Pagan mythology of the Slavs. Slavic myths and legends

The ancient Slavs believed that this spirit lives in every house, but not everyone had a chance to meet him. He is usually so related to “his” family that people affectionately call him the owner, grandfather, housewife, breadwinner. And sometimes they just say “himself”, “that”, “he”. And everyone understands what it's about. According to beliefs, there can be only one brownie in the house; if two start up, they begin to quarrel among themselves.

This spirit was represented in the guise of a little peasant with a gray beard, overgrown with soft fluff, with long claws. The location of the brownie is indicated in different ways: under the stove and behind the stove, under the threshold, in the underground, in the attic, in the closet, in the chimney, on the floor, in the corner; at night he visits the stable and barn, he does not go outside the house or estate. It was necessary to throw garbage behind the stove so that the brownie would not be transferred.

He manages only at night, wanders around the house, shuffles his feet, rattles dishes, strokes the sleeping inhabitants, and where he is during the day is unknown.

The main duty of this spirit is to look after the household, domestic animals and livestock, and help with housework. The brownie patronizes zealous, hardworking owners who respect him and know how to please him. The brownie does not like lazy and dissolute owners who do not show him respect and can bring him to ruin. They will not rest from his pranks and mischief, either he can be brought in behind the stove, or at night he will fall on the sleeping ones and begin to choke them. According to other beliefs, these tricks of the brownie are caused by a desire to joke.

Most often, his mercy and disfavor is manifested in relation to livestock, especially horses. Each brownie has a favorite horse color - one loves bay, the other roan. In this case, the brownie takes care of her, braids her mane at night, but if the horse is of an unloved color, then the brownie will torture her or force the owner to change the horse. My grandmother told me about one such case in Karaulny: “I was still a girl, but I remember. Somehow it stuck in my memory. We had a horse then. On the spot to us in the drive someone to walk and braid a pigtail. Somehow, one day, grandfather went to the fetch - the horse's pigtails were again braided. He says to himself: "Probably a brownie." And he looks: the old man is sitting. He says: “Do you hear?” And he shrunk, he became so tiny, and groaned so quietly. And he weaves a braid. »

They try to appease the brownie: they left him bread and salt, sometimes a pot of porridge, and tobacco, sometimes they used conspiracies “Susedushko, home-sitter, the slave is coming to you, carrying his head low, do not languish him in vain, but make him feel good; show yourself to him in your appearance, make friends with him and do him an easy service. And on Ephraim Spirin (January 28), it was customary to feed the brownie, giving him porridge on the cuff.

The Slavs believed that the brownie could predict happy and unfortunate events. He warns about them with different sounds, crying, groaning, moaning (to sorrow), songs, jumping (to joy), more often by touching in the darkness of the night: if he touches the brownie with a shaggy or warm paw, this is good, if naked or cold, - not good, and he can answer just a human voice.

When moving to a new house, it was necessary to perform special ceremonies in order to persuade the brownie to move with the owners. It was believed that he would not go without the necessary invitation, as he was getting used to the old housing very much. Various methods were used to transfer the brownie to a new home: they carried it in a pot of coals, on a bread shovel, in a bag, lured it with a pot of porridge, accompanying this ceremony with invitations: “You are welcome, grandfather, to our new home”, “brownie, brownie , let's go home".

Belief in the brownie is closely connected with the pagan worship of fire and the cult of dead ancestors. A pagan Slav deified the power of light and heat as a condition for all life. At first, our ancestors worshiped the hearth itself, but then new beliefs came - they were personified in the image of a brownie. The beliefs about brownies reflected the love of the people for their home, because in ancient pagan times people believed that every house had its own soul.

Brownies. Wooden figurines of household gods.

This is a very funny character, a cross between a devil and a duck. He lived everywhere - in the air, and in the water, and in the river, and was distinguished by his pranks. In the house, he had a favorite habitat - a secluded corner behind the stove, in the underground, and immediately responded at the mention of his name. Therefore, instead of it, they used such words as "fingerless" or "fingerless". In the villages, this evil spirits were called anchutkas - ward imps. If they start up in the house, expect trouble and a catch. Anchutkas break things, steal food, soil their homes. And they themselves are grimy, in soot and cobwebs. It is not without reason that still unwashed children are sometimes called “anchutkas”. It is difficult to remove them, like any evil spirits. But there was no particular harm from these spirits.

The favorite dwelling of this spirit is a large spacious barn. In such barns in Rus' in the old days they threshed bread and dried sheaves.

His appearance is unsightly - a small old man, covered with cobwebs, black hair and beard are disheveled and sticks out in different directions. Pieces of chaff and straw were stuck in them. This black, shaggy creature, all covered in soot, was sitting in the farthest corner of the barn. Only his eyes sparkled day and night like those of a cat. I saw everything, I noticed everything with this piercing look.

He is the brother of the same "home spirits" that inhabit the peasant estate: brownie, shed, well, yard. But among them, he is considered the most malicious. If the owner treats the barn spirit disdainfully, did not respect and did not honor him, he could set fire to the barn himself. To avoid trouble, the peasants tried to appease him, although this was not easy to do. True, people knew that the barn, like his relatives, loves offerings. With particular pleasure he accepted the sacrificial rooster, whose blood was sprinkled on the corners of the room. And he didn't give up pies either.

His duties are important: to protect the barn from any misfortune or evil spirits, to keep track of the time when to dry the sheaves, when to heat the stove, to see that the fire does not flare up too much, so that a fire does not happen inadvertently. The zealous owners made a fire, first asking permission from the barn. He punished the disobedient severely, he could set fire to all the grain reserves.

He did not allow the peasants to do household chores for big holidays, to drown when there was a strong wind outside. It happened that he would move the disobedient to the side in such a way that he could not take a breath for a long time. And "having done justice," the barn man laughed, clapped his hands, barked like a dog. They tell such a case: “Once a peasant woman wanted to ruffle flax for yarn in a barn on a holiday. She had just entered when someone stomped like a horse and laughed so hard that the hair on his head stood on end. The peasant woman's friend ran away in fear, and she continued to work for so long that the household began to worry. In the barn, only her skin was found, on which both her face and hair could be distinguished. »

Having completed the autumn work, dropping the last sheaf, the peasant bared his head and bowed. “Thank you, barn-keeper,” he said, “you have served faithfully today!”

And in winter, at Christmas time, the girls ran into the empty barn at midnight to tell fortunes about the betrothed. A beautiful girl would stretch out her hand through the window and whisper: “Ovinnik, my dear, am I destined to get married in the new year? ". If a barn touches her with a bare palm, her fate will be connected with the poor. He strokes with a shaggy paw - the husband will be rich. And if the barn doesn’t touch the girl’s hand in any way, that one will sit for another year in the father’s house in the girls.

Without a bath, it is difficult to imagine the life of the Russian people. In it they washed, treated, guessed. The bathhouse had its own master spirit. Usually he was invisible to prying eyes, as he wore a cap of invisibility. But if you enter the bath at night, hide and listen, you can hear the rustle and movement in a pile of unsteamed bath brooms. Of course, an ignorant person can say that this is a mouse. But we know that he is the owner of the bathhouse. Sometimes he nevertheless appears in his true form - in the form of an old man with long hair, all covered with leaves from a bath broom. Bannik was feared and respected. In order not to anger him, it was necessary to adhere to certain rules. After bathing the family, he needed to leave some water, soap and a broom. Also, in order to appease, they sometimes brought him bread and salt, and during the construction of the bath, they always laid a strangled black chicken under its threshold. It was customary to thank him when leaving the bathhouse with the words: “Thank you, bainushka, on the steam bainechka.” This is a wicked, dangerous, evil spirit. It was believed that “you can’t knock and speak loudly in the bathhouse, otherwise the bainushka will get angry and scare”; you can’t wash in the bath “in the third steam”, the “third steam” is left for the bannik himself. For non-compliance with this ban, you could pay with your life. Steam survives him from the bath temporarily, but he always lives in an unheated bath.

This is an evil and dangerous creature in the form of a tall, skinny woman with a face twisted with anger. Her hair is always unkempt, and her dress is dirty and torn. But the main sign is that she has one eye. She looks unkindly with this eye, looking for a victim. And if he finds it, he clings tightly - firmly to a person, and then expect all sorts of troubles. He will not get rid of the victim until he freezes completely. This is the embodiment of injustice, blind fate, evil fate. Everything in a person will go to waste: either the house will burn down, or the crop will die, or diseases will overcome. And the man thinks, wonders: “Why do I need all these troubles? ". And famously at this time he sits on his neck, dangling his legs, chuckles and looks out for a new victim. There is a proverb about Likho: “Likho walks not through the forest, but through people.”

The Slavs believed that if happiness comes to someone, then Likho also walks nearby. She envies someone else's joy and seeks to take it away. Until now they say " Do not wake Likho, if he is sitting quietly". Other names Famously: Trouble, Woe-Misfortune. There is a saying: " Trouble has come - open the gate".

Kikimora (shishiga).

This is the deity of nightmares, the unkind spirit of a peasant hut (sometimes considered the wife of a brownie). He sneaks into the hut unnoticed, under the cover of night, settles in a secluded corner, most often behind the stove. He loves to harm people very much: he spoils needlework, confuses threads, crumples yarn. She herself loves to spin or weave lace, and the sounds of spinning kikimora in the house portend trouble. It makes a person sleepy. In this state, the terrible events that the sleeper dreamed of, he takes for what is happening in reality.

Kikimora does not tolerate men. And with women, her relationship develops in different ways. She patronizes and helps a diligent, diligent hostess. He will wash the lids while everyone is sleeping, he will lull a baby who has woken up at the wrong time. And then it will help the dough rise well, so that the pies turn out to be famous.

But if she dislikes the hostess, then she can arrange it so that she does not live in her hut. It was not in vain that they said in the hearts of a negligent wife: “Domovikha take you away!” Clumsy and lazy people spoil their lives with their tricks. It will start tickling the kids, and they will scream until they are blue in the face, then it will scare the teenagers. Everything in such a business goes awry. And such a hostess thinks. How to appease kikimora. The best way is to dig up a bitter fern root in the forest, make a tincture from it and wash all the dishes, and, if possible, other things in the house. The spirit of this magical plant, "Perun's color", always brings kikimora and other evil spirits into a good mood.

But if in the possession of a brownie a kikimore gets bored or the owners offend her with something, she may even leave the hut altogether, settle in a chicken coop. Then beware, mistress! He will pluck all the birds alive, or even completely strangle them. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to hang over a perch, on a bast, a bruised throat of a jug or a stone similar to a chicken head with a through hole. They call such a stone a “chicken god” and they say that if you hang it in a chicken coop, then the kikimora will calm down.

To drive a kikimora out of the house is not an easy task at all. There are, however, special conspiracies they must be pronounced by a healer. It is best that they sound on Gerasim the rookery day in early March. Then there is a chance to say goodbye to the uninvited guest forever.

But the kikimora also had its own day in the calendar, the name day of the kikimora - March 1 (Remembrance Day of the Righteous Maryana). On this day, they tried to treat and appease her. And the people called this day the Day of Maryana Kikimora. Thus, pagan and Christian beliefs merged together in the Orthodox calendar.

Old people tell such a case about a kikimor who settled in one family: “They had a granddaughter. When the girl was seven years old, her relatives began to notice an unprecedented curiosity: in the evening, they used to put the child to bed, like a baby gets tired, playing, with disheveled hair, with a dusty face, in the morning they will look - the girl’s face is clean, white and ruddy, the shirt is washed, the feather bed fluffed up like swan fluff. Before that, the hostess had heard more than once at night how the spindle was turning and the threads were buzzing in the darkness; and in the morning, she used to look - she had doubled the yarn against yesterday. They tried to see the kikimora, they guarded her at night, but it was not there! Shortly before the first roosters, sleep overcomes them, and everyone will fall asleep, who sat where. Only a girl, when she was left alone, could see a huge and fat cat, larger than a ram, gray, with small white specks, with a large ugly head, with bright eyes that shone like coals. This cat was always sitting behind the stove. The owners tried to get rid of the kikimora, but failed, she began to play pranks and harm the owners. I managed to get rid of the kikimora with the help of a conspiracy told to them by one old woman.

This is a domestic peaceful deity of sleep. It will come, stand by your bed or gently rock the cradle with the baby, and immediately your eyes begin to close and sweet dreams come. The name of this good spirit has become synonymous with the word "sleep". Woe to you if you have angered him in any way. Then insomnia attacks you. But it happens that this deity sneaks up on you at the wrong time, at work or in the morning. Lullabies have brought his name to us.

The chaff creaks

Silently sing songs.

Sandman calls to Vanechka.

Dream goes to Vanechka.

Sleep puts under the head.

The words of this lullaby are a kind of conspiracy that mothers repeated over the cradle of the child, invoking Sandman and sleep.

Sorcerers were called sorcerers in the old days. They were old men with long gray hair and unkempt beards. They lived on the edge of the village or in the forest. Eagle owls, owls, black cats, frogs, snakes, and some plants helped them. The main knowledge of sorcerers is mugs. They could perform miracles or, as they used to say in the old days, "cast spells." And God forbid you anger the sorcerer with something or not please him with something! for witchcraft, sorcerers used dark nights, crossroads, magic items and herbs. Magicians were good and evil, their knowledge was passed down from generation to generation. They lived far from people, in the forests, closer to the sacred springs. The Wizards spoke in a "prophetic" language, incomprehensible to ordinary people. Its echoes have come down to us in ancient conspiracies. Wizards were renowned for their wisdom.

A terrible and evil creature is very rare for people, as it lives deep underground, in a dark world, away from the sun's rays. It has the appearance of an old man with huge eyebrows, his eyes are closed by long eyelids that go down to the ground. So he will see the world only if a few strong men can lift his eyelids with iron pitchforks. But his gaze was deadly, nothing could be hidden or hidden from him. To look into his eyes is certain death. In them you can see such that a person’s heart is torn into small pieces. You can meet this representative of the dark world on the pages of N.V. Gogol's story "Viy". He always appeared accompanied by numerous other wickedness: devils, ghouls and other wickedness. He needed servants and helpers. In the underworld, Viy was a big censored, was considered a judge of the dead and was the main servant of Chernobog, the ruler of the underworld. The Slavs believed that all sinners leading an unrighteous life would be punished after death. It is Viy who will be their chief judge and executioner. And on this world, he sends nightmares to those who have a guilty conscience.

Semargl (Simargl).

Everyone knows that bread is the sacred and main food of the Slavs. The well-being of peasant families depended on its harvest. Therefore, the grain fields had their own patron god, the god of seeds, sprouts and plant roots. He protected the seeds and seedlings from any misfortune and ensured a good harvest. The name Semargl comes from the word "seed", and it was presented to the ancient Slavs as a sacred winged dog.

The image of winged dogs surrounded by floral ornaments is very often found among the products of Russian applied art of the 11th - 12th centuries. mainly on kolts (women's adornment - a hollow gold or silver pendant, paired kolts were hung on the headdress on both sides) and bracelets, even on the gates of one of the Suzdal temples, these mythical creatures were carved. The fact that Semargl was depicted surrounded by vegetation just points to his main functional sphere.

They worshiped him and made sacrifices. He was considered the messenger of heaven, an intermediary between the gods of heaven and the spirits of the earth, has the ability to heal, as he brought to earth from heaven a shoot of the tree of life.

The day dedicated to this creature is Saturday. His sign is the number 7. His name is mysteriously connected with this magic number. The number seven in Slavic mythology has a special role: in conspiracies there are often repetitions: “behind the seven seals”, “behind the seven valleys”, “behind the seven keys”, “behind the seven doors” And also seven days a week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes, seven basic metals, seven virtues and seven deadly sins.

There is a version that these beliefs are rooted in the depths of centuries, in those days when the Slavs worshiped the god Semargl.

Semargl in Slavic mythology is the personification of armed, warlike goodness. Later, Semargl began to be represented in the form of an armed warrior.

In the old days, the peasant field had a clear boundary, a boundary separating it from the neighbor's field. Mezha protected the property of the peasant. She had her own patron deity and "guardian" of the borders. On the boundary of their possessions, farmers poured mounds, fenced off with a palisade. No one could destroy such a mound, since it was a place of worship for a deity. The strip dividing the possessions was considered inviolable, no one could cross it. On certain days, the head of the family walked around the property along this line. Driving sacrificial animals before him, he sang hymns and brought gifts to a deity of low rank, but very revered in peasant life. They called him - Chur, he was entrusted with the protection of ancestral possessions. This god is closely connected with such concepts as "genus", "property", "border". Later, on the boundary, they began to put images of Chura-reznaya himself, a short wooden pole, on which there were generic signs of the owner of the site. Until now, wooden pegs driven into the corners of the land are called chocks. Chur, was in the spells that have come down to us, a deity consecrating the right of ownership: “chur, in half!”; “Chur, together, or alone!” ; "Cheers, mine."

The word "chur" comes from the word "shur" or "ancestor". This was the name of the ancestors, who after death became the guardians of their kind. This tradition is rooted in the ancient custom of replacing a deceased relative with a wooden doll that preserves his soul. Chur is a big enemy of devils and other evil spirits. Therefore, people “shied away” from evil spirits: “Chur, me!”, That is, “Chur, protect me, help me!”.

Firebird.

He lives in the Garden of Eden, where golden apples hang on the branches, giving everyone who tries them youth, strength and health. For this property they are called rejuvenating. Many would like to taste them, but the servants of the radiant god of the Sun, Dazhdbog, guard the fruits. Ancient people believed that it was he who was able to turn into a wonderful bird with golden feathers, the radiance of which blinded the eyes like sunlight. Even one feather (a ray of sunshine) brings unspeakable happiness and great joy. Having caught a bird, you can ask it to bring golden apples from the Garden of Eden, returning youth.

Every year the Firebird dies in the fall and is reborn in the spring. In Russian fairy tales, she lives in the Kingdom of Far Far Away with Koshchei the Immortal (the embodiment of winter numbness) or the Tsar Maiden (the embodiment of the morning dawn). He sits in a golden cage and sings heavenly songs, and pearls fall from his beak.

2. Visiting the spirits of the forest

The forest for the ancient Slavs was not only a breadwinner, but also the personification of a hostile world:

There is a gate in the forest

Eagle owls and owls

Barriers guard.

In every crack

Bad wolves roam.

The forest is believed to be inhabited not only by animals and birds, but also by many spirits that watch a person who has entered their domain. The goblin was considered the king, the owner of the forest. He looks just like a man, but everything in his clothes is mixed up. The left half of the caftan is buttoned on the right side, the right bast shoe is put on the left leg. His eyes are green like moss, and at night they burn like two fireflies. Eyebrows and eyelashes are missing, as well as the right ear. If he walks through the forest, his growth reaches the tallest trees, and if he walks through the grass, he becomes like a small blade of grass. He lives most often in spruce and pine forests and rarely catches the eye of a person. The wood goblin rarely comes out of the thicket, sacredly observes the rights of relatives and neighbors - a field worker, a brownie and other spirits. He does not like villages, especially those where black roosters, tricolor cats and "four-eyed dogs" live - who have dark spots above their eyes. It can transform into any animal or plant.

Above the forest living creatures Leshy is a complete master. Hares, squirrels and other trifles are generally in bondage with him, as under serfdom. He can even lose them to the neighboring goblin in cards. When in the middle of the last century there was a mass migration of squirrels from Siberia through the Urals to European forests, people said that it was the Siberian goblin that was driving the loss to the Russian goblin. There is even a saying: "He drives from place to place, like a goblin beast."

However, when the forest dwellers are in trouble, the owner takes care of them. Chuuya, the coming fire, blows a horn, or even with a whip drives them from a dangerous place. One old woman told such an incident that she saw before a forest fire: “I look, bears are knocking down from the forest and with them wolves, foxes, hares, squirrels, elks, goats - in a word, any forest living creature and each with its own party does not interfere with others, and everything passes me with horses, and they don’t even look at us. And behind the beast and "himself" with a whip over his shoulder and a horn in his hands, and the size of a large bell tower will be.

Goblin does not allow cutting down his favorite trees. He doesn't like it when someone stays in the forest for a long time.

He had a unique relationship with people. Many consider him an evil spirit hostile to man. However, more often he does not harm a person so much as plays pranks, jokes, but when angry, he can do a lot of harm. A careless traveler who has entered a dense forest, a drunkard, a person who has forgotten to defend himself with a cross, the goblin will lead him off the road, lead him into an impenetrable thicket, let in fog and make him spin in one place. In these cases, they said: the goblin went around him. To deceive travelers, the goblin called people into the forest with voices they knew. He usually does this in the evening, so that the victim of his pranks wanders through the forest all night and only in the morning finds his way.

It's not hard to get rid of the goblin. The usual methods are prayer and the sign of the cross. In addition, it is necessary to perform some logical actions: turning clothes inside out, putting on the right bast shoe on the left foot, and vice versa, or to protect against the goblin, it was necessary to carry a loot (a piece of linden tree peeled from the bark). And they say you can save yourself from the goblin if you make him laugh. There are many stories and tales about the goblin's leprosy. So they say how once the goblin took the form of an old man and sat down on a sleigh - the horses stopped, and no efforts of the coachman could make them budge. However, as soon as the coachman said: “What is it, Lord,” the horses rushed, the arc shattered in half, and the old man disappeared, as he had never seen before.

Once a year, on October 4, no conspiracies and persuasions work on the goblin. He arranges such quarrels and fights with his neighbor. That the trees lean to the ground, otherwise they even turn them upside down. Animals flee in terror. They say: so the goblin is furious. On this day, a man in the forest - not a foot.

Having had their fill, the goblin freeze, calm down, fall asleep, or even completely fall through the ground. About how hard it is for a forest owner to say goodbye for six months, until spring, with his possessions, S. Yesenin wrote in one of his poems:

The goblin is crying at the pine,

Pity the summer spring.

In winter, other owners in the forest are winds and frosts.

Baba Yaga.

According to Russian folk tales, we know Baba Yaga as an evil, ugly, grumpy old sorceress. It was rumored that her hut was fenced with a fence made of human bones. These are the bones of those she roasted and ate. She was very fond of guessing riddles for good fellows. Wandering into her hut. Do not guess - to be him in a huge cauldron. And he will show intelligence and ingenuity - the old woman will show him the way to the Far Far Away Kingdom, and even give him wonderful things. But once, a long time ago, Baba Yaga was a powerful goddess, the mistress of the forest and animals, and the goddess of the kingdom of the dead. Her hut was considered a gate to the lower underworld (Nav), a guard outpost on the border between the world of people and the world of the dead. And this border was jealously guarded by Baba Yaga from prying eyes and ears. The hero, who came to Nav in search of wisdom and happiness, appeared before Baba Yaga, and she decided whether he was worthy to be initiated into secret knowledge or must die. The hut in which she lived stood in front of the forest, and back to the traveler. Because the ancient Slavs believed that the entrance to it is possible only from the side of Navi. Therefore, a hut without windows, without doors - the dead do not need sunlight. And to get there, you need to cast a magic spell. She met the traveler with the words: “Fu-fu, it smells like a Russian spirit. Here I will put you in the oven, fry and eat and roll on the bones. These were not empty words. The Russian spirit - the smell of a living person, a stranger, set up Baba Yaga with hostility. She doesn't want uninvited guests. She threatens to kill the hero. But why does she want to roast the traveler first? The fact is that in Ancient Rus' the dead were burned, the ashes were collected in a vessel and carried away deep into the forest. There, in the thicket, stood a small house (“hut on chicken legs”). It was called "the house of the dead". The vessel with the ashes was brought inside the house, and the bones on the poles were exposed in the form of a fence (“fence of human bones”). It is not difficult to guess that such huts became the prototype of Baba Yaga's housing.

Then the traveler asks the hostess to feed him, give him a drink, take a steam bath and put him to bed. It was a ritual of initiation that existed among pagan peoples, when a person was accepted into one or another community. Treat is a way to bring a guest closer to you. Is it possible to reveal magical secrets to strangers or random people? Only after this, Baba Yaga can test the guest with wise riddles, initiate him into the mysteries, bestow wonderful objects. Here she already acts as a kind goddess, a wise mentor, a giver.

Volkodlak.

Mythological very ancient creature. Its origin is associated with the cult of worship of animals, in particular wolves. In ancient times, it was believed that people of different tribes descended from different animals, bore the features of animal progenitors and could turn into them for a while. They seemed to throw a skin over themselves (echoes of ritual holidays). There was a special relationship with wolves. The wolf is a formidable and dangerous animal. A person who turns into a wolf acquires a black, evil power. Such a creature was called a volkodlak, which meant "the skin of a wolf." According to ancient belief, the sorcerer came to the forest at midnight, rubbed the body with the juice of the magic tear-grass collected on Midsummer Day on Bald Mountain, jumped over an aspen stump with twelve knives stuck into it and turned into a wolf. People believed that a lunar eclipse does not occur at this time and a meeting with such a creature on a forest path is very dangerous. Evil werewolves, because there was no place for them either among people or among wolves. In Russian epics, the name Volkh (Wolf) Vseslavovich, the sorcerer prince who knew how to turn into a wolf, was preserved. His feats of arms were attributed to this extraordinary ability. And the Volkodlak was afraid of only one thing: that someone would not pull out one of the 12 knives from an aspen stump. Then he will never take human form again.

This is a winged horse. A long twisted horn grows on his forehead. He spends most of his life underground. From his hooves came ravines and hollows on the ground, filled with water. With a luminous, fiery horn, he bores the clouds, pouring rain.

Healing properties were attributed to his horn. The one to whom Indrik gives his horn will not only be cured of all diseases, but will preserve eternal youth. Indrik was prayed for rain, because they believed that he could “lock” rainwater in “rain caves”. Then drought sets in. To the present day, calls for rain have come down:

It's raining, it's raining

We have been waiting for you for a long time!

With pure water

With silk grass

With azure color

Warm summer!

Fern flower.

According to folk beliefs, this flower blooms only once a year, on the eve of the ancient holiday of Ivan Kupala, which is celebrated on July 24, during the summer solstice. This is the time of the longest days and shortest nights. The holiday is dedicated to the pagan god of fertility Kupala and was celebrated with games and dances that lasted all night. Boys and girls put on wreaths, lit fires and jumped over them, and also swam in the river. On this night, a magical flower blooms, and dies with the first rays of the sun. Whoever picks it at the time of flowering will be happy all his life. Treasures and treasures hidden in the earth will be revealed to him. It is difficult to find a wonderful flower, because it is guarded by all evil spirits. Rumor ascribes such magical properties to the fern flower. When it blooms, the night is brighter than the day. Those lucky ones who happened to be present at this event say that its bud bursts with a bang and burns like a flame. For this, it is also called the Fire-color or Perunov color.

The Magus is a whitewashed gray-haired old man. In his hand is a wooden staff, and ancient amulets hang on his chest. A pagan priest, a fortune teller who knows the past, present and future. In ancient times, such elders were the most respected people. Princes, warriors and ordinary people turned to them for wise advice. These wise men compiled calendars, knew the ancient script, kept in their memory the history of the tribe, legends and myths. They were also healers, connoisseurs of medicinal herbs, keepers of healing springs, weather forecasters. They passed on their secret knowledge from generation to generation. In order to become a sorcerer, one had to go through many difficult trials: visit the kingdom of the dead - in Navi, from there rise to the heavenly kingdom - Rule and descend to earth - to Yav. The Magi lived at a distance from people, in dense forests, tracts, worshiped Perun. Power and wealth did not matter to them.

Gamayun is a prophetic bird, the messenger of the god Veles. She flies to earth only before significant events in order to convey to people the will of the gods. When it flies from the East, from Iriy (Paradise), storms, tornadoes and hurricanes come. She appears only to those who endure and suffer a lot, who knows how to listen and understand her prophetic language. She will tell them about what was, what is and what will be. Far, far away, beyond the Pacific Ocean, there are the legendary Makary Islands (the threshold of Paradise). From them, the bird of paradise Gamayun flies to earth. The word "gamayun" is translated as "speaking", "telling". She never sits on the ground, because, according to ancient legends, she does not have legs, but soars high in the sky. And she sings about how the earth and sky were created, how the seas, forests, animals and birds appeared, glorifies the warriors who defended their homeland from fierce enemies. Her name comes from the old Russian word "hamayat", that is, "to tell". But not everyone can understand and interpret her words. To do this, you need to master the secrets of magic. According to legend, one of the oldest books of our ancestors was sung by the Gamayun bird. It is called “Songs of the bird Gamayun”.

The image of the Gamayun bird, the messenger of future changes, is often found in Russian poetry and painting.

Cat Baiyun.

This is an unusual cat: he is huge, his hair is black as coal, and his eyes burn with evil fire. The main assistant of Baba Yaga, a creature endowed with great wisdom, cunning and strength. And he also has a special voice. Its sound is heard for seven miles. And when it purred, it happened, how it let loose on whomever it wanted, an enchanted dream that could not be distinguished from death. The name of this cat is corresponding to Bayun, Bayunok.

Like gray cats coming from across the sea.

They carried a lot of sleep.

Come, cat, spend the night,

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He knows many fairy tales and songs, and he himself is a character in folk lullabies. But it’s quite another thing to fall asleep in fairy tales under the purr of Cat Bayun. Fall asleep - don't wake up.

The cat is a special animal in Slavic mythology. Cats were loved and feared. The proverb has been preserved: "Without a cat, there is no hut." ,The cat protects the house from mice, predicts the weather. But, at the same time, the cat-companion of sorcerers (Baba Yaga), especially black, witches and devils reincarnated into it. Popular superstition attributed to the eyes of a cat, seeing in the dark, an extraordinary, supernatural power.

Polkan is translated as "half-horse", a creature with the body of a horse and the head of a man. His task is to protect the horses of the solar gods: Khors, Dazhdbog, Svetovit or a herd of cows of the god Perun, instead of milk, they give rainwater.

This character is plain in appearance, even ugly - small, with a hump and long ears. But he is wise, a little rogue and kind, understands people and speaks with a human voice.

In Slavic mythology, you can meet with a variety of female sorceresses - coastlines. They settled in the water, in the woods, in glades and banks. All of them were united by one quality - they were kind to people, protected them and protected them. They were worshiped and especially revered.

Forks in Slavic folklore are female deities of a lower order, the patroness of moisture, which provides life. As mythological life-giving creatures, vilas are often mentioned together with Mokash. They settled in the water, in the forest, in glades and banks. All of them were united by one quality - they were kind to people, protected them and protected them. They were worshiped and especially revered.

Pitchfork on kolts (women's adornment - a hollow gold or silver pendant, paired kolts were hung on both sides of the headdress) and other items.

In different places, these golden-haired beauties were called differently. But usually they were called pitchforks. The ancient Slavs believed that where they dance, mushrooms grow in circles. The pitchfork brought happiness and contributed to a good harvest, helped in the household, took care of children, and healed the sick. Even just seeing them was a good sign. Wil had a favorite plant - hawthorn. People brought a cup of wine to him and asked him to heal the sick. But sometimes pitchforks could harm people. They envied someone else's beauty and good voice. In order not to anger them, it was not customary to brag about your virtues.

According to an ancient legend, Vilas are born from morning dew and grass. When the sun is shining and it is raining, people still sometimes say: “Vila was born!”

Nightingale robber.

Nightingale the robber was waiting for the traveler on the roads. According to an ancient legend, he laid the road to Kyiv exactly for 30 years: no person will pass through it, the beast will not roar, the bird will not fly by. He built his nest on twelve oaks and, sitting in it, whistled so hard and loudly that he destroyed everything around with his whistle, as if by the pressure of a terrible whirlwind, his whistle was heard for 10 miles around.

Dark forests bow to the ground,

Mother - the Smorodina River became muddied with sand.

Demon of a stormy, thundercloud. Folk fantasy compares the whistling of a storm with the singing of a nightingale. Hence the name Nightingale - a robber. He embodies the evil and destructive power of the wind. Until now, there is a belief that a whistle can invite misfortune. In Russian mythology, the Nightingale the Robber is the incarnation of the god Prozvizd, the northern cold wind.

Koschei the Deathless.

A lot of trouble and worries are brought to fairy-tale heroes by their eternal enemy Koschey the Immortal. Who is he, this malicious, ubiquitous old man.

The Old Slavonic word "kosh" (kosht) is translated as "dry, thin, skinny." Therefore, he is depicted as a desiccated old man, almost a skeleton. The name of the fabulous antihero was most likely perceived as a mythological image of nature ossified, frozen from the bitter frost. After all, winter in the view of the Slavs is a small, temporary death. Frozen clouds that do not give birth to golden fertile rain. Stony, barren land dreaming of the sun. The howling of a blizzard is so similar to the sounds made by the beloved Koshcheev's gusli - samoguds. After listening to this song, people froze, or even completely froze, icy.

All power at this time belongs to the demon of winter - Koshchei. And he owns priceless treasures - the sun's rays. Koschey is called "immortal" because, dying with the first rays of spring, he comes to life again every winter.

Werewolf.

Forest roads are dangerous, especially at dusk and at night. This is the forest spirit's favorite time. He appears at dusk and walks all night. This is the forest spirit's favorite time. He appears at dusk, and walks all night. At the same time, it can “spread”, i.e., change its appearance. He just needs to hit the ground. It turns into anything: into an animal, into a person, into a tree or a stone. Nobody saw him in his true form. This evil spirit is called a werewolf. In Rus', it was believed that a sorcerer, knowing the name of a person, can make him a Werewolf. Therefore, the real name must be concealed, to call yourself only fictitious. You can also become a Werewolf if you violate any prohibition. Werewolves are especially terrible in July, on Midsummer Day, on the day of witches and evil spirits. At this time, the peasants performed magical rites to protect against werewolves: they stuck knives into the table top, put a poker against the door, twisted elderberry branches crosswise. According to popular belief, if this is not done, the Werewolf can enter the house under the guise of a cockroach or cricket. Then it remains only to wait for March (Grigoriy-Grachevnik) to survive the Werewolf with the help of a sorcerer.

2. Visiting the spirits of the river.

The mythological spirit of the waters, which is feared and respectfully called grandfather, waterman, water jester, water devil, is a malicious and insidious creature. Rumor has it that this is a half-fish, half-man, he has a beard, like grass or mud. The hair is long, also from this mire. The body is smooth, iridescent, like fish scales. Sometimes he takes the form of an ordinary person and appears in a village or in a city, but the water owner could be recognized: water constantly drips from the left half of his clothes.

This ugly, mud-shrouded old man with a green mustache and disheveled beard lives in rivers with dangerous whirlpools, in forest whirlpools, in swamps. Likes watermills. Here, in the pits washed by fast water, under the mill wheels, usually water from different reservoirs gather for the night. Their snoring, whistling, loud voices can be heard from afar. It is no coincidence that millers who welcome such ungracious guests are considered sorcerers. In dense thickets of reeds stands his elegant tower made of colored stones, shells and river sand. He is very rich and powerful. He also has chests with gold coins and semi-precious stones, herds of cows, horses, sheep, which are driven out at night to the coastal meadow and graze mermaids. He likes to go around his possessions on a huge catfish, so this fish was nicknamed "damn horse". They fear the water lord and in every way please him. He will be angry - the fishermen will not see the fish, otherwise they may even drag them to the bottom. No wonder in the old days they said: "That has passed, that it has gone into the water."

In winter, he sleeps, but sometimes wakes up and swims to the surface of the reservoir in the form of a large pike to see if everything is in order. And with the advent of spring awakens. At this time, he is hungry and angry, so he rages, breaks the ice on the rivers and disperses the fish. The fishermen tried to appease the merman: they poured oil into the water, threw geese, the merman's favorite bird.

The merman usually appears in the singular. Each river, pool, lake has its own water.

Overcome - grass.

Odolen grows - grass in the swamp, along the banks of ponds and rivers among various herbs and flowers. It has extraordinary properties. She can overcome any evil spirit. Whoever finds this herb will become the owner of a special talent for healing. A decoction of this herb is used to soothe pain, and the root serves as a talisman. He was advised to take with him on the road.

In the old days, not a single traveler would have dared to cross the threshold of a house without a root of overcoming - grass. In some places, this name was called a white or pink water lily. The root was dug up, dried, put in the bosom and set off on a long journey. At the same time, it was necessary to say a spell: “Overcome the grass, overcome the evil people: you don’t have to think about us, you don’t think badly, drive away the sorcerer, the sneak. Overcome me with high mountains, low valleys, blue lakes, steep banks, dark forests, stumps and decks. I will hide you, overcome - grass, at the zealous heart, all the way, all the way "

According to the beliefs of the Slavs, the main inhabitants of the reservoirs were pale-faced and beautiful virgins with long green hair - mermaids. According to folk beliefs, all female babies who were born dead or died without baptism, as well as adult drowned women, became mermaids. According to another version, these are the daughters of Vodyany. According to some ideas, they have eternal youth, according to others, mermaids are mortal: in the guise of mermaids, the deceased "live out their earthly term", and therefore their natural end comes. Mermaids have the same character, habits and tastes that the deceased had.

Mermaids live in crystal palaces at the bottom of rivers. On a moonlit night, they go ashore, dance, sing songs, swing on the branches of trees and comb their wonderful green hair through which water flows, lure careless fishermen and travelers into their arms, from which no one can escape.

Before the adoption of Christianity in Rus', mermaids were considered good water spirits, coastlines. But later they began to attribute insidious traits. It was believed that they could tickle to death or drown.

In the summer, starting from Trinity Day, mermaids come out onto land. On the Mermaid week, you can’t swim in the rivers, as the mermaids will drag the swimmer to the bottom, it’s even dangerous to walk along the banks of the rivers. And Thursday of Trinity Week, according to popular belief, is “a great day for mermaids.” On this day, women do not work, fearing to anger the mermaids, because in anger they can send damage to cattle. Girls on Trinity Thursday (Semik) weave wreaths and throw them in the forest to the mermaids. In these wreaths, mermaids run through the rye. Where the mermaids ran and frolic, there the grass grows thicker and greener, the bread is more plentiful.

Mermaids can also send storms, confuse nets for fishermen, steal yarn from careless housewives. The surest means to ward off mermaids is wormwood, “cursed grass,” as they called it. When meeting a mermaid, she will definitely ask: - “What do you have in your hands, wormwood or parsley?” In this case, you need to answer: - "wormwood". - “Come on, get lost!” the mermaid will shout and run away. And if you manage to throw grass in the mermaid's eyes, she will never touch you again. If the answer is “Parsley”, then the mermaid shouting “Oh, you are my darling!” pounces on a person and begins to tickle until he falls dead.

Alkonost.

This is a wonderful bird, a resident of Paradise (Iria). Her face is feminine, but her body is that of a bird. Whoever hears her songs will forget everything in the world with delight.

The rumor about this bird goes back to the ancient Greek myth about the beautiful girl Alcyone and her beloved Keik. Their love was so great, and their happiness so immeasurable, that they forgot about everything in the world and did not notice anyone around them. For this, the ancient gods punished the lovers. One day, Keik's ship did not return to his native shores. Alcyone threw herself off a cliff into the sea to be close to her beloved. But the gods took pity on her, turned the kingfisher into a bird. Keik became a white-winged albatross.

And Alcyone realized that happiness cannot be blind and selfish. Since then, she has tried to give everyone a spark of her happiness, spreading it around the world. And Keik, whose ship was destroyed by a storm, turning into a petrel, warns people about impending storms and hurricanes. When, at the behest of the gods, Alkonost descends to the ground, the time of universal peace and tranquility comes. Alkonost carries eggs along the edge of the East Sea (Pacific Ocean), but does not incubate them, but plunges them into the depths of the sea. No one saw the chicks of this bird, the mother takes them to Paradise. But some were lucky enough to hear the voice of Alkonost, his magical sounds.

These representatives of evil spirits live in the pool. Not without reason there is a saying “There are devils in the still waters” or - “It would be a swamp, but there are devils.” Swamp devils live in families. Little imps in the old days were called khokhliks. Devils are the personification of evil that lies in wait for a person. There are very few places in the world where they would not dare to penetrate. Depicting evil spirits in the form of black furry creatures with two sharp horns on top, a long tail and limping, they broke their legs when God threw them to the ground. In life, devils embody human misfortunes.

Devils can change their appearance. Most often they appear in the form of a black cat, pig, dog. They were afraid to mention the name of the devil, but they called the crafty, non-mytic, bald jester. They were afraid of him, fearing to go alone into the forest and to the swamp - " do not go in the swamp, the devil will chop off your ears."

Devils love to visit each other, noisily celebrate weddings. They can send bad weather, a blizzard, snow whirlwinds that can “spin”, “drive”, knock you off the road.

He could come to the village or to the house - then expect trouble. People said "Let the devil in the house", "Do not be afraid of death, but be afraid of devils." According to legend, you can drive the devil out of the house, you can drive the devil out of the house once a year - January 17th. This was done by healers, later by priests.

These malevolent spirits are confused with devils. But it's not. The devil has a body, although not very pretty, but his own. But this creature does not even have that, it is incorporeal. So such an affectionate creature instills either in a person or in an animal. That is why it is dangerous because it is invisible and imperceptible. But those who are possessed by this spirit fall ill and commit unseemly acts.

About people behaving in a strange way, they say that they are "possessed by a demon." The very word "demon" (from the word "without" - without anything, without a body, without a soul) speaks of its essence. And they also say that people “rage” from demons. Familiar word? It is very difficult to exorcise a demon from a person - one cannot do without a healer or a sorcerer who knew special rites and conspiracies.

It is possible to avoid the introduction of a demon if you do not walk around “unclean places” at night and try to pronounce his name less. No wonder they say "The devil is easy to remember."

Asp is a winged snake with bird legs and two trunks. She lives in stone mountains and does not sit on the ground, only on a stone. Where such a monster flies - everything around will be empty. You can't kill him with an arrow, you can only burn him. This is one of the representatives of monster snakes in Slavic mythology. No wonder his name became a household name. That's what the enemies are called. In ancient legends, there is also such a reincarnation of an asp as a “sword-hoarder”, which turns into a winged serpent. This sword is hidden in the ground, walled up in the rock and is revealed only to a worthy hero who, in order to acquire it, overcomes many obstacles.

Dragon.

The Serpent Gorynych lives in the gloomy, impregnable mountains. There are no signs of life around. Only bare stones surround the dwelling of one of the most terrible monsters of Russian fairy tales and epics. Everywhere the flying fiery dragon sows horror, death and destruction, unless, of course, there is a daredevil who would enter into a mortal battle with him. Such brave men were called heroes - snake fighters. Gorynych lives in the mountains. In ancient times, he was considered a demon of a thundercloud. In fairy tales, epics, there are episodes where the appearance of the Serpent Gorynych is preceded by terrible, dark clouds that cover the red sun and deprive the whole world of heat and light. From this "heavenly mountain" fiery lightnings fly out.

There is no wind - the clouds have caused,

There are no clouds, only rain.

There is no rain - sparks are pouring:

Thunder rumbles, let lightning whistle!

The Serpent is flying - Gorynchische.

About the twelve serpent trunks

And he roars in such a loud voice that the forests tremble, beats his tail on the damp earth - the rivers overflow their banks. He has three, six, nine, or even twelve heads. This portrait description of the monster reflects the idea of ​​our ancestors about the destructive power of the elements. The deification of the elements and natural phenomena is characteristic of the pagan faith. Later, under the Serpent Gorynych, they began to mean "enemy force" - devastating raids of enemies. No wonder the Russian heroes oppose him.

Basilisk.

Tradition says that this monster is born from a chicken egg incubated by a toad. Whoever it looks at turns into stone. But his gaze is mortally dangerous for himself. This monster lives in the crevices of rocks and guards countless treasures.

The name of this fantastic monster is Basilisk. Sometimes he is depicted as a rooster with the head of a turkey, the eyes of a toad, the wings of a bat, and the tail of a snake. Dealing with this creature is very difficult. It is not afraid of either water or fire, does not need food, it is enough for it to lick a stone to satisfy its hunger. The only thing it fears is a live rooster. A basilisk can die when it sees it or hears a rooster crow.

Bayan is a legendary songwriter, a gray-haired blind old man who plays the harp. He sings about the glory of the Russian land, about gods, heroes and princes. According to legend, Bayan is of divine origin. He is also called the "Veles grandson." He understood the voices of birds and animals and translated them into human language.

It was believed that the strings of his harp were alive, and his fingers were prophetic. In Russian epics we meet him sitting among Russian soldiers. Blind, he sees and hears what is not given to mere mortals. The Tale of Igor's Host says this about Bayan:

It wasn't ten falcons flying up.

And Bayan put his fingers on the strings,

And the living strings rumbled

Glory to those who did not seek praise.

Sirin is a strange and beautiful creature from the underworld. Half woman, half bird of incomparable beauty, messenger of the ruler of the underworld. She has a dark power and a voice of extraordinary beauty. Anyone who hears her wondrous voice will forget about everything in the world and fall into an eternal, deep sleep. The name of this bird is Sirin. According to ancient legend, this half-maiden - half-bird lives near Paradise. She seeks out ships sailing on the sea and, with a sweet song, plunges the sailors into deep sleep.

The bird Sirin has "sisters" in Greek mythology. These are the sirens who confused the Argonauts with their songs.

Princess Swan.

The swan princess (swan maiden) is one of the brightest images in Russian fairy tales. In Slavic mythology - the daughter of the ocean-sea. The swan princess has a great mind and rare wisdom, she can work miracles. She appears either in the form of a white swan or a beautiful maiden, and helps people with her magic and wise advice.

IV. Conclusions.

By reading books and asking adults, I learned a lot of interesting things about household spirits. I think that it will also be interesting for my friends when they get acquainted with my presentation and this work.

I think that the material I have collected can be used in the lessons when it comes to the beliefs of the Ancient Slavs.

When selecting material on this topic, I found references to other household spirits. Unfortunately, there was little material about them, and I did not include them in my work. In the future I want to learn more about them, and if possible, then tell about them in the next work.

Anatoly

From the books and stories I read, adults, I learned that our ancestors were distinguished by a deeply poetic attitude to the world around them, to nature. And also from the materials I collected, I learned a lot of interesting things about the spirits of the forest and the river. I think that it will be interesting for other guys when they get acquainted with my presentation.

The material collected by me can be used in the lessons, history in the study of customs and beliefs, the ancient Slavs.

When selecting material on this topic, I learned that the pagan mythology of the Slavs was reflected in the works of the classics of Russian literature and art. From Russian folklore, from the depths of folk life, mythological images passed into the works of Russian writers and poets, artists and composers. I wanted to learn more about this and, if possible, make my next presentation based on this.

➢ When compiling a presentation, we have learned to use the following techniques and effects:

Choose the desired font, changing its shape, size and color;

Use animation effects and add an effect to a slide;

Use the program for setting up animation;

Insert music from a disk and from a file;

Insert pictures and photos from the scanner, from the disk and from the file;

Compose picture content using a hyperlink;

Change the background of a slide.

Peoples about the world, expressed in religious beliefs, rituals and cults. It is closely connected with paganism and cannot be considered separately from it.

Slavic myths (summary and main characters) are the focus of this article. Consider the time of their occurrence, similarity with ancient legends and tales of other peoples, sources of study and the pantheon of deities.

The formation of Slavic mythology and its connection with the religious beliefs of other peoples

The myths of the peoples of the world (Slavic myths, ancient Greek and ancient Indian) have much in common. This suggests that they have a common beginning. Links their common origin from the Proto-Indo-European religion.

Slavic mythology was formed as a separate layer of the Indo-European religion over a long period - from the 2nd millennium BC. e.

The main features of Slavic paganism, reflected in mythology, are the cult of ancestors, belief in supernatural forces and lower spirits, and the spiritualization of nature.

Ancient Slavic myths are strikingly similar to the legends of the Baltic peoples, Indian, Greek and Scandinavian mythology. In all the myths of these ancient tribes, there was a god of thunder: the Slavic Perun, the Hittite Pirva and the Baltic Perkunas.

All these peoples have the main myth - this is the confrontation of the supreme deity with his main opponent, the Serpent. The similarity can also be traced in the belief in the afterlife, which is separated from the world of the living by some kind of barrier: an abyss or a river.

Slavic myths and legends, like the legends of other Indo-European peoples, also tell about heroes fighting a snake.

Sources of information on the legends and myths of the Slavic peoples

Unlike Greek or Scandinavian mythology, the Slavs did not have their own Homer, who would take up the literary processing of ancient legends about the gods. Therefore, now we know very little about the process of formation of the mythology of the Slavic tribes.

The sources of written knowledge are the texts of Byzantine, Arabic and Western European authors of the period of the 6th - 13th centuries, Scandinavian sagas, ancient Russian chronicles, apocrypha, teachings. In a special place is the "Word of Igor's Campaign", which contains a lot of information about Slavic mythology. Unfortunately, all these sources are only a retelling of the authors, and they do not mention the legends in their entirety.

Slavic myths and legends are also preserved in folklore sources: epics, fairy tales, legends, incantations, proverbs.

The most reliable sources on the mythology of the ancient Slavs are archaeological finds. These include idols of gods, cult and ritual places, inscriptions, signs and decorations.

Classification of Slavic mythology

Gods should be distinguished:

1) Eastern Slavs.

2) Western Slavic tribes.

There are also common Slavic gods.

The idea of ​​the world and the Universe of the ancient Slavs

Due to the lack of written sources, almost nothing is known about the beliefs and ideas about the world of the Slavic tribes. Fragile information can be gleaned from archaeological sources. The most obvious of them is the Zbruch idol, found in the Ternopil region of Ukraine in the middle of the 19th century. It is a four-sided limestone pillar divided into three tiers. The lower one contains images of the underworld and the deities inhabiting it. The middle one is dedicated to the world of people, and the upper tier depicts the supreme gods.

Information about how the ancient Slavic tribes represented the world around them can be found in ancient Russian literature, in particular, in the Tale of Igor's Campaign. Here, in some passages, a connection with the World Tree is clearly traced, myths about which exist among many Indo-European peoples.

On the basis of the listed sources, the following picture is obtained: the ancient Slavs believed that there was an island (possibly Buyan) in the center of the oceans. Here, in the very center of the world, either the sacred stone Alatyr lies, which has healing properties, or the World Tree grows (almost always in myths and legends it is an oak). The Gagana bird sits on its branches, and under it is the snake Garafen.

Myths of the peoples of the world: Slavic myths (the creation of the Earth, the appearance of man)

The creation of the world among the ancient Slavs was associated with such a god as Rod. He is the creator of everything in the world. He separated the obvious world in which people live (Yav) from the invisible world (Nav). Rod is considered the supreme deity of the Slavs, the patron of fertility, the creator of life.

Slavic myths (the creation of the Earth and the appearance of man) tell about the creation of all things: the creator god Rod, together with his sons Belbog and Chernobog, decided to create this world. First, Rod from the ocean of chaos created three hypostases of the world: Yav, Nav and Rule. Then the Sun appeared from the face of the supreme deity, the moon appeared from the chest, and the eyes became stars. After the creation of the world, Rod remained in Prav - the dwelling place of the gods, where he leads his children and distributes responsibilities between them.

pantheon of deities

Slavic gods (myths and legends about which have been preserved in very small numbers) are quite extensive. Unfortunately, due to the extremely scarce information, it is difficult to restore the functions of many Slavic deities. The mythology of the ancient Slavs was not known until they reached the borders of the Byzantine Empire. Thanks to the records of the historian Procopius of Caesarea, it was possible to find out some details of the religious beliefs of the Slavic peoples. The Laurentian Chronicle mentions gods from the Vladimir pantheon. Having ascended the throne, Prince Vladimir ordered to place idols of the six most important gods near his residence.

Perun

The god of thunder is considered one of the main deities of the Slavic tribes. He was the patron of the prince and his squad. Among other nations, it is known as Zeus, Thor, Perkunas. First mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years. Even then, Perun headed the pantheon of Slavic gods. They sacrificed to him, slaughtering a bull, and oaths and agreements were secured in the name of God.

The god of thunder was associated with heights, so his idols were set on the hills. The sacred tree of Perun was the oak.

After the adoption of Christianity in Rus', some of the functions of Perun passed to Gregory the Victorious and Elijah the Prophet.

solar deities

The god of the sun in Slavic myths was in second place in importance after Perun. Horse, that's what they called him. The etymology of the name is still unclear. According to the most common theory, it comes from the Iranian languages. But this version is very vulnerable, since it is difficult to explain how this word became the name of one of the main Slavic deities. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions Khors as one of the gods of the Vladimir pantheon. There is information about him in other ancient Russian texts.

Khors, the god of the sun in Slavic myths, is often mentioned along with other deities related to the heavenly body. This is Dazhbog - one of the main Slavic gods, the personification of sunlight, and Yarilo.

Dazhbog was also a deity of fertility. The etymology of the name does not cause difficulty - "the god who gives welfare", such is his approximate translation. He played a double function in the mythology of the ancient Slavs. As the personification of sunlight and warmth, he gave fertility to the soil and at the same time was a source of royal power. Dazhbog is considered the son of Svarog, the blacksmith god.

Yarilo - a lot of ambiguities are connected with this character of Slavic mythology. Until now, it has not been precisely established whether it should be considered a deity, or whether it is a personification of one of the holidays of the ancient Slavs. Some researchers consider Yarilo a deity of spring light, warmth and fertility, others - a ritual character. He was represented as a young man on a white horse and in a snow-white robe. On her hair is a wreath of spring flowers. In the hands of the deity of spring light holds ears of cereal. Where he appears, there will certainly be a good harvest. Yarilo also engendered love in the heart of the one he looked at.

Researchers agree on one thing - this character of Slavic mythology cannot be called the god of the sun. Ostrovsky's play "The Snow Maiden" fundamentally misinterprets the image of Yarilo as a solar deity. In this case, Russian classical literature plays the role of harmful propaganda.

Mokosh (Makosh)

There are very few female deities in Slavic mythology. Of the main ones, only such as Mother - Cheese Earth and Mokosh can be named. The latter is mentioned among other idols installed by order of Prince Vladimir in Kyiv, which indicates the importance of this female deity.

Mokosh was the goddess of weaving and spinning. She was also revered as the patroness of crafts. Her name is associated with two words "wet" and "spinning". The day of Mokosh's week was Friday. On this day, it was strictly forbidden to engage in weaving and spinning. As a sacrifice, Mokosh was presented with yarn, throwing it into the well. The goddess was represented as a long-armed woman spinning at night in houses.

Some researchers suggest that Mokosh was the wife of Perun, so she was given a place of honor among the main Slavic gods. The name of this female deity is mentioned in many ancient texts.

After the adoption of Christianity in Rus', part of the features and functions of Mokosh passed to St. Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa.

Stribog

Mentioned in the Vladimir pantheon as one of the main gods, but its function is not entirely clear. Perhaps he was the god of the winds. In ancient texts, his name is often mentioned together with Dazhbog. It is not known whether there were holidays dedicated to Stribog, since there is very little information about this deity.

Volos (Veles)

Researchers tend to believe that these are still two different characters of myths. Volos is the patron saint of domestic animals and the god of prosperity. In addition, he is the god of wisdom, the patron of poets and storytellers. It is not for nothing that Boyan from The Tale of Igor's Campaign is called Veles' grandson in the poem. A few uncompressed stalks of cereals were left on the field as a gift to him. After the adoption of Christianity by the Slavic peoples, the functions of Volos were taken over by two saints: Nicholas the Wonderworker and Blasius.

As for Veles, this is one of the demons, the evil spirit that Perun fought.

Slavic mythical creatures - forest dwellers

Several characters were associated with the forest among the ancient Slavs. The main ones were water and goblin. With the advent of Christianity in Rus', they began to attribute exclusively negative features, making them demonic creatures.

Leshy is the owner of the forest. They also called him a forester and a forest spirit. He carefully guards the forest and its inhabitants. Relations with a good person are neutral - the goblin does not touch him, and can even come to the rescue - take him out of the forest if he gets lost. Negative attitude towards bad people. Their forest master punishes: makes them stray and can tickle to death.

Before people, the goblin appears in different guises: human, vegetable, animal. The ancient Slavs had an ambivalent attitude towards him - the goblin was revered and feared at the same time. It was believed that shepherds and hunters needed to make a deal with him, otherwise the goblin could steal cattle or even a person.

Water - a spirit that lives in reservoirs. He was represented as an old man with a fish tail, beard and mustache. It can take the form of a fish, a bird, pretend to be a log or a drowned man. Especially dangerous during big holidays. Vodyanoy likes to settle in whirlpools, under mills and sluices, in polynyas. He has herds of fish. It is hostile to a person, always trying to drag under the water the one who came to swim at an inopportune time (noon, midnight and after sunset). The favorite fish of the merman is catfish, on which he rides like a horse.

There were other, lower beings, such as the forest spirit. In Slavic myths, he was called Auka. He never sleeps. He lives in a hut in the very thicket of the forest, where there is always a supply of melt water. A special expanse for Auka comes in winter, when the wood goblin falls asleep. The forest spirit is hostile to humans - it will try to lead a random traveler into a windbreak or make him circle until he gets tired.

Bereginya - this mythical female character has an unclear function. According to the most common version, this is a forest deity that protects trees and plants. But also the ancient Slavs considered the shores to be mermaids. Their sacred tree is a birch, which was very revered by the people.

Borovik is another forest spirit in Slavic mythology. Outwardly, it looks like a huge bear. It can be distinguished from a real animal by the absence of a tail. Under him are boletus mushrooms - the owners of mushrooms, similar to little old men.

Kikimora marsh is another colorful character in Slavic mythology. He does not like people, but he will not touch them as long as the travelers are quiet in the forest. If they are noisy and harm plants or animals, a kikimora can make them stray through the swamp. Very secretive, very rarely seen.

Bolotnik - a mistake would be to confuse it with a water one. The swamp among the ancient Slavs has always been considered a place where evil spirits live. The swamp was represented as a terrible creature. This is either a motionless eyeless fat man, covered with a layer of algae, silt, snails, or a tall man with long arms, overgrown with dirty gray hair. He cannot change his appearance. Represents a great danger to a person or animal caught in a swamp. He grabs the victim, stuck in the quagmire, by the legs and drags him to the bottom. There is only one way to destroy the swamp - by draining its swamp.

Slavic myths for children - briefly about the most interesting

Acquaintance with samples of ancient Russian literature, oral legends and myths is of great importance for the comprehensive development of children. Both adults and the smallest need to know about their past. Slavic myths (grade 5) will introduce schoolchildren to the pantheon of the main gods and the most famous legends. The reading book on literature includes an interesting retelling of A.N. Tolstoy about Kikimor, there is information about the main characters in the mythology of the ancient Slavs, and an idea is given of such a concept as a “temple”.

If desired, parents can introduce the child to the pantheon of Slavic gods and other mythological creatures at an earlier age. It is advisable to choose positive characters, and not tell young children about such frightening creatures as navy, sinister, werewolves.

To get acquainted with the characters of Slavic mythology, you can recommend the book by Alexander Asov "Myths of the Slavs for children and their parents." It will be of interest to both the younger generation and the older. Svetlana Lavrova is another good author who wrote the book Slavic Tales.

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, the “share” and its antipode were not the “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 the 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 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: speak And think, speak And do; do, sing And enchant; speak And judge, judge; speak And sing; speak 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 memory 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 rituals 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 number of testimonies. 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 lines.

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 .

In his work "War with the Goths" (553), he wrote that the Slavs are people of "tremendous strength" and "high stature". He noted that they revere nymphs and rivers, as well as "all sorts of deities." The Slavs make sacrifices to all of them and "do divination" with the help of these victims.

Where are the ideas of the Slavs about the world reflected?

One of the first to tell about our ancestors was the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea. He left us the rarest and priceless information about the Slavs. During the creation of the work "War with the Goths" they barely entered the world stage. At that time, the Slavs still lived as a separate culture, which was far from the culture of antiquity. Our ancestors will touch its achievements much later. This will happen after the adoption of Christianity by our country.

A slightly different version is put forward by other myths of Ancient Rus'. Its summary is as follows. When Svarog created (welded) the earth, he found this magic stone. Alatyr grew up after the god cast a magic spell. Svarog foamed the ocean with it. Moisture, having thickened, became the first dry land. The gods were born from sparks when Svarog hit Alatyr with a magic hammer. The location of this stone in Russian folklore is inextricably linked with the island of Buyan, which was located in the "okiyane-sea". Alatyr is mentioned in incantations, epics and Russian folk tales.

Currant River

Kalinov bridge and are often mentioned in conspiracies and fairy tales. However, in them this river is most often called simply Smolyanaya or Fiery. This matches the descriptions presented in fairy tales. Sometimes, especially often in epics, Currants are called Puchay River. Probably, it began to be called so due to the fact that its boiling surface swells, boils, bubbles.

Currant in the mythology of the ancient Slavs is a river that separates two worlds from each other: the living and the dead. The human soul needs to overcome this barrier on the way to the “other world”. The river did not get its name from the berry bush known to us. In the Old Russian language there was the word "currant", used in the 11-17 centuries. It means stench, stench, a sharp and strong smell. Later, when the meaning of the name of this river was forgotten, the distorted name "Smorodina" appeared in fairy tales.

Penetration of the ideas of Christianity

The ideas of Christianity began to penetrate our ancestors from the 9th century. Having visited Byzantium, Princess Olga was baptized there. Prince Svyatoslav, her son, buried his mother already in accordance with the customs of Christianity, but he himself was a pagan and remained an adherent of the ancient gods. As you know, it was established by Prince Vladimir, his son. This happened in 988. After that, the struggle began with the ancient Slavic mythological ideas.

Map of the Slavic lands
Territory of the Slavs

Unlike ancient mythology, well known from fiction and works of art, as well as the mythologies of the countries of the East, the texts of the myths of the Slavs have not reached our time, because at that distant time when myths were created, they did not yet know writing.

In the 5th - 7th centuries after the Great Migration of Peoples, the Slavs occupied the territories of Central and Eastern Europe from the Elbe (Laba) to the Dnieper and Volga, from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea to the north of the Balkan Peninsula. Centuries passed, and the Slavs became more and more separated from each other, forming three modern branches of the most numerous family of kindred peoples in Europe. Eastern Slavs are Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians; western - Poles, Slovaks and Czechs (the Baltic Slavs were assimilated by German neighbors in the 12th century); southern - Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians. Despite the division of the Slavs, their mythologies still retain many common features.

So, all Slavs know the myth about the duel of the thunder god with his demonic opponent and about the victory of the thunderer; all Slavic traditions are familiar with the ancient custom at the end of winter to burn a scarecrow - the embodiment of gloomy evil forces or to bury a mythical creature like Shrovetide and Yarila among Russians and Belarusians and Herman among Bulgarians.

Slavic mythology and the religion of the Slavs was composed of the deification of the forces of nature and the cult of ancestors. The only supreme god, the "creator of lightning", which was Indra among the Hindus, Zeus among the Greeks, Jupiter among the Romans, Thor among the Germans, Perkunas among the Lithuanians - among the Slavs was Perun. The concept of the thunder god merged among the Slavs with the concept of the sky in general (namely, the moving, cloudy sky), the personification of which some scientists see in Svarog. Other higher gods were considered the sons of Svarog - Svarozhichs; such gods were the sun and fire.

The sun was deified under the name Dazhdbog, and Khorsa. Brother of Svarog, the most mysterious god and guardian of the herds Veles was also originally a sun god. All these names of the highest god are very ancient and were used everyone Slavs. Common Slavic ideas about the highest god received further development from individual Slavic tribes, new, more definite and more bizarre forms.

So, among the Western Slavs, the highest god was considered Svyatovit, and it corresponded Triglav- a three-headed idol, which was worshiped in Szczetin (Stettin) and Wolin. In the city of Retre, the same supreme god, the son of Svarog, was called Radegosta, and in Czech and Polish legends he appears under the name Croca or Krak.

Already ancient writers assumed that the name of Svyatovit appeared as a result of mixing the pagan god with the Christian Saint Vitus; the name Radegosta was also supposed to have been transferred to the god from the name of the city, and the city received this name from one of its princes. Krak, according to Cosmas of Prague, was a wise and just judge and ruler of the people. Whatever these conjectures, it is certain that all the listed names meant the same supreme god and that they all appeared later.

The vague testimonies of the Slavic gods that have come down to us, which are explained in folk tales and songs, come down to the struggle of light and dark forces of nature, fertility with barrenness, summer with winter, light with darkness, life with death, Belbog with Chernobog. These ideas were intertwined with views on the afterlife and the cult of ancestors. The souls of the dead lived in some distant country at the end of the world, where the sun sets; This country was called among the Slavs navyem, vyryem, iriem, paradise, hell. It is necessary to equip the deceased to this country, as to a long journey, which is achieved by proper burial.

Before the funeral ceremony, the soul wanders on earth; among the southern Slavs, the soul in this state is called vidogone. The soul is doomed to eternal wandering on earth if the correct rite has not been performed; so, the souls of girls or children drowned in water become mermaids, mavkami, pitchfork. To make it easier for the deceased to travel to the kingdom of the dead, the Slavs resorted to burning: the fire of the funeral pyre instantly separated the soul from the body and sent it to heavenly dwellings.

Dobrynya Nikitich fight
with Zmey Gorynych

In the cult fire of the funeral pyre, P. N. Milyukov sees a connection between two independently emerged systems of religious ideas: the deification of the forces of nature and the cult of ancestors. On the one hand, fire was a manifestation on earth of the heavenly solar god, a messenger of the heavenly gods; on the other hand, he contributed to the purification of the soul of the deceased and thus he himself turned into a symbol of the soul of the ancestor, which, under the name Kinda, Chura,brownie became a household deity, guardian of the family and clan. On the hearth, both of these meanings of fire merged into one inseparable whole; on it, the elemental heavenly god and the tribal deity of the family community were equally honored.

This dual meaning of fire finds the most striking confirmation in the belief of the Western Slavs about a domestic creature (its Czech name is Křet, Slovak Skrat), which, under the guise of a fiery serpent, flies through a pipe and brings to the owner any bread and other fruits of the earth, and sometimes various treasures. In the Tula province, there is a belief that from the day of Epiphany (winter solstice) a fiery serpent (sun) appears, visiting red girls (earth). By the time Christianity began to spread among the Slavs, Slavic mythology had not yet created such clear ideas about the gods as, for example, the Greeks came to: the Slavic gods continued to merge with the elements that they personified, and did not yet have clear anthropomorphic features. In the same way, the cult of ancestors among the Slavs did not yet develop into such distinct, finished forms and did not have such strict legal consequences as among the Greeks and Romans.

The religious beliefs of the Slavs are reduced to those ancient layers of religious beliefs that constitute the common heritage of the peoples of the Aryan tribe: they developed before the beginning of the history of the Slavs as a separate tribal group and hardly moved further. Accordingly, they did not develop strict forms of worship, and there was no special priestly class. Only among the Baltic Slavs do we find a strong religious organization: idols for whom temples were erected, priests who performed divine services according to a certain order, with certain rites, who had a hierarchical structure and over time acquired the significance of a primordial caste. Other Slavic tribes had no public idols, no temples, no priests; representatives of tribal unions brought sacrifices to tribal and heavenly gods. 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, in which, according to the saga of Olaf Trygveson, he himself made sacrifices. But under the same Vladimir, Christianity was introduced into Russia, which put an end to the development of the Slavic cult, although for a long time it was still not able to supplant the remnants of pagan beliefs.

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. Kozma of Prague († 1125) tells: “and still among many of the villagers, as if between pagans, one honors springs or fires, another adores forests or trees or stones, another makes sacrifices to mountains or hills, another bows to idols, deaf and dumb which he made for himself, praying that they rule over his house and himself." By these idols, Kozma obviously means household gods, which the Czechs called scripts And nets, among Russians - brownies, etc .; the Czech brownie Křet was depicted among the Czechs in the form of small bronze statuettes, the size of a finger, which is why it was called Paleček (a boy with a finger).

The most interesting reflection of Slavic mythology is the coincidence of pagan beliefs with Christian holidays. Like other Aryan peoples, the Slavs imagined the whole cycle of the seasons as a continuous struggle and successive victory of the light and dark forces of nature. The starting point of this cycle was the onset of a new year - the birth of a new sun. The Slavs poured the pagan content of this holiday into the celebration of the Nativity of Christ, and the very celebration of Christmas time received a Greco-Roman name from them. carols.

The rites with which the pagan Slavs met the onset of spring and the summer solstice were also to a greater or lesser extent timed to coincide with Christian holidays: such are Rusalia, Semik, Kupalo. With the pagan nature of the holidays, the name of the holiday turned into the name of the deity in whose honor it was once celebrated. Thus, other Slavic gods appeared, such as Yarila, Kostroma, etc., the number of which probably increased due to the near accusatory zeal of Christian missionaries, who did not think about the general religious thought of the Slavs and saw a special god in every name.

The originality of Slavic mythology, which, like any other, reflected the worldview of its creators, lies in the fact that their life was directly connected with the world of lower spirits that live everywhere. Some of them were credited with intelligence, strength, benevolence, others - cunning, malice and deceit. The ancients believed that all these creatures - coastlines, pitchforks, watermen, field workers, etc., constantly interfere in their lives and accompany a person from the day they are born until their death.

The Slavs believed that good and evil spirits were with them, that they helped to harvest a bountiful harvest and brought illness, promised a happy family life, order in the house, and punished unseemly acts. The gods, who were relatively few and who controlled natural phenomena and elements - thunderstorms, fire, rain, were feared and revered by the Slavs, trying to propitiate with prayers and sacrifices. Since the actual Slavic texts and images of gods and spirits have not been preserved due to the fact that Christianization interrupted the pagan tradition, the main source of information is medieval chronicles, teachings against paganism, chronicles, archaeological excavations, folklore and ethnographic collections. Information about the gods of the Western Slavs is very scarce, for example, "History of Poland" by Jan Dlugosh (1415 - 1480), which gives a list of deities and their correspondences from Roman mythology: Nyya - Pluto, Devana - Venus, Marzhana - Ceres.

The Czech and Slovak data on the gods are considered by many scholars to be in need of critical scrutiny. Little is known about the mythology of the southern Slavs. Early falling into the sphere of influence of Byzantium and other powerful civilizations of the Mediterranean, having adopted Christianity before other Slavs, they largely lost information about the former composition of their pantheon. The most fully preserved mythology of the Eastern Slavs. We find early information about it in the "Tale of Bygone Years" (XII century), which reports that Prince Vladimir the Holy (? - 1015) sought to create a nationwide pagan pantheon. However, his adoption of Christianity in 988 led to the destruction of the idols of the so-called Vladimir pantheon (they were solemnly thrown into the Dnieper), as well as the prohibition of paganism and its rituals. The old gods began to be identified with Christian saints: the thunderer Perun turned into Saint Ilya, the god of wisdom Veles - into Saint Blaise, the solar god Yarilo - into Saint George. However, the mythological representations of our ancestors continue to live in folk traditions, holidays, beliefs and rituals, as well as in songs, fairy tales, incantations and signs. Ancient mythological characters like goblin, mermaids, mermen, brownies and devils are vividly imprinted in speech, proverbs and sayings.

Developing, Slavic mythology went through three stages - spirits, deities of nature and gods-idols (idols). The Slavs revered the gods of life and death (Zhiva and Moran), fertility and the vegetable kingdom, heavenly bodies and fire, sky and war; personified not only the sun or water, but also numerous house and forest spirits; worship and admiration was expressed in bringing them blood and bloodless sacrifices.
In the 19th century, Russian scientists began to study Russian myths, tales and legends, realizing their scientific value and the importance of preserving them for future generations. The works of F.I. Buslaeva, A.A. Potebni, I.P. Sakharov, such specific works as a three-volume study by A.N. Afanasiev "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature", "Myths of Slavic paganism" and "A brief outline of Russian mythology" D.O. Shepping, "Deities of the ancient Slavs" A.S. Famintsyn.

The mythological school was the first to emerge, based on the comparative historical method of study, the establishment of an organic connection between language, folk poetry and folk mythology, the principle of the collective nature of creativity. Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) is considered to be the founder of this school. “In the most ancient period of the language,” Buslaev says, “the word as an expression of legends and rituals, events and objects was understood in the closest connection with what it expresses: “the name imprinted a belief or event, and a legend or myth arose again from the name.” Special "epic ritualism" in the repetition of ordinary expressions led to the fact that what was once said about any subject seemed so successful that it no longer needed further modification. Language thus became a "faithful instrument of tradition. " A method originally associated with comparison languages, establishing common forms of words and raising them to the language of the Indo-European peoples, for the first time in the Russian spider, Buslaev was transferred to folklore and used to study the mythological traditions of the Slavs.

Poetic inspiration belonged to everyone and everyone, like a proverb, like a legal saying. The whole nation was a poet. Individuals, however, were not poets, but singers or storytellers, they only knew how to tell or sing more accurately and more skillfully what everyone knew. The power of tradition reigned supreme over the epic singer, not allowing him to stand out from the team. Not knowing the laws of nature, neither physical nor moral, epic poetry presented both in an indivisible totality, expressed in numerous similes and metaphors. The heroic epic is only a further development of the primitive mythological legend. The theogonic epic is replaced by the heroic at that stage in the development of epic poetry, when legends about the deeds of people began to join pure myth. At this time, the epic epic grows out of the myth, from which the fairy tale subsequently stood out. The people preserve their epic traditions not only in epics and fairy tales, but also in individual sayings, brief spells, proverbs, sayings, oaths, riddles, signs and superstitions.

These are the main provisions of Buslaev's mythological theory, which in the 60-70s of the 19th century gradually develops into a school of comparative mythology and the theory of borrowing. The theory of comparative mythology was developed by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasiev (1826-1871), Orest Fedorovich Miller (1833-1889) and Alexander Alexandrovich Kotlyarevsky (1837-1881). The focus of their attention was the problem of the origin of the myth in the very process of its creation. Most of the myths, according to this theory, go back to the ancient tribe of the Aryans. Standing out from this common great-tribe, the peoples spread its legends all over the world, therefore the legends of the "Pigeon Book" almost completely coincide with the songs of the Old Norse "Elder Edda" and the ancient myths of the Hindus. The comparative method, according to Afanasiev, "provides the means to restore the original form of legends." Epics are of particular importance for understanding Slavic mythology (this term was introduced by I.P. Sakharov; before that, epic songs were called oldies).

Russian heroic epics can be put on a par with heroic myths in other mythological systems, with the difference that the epics are largely historical, telling about the events of the 11th-16th centuries. Heroes of epics - Ilya Muromets, Volga, Mikula Selyaninovich, Vasily Buslaev and others are perceived not only as individuals related to a certain historical era, but, above all, as defenders, ancestors, namely epic heroes. Hence - their unity with nature and magical power, their invincibility (there are practically no epics about the death of heroes or about the battles they played). Initially existing in the oral version, as the work of singer-storytellers, epics, of course, have undergone considerable changes. There is reason to believe that they once existed in a more mythologized form.
Slavic mythology is characterized by the fact that it is comprehensive and does not represent a separate area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe popular 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.