myth, preserve the notion of the creation of men first, and then women, known to archaic mythological traditions. Sometimes the making of Eve - Adam's wife - is portrayed as accidental.
According to some legends, Adam's rib was stolen not by a dog, but by a devil. The Angel, who tried to grab the devil and take away the rib, only had his tail in his hands, from which God created Eve. That is why "all women are cunning and crafty as hell."
Chapter 2. Deities of the Slavs and pagan Rus'
2.1 High mythology
A feature of the pagan religion is polytheism, that is, belief not in one god, but in many deities and mythological creatures, each of which belongs to one or another rank within a single hierarchical system. The highest level consisted of the gods responsible for the most important spheres of society: economic, military, legal, ritual, etc. In the ideas of the pagan, the gods were endowed with the greatest power and authority, and the well-being of man depended on them. Therefore, in important and difficult situations, he turned to the gods with requests for help. It is no coincidence that the word "god", known to all Slavs, meant not only a deity, but also wealth, wealth. So, for example, the Russian word "rich", derived from "god", originally meant "endowed with a good share."
The images of the gods were embodied in idols, or idols, - sculptural forms made of stone or wood in the form of human-like or zoomorphic images. One of the most striking examples of such sculptures was discovered in 1848 in the Zbruch River, in the possessions of the Polish Count M. Pototsky in the Podolsk province. The Zbruch idol is a four-sided limestone stone more than 2.5 m long, about 0.3 m wide and weighs about 1000 kg. The composition of the image on each face is three-part and is repeated with minor changes. In the upper part of the pillar, on all four sides, one can distinguish the image of a man in long clothes with a belt and a high hat. On one of the sides he holds a ring in his hands, on the other - a horn, on the third - a sword and a horse are depicted below the belt. In the middle part of the pillar, on each of the four faces, a female image is carved, and at the very base on three sides, a figure of a man on his knees. In May 1851, the stone was donated by Potocki to the Krakow Society of Sciences, later it was kept in Krakow at the university and then in the ethnographic museum of this city. In scientific circles, this statue was called the "Zbruch idol" and dates back to the 10th century. But it is still not known to which god it was dedicated.
Idols were worshiped and sacrificed to them during festivities, as well as before especially important events, such as military operations or trade transactions. Plentiful thanksgiving sacrifices were also made at the successful completion of one or another deed. Back in 1534, when more than five centuries had passed after the adoption of Christianity, the Archbishop of Novgorod Macarius wrote to Ivan the Terrible about the performance of pagan sacrifices: they worship like a god and honor and offer blood sacrifices to demons - oxen and sheep and every livestock and bird. (Vasily Ivanovich - Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III (1505-1533), father of Ivan the Terrible). Not only the meat of specially slaughtered animals could be used as a sacrifice, but also bread, milk, intoxicating drinks, and valuables.
The lists of the gods of pagan Rus' are most fully presented in written sources in connection with the creation by Prince Vladimir in 980 of a nationwide pantheon. So, in the Laurentian Chronicle (year 980), this is reported: “And the beginning of the prince Volodimer in Kyiv is one and put idols on a hill outside the courtyard of the tower. Perun is drevyan and his head is silver and ous zlat and Horsa Dazhbog and Strib and Simargl and Mokosh ... ”Not all of the gods listed here were known to the Eastern Slavs everywhere, and the names and images of some of them date back to other ethnic cultural traditions. This allowed modern researchers to conclude that the pantheon of Prince Vladimir is an artificial structure that does not reflect the real picture of the pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs. The creation of this pantheon, most likely, was due to the political situation in Kyiv at that time and was intended to solve the state problems that faced Prince Vladimir.
By the time of the pagan reform of 980, the Eastern Slavs probably did not yet have a clear system of gods. Scientists have determined that independent pantheons have just begun to take shape in the southern lands, the main center of which was Kyiv, and in the northern territories of Ancient Rus', headed by Novgorod. In addition, in the vast territories of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, there was a belief in local gods, gods and spirits.
In addition to the Tale of Bygone Years, the enumeration of the Vladimir gods with slight variations and the mention of them and gods who were not included in the national pantheon is also contained in such ancient Russian monuments as the “Word of St. Gregory ... about how the first pagan peoples worshiped idols” (XIV century), “The Word of a certain Christ-lover” (XIV century), “The Gustyn Chronicle” (XVI century), “The prologue life of Prince Vladimir” (XIV century), “On the laying of the idols”, “The Tale of Igoreven's Campaign (XII century) and a number of others.
Perun is the most famous of the Svarozhich brothers. He is the god of thunderclouds, thunder and lightning. A very expressive portrait of the Thunderer was given by Konstantin Balmont:
Perun's thoughts are fast,
Whatever he wants - so now.
Throws sparks, throws sparks
From the pupils of sparkling eyes.
In the popular imagination, it was represented as a warrior deity, whose weapons were directed against evil spirits, probably, the thickening of the atmosphere, which stopped after a thunderstorm, was attributed to the action of evil spirits. Folk customs were so strong that even in the XIX century. Many people, especially during a thunderstorm, locked all the windows and turned the vessels upside down, believing that evil souls, driven by lightning, try to hide in any hole. The connection between Perun and weapons is indicated by the custom of swearing before Perun, putting the weapon in front of him.
Many adventures of Perun are known from the myths of different peoples, fairy tales and Russian epics about Ilya Muromets. In Novgorod there was the most famous sanctuary of Perun in Rus', built in the form of a wheel with six spokes - a thunder sign.
The thunder sign was also carved on every Slavic house - as a protection against Perun's lightning.
Of the days of the week, Thursday was associated with Perun - “Perun's Day”. The fact that Thursday was associated with a thunderstorm is confirmed by the modern set expression "Thursday after the rain." From landscape objects mountains and hills.
After the adoption of Christianity, Perun, like other pagan gods, was ranked among a number of demons. The books of Christian scribes condemned the worship of him and the offering of bloody sacrifices. On the site of the sanctuaries of Perkn, Orthodox churches arose. In Kyiv, on a hill, Prince Vladimir ordered to build a church in honor of St. Basil, whose name the prince received at baptism.
Despite the active struggle of the church with pagan cults and gods, the memory of Perun remained in the popular consciousness for many centuries.
In versions of East Slavic fairy tales with a story about the struggle of the thunder god with the enemy, the role of Perun is often played by the prophet Ilya or God.
The replacement of the image of Perun with the image of God indicates that Perun in the system of pagan perception occupied the status of the supreme deity, the god of gods. And the idea of lightning as God's environment, a striking trait, exists in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian fairy tales to this day.
Mokosh is the only female deity mentioned in the list of Prince Vladimir in The Tale of Bygone Years. According to this written source, the idol of Mokosh stood in Kyiv on top of a hill, along with other idols. The cult of Mokosh apparently continued to be secretly preserved for many centuries after the adoption of Christianity.
The appearance of the goddess was restored not so much on the basis of historical sources, but on the basis of linguistic and ethnographic data, taking into account changes in the original appearance of the deity, which were due to the displacement of pagan beliefs by Christianity.
In some localities, it was believed that if a woman is dozing, and her spindle is spinning, then Mokosha is spinning for a spin. In folk tradition, the occupation of Mokosh is associated with a ban on leaving a tow on a spinning wheel for the night without a blessing, otherwise, according to popular beliefs, “Mokosha will spin it”. When the sheep was not sheared for a long time, and the wool on it was wiped off, it was believed that it was “Mokosha sheared the sheep.” Being dissatisfied, she cuts off some of the owners' hair. As a trebe (sacrifice), Mokosha, after shearing the sheep, left a piece of wool in the scissors for the night. This image of Mokosh in terms of functions and characteristics correlates with kikimora.
Obviously, Mokosha was the patron not only of spinning, but also of other women's activities. Bans on some of them on Friday, such as spinning and washing, were preserved in many places in the 20th century, and this indicates that Friday was most likely dedicated to Mokosha from the days of the week.
As the only female deity, Mokosh was probably the patroness of other areas of female activity. Researchers have ordained for her the functions of a deity of love, birth, fertility, and destiny. This is indicated by the correlation of Mokosh with the elements of earth and water, which are usually endowed with productive power in Slavic traditions and are directly related to the idea of fertility in mythological representations, as well as the connection of the pagan deity with spinning and weaving, the products of which - thread and linen - were comprehended in folk consciousness as symbols of life-destiny, which every person was endowed with at birth.
Veles (Volos).
In The Tale of Bygone Years, the chronicler Nestor calls Veles a "cattle god", the patron saint of domestic animals. Perhaps this monk did not know the pre-Christian mythology of Rus' well or tried to downplay the importance of the son of Rod, brother of Svarog.
Veles is one of the greatest gods of the ancient world. His main act was that Veles set the world created by Rod and Svarog in motion. Day began to replace night; winter was inevitably followed by spring, summer and autumn; after exhalation - inhale, after sadness - joy. It was not a monotonous repetition of the same cycles, but learning the basics of life. People learned to overcome difficulties and appreciate happiness. Rotation occurs according to the highest law of the Rule following the movement of the Sun across the sky - Salting. The guiding force is Great Love, which helps in trials.
Veles and the giver of wealth (through cattle, the main wealth of nomadic tribes is the "god of cattle" ("On the idols of Vladimirov"), and later simply the god of wealth, which is earned by labor throughout life. There is every reason to believe that it is Veles who watches over fulfillment of laws and treaties, he is the father and judge of truth, like Hermes and Odin.
The significance of Veles is evidenced by that. That his name, along with the name of Perun, was used in state-level oaths.
Obviously, the cult of Veles was associated with thread and hair, which in mythological representations were perceived as of the same nature and endowed with the same symbolic meaning. In folk culture, fiber \ thread from plants, animal hair and human hair were associated with the idea of wealth, prosperity, potential strength, fertility, which is explained by the sign of the multiplicity of their structure.
Vast, richly decorated temples of Veles were in many places of the Russian land: near Novgorod, in other places of the Russian North, in Rostov and Kyiv. In the Christian era, the cult of Veles was replaced by the veneration of the patron saint of cattle, St. Basil.
Stribog - in East Slavic mythology, the god of the wind.
The name Stribog goes back to the ancient root "streg", which means "senior", "paternal uncle". A similar meaning is found in the Tale of Igor's Campaign, where the winds are called "Stribog's grandchildren." Stribog was born from the breath of Rod.
He can summon and tame a storm and can transform into his assistant, the mythical bird Stratim. In general, the wind was usually represented in the form of a gray-haired old man living at the end of the world, in a deep forest or on an island in the middle of the sea-ocean.
The idol of Stribog was installed in Kyiv among the seven most important Slavic deities.
It is not known whether there was a permanent holiday in honor of Stribog, but he was mentioned and revered along with Dazhbog. Probably, the wind, like rain and the sun, were considered the most important for the farmer. Sailors also prayed to Stribog to give "wind to sail." The main temples of Stribog were located on the sea islands, near the mouths of the rivers, where merchant ships often stopped (for example, on the island of Berezan near the mouth of the Dnieper). Rus ships approached him before going out to the open sea, and the merchants brought rich gifts to Stribog.
According to legend, Stribog raged on the earth with winds, and also, together with Perun, commanded thunder and lightning.
2.2 Inferior mythology
Vodyanoy, vodyanik, vodovik, in Slavic mythology, an evil spirit, the embodiment of a dangerous and formidable water element. Most often, he acted in the guise of a man with animal features - paws instead of hands, horns on his head, or an ugly old man entangled in mud with a long beard. The Slavs believed that the water ones were the descendants of those representatives of evil spirits whom God cast down from heaven into rivers, lakes and ponds.
Especially likes the water one to climb for the night under the water mill, near the wheel itself, which is why in the old days all millers were certainly considered sorcerers. However, the mermen also have their own houses: in the thickets of reeds and sedges, they have built rich chambers of shells and semi-precious river pebbles. The mermen have their own herds of cows, horses, pigs and sheep, which are driven out of the waters at night and graze in the nearby meadows. Mermen marry mermaids and beautiful drowned women.
When in the high water from the spring melting of snows or from long torrential rains the river comes out of its banks and breaks bridges, dams and mills with the swift pressure of the waves, the peasants think that these are water drinks at the wedding, indulged in violent fun and dancing and in their revelry destroyed all the people they met. barriers. Well, when the merman's wife is about to give birth, he takes on the appearance of an ordinary person, appears in a city or village, invites a midwife to him, leads him to his underwater possessions, and then generously rewards for his work with silver and gold. They say that once the fishermen pulled out a child in the nets, who frolicked and played when he was lowered into the water in the nets, but languished, sad and cried when they brought him to the hut. The child turned out to be the brainchild of a merman; the fishermen let him go to his father on the condition that he catch up with them in the net as many fish as possible, and this condition was met. However, if the merman goes to people, even if he takes on a human form, it is easy to recognize him, because water constantly drips from his left floor: wherever he sits, the place is constantly wet, and when he starts combing his hair, water flows.
In his native element, the water is irresistible, but on earth his strength is weakening. But already on the rivers all the fish are subject to him, all the storms, storms and hurricanes: he protects the swimmer - or drowns him; gives the fisherman a happy catch - or breaks his net.
He usually rides on a catfish, and therefore in some areas this fish, the "damn horse", is not advised to be eaten. However, the caught catfish should not be scolded so that the water one does not hear and does not take it into his head to avenge him: In daylight, the water catfish mostly hides in the depths, and in the dusk of the night it emerges: either in the form of a huge mossy pike, or in its true form. Then you can see that when the moon is young, his hair is fresh and green, like algae, and at the end of the month - gray hair. The age of the merman also changes: at the birth of the month he is young, at the loss he is old.
Over those people whom fate has determined to drown, the merman receives a mysterious power that cannot be avoided by anything, therefore other superstitions do not decide to help the drowning man: anyway, they say, you can’t get away from fate!
Like a brownie who drags everything from neighboring pantries and barns to his own house, the merman manages to lure fish from other people's rivers and lakes.
In the summer he is awake, and in the winter he sleeps, because the winter cold locks up the rains and covers the waters with ice. With the beginning of spring, in April, the merman wakes up from hibernation, hungry and angry, like a bear: out of annoyance, he breaks the ice, raises the waves, disperses the fish in different directions, and completely tortures the small ones. At this time, the angry lord of the river is appeased with sacrifices: water is poured with oil, geese are bestowed - the favorite bird of the water.
In mythological representations, the brownie is a domestic spirit, the owner and patron of the family. In the popular mind, he was perceived as the deceased ancestor of Domovoy - the keeper of the hearth, the invisible assistant of the owners.
His main business is to look after the household. The brownie sees every little thing, tirelessly cares and fusses so that everything is in order and ready: he helps the hard worker, corrects his mistake; he is pleased with the offspring of domestic animals and birds; he does not tolerate unnecessary expenses and is angry with them - in a word, the brownie is inclined to work, thrifty and prudent.
According to popular beliefs, lazy and negligent owners of the brownie willingly help to start the economy, torment people to the point that they press at night almost to death or throw them out of bed. However, according to popular beliefs, it is not difficult to make peace with an angry brownie: one has only to put snuff, to which he is a great hunter, under the stove, or make any gift: a multi-colored flap, a crust of bread ... If the owners of their Brownie love, if they live with him in okay, then they won’t want to part with it for no reason, even moving to a new house: they will scrape under the threshold, collect garbage in a scoop - and sprinkle it in a new hut, not noticing how the “owner” moves with this garbage to a new place of residence. Whom the brownie seriously does not like is drunkards and simple-haired women: according to his old views, every married woman must certainly wear a headscarf. In the north of Rus', there was a belief that if for some reason there are no men in the family, then the household patron is the housewife.
It was almost impossible to see the brownie. It is much easier to hear: his crying and muffled restrained moans, his soft and affectionate, and sometimes muffled voice. Sometimes at night he appears in the form of a gray, smoky cat. Often he strokes the sleepy ones with his soft paw, and then no questions are required - and it is so clear that this is good. If you hear the cry of a brownie, even in the hut itself, - be dead.
Goblin, forester, leshak, forest, forester, forester - the spirit of the forest in Slavic mythology. Goblin lives in every forest, especially loves spruce. He is dressed like a man - a red sash, the left half of the caftan is usually wrapped behind the right, and not vice versa, as everyone wears. The goblin's eyes are green and burn like coals.
No matter how carefully he hides his impure origin, he fails to do this: if you look at him through the right ear of a horse, the goblin casts a bluish color, because his blood is blue. His eyebrows and eyelashes are not visible, he is short-eared (there is no right ear), the hair on his head is combed to the left.
The goblin can become a stump and a tussock, turn into an animal and a bird, he turns into a bear and a black grouse, a hare, and anyone, even a plant, because he is not only the spirit of the forest, but also his essence: he is overgrown with moss, sniffs, as if the forest is noisy, it is not only shown as spruce, but also spreads with moss-grass. Leshy differs from other spirits by special properties inherent in him alone: if he walks through the forest, then his height is equal to the tallest trees. But at the same time, going out for walks, fun and jokes to the forest edges, he walks there like a small blade of grass, below the grass, freely hiding under any berry leaf. But, in fact, he rarely goes out to the meadows, strictly observing the rights of a neighbor, called a field worker, or a field worker. The goblin does not enter villages so as not to quarrel with brownies - especially in those villages where completely black roosters sing, “two-eyed” dogs (with spots above their eyes in the form of second eyes) and three-haired cats live near huts.
But in the forest, the goblin is a full and unlimited master: all animals and birds are under his control and obey him unrequitedly. Hares are especially subject to him. He has them on full serfdom, at least he even has the power to play them at cards to the neighboring devil.
A real goblin is vociferous: he can sing without words and cheers himself up by clapping his hands. He sometimes sings at the top of his voice (with the same force as the forest rustles in a storm) almost from evening until midnight; he does not like the crowing of a rooster, and at the first crow he immediately falls silent.
The goblin rushes through its forests like mad, with extreme speed and always without a hat.
Leshy know how to laugh, go around, whistle and cry like a human, and if they become wordless, then only when they meet real, living people.
Goblin not so much harm people as mischief and joke, and in this case they are quite like their relatives - brownies. They will mischief rudely, as befits clumsy forest dwellers, and joke evilly, because after all they are not their brother, a baptized person. The most common tricks of pranks and jokes of goblin are that they “circle” a person: they will either “lead” anyone who goes deep into the thicket in order to pick mushrooms or berries to a place from which they can’t get out, or they will let such a fog into their eyes, that they will completely confuse, and a lost person will circle around the forest in the same place for a long time.
Village rumors very persistently ascribe passion for women to goblin and often accuse them of kidnapping girls. They attribute to them both wives of the same breed (leshachikha), and cubs
In ancient times, at the beginning of summer, shepherds entered into an agreement with the goblin: do not suck milk from cows, do not drive cattle into swamps, etc. If the agreement was violated, they wrote a complaint against the offender on a wide board and hung it from a hollow tree in the thicket - let Grandfather Lesovik figure it out.
Conclusion
Slavic myths about the creation of the world testify to their understanding and perception of the world around them. The mythological and modern periods are clearly distinguished not only in the time interval. But also a fundamentally different attitude towards them: the mythological time is sacred (when “everything was not as it is now”), and our time was perceived as more simplified (“It is not for nothing that they say that now everything has become smaller”). The mythological past is a whole era when the first creation took place, and the first objects were formed: the first fire was mined, the first actions were performed, which were a model of behavior for people of subsequent eras. To give an explanation to the present myth refers to the past as a model, a canon, an ideal.
In myth, all ideas about the structure of the world are transmitted in the form of a story about the origin of its individual elements. For the mythological consciousness, everything that has been created now is the result of the first creation.
The content of myths is perceived as reality (this is the difference between a myth and a fairy tale) and there is no border between fiction and reality. All events in myths take place as the basis of the next era. Myths embody the experience of many generations, connecting the past and the present. Therefore, this experience, concentrated in the wisdom of the ancestors and traditional institutions, which were perceived as the basis of the existing order, not subject to verification, and not in need of it.
A feature of Slavic mythology is the close interweaving of paganism and Christianity. In the hierarchy of pagan gods and other mythological creatures, the highest level was occupied by the gods responsible for the most important areas of life: ritual, military, economic, etc. in the view of the pagan, the gods were endowed with the greatest power and the well-being of man depends on them. It is no coincidence that the word "god", known to all Slavs, meant not only a deity, but also wealth and share.
Russian mythology is a very special world. And although, due to the advent of Christianity, he lost his deities early, laying the foundation for dual faith, much managed to be preserved in the people's memory and faith.
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The news of the chronicles, the finds of archaeologists, the records allow literally bit by bit to recreate the complex and original religious system of the Eastern Slavs.
The ideas of the pagan Slavs about the earthly dispensation were very complex and confused. Slavic scholars write that it seemed to them like a large egg; in the mythology of some neighboring and related peoples, this egg was laid by a “space bird”. The Slavs, on the other hand, preserved echoes of the legends about the Great Mother-parent of the Earth and Sky, the foremother of Gods and people. Her name was Zhiva, or Zhivana. But not much is known about her, because, judging by the legend, she retired after the birth of the Earth and Sky.
In the middle of the Slavic Universe, like a yolk, the Earth itself is located. The upper part of the Yolk is our living world, the world of people. The lower "underneath" side is the Lower World, the World of the Dead, the Night Country. When there is day, we have night. To get there, one must cross the Ocean-Sea that surrounded the Earth. Or dig a well through and through, and the stone will fall into this well for twelve days and nights. Surprisingly, but, coincidence or not, the ancient Slavs had an idea about the shape of the Earth and the change of day and night.
Around the Earth, like egg yolks and shells, there are nine heavens (nine - three times three - a sacred number among various peoples). That is why we still say not only "heaven" but also "heaven". Each of the nine heavens of Slavic mythology has its own purpose: one for the Sun and stars, another for the Month, one more for clouds and winds. Our ancestors considered the seventh in a row to be the "firmament", the transparent bottom of the heavenly Ocean. There are stored reserves of living water, an inexhaustible source of rain. Let's remember how they say about a heavy downpour: "the abyss of heaven opened up." After all, the “abyss” is the sea abyss, the expanse of water. We still remember a lot, but we don’t know where this memory comes from and what it refers to.
The Slavs believed that you can get to any sky by climbing the World Tree, which connects the Lower World, the Earth and all nine heavens. According to the ancient Slavs, the World Tree looks like a huge sprawling oak tree. However, the seeds of all trees and grasses ripen on this oak. This tree was a very important element of ancient Slavic mythology - it connected all three levels of the world, extended its branches to the four cardinal points and, with its state of “state”, symbolized the mood of people and Gods in various rites: a green tree meant prosperity and a good share, and a dried tree symbolized despondency and was used in ceremonies where evil gods participated.
And where the top of the World Tree rises above the seventh heaven, there is an island in the "abyss of heaven". This island was called "iry" or "viry". Some scientists believe that the present word "paradise", so firmly connected in our life with Christianity, comes from him. Iriy was also called Buyan Island. This island is known to us from numerous fairy tales. And on that island live the progenitors of all birds and animals: the "senior wolf", "senior deer", etc.
The Slavs believed that migratory birds fly to the heavenly island in autumn. The souls of the animals hunted by the hunters also ascend there, and they answer to the “elders” - they tell how people treated them.
Accordingly, the hunter had to thank the beast, which allowed him to take his skin and meat, and in no case mock him. Then the “elders” will soon release the beast back to Earth, allow it to be born again so that fish and game do not end up. If a person is guilty, there will be no trouble ... (As we can see, the pagans by no means considered themselves the “kings” of nature, who were allowed to rob it as they pleased. They lived in nature and together with nature and understood that every living being had no less right for life than a person.)
Levels of Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology had three levels: the highest, the middle and the lowest.
At the highest level were the Gods, whose "functions" were most important for the Slavs and who participated in the most common legends and myths. These are Svarog (Stribog, Sky), Earth, Svarozhichi (children of Svarog and Earth - Perun, Dazhdbog and Fire).
The middle level could include deities associated with economic cycles and seasonal rituals, as well as gods who embodied the integrity of closed small groups: Rod, Chur among the Eastern Slavs, etc. It is possible that most of the female deities, who show close ties with the collective, belonged to this level, sometimes less likened to a person than the gods of the highest level.
At the lowest level were various highly specialized beings, less human-like than the Gods of the highest level. These included brownies, goblin, mermaids, ghouls, banniks (baenniks), etc.
The common Slavic word “God” was probably associated with the designation of share, luck, happiness: one can compare the words “rich” (having a god, a share) and “wretched” (the opposite meaning), in the Ukrainian language - negod, neboga - unfortunate, beggar. The word "God" was included in the names of various deities - Dazhdbog, Chernobog and others. Slavic data and evidence of other most ancient Indo-European mythologies allow us to see in these names a reflection of the ancient layer of mythological ideas of the Proto-Slavs.
For clarity, you can draw a diagram of the levels of the Gods of the Slavs:
The Supreme Gods of the Slavs
Mother Earth and Father Sky
The ancient Slavs considered the Earth and the Sky to be two living beings, moreover, a married couple, whose love gave birth to all life. The God of Heaven, the Father of all things, is called Svarog. This name goes back to an ancient word meaning "sky", as well as "something shining, shining". Scientists note that another name for Heaven was Stribog, translated into modern language as “Father-God”. The legend says that once Svarog gave people blacksmith tongs, taught them how to smelt copper and iron, and before, according to the ideas of the Slavs - and this is very similar to modern ideas - the Stone Age reigned on Earth, people used clubs and stones. In addition, Svarog established the very first laws, in particular, he ordered every man to have only one wife, and a woman - one husband. In the Tale of Igor's Campaign, a famous monument of literature created at the end of the 12th century, among the richest pagan symbols one can find the allegorical name of the winds: "Stribog's grandchildren." This means that the winds were considered the grandchildren of Heaven.
We still call the Earth Mother, and this is difficult to dispute. Only far from always people treat her as it should be for respectful children.
The pagans, on the other hand, treated her with the greatest love, and all legends say that the Earth paid them the same. In one of the epics, the hero is warned not to fight with such and such a hero, because he is invincible - “Mother Earth loves him” ...
On the tenth of May, the "name day of the Earth" was celebrated: on this day it was impossible to disturb it - to plow, dig up. The earth was the witness of solemn oaths; at the same time, they touched it with the palm of their hand, sometimes they took out a piece of turf and laid it on their heads, mystically making a lie impossible. It was believed that the Earth would not carry a liar.
Some scientists believe that the Goddess of the Earth was called Makosh (however, others, no less authoritative, argue fiercely with them.) You can try to pick up the word by composition. "Ma-" means mother, mother. What does "cat" mean?
Let us recall the words “Purse”, where wealth is stored, “KoShara”, where living wealth is driven - sheep. "KOSH" is the name of the leader of the Cossacks, "KOSH" was also called lot, fate, happiness. And also a box, a large basket where the harvested crops are put - earthly fruits, and in fact it was he who made up the wealth, fate and happiness of an ancient person. So it turns out: the Earth - Makosh - the Universal Mother, the Mistress of Life, the Giver of the Harvest.
Dazhdbog Svarozhich
The ancient Slavs considered the Sun, Lightning and Fire - two heavenly Flames and one earthly - siblings, the sons of Heaven and Earth. The God of the Sun is called Dazhdbog (or, in another pronunciation, Dazhbog). His name does not come from the word "rain", as is sometimes mistakenly thought. "Dazhdbog" means - "giving God", "giver of all blessings." The Slavs believed that Dazhdbog rides across the sky on a wonderful chariot harnessed by four white, golden-maned horses with golden wings. And the sunlight comes from the fire shield that Dazhdbog carries with him. At night, Dazhdbog crosses the lower sky from west to east, shining on the Lower World.
Twice a day (morning and evening) he crosses the Ocean on a boat drawn by waterfowl - geese, ducks, swans. Therefore, our ancestors attributed special power to amulets (this word comes from the verb "protect", "protect" and means an amulet, a talisman) in the form of a duck with a horse's head. They believed that the God of the Sun would help them, wherever he was - in the Daytime World or in the Night, and even on the way from one to another. In the Tale of Igor's Campaign, Russian people are called "Dazhbozh's grandchildren" - the grandchildren of the Sun. Although it tells about the events that took place almost two hundred years after the official adoption of Christianity. This shows that the influence of paganism persisted for a very long time even under the conditions of Christianity, and some elements of paganism were deeply embedded in Russian Orthodoxy.
Morning and Evening Dawns were considered sister and brother, and Morning Dawn was the wife of the Sun. Every year, during the great feast of the summer solstice (now known as Midsummer's Day), their marriage was solemnly celebrated.
The Slavs considered the Sun to be an all-seeing eye, which strictly looks after the morality of people, for the fair observance of laws. Not without reason, at all times, criminals have been waiting for nightfall, hiding from justice - not only earthly, but also heavenly, and the eclipse in the same "Word and Igor's Campaign" is taken as a terrible sign. And the sacred sign of the Sun from time immemorial has been ... the Cross! It is easy to see if you squint at the Sun. Isn't that why the Christian cross, so similar to the ancient pagan symbol, took root so well in Rus'? Sometimes the Solar Cross was circled, and sometimes it was drawn rolling like the wheel of a solar chariot. Such a rolling cross is called a swastika. She was turned in one direction or another, depending on what kind of Sun they wanted to portray - “daytime” or “nightly”. By the way, not only in Slavic legends, sorcerers, casting their spells, go “salting” (that is, according to the Sun) or “anti-salting”, depending on whether their magic will be good or evil.
Unfortunately, the swastika was used in fascist symbolism and is now disgusted by most people as a fascist sign. However, in ancient times it was highly revered and was distributed from India to Ireland. It is also often found on ancient Russian jewelry found by archaeologists. It can even be seen in the ornaments and patterns on clothes in the Ryazan Museum of Local Lore. As for the "fascist sign", it is easy to make sure that it depicts precisely the "night" Sun rolling along the inner side of the lower sky. Thus, the real object of "worship" of the fascist mystics is not the Sun, but rather its absence - the darkness of the night.
The interpretation of the swastika in the Buddhist tradition is interesting. It is called "manji" and is considered a symbol of perfection. The vertical line indicates the relationship between Heaven and Earth, the horizontal line indicates the struggle of the eternal opposites of Yin and Yang, the essence of which we will not consider here. As for the transverse strokes, if they are directed to the left, then, from the point of view of Buddhists, this personifies movement, softness, compassion, goodness; to the right - firmness, constancy, intelligence and strength. Thus, the two varieties of manji complement each other: love and compassion are helpless without strength and firmness, and soulless intelligence and strength without mercy lead only to the multiplication of evil. In general, "good should be with fists", but it is Good.
Perun Svarozhich
Perun is the Slavic God of Thunder, the God of thunder and lightning. The Slavs imagined him as a middle-aged angry husband with a reddish-gold swirling beard. We note right away that a red beard is an indispensable feature of the God of Thunder among various peoples. In particular, Scandinavians, neighbors and relatives of the Slavs in the Indo-European family of peoples considered their Thunderer (Thor) to be red-bearded. The hair of the God of Thunder was likened to a thundercloud. Scandinavian legends note that the angry Thor "shaked his hair." What color Thor's hair was is not definitely said, but the Slavic Perun's hair is really like a thundercloud - black and silver. No wonder the statue of Perun, which once stood in Kyiv, is described in the annals as follows: "The head is silver, the mustache is golden." The Slavs saw their God rushing among the clouds on horseback or in a chariot drawn by winged stallions, white and black. By the way, the magpie was one of the birds dedicated to Perun, precisely because of its black and white coloration.
The name of Perun is very ancient. Translated into modern language, it means "He who hits hard", "Striking". Some scholars see the connection of the name of the God of Thunder with words such as "first" and "right." As for the “first”, Perun was indeed the most important God in the pagan pantheon of Kievan Rus and, probably, the eldest son of Svarog. The convergence of his name with the “rightist” is not without meaning: our ancestors considered Perun the founder of the moral law and the very first defender of Truth.
Perun's rushing chariot thunders desperately over the uneven clouds - that's where the thunder comes from, that's why it "rolls" through the heavens. However, there were different opinions on this matter. They also said that thunder and lightning are an echo and a reflection of the blows with which Perun rewards the Serpent Veles, who seeks to rob the Gods and people - to steal the Sun, cattle, earthly and heavenly waters. And in remote antiquity, it was believed that in fact thunder is a “cry of love” at the celebration of the wedding of Heaven and Earth: it’s well known how well everything grows after a thunderstorm ... According to some sources, Perun’s lightning was of two kinds: purple-blue, “ dead, smashing to death, and golden, living, creating, awakening earthly fertility and new life.
It has long been noticed how clean and fresh the air is after a thunderstorm. The pagan Slavs found an explanation for this as well. The thing is, they said, that the evil spirit scatters in fear before the wrath of Perun, hides in holes and does not dare to appear outside for a long time.
Perun, to a large extent "responsible" for fertility, has a special relationship with bread. There is a legend about how a certain woman went to the field to work on the holiday of Perun (July 20), which, according to custom, was impossible to do. Angry Perun initially restrained his anger. But when the child, left on the boundary, soiled the diapers and the mother wiped it with a bunch of ears of bread (according to another version, a piece of baked bread was defiled), a whirlwind rose and carried the entire crop into a cloud. Some of it still managed to grind back, but the “hundred-eared” (hundred ears on each stalk) bread was never again ...
The legend about the origin of pearls is also connected with the thunder of heaven. The Slavs believed that it was born from the reflection of lightning captured in the eyes of a pearl mollusk at the moment when it frightenedly slams the shell doors at the sight of a thunderstorm ...
Perun's weapons were originally stones, later on - stone axes, and finally - a golden ax: the Gods "progressed" along with people.
The ax - the weapon of the Thunderer - has been credited with miraculous power since ancient times. They struck with an ax on a bench on which someone died: it was believed that by doing so Death would be “cut down” and expelled. The ax was thrown crosswise over the cattle so that it would not get sick and multiply well.
With an ax they drew a Solar Cross over the sick person, calling for help from two brothers-Gods at once. And on the blades of axes, symbolic images of the Sun and Thunder were often knocked out. Such an ax, planted in the door jamb, was an insurmountable obstacle for evil evil spirits seeking to penetrate into human habitation. Do not count the customs and beliefs associated with the ax.
Even the well-known "chicken god", a pebble with a hole in the middle, which caring owners are now trying to hang in the chicken coop, is nothing more than a memory of an ancient stone ax, one of the symbols of the pagan God of Thunder...
Another symbol of Perun is the so-called thunder sign, which looks like a wheel with six spokes. Scientists believe that ancient people used the shape of a snowflake here, because the sanctuaries of Perun were arranged as close as possible to the clouds and the Sky - on the most elevated places where snow first appears. This sign can still be seen on the huts of the old building. It was cut both for beauty and for purely "practical" reasons - as a lightning rod ...
When the Slavs had princes and fighting squads, Perun began to be considered the patron saint of warriors. Therefore, some researchers are now writing that Perun is an exclusively “retinue-princely” God, not at all popular among the common people. It was hardly true! After all, a thunderstorm is not only a heavenly battle, it is also necessary for a plowman who is waiting for the harvest. And the main feat of Perun was precisely that he returned fertility to the Earth, returned the Sun and rain.
An animal was dedicated to Perun - a wild tour, a huge, powerful forest bull. Unfortunately, in the wild, the last tour was killed back in 1627, and only tamed descendants of the tours have survived to this day - domestic bulls and cows. The tour was much more aggressive than the most vicious domestic bull. Predatory animals were powerless against him, and among people hunting for a tour was considered a feat.
People believed that Perun, walking around the world, willingly takes the form of a forest bull. And on July 20 (on the holiday of Perun), the tours allegedly ran out of the forest themselves and allowed themselves to be stabbed for a holy feast. Later, when people angered the Gods with something, the tours stopped appearing, and sacrificial bulls were specially fattened in the villages. This tradition was strictly observed in many places in the last century. Only now a pagan feast was arranged near the church, and the Christian priest consecrated it.
Perun also had his own tree - oak, there was also a favorite flower, which in Bulgaria is still called "perunika". It has six lilac-blue petals (thunder sign), overgrown with golden hairs (lightning). It blooms in spring when the first thunderstorms rumble. This iris flower is Greek for "rainbow".
The sanctuaries of Perun were arranged in the open air. They were flower-shaped; in those sanctuaries that have been excavated by archaeologists, there are usually eight "petals", but in ancient times, according to scientists, there were six.
"Petals" were pits in which unquenchable sacred fires burned. In the middle was a sculptural image of God. It is sometimes said that the ancient Slavs believed in idols. But this is like saying that Christians believe in icons. An altar was placed in front of the image of God, usually in the form of a stone ring. Offerings were put there, sacrificial blood was shed: most often - animal, and if the people were threatened with serious misfortune - then human. Life at all times was considered a sacred gift of the Gods: human sacrifice was an extraordinary, exceptional act. And we must also take into account that, according to the plots of some films and works of art, the person appointed as a victim did not necessarily burst into bitter tears and tried to escape. Victims were also voluntary: a person went to the Gods to tell them about the needs of his people, ask for help, avert trouble - as we would now put it, “covered the embrasure”, i.e., performed a revered feat ...
After the adoption of Christianity, Perun was not forgotten. Only a few customs that have survived to this day are mentioned here; in fact there are a great many of them. When the Orthodox Church forbade praying to the former Gods, and the sanctuaries were destroyed with the same unnecessary cruelty with which churches were destroyed almost a thousand years later by militant atheists. However, scientists say that Christianity not only "smashed" paganism, but also tried to get along peacefully with it, subordinating its hierarchy of values. It is no coincidence that particularly acute conflicts still occurred rarely, because over time a kind of symbiosis arose. In particular, having been baptized, yesterday's pagans continued to honor the old Gods, only under new names. So Perun "transferred" many of his qualities to Ilya the Prophet, one of the most revered Christian saints. Another "heir" of the God of Thunder is St. George, the serpent fighter, who even today we see on the coat of arms of Moscow.
Fire Svarozhich
The third brother of the Sun and Lightning, the third son of Heaven and Earth was Fire. Until now, we are talking about the "fire of the native hearth" - although most of the houses do not have hearths, but gas or electric stoves. In ancient times, Fire was truly the center of that world in which the whole life of a person passed, and even after death, a funeral pyre often awaited his body. In the deepest antiquity, Fire drove away darkness, cold and predatory animals. Later, he gathered several generations of the family around him - a large family, symbolizing its inseparable community.
During the meal, Fire was treated to the first and best piece. Any wanderer, a complete stranger, became "his own", as soon as he warmed himself by the hearth. He was protected like his own. The impure force did not dare to approach the Fire, but the Fire was able to purify anything defiled. The fire was a witness to the oaths, and this is where the custom of jumping in pairs over the fires came from: it was believed that if a guy and a girl could fly over the flame without unhooking their hands, then their love was destined for a long life.
What was the name of the God of Fire? Some scholars believe that the Western Slavs, who lived along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, called it Radogost (Radigost). These researchers have serious evidence, and their equally reputable rivals have refutations, so the final word has not yet been said. , the name of the God of Fire was so holy (after all, this God did not live somewhere in the seventh heaven, but directly among people) that they tried to say it out loud less often, replaced it with allegories. And over time, it was simply forgotten ... It happened in the same way as the real name of the bear was forgotten: people tried to call strong and dangerous animals allegorically (in relation to the bear - "clubfoot", "brown"). So the word "bear" means "in charge of honey" - "loving honey." Its real name, apparently, has been lost forever.
On the other hand, a great many signs and beliefs connected with Fire have not been forgotten. In the presence of Fire, it was considered unthinkable to swear: “I would tell you ... but you can’t: bake in a hut!”
The Russian matchmaker, who came to woo the bride, would certainly stretch out her hands to the stove, warming her palms, no matter what time of the year it happened: thereby she called Fire into her allies, enlisted his support. The newlywed young husband solemnly circled three times around the hearth. And if, at the time of the birth of a child, the Fire suddenly died out, then they saw this as a sure sign of the birth of a future villain. And finally, why they break a plate in front of the newlyweds (“For good luck”), and before that they broke a pot that had just been in the Fire: “How many pieces, so many sons!”. Now most often do not remember the meaning of this action.
A special sacred power was attributed to Fire, obtained in the most primitive way - by friction. Why, then, did everything ancient enjoy such honor, and even today does it still use it? The fact is that all the most ancient customs, tricks and tricks, as it was believed, the forefathers and foremothers of living people learned directly from the Gods. Let's remember the blacksmith's tongs and the plow that "fell from heaven", or the "first" laws! Accordingly, all subsequent technical and social progress was partly a distortion of the great-grandfather "divine" wisdom, above which, according to ancient people, nothing could be.
So, the Fire obtained by friction was considered “clean”, not in contact with any filth. The onset of a new year was celebrated every time by lighting such a Fire. At the same time, it was believed that all the sins of the past remain in the past year along with the extinct old Fire: thus, every year the world is given a chance to be reborn, become kinder and better. We note in passing that the beginning of the new year in Rus' was repeatedly postponed, it was celebrated either in March or in September, but scientists still recognize the New Year, celebrated on the days of the winter solstice, on December 22-23, as one of the oldest.
The pagan Slavs associated the emergence of people with Fire. According to some legends, the Gods created a Man and a Woman from two sticks, between which Fire flared up - the very first flame of love ... According to another legend, Perun and Fire competed in accuracy, and at the moment when the flame and lightning hit one point. unexpectedly for the gods themselves, the first people appeared.
And this is not all that can be said about Fire. There are a great many vivid examples of modern traditions that have come to us from their deep antiquity. Where, for example, did our "cheesecake" come from? This is from the ancient word "vatra", that is, "hearth".
Other gods of the ancient Slavs
Rod and Rozhanitsi
It has already been said that the light irey was considered by the ancient Slavs to be the source of all life, the ancestral home of plants, birds and animals. There were gods too
"responsible" for the prosperity and offspring of all living things in nature, as well as for the multiplication of the human race, for marriage and love between people. These are Rod and Rozhanitsy, mentioned in ancient Russian literature.
Scientists have long argued about how important the role the Slavs assigned to God named Rod. Some argue that this is a small "family" Deity like Brownie. Others, on the contrary, consider Rod one of the most important, supreme Gods who took part in the creation of the Universe: according to the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, it is he who sends the souls of people from heaven to Earth when children are born. In addition, the researchers suggest paying attention to how many important words come from the root “genus”, consonant with the name of this God: RODNYA, HARVEST, RODINA, NATURE.
The Goddesses of Rozhanitsa are usually spoken of in the plural. In ancient manuscripts, they are briefly spoken about, only bread, honey and “cheese” (earlier this word denoted cottage cheese), which were sacrificed to them, are mentioned. However, the manuscripts were compiled by Orthodox figures, so it is difficult to find detailed and accurate descriptions in them. However, modern scientists, having processed a large archaeological, ethnographic, linguistic material, referring to information relating to neighboring peoples, came to the conclusion that there were two Rozhanitsa: Mother and Daughter.
The Slavs associated the Mother in Childbirth with the period of summer fertility, when it ripens, grows heavier, and the harvest is poured. The ancient Slavs gave her the name Lada, and perhaps no less words and concepts are associated with it than with Rod. All of them are related to the establishment of order: "Getting along", "setting up", etc.
At the same time, the order was conceived primarily as a family one: “LADA”, “LADO” - an affectionate appeal to a beloved spouse, husband or wife. "LADINS" - a wedding conspiracy. Bulgarian "LADuvane" - fortune-telling about suitors. But the scope
Lada is by no means limited to the house. Some researchers recognize Velikaya Lada as the mother of the twelve months into which the year is divided.
The ancient Slavs had a Goddess named Lelya - the daughter of Lada, the youngest Rozhanitsa. Let's think about it: it's not for nothing that a baby's cradle is often called a "cradle", a gentle, caring attitude towards a child is conveyed by the word "cherish". The stork, allegedly bringing children, in Ukrainian - "leleka". The Slavs believed that it was Lelya who took care of the barely hatched shoots - the future harvest. Lelya-Vesna solemnly “called out” - they invited her to visit, they went out to meet her with gifts and refreshments.
The holiday of Rozhanitsa was celebrated in the spring - April 22-23. On this day, sacrifices were made with vegetable and dairy products, which were solemnly eaten at a sacred feast, and then bonfires were lit at night: a huge one, in honor of
Frets, and around it are twelve more smaller ones - according to the number of months of the year. According to tradition, it was a women's and girls' holiday, and men looked at it from afar.
Yarila
Often, unfortunately, Yarila is mistakenly considered the God of the Sun. The ancient Slavs had a different role for Yarila. What do we mean by the word "rage"? In the dictionaries of the Russian language you can find: “Fury; pure blind, elemental, often meaningless force. And there are many more related words, and they all talk about strong emotions that are beyond the control of reason. This side of love, which poets call "ebullient passion", was "under the jurisdiction" of the Slavic God Yarila. Even in the last century, in some places in Russia, the “Yarilki” holiday was celebrated, timed to coincide with April 27, to the very peak of the spring riot of nature.
It was believed that this love increases the harvest, which meant so much to the ancient farmer. After all, as we remember, the pagans did not oppose themselves to nature and did not reject its laws.
Yarila was imagined as a young man, an ardent, loving groom. In some places, wanting to emphasize his youth and beauty, a girl was dressed up as "Yarila". They put her on a white horse, put on a wreath of wildflowers, gave ears of corn to her left hand, and to her right ... a symbol of death is an image of a human head. The horse with “Yarila” was led through the fields, saying: “Where with the foot, there is a shock of life, and where it looks, there the ear is blooming!”.
According to another version, Yarila appeared before people in spring as a boy on a young stallion, in summer as an adult man on a strong horse, and in autumn as an old man on an old horse. The ears symbolized life, and the image of the head, perhaps due to the fact that he, like the Egyptian Osiris, died and was reborn every year. Seeing off, the "funeral" of the bald, aged Yarila was also dedicated to the holiday. People knew: the winter would pass - and Yarila would return, rise.
Just like a grain buried in the ground is resurrected as a stalk, an ear, and as a result, a new grain. It is no coincidence that grain crops sown in spring (unlike winter crops) are called "spring crops"...
Serpent Veles
Scientists write that a fairy tale is a myth that has ceased to be sacred for those who tell and listen to it. This is a myth that is no longer widely believed. (By the way, in Ancient Rus', the word “fairy tale” meant a reliable story, moreover, more often written. And what we now call a fairy tale was then denoted by the word “fable.” From it came the modern “fable” and the expression “fabulous” - embellished, fantastic , legendary.
So, there are many fairy tales about the Serpent Gorynych, who kidnaps (or is given in tribute to) beautiful girls and with whom heroes and heroes fight - from the epic Dobrynya Nikitich to Ivanushka the Fool. But this is also an echo of an ancient pagan myth that has survived to this day.
The myth of the struggle of the Thunderer Perun with his eternal enemy - the monstrous Serpent. Similar legends exist among many peoples.
In Slavic pagan mythology, the "cattle god" Volos (or Veles) is known, which is clearly opposed to Perun. His connection with the "cattle" (that is, animal) kingdom follows already from his name: Hair - hairy - hairy - hairy. It is possible that the word "sorcerer" comes from the name of this God and from the custom of his priests to dress in fur-turned, "hairy" fur coats to imitate their Deity. Meanwhile, the name "Volos" just as definitely takes us to the world of snakes and worms. Anyone who has ever been in the countryside in the summer must have heard chilling stories about the “living hair” that is found in the river near the shore and can, after biting, be sucked under the skin. And there is also a belief that a hair - animal or human, especially from a bad person - dropped into water or entangled in an egg, comes to life and begins to do evil deeds. In general, hair was considered an important reservoir of vitality. And you will not end up in trouble if an unkind sorcerer picks up the cut and thrown hair ... This legend could have come from the legend of the forge Kie, who was able to forge the fate of a person with the help of hair.
In a word, many good reasons lead some scientists to identify Volos with the legendary Serpent - the enemy of the God of Thunder.
Let's listen to their story.
According to legend, the Serpent of Hair somehow combines furry and scales in its appearance, flies on membranous wings, knows how to exhale fire (although he himself is scared to death of fire, primarily lightning) and is very fond of scrambled eggs and milk. Therefore, another name for Volos is Smok or Tsmok, which means Susun. Here it is appropriate to recall Smaug - the evil dragon from the fairy tale story by J. R. R. Tolkien "The Hobbit". This name was chosen by the writer not by chance!
But if you carefully reread folk legends and fairy tales, it turns out that the Serpent in them is not so much evil as unreasonable and greedy. It is easy to see that the appearance of the Serpent is "composed" by the human imagination from parts taken from different animals. Perhaps it embodies the forces of primordial Chaos, the violent forces of disordered, wild, uninhabited nature, often hostile to ancient man, but in its essence not at all malicious? ..
The pagan Slavs worshiped both divine opponents - both Perun and the Serpent. Only the sanctuaries of Perun were arranged, as already mentioned, in high places, and the sanctuaries of Volos - in the lowlands. There are reasons to think that the tamed Volos, driven into the dungeon, became "responsible" for earthly fertility and wealth. He partly lost his monstrous appearance, became more like a man. No wonder that the last bunch of ears was left in the field "Hair on a beard." In addition, there is a connection
Volos-Veles with music and poetry, not without reason in the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" the singer Boyan is called "Veles's grandson" ...
In 1848, a stone idol was found in the Zbruch River, clearly reflecting the division of the pagan Universe into the World of Gods, the World of People and the Lower World. So, the Human World is supported from below by a kneeling mustachioed humanoid creature. He looks unhappy. On the ancient idol, of course, there are no explanatory inscriptions, but scientists believe that this is Veles, who settled in the depths of the Earth ...
Dark Gods
The life of an ancient man was not always easy. Difficulties forced to look for the culprits, they appeared in the form of evil Gods. Among the Western Slavs, Chernobog was such an embodiment of evil: this name truly speaks for itself. It is known that his sculptures were black, with a silver mustache. Whether the Eastern Slavs (the ancestors of Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians) believed in him or not, it is impossible to say for sure. Perhaps they believed, it is unlikely that they had less reasons for this than their Western counterparts.
But the evil Goddess named Morana (Morena, Marana) was definitely known both in the West and in the Slavic East. She is associated with darkness, frost and death. Indeed, her name is related to such words as "morbidity", "gloom", "haze", "haze", "fool", "death" and many more equally unkind. From India to Iceland, mythical characters are known that cause all sorts of evil: the Buddhist Mara, who tempted the righteous hermits, the Scandinavian "mara" - an evil spirit that can torture the sleeping, "trample" him to death, Morrigan, the Goddess of the ancient Irish, associated with destruction and war; finally, the French word "nightmare". You can also remember Morgana, Morgause and Mordred from the epic about King Arthur and his knights.
Echoes of the legends about Moran can be traced in the epics about Dobrynya and "Marinka", which is trying in every possible way to destroy the hero, in particular, turns him into a tour - golden horns with her witchcraft. In the same epics, the unholy connection of "Marinka" with the Serpent is told. There are reasons to see the ancient Morana in the Bulgarian legend about the “evil woman” who “destroyed many people” and threw a dirty veil over the silver Moon: since then it has become covered with dark spots and, frightened, began to walk above the Earth much higher than before (between by the way, astronomers write about secular changes in the orbit of the moon ...). Other legends tell how Morana, with evil henchmen, tries every morning to watch and destroy the Sun, but every time she retreats in horror before his radiant power and beauty. Finally, the straw effigy, which in our days is still burned in some places during the holiday of the ancient pagan Maslenitsa, at the time of the vernal equinox, undoubtedly belongs to Morana, the Goddess of death and cold. Every winter, she takes power for a short time, but she is not given to establish herself forever: the Sun, Life and Spring triumph again and again ...
Gods and lower level spirits
Among the many small deities, Dvorovoy (master of the court) should be noted, who was already a little less benevolent than Brownie; Ovinnik (the owner of the barn) is even less so, and Bannik, the spirit of the bathhouse, which stood on the very edge of the yard, or even beyond it, is simply dangerous. For this reason, believers considered the bath - a symbol of purity, it would seem - unclean. Sometimes he is represented as a tiny old man with a long, moldy beard. Fainting and accidents in the bath are attributed to his evil will. To pacify the Bannik, the Slavs left clean water, a broom and food in the bath, otherwise the Bannik could get angry and greatly harm a person, up to and including murder. Bannik's favorite pastime is to scald those who wash themselves with boiling water, to split stones in the stove and “shoot” them at people.
Behind the fence of the courtyard of an ancient Slav, a forest began. The forest gave the ancient Slav building material, game, mushrooms, berries, etc. But besides the benefits bestowed on man, the wild forest has always harbored many deadly dangers. Leshy was the owner of the forest. Goblin literally means "forest". His appearance is changeable. He appeared either as a giant or as a dwarf. In different places, Lesh is told in different ways. However, most often he looks like a person, but the clothes on him are wrapped up “on the contrary” (sometimes, however, instead of clothes he wears only his own fur). Leshy's hair is long, gray-greenish, but on his face there are no eyelashes or eyebrows, and his eyes, like two emeralds, burn with green fire in the forest darkness. He could lead a person into a thicket, scare, beat, but he knew how to repay good with kindness.
When people began to clear forests and plow up "burns" for bread, of course, new deities appeared - Poleviki. In general, no less beliefs and signs are associated with a grain field than with a dwelling. Sometimes people met in the field also the old man Belun - nondescript in appearance and utterly snotty. He asked a passerby to wipe his nose. And if a person did not disdain, he suddenly had a purse of silver in his hand. Perhaps in this way our ancestors wanted to express the simple idea that the Earth generously endows only those who are not afraid to get their hands dirty?
The working day in the countryside always started early. But the midday heat is better to wait out. The ancient Slavs also had a mythical creature that strictly looked after that no one worked at noon. This is Noon. She was imagined as a girl in a long white shirt or, conversely, as a scary shaggy old woman. Poludnitsy (or Rzhanitsa) was afraid: for non-compliance with the custom, she could severely punish - now we call it a sunstroke. Caught at noon a man on arable land, she sometimes forced to exhaustion to solve her riddles. But Noon was not only formidable.
She taught the man who became friends with her to dance to the envy of everyone. Living in a land rich in rivers and lakes, the ancient Slavs naturally developed a whole complex of religious worship of water. For example, the Slavs were sure that the most indestructible oaths are given near the water, they also tested it at the court with water, they wondered about the future with the help of water. Water was referred to as "you". After all, she could drown, destroy for nothing. She could demand sacrifices, wash away the village with a spring flood. That is why the Waterman, the mythical inhabitant of rivers, lakes and streams, often appears in legends as a creature hostile to man.
The central myth of the ancient Slavs
Now that we have met all the main Gods of the Slavs, we can convey the content of the fundamental legend of ancient Slavic mythology. This myth tells about the appearance of evil gods and the opposition of good gods to them.
Once the Sun-Dazhdbog and his brother Perun traveled together in the Underworld. And here from behind the edge of the Universe appeared a dark star without rays, with a long bloody tail. She wanted to slay the soundly sleeping Earth to death - her husband-Heaven came to the rescue: he blocked the Earth, took a cruel blow. But he was not able to completely avert the trouble. A tailed monster swept over the whole Earth, burning the forests with a terrible, hitherto unseen fire, and finally fell somewhere at the far edge.
... The God-Brothers almost drove the greyhound horses flying to the eastern edge of the Ocean. When the boat crossed it, drawn by white swans, and the winged stallions soared again, Dazhdbog did not dare to look down brightly and clearly for many days, as before. For a disfigured, dead streak stretched across the whole Earth, and there, in the black smoke, a frightened, incomprehensible Fire rushed about. And from the wounds of Heaven, water lashed the ground in streams, flooding the lowlands, destroying and washing away everything that had survived the fire ...
The young Gods did not hesitate long: they rushed to save their mother and father. Save your world before it's back to the shapeless lump it was before it was born. They bandaged the wounds of Heaven with white stripes of clouds, wet shrouds of fog. Soothe the fire. They lit a rainbow over the few surviving Humans, showed the way to salvation...
It was then that they saw mountains at the far edge of the Earth that were not there before, mountains that looked like monstrous clouds from afar. They are firmly fused into the body of the Earth. The Gods carefully headed for those mountains... It turned out that the mountains were made of iron. Hot, they had time to cool down, and the sharp peaks breathed black frost, saved somewhere inside, overgrown with snow and ice before our eyes. The young Gods had never seen anything like it before... Well, most of these mountains fell down, beyond the edge of the Underworld, lifeless for centuries, and only one ugly ridge defiled the face of the green Earth. The Gods saw: everything living backed away from the Iron Mountains, everything fled from the deadly cold - forests, rivers, grasses, flowers ...
They carefully circled the Iron Mountains, and in one deep abyss they found a way through the Earth, all the way to the Underworld. A thrown stone would fly there for twelve days and nights, but the sparkling chariots, of course, were faster. Soon the brothers were in the Underworld. And when Dazhdbog raised his fire shield, they saw two creatures desperately shielding themselves from the light, a man and a woman, who looked more like terrible dreams than people or gods...
It was then that Perun, for the very first time, wanted with a wave of the ax not to kindle life, but to exterminate it. But the man and woman fell to their knees and begged for mercy. And Perun lowered his hand with a raised ax. He has not yet learned to be merciless and strike when they kneel. Perun and Dazhdbog fed them and told them about the earthly and heavenly structure.
But a year later, frost began to fall from the side of the Iron Mountains, devastating the Earth, and the Svarozhich brothers strove to pass these places as soon as possible.
But then a lot of time passed, the Earth recovered from the blow, the wounds of Heaven healed, although a scar remained - the Milky Way, where, according to the beliefs of the Slavs, the souls of the dead flew away. Dazhdbog warned the Month not to approach the cold mountains when he was walking in the sky, because, although the gods of the Iron Mountains received the brothers affectionately, they still aroused distrust. The young Moon gave his word to Dazhdbog and kept it for a long time, but once he could not control his curiosity.
He sent the white bulls that drove his chariot to the Iron Mountains. A dirty veil rose from there and dragged the Moon into the cave. When the god brothers entered this cave, they saw the feast ended and realized that Morana had seduced the Moon, and immediately celebrated the wedding.
This time, Perun's thunder roll sounded angrily, and his ax cut the Moon in half. The brothers took the dead Moon home, where the morning star Dennitsa, their sister, cured him with living and dead water. Since then, the Moon rarely appears full in the sky, and sometimes it completely disappears, and after Morana wrapped him in a veil, he was still able to wash the spots. People believed that the Moon is waning and hopes to be born again pure, but fate is ruthless.
The evil Morana and the lawless Chernobog were buried for a long time in the darkness of damp caves, not daring to lean out into the light. And Perun, who defiled his golden ax with blood, worked for a year in the workshop of the forge Kiya - atoned for sin. Murder was generally considered a terrible sin in Rus'. Even the warriors who returned from the campaign did not sit at the same table with their relatives for a long time and worked in the forges and in the field, atoning for their guilt. Since then, all evil spirits are afraid of iron, feeling the power of Perun, and if you upholster the door with iron or hang an iron horseshoe over it, then evil spirits will not dare to enter the house.
Meanwhile, Chernobog and Morana stole the snake's egg. Before that, snakes were not poisonous and lived with people in peace. They wrapped this egg with the hair of the woman who wiped the child with ears of bread and sucked out all life from it.
A snake hatched from the egg, which they called Volos, or Veles. He quickly grew up and became very strong. But he was not evil - just greedy and stupid. He flew around the earth, turned into whomever he wanted and committed various sins. But once Morana, with his help, took out an ice needle and made him an ice tooth, which could put the Svarozhichs to sleep.
Once they stole Perun's bride Lelya and Dazhdbog went to the Iron Mountains to check what was going on with Chernobog and Morana. But there Veles hit him in the back with an ice tooth, and the Sun did not rise above the Earth at the appointed hour. Perun went after Dazhdbog, leaving the Fire to shine on people and warm them. But no matter how much Perun fought with Veles, he could not defeat him - Chernobog and Morana stood behind him, helping him. Perun's eyes and heart were torn out and put in ice chains.
For thirty-three years there was no Sun over the Earth, thunder did not rumble and Perun's lightning did not flash. But one day, the grown-up children of the blacksmith Kyi - brother and sister Svetozor and Zorya - came to the sanctuary of Perun, kindled a fire and
Dawnlight sacrificed his own blood. Then the earth opened up and an exhausted Perun climbed out of the crack. Kiy helped him recover from his wounds, find new horses and find an ax, which, after a fatal battle, was not given to Veles, but flew to the Earthly world.
Perun, gaining strength, with Kiy and the Kievichs came to the Iron Mountains and in a fierce duel defeated Veles, broke an ice tooth and imprisoned Chernobog and Morana in underground darkness. Despite all Morana's assurances that it was impossible to melt the icy grave of Dazhdbog and Lelya, Perun and Kiy managed to do this and resurrected the Gods.
Religious holidays
If the Slavs worshiped the phenomena of nature, then it is easy to guess on what occasions, at what time of the year they will celebrate their religious holidays, which are closely connected with nature and changes in it. The holiday of Kolyada, Ivan Kupala, Shrovetide were deeply revered by the people. At these festivities, the Slavs worshiped stone and wooden idols - the figures of the gods.
These idols were placed in the center of a round platform with a raised middle or, conversely, with a funnel-shaped depression in the center. The site was surrounded by one or two ditches and low ramparts. Sometimes inside the shaft was fenced with a palisade. An altar was placed next to the idol. The places where idols were worshiped were called "temples" (from the old Slavic "cap" - an image, an idol.), And those where sacrifices were made ("requisitions") - "retreats". By our time, many pagan idols have already been found, but the most remarkable monument of Slavic paganism is the four-headed Zbruch idol, found in the 19th century on the Zbruch River, a tributary of the Dniester. Conventionally, this idol is called Svyatovit. This is a tall four-sided pillar three meters high, on each side of which there are a series of images. Three horizontal tiers of images symbolize the division of the universe into heaven, earth and the underworld.
Above, on each side of the pillar, topped with one common cap, are carved full-length figures of four deities - the goddess of fertility, Perun, a female deity with a ring in her right hand and a male figure with a saber at the waist. In the middle tier, figures of men and women alternate - this is the Earth and a round dance of people holding hands. In the lower tier there are three figures of mustachioed men. These are the underground gods who support the Earth above them. The Slavs also had wooden statues. Around 980, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich of Kyiv set up huge idols of pagan deities in his capital. Among them, the wooden idol of Perun was especially luxuriously decorated: he had a silver head and a golden mustache. Wooden idols of the Eastern Slavs are pillars, in the upper part of which human heads were carved.
Sacrifices were made to these idols: animals, grain, various gifts, and sometimes human sacrifices. Near the image of the pagan gods, divination took place, ritual lots, which were performed by the mysterious "wizards".
Magi, fortune-tellers, sorcerers, Bedouins, witches... Very little is known about the Slavic Magi, but Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov in his work on the history of ancient Russia draws a close connection from the Slavic Magi to the Finnish Magi, explaining this by the close proximity of the two peoples; and notes that after the adoption of Christianity, the wise men mostly appear in the Finnish north and from there stir up the Slavic peoples.
