Slavic Gods: who did the ancient Slavs turn to for help? Bestiary. Creatures of Slavic mythology

The history and mythology of the ancient Slavs is surprisingly rich and diverse. Many legends, fairy tales and myths have survived to this day, the heroes of which were amazing creatures, according to legend, who inhabited the territory of Ancient Rus'. Some helped the main characters in the fight against evil, while others personified this very evil, some had amazingly powerful powers, while others were simple companions who did not possess any special magic. In general, these creatures are very unusual and diverse, and, most importantly, they give the Slavic legends a special Russian atmosphere and originality. Let's talk in more detail about some of these creatures.

Slavic Gods of mythology

We should start with the most powerful beings, namely the Gods.

The most ancient pagan Deity was considered to be God Rod - the progenitor of all other deities, whom all pagan peoples worshiped. The remaining Gods were divided into two groups: the Gods of the sun (its four hypostases) and the functional Gods (personifying the forces of nature). The Slavs divided the year into four times, four solar hypostases, and assigned each their own Sun God: Khors (from late December to March), Yarilo (from late March to June, the summer solstice), Dazhdbog (from mid-summer to the end of September) and Svarog (late September until the winter solstice). The pantheon of functional Gods was headed by Perun, the god of thunder and war; the image of the sacred heavenly fire was personified by Semargl, the God of Death. Veles was considered the God of the house and livestock, and Stribog was considered the God of the wind. The main Goddess was considered Mokosh - the goddess of the harvest, the fruits of human labor. In addition to these Gods, the Slavic pantheon includes many less significant and powerful deities.

Perfume among the Slavs

The Slavs, like all ancient peoples, believed in a large number of spirits and patrons; they worshiped them, cajoled them, or, on the contrary, scared them away.

The Slavs divided perfumes into three groups, the first of which were the so-called atmospheric perfumes:

• Whirlwind (a dangerous wind caused by evil spirits), Frost and the Fire Serpent, which could take the form of dead people.
• The second group included household spirits who protected people’s lives and helped in the household, or vice versa, who tried to harm the residents: Domovoy (the patron of the house, he was very revered and respected), Kikimora (a female creature that harms people and brings troubles), Stopan (the main spirit hearth among the southern Slavs), Korgorushi (little helpers of brownies).
• The third largest group includes spirits of place, that is, those who live in the same territory and protect it. This is Bannik, who lives in the bathhouse (usually invisible, but can take the form of an old man with a long gray beard), Bolotnik - a resident and guardian of swamps, Vodyanoy - the owner of waters, rivers, lakes, personifying water as an evil spirit. They also include Dvorovoy, the patron of livestock who lived in the barn, Leshiy, the powerful owner of the forests, and Polevik, the patron of fields and meadows.

Evil spirits and lower spirits

Evil spirits, or undead, according to the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, inhabited all corners of nature: water, forests, fields and even homes. As a rule, evil spirits personified an evil, dark force, so they were afraid of it, tried to protect their home from it, and even performed special rituals and rituals.

Mortgaged dead are the souls of people who did not die a natural death (or were not baptized) and wander the earth in search of peace. Mermaids in different areas were represented in completely different ways: in some places they were also considered evil spirits, frightening and harming people, and in others they were considered nymphs protecting lakes and rivers. Mavkas are the evil spirits of the southern Slavs, who became dead babies and unbaptized children. A ghoul is a dead person who rises from the grave at night and drinks the blood of people and livestock. Baba Yaga is a famous female character who lives in the forest, in a hut and can cast magic.

The Slavic epic contains a large number of UNDEAD - everything that does not live as a person, that lives without a soul, but in the form of a person.

Undead- a special category of spirits, these are not aliens from the other world, not the dead, not ghosts, not trouble and not devilry, not the Devil, only the Vodyanoy forms some kind of transition to evil spirits and is often called both the jester and Satan. The undead do not live or die. The medicine man knows the Undead. There is a belief that the undead do not have their own appearance, they walk around in disguises. All Undead are dumb.

Perfume- the guardians of the ancient Slavs were called BEREGINI. They protected the house, the well-being of various places and types of nature. The word "Bereginya" comes from the concepts of protecting, helping a wandering, sailing, or distressed person - to get to the shore.

Auca
THIS IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST, which, unlike other undead, does not sleep either in winter or in summer. Auka himself is small, pot-bellied, with puffy cheeks. He lives in a hut caulked with golden moss, the water comes from melted ice all year round, and the broom is a bear's paw. In winter he has special freedom when the goblin sleeps! He loves to fool a person in a winter forest, responding from all sides at once. It will lead you into the wilderness or into a windfall. He instills hope for salvation, and he himself leads until the person gets tired and falls asleep in a sweet frosty sleep, forgetting about everything.

Borovichki- little old men, an inch or two, masters of mushrooms - milk mushrooms, saffron milk caps; they live under them.

BOWNIE- in East Slavic mythology, a demonological character, the spirit of the house. He presented himself in the form of a man, often with the same face as the owner of the house, or as a small old man with a face overgrown with white hair, and the like. Closely connected with ideas about beneficent ancestors and well-being in the home.
The health of the livestock depended on his attitude, benevolent or hostile. Some rituals related to DOMOVOY could previously have been associated with the “cattle god” Veles, and with the disappearance of his cult they were transferred to DOMOVOY. An indirect argument in favor of this assumption is the belief that a married woman who “exposed her hair” (showed her hair to a stranger) aroused the wrath of the DOMOVOY - cf. Data on the connection between Veles (Hair) and beliefs about hair.
When moving to a new house, a special ritual had to be performed in order to persuade the DOMOVOY to move with the owners, who were otherwise in danger of trouble. There were two types of HOUSEHOLDS - the domozhil (cf. the mention of the demon hoarder in the medieval “Word of St. Basil”), who lived in the house, usually in the corner behind the stove, where it was necessary to throw garbage so that the “DOMOVOY would not die out” (also called the domozhil, well-wisher, breadwinner, neighbor, owner, grandfather), and a servant, who often tortured animals (DOMOVOY in general often became close to evil spirits). According to legends, D. could turn into a cat, dog, cow, and sometimes into a snake, rat or frog. According to Belarusian. According to legends, the BORMAN appears from an egg laid by a rooster, which must be carried under the armpit on the left side for six months: then the baby snake hatches - the BORMAN (cf. Fire Serpent, Basilisk). People who died without communion could become HOUSEHOLDERS. Sacrifices to the Brownie (some food, etc.) were brought to the barn where he could live.
Sometimes it was believed that DOMOVOY had a family - a wife (housewife, housewife, big woman) and children. By analogy with the names of the female spirit of the house (marukha, kikimora), it is assumed that the oldest name of the house spirit could be Mara. Similar beliefs about house spirits existed among the Western Slavs and many other peoples.

Communication practice: The brownie itself is not a sociable creature, but there are many known cases when He was the first to speak to a person. His voice is not very intelligible - quiet and rustling - but you can make out some words. Brownies most often speak at night, when they want to predict something to their owners. Hear the voice - don't be afraid. If you get scared, the brownie will be offended and will never speak to you again. It’s better to pull yourself together and ask him about everything in detail. There are many rules and conventions for communicating with brownies. Eg:

The brownie cries - expect trouble, laughs - fortunately;

It happens that in the middle of the night a brownie will lay a hand on a sleeping person’s chest or begin to choke him, so that he cannot breathe. There is nothing to be afraid of - a brownie will never strangle you to death. And when you wake up from a heaviness in your chest, you should ask: “For worse or for better?” If it's good, the brownie will stroke it with his palm. If worse comes to worst, he will hit you, pinch you, or pull your hair. True, there were cases when he answered directly;

The brownie senses the approach of damage in advance. If, for example, an unkind person with dark thoughts comes to visit you, bringing with him a heap of blackness and envy, then the brownie begins to worry. If the owner of the apartment does not hear the whispers of the brownie, then the latter will do anything to attract attention. An unkind guest may have a mug escape from his hands and break, spilling something on the tablecloth. Sometimes the dishes break at the hands of the owner - this is also a warning;

To make friends with a brownie, it is customary to give him a treat: on the first day of every month, in a place inaccessible to your pets, ideally - under a radiator or on the refrigerator, away from human eyes, a plate with a treat is placed. Brownie porridge is removed the next day and often fed to street animals, and sweets are kept until the next first day. It is also customary to treat well-wishers with wine (do not offer vodka) and a loaf of bread every time at family holidays. At the same time, you must say: “Master-father, sir brownie, love me and perhaps accept my treat.” Everyone clinks glasses with a glass of brownie;

If a brownie begins to play pranks without a purpose, he must be reprimanded: “Such an old man is the one who plays pranks. Ay-yay-yay!”;

If the brownie dislikes your cat or dog, then be sure that your pet will not last long in the house - the brownie will be harassed by the indecent animal;

Please note that sometimes your furry pet suddenly falls over on her back and starts waving her paws in the air. It is the brownie who tickles her. Sometimes a cat, while licking itself, will perk up and stare into emptiness, and looks as if following someone with its gaze. This invisible traveler is the brownie;

He helps find missing things. To do this, you just need to ask him about it: “Master-father, help, tell me where this and that lies...”. Or: stand in the corner of the room and turn to the brownie: “Brownie, brownie, play and give it back.” Search each room separately;

Brownies do not go into the bathroom at all. And in rural areas, completely different creatures live in bathhouses - banniki. Due to constant communication with blackness, banniks become evil and dangerous. You sit in the bathhouse a little longer than necessary, and instead of pleasant freshness you feel empty and powerless;

Old beads, jewelry, shiny buttons, old coins. Put all this in a beautiful box without a lid and tell the brownie that this is a gift for him, and put it in a secret place. No one should touch the box or its contents. The box can be sewn from postcards, glued together, or taken ready-made and decorated with all sorts of shiny pieces of paper and rain. Give your homeboy some money. Usually this is five kopecks in one coin. It is placed in a hard-to-reach place in the house, often left between cracks in the floor. At this time they say: “Grandfather brownie! Here’s money for boots and seeds. I give it from my heart, I give it to you!”;

When they built a new house, they always put a coin in the underground floor, or even four (in the corners) for the brownie;

When leaving your old apartment, say on the threshold: “My master, come with me!” or at night the owner must invite him, giving him a treat - a loaf of bread with salt and a cup of milk. They say: “Father, my master, my good brownie. I will give you new mansions, bright chambers. Come with me, without you there will be no happiness.” The brownie is carried in a bag, into which he is politely asked to climb. The material embodiment of the brownie becomes a coal or an awl, which should be put in a bag. The brownie will not go with you without an invitation. And he will remain lonely and abandoned. And with your home, your well-being in your new place is guaranteed. In real life, he can appear in the form of a cat, so when moving to a new place of residence, this animal is the first to be let in, saying: “Here, master, is a shaggy animal for a rich home.” If there is a stove in the house, you should bow to it 9 times, then bring the cat to the stove with the words: “Here is a shaggy animal for you, master, for a rich home.” Then make a pie. Knead the dough: 800 g flour, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, 200 g butter, 2 pinches of salt. Bake a loaf of bread. Do not touch the product for three days. After the specified period, in the evening, set the table for the whole family, put out an extra cutlery and a glass. The eldest in the house pours wine and cuts a loaf of bread. He divides one half among everyone, and places the second along with a glass on the table with the words: “Father brownie, love me, protect and take care of my property, accept my treat and drink from a full cup of wine.” If after 24 hours the wine is drunk, then top it up again, saying the same words; if not, then ask the brownie 9 times in your own words to accept the treat. Perform the ritual every first day of the month;

It is very important to greet and say goodbye to the brownie, respectfully calling him “master.” Sometimes the brownie may even reveal his name to you - a sign of boundless trust on his part;

Method of reconciliation with the brownie: bread and salt are placed on the place you have chosen for the brownie and a cup of milk is placed with the words: “Neighbour-homebody, the slave is coming to you, carrying his head low; do not torment him in vain, but make friends with him, make friends with him.” friendship with them, and do an easy service. Here's a warm place for you and a small treat." After a day, remove the treat;

If you, having bought a house in a new building, moved there from your parents (or in other cases when it is not possible to take the brownie with you), you can attract the brownie in the following way: at midnight (if you wear a cross, hang it on your back) put a glass on the table milk and a loaf of bread and say three times: “My master, come to my home, be always with me, here is your home. Breadwinner-father, come to my new house to eat bread here, wash it down with milk, and we will not know sadness and grief “Leave the treat on the table for 3 days, and then, as a sign of love and respect, finish the bread and drink the milk left on the table. A completely natural question - does a brownie live with you - you can easily resolve by paying attention to how subtly the situation in the house has changed, how light and cozy it has become, how the melancholy gradually passes. After that, thank him by giving him a treat. There is another way: on the new moon, when you start having dinner, put two saucers with a treat - pour a little milk into one and place it under the stove or near the oven with the words: “Take a bite, drink, grandpa, as much as you want, and live with me.” ". In the second saucer, put a little of what you have on the table. When you start placing it, you need to say: “Have a bite, grandpa, as much as you want, and live with me.” if you speak sincerely, then the brownie will certainly appear and drive out all kinds of evil spirits and remain with you;

Domovoy also has special holidays. One of them is February 7, the day of Ephraim the Syrian, “the brownie’s name day,” when the brownie was “fed,” they left him food (porridge on the rack) with a request to take care of the livestock. On April 12, the day of John Climacus, the brownie celebrated the onset of spring. According to the peasants, on this day he was furious, shed his skin, rolled under the owners’ feet, broke dishes, etc. The peasants of the Novgorod province believed that the brownie was furious even before Peter’s Day.

In the Tobolsk province they said that “in November, treat a brownie like your own: either cajole or drive out”; in some regions of Russia, the brownie was “pleased” on Michaelmas Day. On November 1 (the day of Kuzma and Demyan), the brownie was “chased with a broom and marked with a broom so that he would not ruin the yard and destroy the animals.”
<Ермолов, 1901>

Seeing a brownie in the image of a still living person means the death of this person, “this very phenomenon, they say, is from the other world” (Yarosl.). Brownie - the ancestor of the clan, doomed to become farm laborers living in the house and each time taking the form of the last deceased in the family (Tamb.)

Before the death of the owner, the brownie sits in his place and does his work
<Даль, 1880(1)>

In numerous stories, it becomes the cause or harbinger of inconvenience and trouble. He plays pranks, causes harm in the hut (stomps, screams, throws bricks, scatters dishes, etc.) or causes the owners to leave the house for no reason (in this case it is better to leave - Vol.); the brownie “loves to be willful” (Eagle). “If something is knocking in the attic at night, they think that the undead have been in the house. This also means that the brownie is kicking the tenant out of the house, that there is no more fat. When a lot of rats and mice appear in the house, the tenant will not get along for long in it. This also means that the creature unleashed by the brownie survives the residents" (Arch., Murm.)
<Ефименко, 1877>

If you can’t come to an agreement with the brownie, take a broom and, saying: “I’m sweeping you, stranger, harmful brownie, I’m driving you out,” sweep the floors, looking into every corner with the broom. And so every day, except Friday, all week. I want to warn you that it is worth trying all the indicated methods of influencing him, indicated here. And scold, and scold, and caress, and only if nothing comes of it, and he is really very angry, then kick him out, but remember, life is bad without a brownie.

In conclusion, it is worth adding that there is an opinion that after talking with a brownie you can go numb or remain a stutterer for the rest of your life.

Wild men
These are small creatures with a huge long beard and tail, similar to goblins. They wander through the forest, calling to each other in the dead of midnight with terrible voices, attack people, laughingly tickle them all over their bodies with bone fingers until they die

Evil Ones, Evil Ones- in East Slavic mythology, evil spirits, small creatures that, having settled behind the stove (like a brownie), remain invisible and bring misfortune to the house. Ukrainian and Belarusian proverbs and sayings mention the Evil Ones in the context usual for ancient mythological characters: Ukrainian: “The Evil Ones have butted you!” - wish for misfortune, “to the evil one” - to hell.
EVIL have vaguely rounded outlines, or they are invisible little old men - beggars, or they have the appearance of an old, angry and nasty woman. A person who has EVIL in his house will never get out of poverty. There are usually twelve of them; Evil Ones live behind the stove or under it; life for Evil Ones, like their owner, is very bad. You can get rid of Evil Ones by deception: put them in a snuff box, and when the Evil Ones running after the owner ask him to sniff tobacco, bury them; put them in a barrel so that they have more room, and take them out to an open field, etc. Having gotten rid of the Evil Ones, a person quickly becomes rich, and the one who moves into the house where the Evil Ones live is mired in poverty. If someone, out of pity for the Evil Ones or out of envy of the one who has become rich, releases the Evil Ones from captivity, they will pounce on him and cling to him and will not leave him behind, cf. Ukrainian proverb: “The Evil Ones asked for three days, but it is impossible to ignore them.”
In order not to bring the Evil One into the house, you cannot sweep the Evil One from the threshold with a broom, but if you sweep the floor to the threshold, you can sweep the Evil One out of the hut. Evil Ones can be killed with a stake (like other evil spirits), after which they should be thrown into the quagmire and stuck in the Evil Ones stake, but if the stake is pulled out, the Evil Ones will come to life again. Evil Ones are often mentioned in curses: “Nai go Evil Ones will be killed!” etc.

Ledyashchy (Lyadashchy) - SPIRIT of straw, all swollen from sleep, with straw in his head.
No one has ever seen him, you can only hear him yawning.
Many evil spirits sleep in winter, but the leader in this matter is the leader. No one can wake him up except Mother Spring. He always wakes up dissatisfied and, staying awake in the summer, looks forward to the end of summer, so that he can again sleep soundly and sweetly in a pile of fresh straw.
If in the summer someone hears sighs and yawns, but there is no living creature nearby, this is a chilling

GOBBLE, lesovik, leshak, fox, boletus- in East Slavic mythology, an evil spirit (K: Why do they see EVIL spirits everywhere?), the embodiment of the forest as a part of space hostile to humans. THE GOBBLE is the master of the forest and animals, he is represented dressed in animal skin, sometimes with animal attributes - horns, hooves; A GOBBER can change his height - become shorter than the grass or taller than the trees; drives herds of animals from one forest to another; his connection with wolves unites him with Saint George - Yuri, the wolf shepherd Yegor of Russian spiritual traditions. Endowed with negative attributes, a connection with the left (a sign of evil spirits), his left side of his clothes is wrapped around his right, his left bast shoe is put on his right leg, etc. (cf. a similar motif in connection with the Slavic vodyanoi, etc.). In fairy tales, LESHIY is a cursed person or a hostage (harmful) dead man.
A GOBBER can scare people with his laughter, lead a child away, and lead astray. To protect against the LOSHE, the person taken by him should not eat anything or should carry with him a loot (a piece of linden tree peeled from the bark), turn over the insoles of his shoes, etc. There are also ideas about female spirits of the forest - foxes, goblins, with long breasts , thrown behind the back. Similar forest spirits are known in West Slavic and other traditions.

Listin
OLD Blind Spirit of the Forest, leader of the forests; his wife and assistant is Baba Listina. They are not scary, although they like to scare.
Listin is a mole rat all made of leaves, his woman has a body made of moss, instead of arms there are fir cones, and there are real bast shoes on her feet.
They are not as boisterous and nimble as the woods - they sit in a heap of leaves near a stump or ravine and command who should rustle when. In the fall, at first a light whisper is heard: it is leaf and leaf that are consulting and giving the forests a head start. And then there is a rustling and noise, round dances of fallen leaves are circling: then the forests are playing.

Mosswort
SPIRIT OF MOSSY SWAMPS, appears to people in the form of a pig or ram. It feeds on plants, but sometimes eats children. This is the smallest of the forest spirits compared to boletus and goblin. Submits to the forest king, does the same as all the forest ones: he leads into the depths of his possessions in order to destroy a person there. The means of escape from flyworms are the same as from goblin.

Podpolyannik
He LIVES underground, has an evil disposition and often drags in girls cursed by their mother; brings children with them. To see it, you need to go down three steps along the stairs leading to the underground, bend down and look between your legs.

Khovanets (Godovanets, Khovanets)- in Ukrainian demonology (Prykarpattya) a spirit that enriches the owner. KHOVANETS appears in the form of a little boy or chicken. By origin, KHOVANETS is associated with “hostage” deceased: KHOVANETS becomes a miscarriage 7 years after the abortion; During this time, KHOVANETZ asks passers-by for baptism.
A person could hatch a KHOVANTZ for himself from an egg laid by a rooster or a black hen, which must be worn under the left armpit for 9 days, during which one cannot wash, cut nails, pray, or be baptized; If KHOVANTZ is not reported, he will torture the person to death. KHOVANTS can be bought while renouncing Christ and the Mother of God, mocking the cross and icons. It was believed that when buying and breeding KHOVANTS, a person sells his soul to the devil.
KHOVANETS lives in a house in the attic, eats unsalted food, primarily wheat bread, milk and sugar. KHOVANETS provides wealth to his owner, prosperity to the home and household, and takes care of the livestock. There may be several KHOVANTS in a house, distributing work among themselves - one guards the house from thieves (like another spirit, treasure keeper), another takes care of the apiary (like the spirit - beekeeper), the third works in the field, etc. If KHOVANETS is offended by something, for example, he is given salty food, then he will break all the dishes, he may knock out the owner’s eyes and generally leave the house, taking happiness with him, or he will torture the owner so that he hangs himself.
With the death of the owner of the Khovanets, the wealth in the house also disappears. The death of such a person is very difficult: according to Hutsul beliefs, KHOVANETS takes his soul to hell to the eldest devil, who will drive it into an egg, and an even more evil spirit will hatch from it. You can get rid of KHOVANTS with the help of a priest, consecrating the hut three times, throwing KHOVANTS over the roof, taking him beyond the ninth boundary. Khovanets, like the devil, is killed by thunder. You can kill him by hitting him with a backhand, but if KHOVANTZ is then hit on the head with a beech stick, he will be resurrected.

Shish
Devilry, usually living on the roadsides and playing their weddings when the whirlwinds rise like a column on the roads. Annoying or unpleasant people are sent to the “shishas” in anger. Those who have drunk to the point of delirium tremens have “drunk cones”: to hell. The head is the size of a fist, the nose is long and swivel - exactly a shish - or a fig.

Shulikuns, shilikuns, shulikuns, shlikuns(possibly from Old Slavic shui “left, bad, unclean” with a double suffix - “ik” and “un”) - among northern Russians there are seasonal demons. SHULIKUNY, associated with the elements of water and fire, appear from the chimney on Christmas Eve (sometimes on Ignatiev's day, December 20) and go back under the water on Epiphany. They run through the streets, often with hot coals on an iron frying pan or a red-hot iron hook in their hands, with which they can grab people (“hook and burn”), or they ride on horses, on troikas, on stupas or “hot” stoves. They are often as tall as a fist, sometimes larger, they can have horse legs and a pointed head (cf. Devil), fire blazes from their mouths, they wear white homespun caftans with sashes and pointed hats. SHULIKUNS on Christmastide crowd around at crossroads or near ice holes, they are also found in the forest (hence the formula for scaring children “Don’t go into the forest - SHULIKUN is burning”), tease drunk people, circle them and push them into the mud, without causing much harm, but they can lure into an ice hole and drown in the river.
In some places SHULIKUNS carried a spinning wheel with a tow and a spindle into the cage so that they could spin silk. SHOOLIKUNS are capable of snatching the yarn from lazy spinners, lying in wait and taking away everything that is supposed to be without a blessing, getting into houses and barns and stealthily stealing or stealing supplies (K: see Theft, Sacrifice). According to Vologda beliefs, babies cursed or destroyed by their mothers become SHULIKUNS. SHULIKUNS often live in abandoned and empty barns, always in cooperatives, but they can also get into a hut (if the owner does not protect herself with a cross of bread, etc.), and then it is difficult to drive them out. In the Russian North SHULIKUNY is also the name of the Yuletide mummers. SHULIKUNS are related to other Slavic demons - karakonjals, kikimors and demons of non-Slavic peoples of the Volga region and Siberia.

Shishiga
A SMALL, hunchbacked creature, potbellied, cold, with gnarled arms. It pounces on unwary passers-by and drags them into the water. Unlike the well-known aquatic, the shishiga lives in reeds and prefers small rivers and ponds. It sleeps during the day and appears only at dusk. It can be assumed that the shishiga is related to the shisha, for it resembles him in the pettiness of his dirty tricks.

YAGA (BABA-YAGA)- initially a caring Bereginya, who later, during Christianity, turned into a terrible, demonic creature that was used to scare children. Yaga is a roughened word for "Yashka". Yasha in Slavic songs was the name for foot-and-mouth disease - the ancestor of all living things that once lived on earth and disappeared, hence the name "foot-and-mouth disease". Baba Yaga was originally an ancestress, a very ancient positive creature, a guardian (warlike if necessary) of the clan, traditions, children and the surrounding (often forest) space.

ANCHUTKA- in Russian mythology, a small but very mischievous imp, a cross between a devil and a duck. Its distinctive feature is its short stature, the ability to fly and increased grimyness. Anchutka is connected with water and at the same time flies. Sometimes it is called water, swamp. His usual epithets are “bespyatiy” (“heelless”), “horny”, “fingerless”.

PAIN-BOSHKA- the Russian spirit of the forest, living in places with berries, most of all on cranberries and lingonberries. He himself is big-headed, long-armed, clumsy, and his clothes are torn and patched. The nose is pointy, but the eyes are hard to tell, either sad or cunning. He pretends to be a pitiful old man, comes out and asks for help finding a lost wallet or something else. You cannot give in to persuasion, no matter how much you beg. If you give in, you’ll start thinking about the loss, looking around, bending down, searching - Boli-Boshka will jump on your neck, tie your head in a noose, and lead you through the forest. You'll get a headache, get lost, and disappear altogether.

BOROVIK- Russian spirit of boron, grove. It looks like a huge bear, but without a tail, which is what makes it different from a real beast. It feeds on animals, but sometimes eats people. When people want to see Borovik in order to negotiate with him about the safe grazing of livestock, about returning missing people (people, livestock), and curing him of a disease that has become attached to the forest, they take the cat and begin to strangle it. Hearing the cat's meow, Borovik comes out of the forest to the man and enters into negotiations with him.

RESULT- Leshy, often in the form of a woman, with huge breasts and shaggy hair.

FIELD (FIELD VIK)- in Russian mythology, a genus of the Undead, one of the few subspecies of evil spirits that does its dirty deeds not at night, but in broad daylight. It is not easy to see; it moves very quickly, so you can only notice it by the flickering of its fiery red fur. He is short, with bow legs, horns and a tail topped with a tassel. If Polevik gets angry, then during haymaking time, the worker may have sunstroke. A field worker, in a good mood, helps to save his home - the field.

NOON (WHY)- Slavic field spirit, in particular - the embodiment of sunstroke. She appeared in the form of a girl in a white dress, with long hair, or a shaggy old woman, appearing on the field and pursuing those who work on it. It can break a neck or kidnap a child left in a field.

MEADOW- Russian spirit of meadows, a little green man dressed in grass. He secretly helps people during haymaking and is considered Polevoy’s child. Runs through the meadows and catches birds as food for its parent. The meadow grass can be very angry when people miss mowing: it drives the grass into wild growth, and braids it so much that it cannot be cut or torn, otherwise it dries the grass on the root.

MEZHEVICHOK- brother of Lugovichok, son of Polevoy. He is just as small, wearing clothes made of grass, but not green, but black. He runs along the boundary, guards it, just like his brother, gets food for his Parent. Punishes those who violate the boundary and cross it illegally. Installs and adjusts poles, helps working owners in the field. But if he finds a person sleeping on the boundary, he leans on him, ties his neck with grass and strangles him.

LESAVKI- Russian evil spirits, Leshy's grandfather and grandmother. They are very small, gray, and look like hedgehogs. They live in last year's foliage, staying awake from late summer until mid-autumn. All this time they are having fun, dancing in circles, raising leaves, rustling, rustling, swarming - the little shaggy balls work hard in a short time, get tired, and then sleep for a long time.

BOSORKUN- Russian mountain spirit, windmill, which is raised by a strong wind and flies with it invisibly. Whoever tries to catch him is killed by the force of the wind. Bosorkun causes drought, brings diseases and pestilence to people and livestock.

VORTEX- Russian spirit in the wind. These spirits harm people, cause illness and nervous disorders. A strong destructive whirlwind, in which evil spirits are carried, led by Vikhrov.

VORTEX-DAMN- a Russian evil spirit who, seeing that a thunderstorm is approaching, runs away from it so that he is not struck by the arrow of Elijah the prophet (formerly Perun). Anyone who wants to see how old men and women teach must take off the cross and bend over and look between his legs. The Whirlwind-Devil will appear in the form of a huge man, waving his arms and running headlong.

SUBVIEW- a malaise identified with evil spirits. It is believed that the wind, especially the whirlwind, is unclean. If you accidentally get caught in a whirlwind, something bad will happen to a person. It can be inflicted in the form of damage by Sorcerers who call upon a bad wind from the “damn” swamp, from a remote, unclean place.

STEP- Russian spirit of the steppe, steppe master. They notice him by the rushing whirlwinds. Sometimes he “shows himself,” and such an appearance is not good. In the crowd of whirlwinds, a gray-haired tall old man appears, with a long ashen beard and a shock of hair flying in all directions. He will show himself, threaten with his old, bony hand, and disappear. Trouble is for the traveler who, without blessing, leaves home, and at noon finds himself on a steppe road where a dusty crowd of whirlwinds swirls.

NON-COSH- the name of the Brownie when the owners of the house do not get along with him.

BANNIK- In Russian mythology, the spirit of the Undead clan settles in the bathhouse. Bannik is a gentle creature that lives in the bathhouse behind the heater or under the shelf. He looks like an old man, covered with leaves from a birch broom. The steam survives it temporarily, but it always lives in the unheated part. Bannik does not like women in labor, who are usually taken to the bathhouse due to the cramped conditions in the house. At the same time, women in labor should not be left alone in the bathhouse. According to other versions, this is an evil old man who does not like those who wash in the bathhouse after midnight. If a person is there alone, Bannik can scald him to death or kill him with a stone. He is also Baynik, Baennik, Bainnik, Banny.

OBDERIKHA (OBDERYSHEK)- a type of Bannik, distinguished by its extraordinary cruelty. For the slightest violation of the bath ritual, he is punished. It is considered a great sin to wash in a bathhouse alone, especially during the third steam, which is reserved for Obderikha. On the third shift, especially for Obderikha, they leave some hot water in the tub and a piece of soap on the shelf. Obrerikha rips off the skin of a person who has entered his time, hangs it on the stove, and stuffs the body under the floor, into the cracks. Any visit to the bathhouse at night, especially if you shouldn’t be afraid of devils, is punishable by Obderikha. He also punishes those who do not leave soap or water. On the next visit, he will splash boiling water on the offender or suffocate him with fumes. If someone leaves the bathhouse with a scratched or torn back, it means that Obderiha was “tore.” We saw Obderikha under the regiment, in the bathhouse. At midnight, can be seen as a cat, with wide open, burning eyes.

BATANUSHKA (BATAAN)- synonym for Brownie. The origin of the word “Batan” comes from the meaning of the concept of “father-father”, or the concept of “bro”, i.e. stepbrother

VOZTUHA- Russian genus of Undead, a type of Domovoy. Lives behind the stove and watches for thieves. Nothing can be hidden from Vostukha’s keen hearing. Where he lives, nothing can happen, nothing will go missing in the house. Vostukha protects even the beauty and purity of young maidens as the honor and property of the house.

KIKIMORA- in Slavic mythology, the female genus Domovoi, one of the types of Undead, the spirit of sleep and night ghosts, which spins at night. During the day she sits at the stove, and plays pranks at night with a spindle, a spinning wheel and a winder. According to legends, from the message between Domovoy and Kikimora, they have offspring, etc. continue their lineage. Kikimora is hostile to men. May harm domestic animals, in particular chickens.

GOSHMAN- Slavic evil spirit. Undead. Sneaks into the house through
unprotected doorway thresholds and affects mainly women, causing unnecessary worry and bad thoughts about loved ones, sometimes leading to a mental breakdown. To protect against the Kumushnitsa, a sickle is stuck over the threshold, bunches of thistles and nettles are hung and a spell is cast in defense of the house.

SHOOLICUNS- Russian unclean spirits that appear from a chimney on Christmas Eve and go underwater on Epiphany. They claim that Kikimoras breed them. They run through the streets with hot coals in frying pans or with a hot hook in their hands, with which they can grab a drunkard: they circle him, push him into the mud, they can lure him into an ice hole. Sometimes they ride on stupas or stoves. The height of a fist, the legs of a horse, fire blazing from his mouth. They wear self-woven caftans, sashes and pointed hats.

VAZILA- a genus of Undead that lives in outbuildings, especially in stables, has the appearance of a tiny man with horse ears and hooves. He takes care of the horses in every possible way, protects them from diseases, and when they are grazing, in a herd, from predatory animals. He is also Dvorovoy.

DREAM- Russian evening or night spirit in the form of a kind old woman with soft, gentle hands or in the form of a little man with a quiet, soothing voice. At dusk, Sandman wanders under the windows, and when darkness thickens, he seeps through the cracks or slips through the door. Drema comes to the children, closes their eyes, straightens the blanket, strokes their hair. With adults, this spirit is not so gentle and sometimes brings nightmares.

TYUHA SHAGY- a Slavic clan of the Undead, rare, and lives only in huts, with Domovov nearby. It is small in size, about the size of a mitten, all shaggy and funny-looking. He looks after the household, children, and loves domestic animals, cats, most of all. If she is not offended, then there will always be peace and a full cup in the house. Tyukha Shaggy is not afraid of anyone except Domovoi, but he doesn’t touch her. If the owners are sloppy, create dirt, or manage the house poorly, then she loses her temper and becomes angry.

COMEMARE- a Slavic spirit that torments people during sleep. More often, people experience feelings of danger, persecution, and see dream plots associated with them.

HAIRY- in Russian mythology, a genus of the Undead. A female brownie who lives in a bathhouse or barn, hence another name - Barn.

ZHIKHAR- Russian evil house spirit. It is not known exactly where he lives in the house, but he is a dangerous neighbor: in the absence of his mother, he steals children from the house, but does not dare to do this in her presence. To protect a child from Zhikhar, you can only put scissors and a spindle stone in the hole, and an old broom under the hole, on the floor. If you take such measures, Zhikhar is powerless.

SPECIALIST- the Russian spirit is the thief of share, happiness, fate and gives another lot in life: illness, death, ugliness. A genius of evil fate, black, hairy, disheveled. They take the baby out of the mother’s womb prematurely and mutilate it, and torture the mother in labor. If a pregnant woman sleeps on her back, wide open, without a belt, and a knife is left on the table, the Udelnitsa takes out the baby with it. This is why freaks are born or the stomach turns out to be empty, although all the signs of pregnancy are present.

SUSEDKO- Russian genus of Undead, one of the varieties of Brownies. This spirit lives almost in the oven (on a pole), and is so nicknamed for its willing cohabitation with people. It is very small and almost invisible. Kikimora's husband. He is wearing a huge, too tall, shaggy hat. Susedko is very friendly and tries to warn people about impending troubles in a timely manner.

IGOSH- Russian spirit, a child who was born but died unbaptized. Has no arms or legs. He lives here and there and plays pranks, especially if someone does not want to recognize him, the invisible one, as the Brownie, does not put a spoon and a loaf of bread for him at the table, does not throw his hat and mittens out of the window.

CHUDINKO- Russian similarity to Kikimora, the embodiment of the evil principle. Bad people place it in the form of a small rag or wooden doll under a log of a house during construction. It scares residents at night with knocking and crackling noises. Particularly strong in abandoned houses. You can get rid of it only by destroying the doll. Those who are tired of Chudinko’s pranks should call a healer for help or, at worst, stab the lower logs of the hut with a pitchfork with the sentence: “Here’s to you, here’s to you for this, and here’s to you for that!”

BUYER- Russian evil house spirit. Appears at night, does not like to be watched. After scary conversations, stories, before going to bed, you can hear his quiet crying and dull restrained moans. You can’t talk to him - you might get sick, it won’t be good. Sometimes it flashes in the darkness, in the form of a clumsy old man, and disappears from sight.

MOKUSHA- Russian night spirit, goes at night to spin wool and shear sheep. If the sheep's wool comes out, they say: "Mokusha has been shorn." They don’t see her, but at night they hear the rumbling of the spindle when she works. Leaving the house, he clicks the spindle on the block, on the floor. If she is not happy with her mistress, she cuts off some of her hair.

OVINNIK- a kind of Undead living in outbuildings, in barns - buildings where peasants dry sheaves. His responsibilities include protecting the barn from fire, monitoring the stacking of sheaves, and monitoring the temperature regime. Ovinnik knows how to bark like a dog, clap his hands and laugh when he manages to punish a careless owner. It is considered the most malicious spirit that surrounds the owner in everyday life, especially if the owner is careless.

POSTN (WALL)- Slavic, ghostly creature. A synonym for Brownie, so named for its mode of existence (ghost). The origin of the word is due to the word "shadow" or "wall".

BARN- in Russian mythology, a genus of the Undead. A brownie living in a barn.

VIY- a Slavic inhabitant of the underworld, whose deadly gaze is hidden under huge eyelids or eyelashes. I couldn’t lift my eyelids on my own, so assistants lifted them with pitchforks. The man who looked into Viy’s eyes could not stand his gaze and died.

WOLKODLAK- in Slavic mythology, a person with the supernatural ability to turn into a wolf. It was believed that sorcerers could turn entire wedding trains into wolves. Had many names: Vovkulak, Varkulak, Werewolf, and later Werewolf. In Christian beliefs, he is a servant of the devil who leads packs of wolves, turning into a wolf at night and attacking livestock and people.

A VAMPIRE- a Slavic fairy-tale dead man, animated by his lower principles and retaining something like life in himself, emerging from the grave at night, enchanting his victims, sucking their blood. Literally "blood sucker". From an energetic point of view, a distinction is made between solar and lunar Vampires. Energy vampirism as a phenomenon was a constant companion of man. A person who has a lack of his own energy can consciously or unconsciously feed on it from other people. Vampirism is a disease. Research has proven that Vampire blood differs from the blood of healthy people in its liquid crystal structure. He's a Vurdulak.

GHOUL (GHOUL)- Slavic changeling, pervertysh. A werewolf who wanders at night as a witch, a wolf or a scarecrow and sucks in people and livestock, a bloodsucker (vampire) that people born from evil spirits become. The future Ghoul can be recognized by its double rows of teeth. This is also the deceased, over whose coffin the Devil jumped over, in the form of a black cat, a “pawn dead man” (suicide). Evil healers wander around like ghouls after death, and in order to calm them down, they tear up the grave and pierce the corpse with an aspen stake.

ZERK- Russian unclean, very long and very thin (from the word "pole"). He sometimes wanders around the streets, warms his hands in the chimney, looks into windows and scares people. This is a pathetic crank, who is condemned for a century to wander around the world without any sense or purpose.

KHOPOTUN- Russian spirit of a dead Sorcerer. A devil who uses the outer shell, the skin of a corpse, of a deceased sorcerer in order to suck blood at night and eat living people. The troublemaker waits for a dead person to appear in someone's family, and as soon as the soul parts with the body, he enters the dead person. Then in the family one misfortune follows another. Troublemaker can take on someone else's appearance and penetrate into his own (that is, the one whose appearance he took on) or someone else's family, then not only from this house, but from the entire village, people will begin to disappear - Troublemaker eats them up. You can kill him with a blow from a whip from an unbrushed horse, or with a cart axle, but only with a backhand, and the first time, because... the second blow will revive him.

BAD (NOSEK)- Russian mythological creature similar to a fiery broom. It flies through the air and enters the house through chimneys. Hatched from an egg that the rooster lays once every 3 years. If you don’t notice it right away, the rooster will trample it. Whoever keeps the egg, the Bad One will carry money and oil, taking them where they were left unblessedly.

NAMELESS- Russian ghost - double. Ghost before death. The spirit of someone who died an unnatural death, drowned, or suicide. In everything he looks like a person, but does not have his own face, and due to his impersonality, he wears the mask of who he wants to appear to be. Seeing such a double means death. An unnamed image is also called the image of a person evoked in the mirror during fortune telling. In conspiracies, Sorcerers turn to Nameless for help, wanting to spoil a person. In the forest near an aspen tree, facing the West, the sorcerer asks all the “dead, killed, lost, unbaptized and nameless” to stand up and harm such and such. He is the Shadow, the Trace.

BES- the Slavic designation “without”, and then follows any positive concept, for example: without... conscience, God, justice, concept, goodness, honor, etc. The soul of such people after death could not get to Vyriy (Paradise) and toiled on Earth, attracting attention with various tricks. The negative emotions evoked by these pranks in living people served as food for such spirits. Common Slavic word, the same root as “to be afraid”. Evil spirits, which for the followers of Satan were the same as Guardian Angels for the righteous. They are small in size, capable of everything - from innocent pranks to murder.

EXCHANGE- Russian mythological baby, replaced by the Demon with an imp. The exchangers are very skinny in body and extremely ugly. The legs are always thin, the arms hang like a whip, the belly is huge, and the head is certainly large and hangs to the side. Moreover, they are distinguished by their natural stupidity and anger and willingly leave their adoptive parents, going into the forest. However, they do not live long and often disappear or turn into a firebrand. As for the fate of the kidnapped children, the devils drag them with them, forcing them to fan the fires that have started on Earth. But it happens differently: kidnapped children are given to be raised by Mermaids or cursed girls, with whom they remain, subsequently turning into Mermaids (girls) or Leshy (boys).

WATER- in Russian mythology, a kind of Undead, unclean, demon, sitting in whirlpools and butchers, under a mill. He walks naked or shaggy, bearded, covered in mud, sometimes with a green beard. A water companion to Leshy and Polevoy, an enemy to Domovoy, but more evil than all of them and closer in kinship to evil spirits. He is the Water Grandfather, the Water Man.

SWAMP- Russian spirit of the swamp, lives there with his wife and children. His wife is the Swamp, a maiden who drowned in the swamp. Bolotnyak is a relative of Vodyany and Leshy. He looks like a gray-haired old man with a wide, yellowish face. Turning into a monk, he goes around and leads the traveler, luring him into the quagmire. He loves to walk along the shore, scare those passing through the swamp, either with sharp sounds or sighs, blows out the air with water bubbles, and smacks his lips loudly.

MERMAIDS- Slavic species Beregin, one of the genera of the Undead. The mermaid is depicted with a woman's face and breasts, a fish body and a tail. Lives in the waters. During the period of the spread of Christianity, criticism and denial of paganism, all pagan deities were given evil, demonic features. Gradually, from Bereginya, the Mermaids began to turn into drowned women and dead unbaptized children. It was believed that they were always dangerous for people during Rusal week (July 19 - 24) before Ivan Kupala, especially on Thursday (Perunov's day).

SWAMP- Russian clan of the Undead, sister to the mermaids, Vodyanitsa, only she lives in a swamp, in a snow-white water lily flower the size of a cauldron. She is indescribably beautiful, shameless and seductive, and sits in a flower to hide her goose feet with black membranes from people. Seeing a man, the Swamp Girl begins to cry bitterly, so that everyone wants to console her, but as soon as you take one step towards her in the swamp, the villain will pounce, strangle her in her arms and drag her into the swamp, into the abyss.

VODYANITSA- in Russian mythology, a mermaid, but a drowned woman from the baptized, and therefore does not belong to the Undead (other mermaids), according to legend - in general, children who died unbaptized.

MAVKI- one of the varieties of Mermaids. According to Ukrainian beliefs, children who die before baptism are transformed into Mavok. The name Mavka (sometimes Navka) is derived from the concept Nav. Mavkas have a human body, but they do not have a back, so all the insides are visible. They beg those passing by to baptize them and cry. If they are still angry with the living, they try to lure them into the rocks and the stormy waters of the river.

SHISHIMORA- Slavic variety of Undead. A small hunchbacked creature, potbellied, cold, with gnarled arms. He pounces on the gape and drags him into the water. Unlike Vodyanoy, it lives in reeds and prefers small rivers and ponds. Sleeps during the day and appears at dusk.

ICHETIK- Russian evil spirit from the Vodyany family, their assistant. It does not have the strength of its mighty relative, and it is smaller itself, although it is just as green, covered in leeches and algae. Swims out accompanied by frogs and other reptiles. He likes to play cards, drink beer and do minor mischief: flooding crops, washing away masonry, washing away bridges and steep banks. Like Vodyanoy, he never misses an opportunity to drag a child or a tipsy adult under water.

GODDESSES- in Russian mythology, the spirits of women who, during their lifetime, committed some terrible crime, killed their children who violated the holy oath, These are the most evil spirits. The goddesses cast a shadow, but they themselves are not visible.

BLAZNYA- obsession, ghost. It can appear anywhere: at home, in the forest, in the field. Not a single Blaze is complete without the participation of evil spirits, which darkens a person’s mind, forcing him to see what is not really there. Realizing that there is a vision in front of him, a person cannot get rid of the obsessive image. Blaznya happens in a house where there was a quarrel. After the quarrel, Blaznya begins to throw sticks, dishes, droppings, and throws everything off the table. There is no great harm from Blaznya, except fear, shock, bewilderment and anxiety.

Pestilence (Pestilence Maiden, Pestilence)- in Russian mythology, she is personified by a huge woman (sometimes on stilts), with loose braids and white clothes. She travels around the world in a carriage or forces some person to carry her around towns and villages. With her bony hand, she blows a bloody or fiery handkerchief in all directions - and following the wave of her handkerchief, everything around dies out.

MANA (MANYA)- old Russian (to beckon - to lie, to deceive) ghost in the form of an old frail woman.

NAVI- Russian spirits of the dead, hostile to humans. The embodiment of death, creatures without flesh that move when the thought of the dead moves. In the old days, it was believed that the cause of death was the navy bone, which was preserved in a decomposing corpse. Navyas appear after midnight in the form of clouds resembling a person. They steam with the evil spirits in the fourth steam, in the bathhouse, leaving behind traces slightly reminiscent of chicken marks.

RAID (DREAM)- Russian phenomenon of the spirit of the dead, who flies at night to people who yearn for the dead in order to kill them. The plaque is visible only to those they visit; others only notice the glow. Only Sorcerers are capable of making a Raid. To do this, the Sorcerer takes the heel with his hand and holds it “with a word,” with a spell. The Flying Dream will then stop and spin around until it appears human. If the Sorcerer lets go of the heel, the raid will again be invisible or crumble. To prevent the Plaque from frightening the sleeping person, they covered it with linden crosses, put crosses on windows, doors, in the barrier, in the pipe. Some Sorcerers manage to negotiate with the deceased so that he stops disturbing the living. For example, when the Raid appears, the Sorcerers admonish him: “Where are you going? The dead do not go to the living. Amen! My place is holy!” Others are saved by placing a prayer to the Guardian Angel under their heads at night. They smoke incense and weeping root in the house.

A LOT- Russian night spirit, comes to a person during sleep, crushes the sleeping person until he bruises. If the bruises hurt, it’s a bad thing; if they are insensitive, everything will go well.

GHOST- the Slavs identified several types of ghosts:
"Cemetery Watchman" is the ghost of the person who was the first to be buried in this cemetery. Protects the bodies of those buried in this cemetery from all attacks and evil spirits.
“Settled” is a ghost that appears every time in the same place. This kind of thing can happen anywhere. The ghost owes its origin to some tragic event at this place, for example, someone’s death that occurred at this very place. It becomes, as it were, a “visible memory” of this event.
“The Hanged Man” is the name given to the ghost of a man hanged for a crime he committed. According to legend, they remain at the place of execution.
"Crossroads" - in the old days - a crossroads - a favorite place of execution, where the ghosts of those executed remain after death.
“Shadows of the dead” are dark, unclear silhouettes, in the form of which the souls of the dead appear to the living.
"Dispelling" - "settled" ghosts often dissipate and disappear over time. However, there are stories of ghosts going back, in some places, for at least 1,600 years.
A "double" is a ghost - an exact copy of a living person. A sign of coming trouble. In Russian mythology - Bezymen.

GODDAMN- Slavic concept of unclean animals. Reptiles include mainly reptiles (primarily snakes) and amphibians (frogs, turtles, etc.) and some other animals (mice, snake-like fish - loach, eel, etc.), worms, caterpillars. Reptiles are closely associated with demonic characters and are associated mainly with the underworld, they live in the ground, therefore they are often blind, in a hole, underground or under the threshold of a house. Often associated with the soul of an ancestor - “great-shchura”. Various ritual methods of expelling them and numerous prohibitions and amulets against them are known, but they themselves often perform the functions of a talisman and patron.

THING- Russian name for some witches. The Thing puts her body under the mortar, and the magpie itself flies into the chimney, which is why the magpie itself is called the Thing (like the crow - the Thing). The little thing steals a child from the womb of a sleeping mother, and in return for the kidnapped child puts a little piece of meat, a brand or a piece of bread into the womb. Pregnant women, so that the Little Thing does not replace the child, go to bed in the absence of their husband, putting on some of their husband’s clothes or girdled with their husband’s belt. Gizmos are sometimes called demons of fate, spirits who predict troubles and misfortunes.

WILD WOMAN- Russian assistant to witches and sorcerers. She is sent to people to do various dirty tricks. For women in labor and young mothers, they replace their children with their own witches, who live longer than seven years, and are very angry and stupid. Wild Woman sucks blood from small children, causing them to turn pale and wither. Wild Woman - the flyer appears in a dream or in reality to young men as a golden-haired beauty. She also charms married people so that they leave their wives, and until the Wild Woman leaves the man, no force will return him to his wife.

LETAVITSA- Russian version of Wild Baba. She flies with the help of walking boots, but if they are removed, she loses her supernatural strength, obediently follows the person who took off her boots, and serves him faithfully. You can find her in a field or in a garden where peas grow, for which she is a big hunter.


FAMOUSLY- the Slavic embodiment of an evil fate, grief. Appearing in the guise of a thin woman without one eye, meeting her can lead to the loss of an arm or death. Sometimes Dashing will bypass a sinner, and he will fall on a good, hardworking person: his house will burn down, and his fields will be covered with hail, and he himself will not know where to go from his illness, and Dashing still sits on his neck, his legs dangling.

FEVER- Russians, 9 or 12 sisters who live in the dark dungeons of Hell and appear to be evil, ugly maidens, starved, always hungry, sometimes blind and armless. The eldest, Neveya (deadly) - commands the sisters: Shaking (Shaking), Ogneya (Fiery), Ledea (Chills, Chills, Chills), Gnetea, Breast, Deaf, Lomeya (Bonebreaker), Pukhneya, Yellowing, Korkusha (Writhing), Glyadeya .

LYARVA- an astral being generated by our passions and bad feelings. Once summoned, Lyarva lives semi-consciously, striving to satisfy the desire that gave birth to her. The stronger and longer the desire that gave birth to Lyarva, the more vital she is. The life of Lyarva is supported by the nervous power of a person and therefore she sticks to the one who created her. If a person has gotten rid of such a desire, Lyarva’s body may soon collapse, but, clinging to life, she can separate from the person who gave birth to her and, traveling in the astral plane, surrounding the morally weak, incites them to increase degradation, feeding on their decline in feelings from unrighteous deeds, and continuing to live.

OZEVA- a state of sudden indifference to everything, laziness, heaviness. Comes from the evil eye or words spoken by someone in their hearts about another with annoyance, malicious hatred, or from yawning and heaviness when overcoming laziness on someone, for example, when the following text of the spell is pronounced: “Laziness is heaviness, go to Fedot , from Fedot to Yakov, from Yakov to everyone."

It is known that before the advent of Christianity, our ancestors were pagans. We'll talk about the gods they worshiped another time. But, besides the gods, in the beliefs of the Slavs there were a lot of creatures inhabiting almost everything that surrounded a person. The Slavs considered some to be kind, because they coexisted peacefully with people, helped them and protected them in every possible way. Others were considered evil because they harmed people and were capable of murder. However, there was a third group of creatures that could not be classified as either good or evil. All known creatures, although they are representatives of small species, are still represented by more than one individual.

Mythological creatures differ from each other in appearance, abilities, habitat and way of life. Thus, some creatures outwardly resemble animals, others resemble people, and others do not resemble anyone else. Some of them live in forests and seas, others live directly next to people, sometimes even in their homes. In Slavic mythology, there is no classification of creatures, but their appearance, way of life, ways of appeasing certain creatures or how to survive encounters with representatives of species dangerous to humans are described in some detail.

It is impossible to describe all the creatures from fairy tales and myths, but we are familiar with some from childhood, from fairy tales and stories. Here are some of these creatures.

Alkonost

Alkonost is half-bird, half-man. The alconost has a bird's body, with beautiful iridescent plumage. His head is human, often wearing a crown or wreath, and the alkonost also has human hands. By its nature, the alconost is not aggressive and does not pose a direct danger to humans, but, nevertheless, it can accidentally harm him if he comes too close to the nesting site, or is nearby when the bird sings its song. Protecting herself or her chicks, the half-bird, half-human is capable of plunging everyone around her into unconsciousness.

Anchutka

Anchutka is a little evil spirit. The height of the anchutki is only a few centimeters, their bodies are covered with hair and are black in color, and the heads of these evil spirits are bald. A characteristic feature of the anchutka is the absence of heels. It is believed that one should not say the name of this evil spirit out loud, since the anchutka will immediately respond to it and end up right in front of the one who said it.
Anchutka can live almost anywhere: most often the spirit can be found in a field, in a bathhouse or on a pond; it also prefers to settle closer to people, but avoids meeting with stronger creatures. However, different habitats impose characteristics on the appearance and behavior of evil spirits, so three main subspecies of anchutki can be distinguished: bathhouse, field, water or swamp. Field anchutki are the most peaceful, they do not appear to people unless they themselves call them. The bathhouse and swamp anchutka love to play pranks, but their jokes are evil and dangerous, often leading to the death of a person, so the swamp anchutka can grab a swimmer by the leg and drag him to the bottom. Bath anchoots often scare people with their moans, appear to them in various forms, and can simply make a person fall asleep or lose consciousness.
Anchutka is capable of becoming invisible. In addition, this evil spirit can take any form and, for example, turn into both an animal and a man. Another ability of the spirit is the ability to instantly move in space.
Anchutki are afraid of iron and salt; if an evil spirit has grabbed you, then you need to poke it with something iron and then it will immediately release you. But it is very difficult to completely get rid of anchutkas, so if they have chosen a place or building, then you can drive them out of there only by destroying the building in fire and covering the ashes with salt.

Babai

Yes, yes, the same Babai that scared many in childhood. The name “babai” apparently comes from the Turkic “baba”, babai is an old man, grandfather. This word (perhaps as a reminder of the Tatar-Mongol yoke) denotes something mysterious, not quite definite in appearance, unwanted and dangerous. In the beliefs of the northern regions of Russia, a babai is a terrible lopsided old man. He wanders the streets with a stick. Meeting him is dangerous, especially for children. Babayka is a fairly universal children's monster, which is still popular today. Even modern mothers and grandmothers can sometimes tell a naughty child that if he doesn’t eat well, the old woman will take him away. After all, he walks under the windows, as in ancient times.

Baba Yaga

A fairy-tale Russian character who lives in a dense forest; witch. The image of Baba Yaga is considered to be a transformation of the image of an archaic deity, which once dominated the rites of initiation and dedication (initially, perhaps, such a deity had the appearance of a female animal)
Let's answer the question: who is the fabulous Baba Yaga? This is an old evil witch who lives in a deep forest in a hut on chicken legs, flies in a mortar, chasing it with a pestle and covering her tracks with a broom. He loves to feast on human flesh - small children and good fellows. However, in some fairy tales, Baba Yaga is not evil at all: she helps a good young man by giving him something magical or showing him the way to him.
According to one version, Baba Yaga is a guide to the other world - the world of ancestors. She lives on the border of the worlds of the living and the dead, somewhere in the “far away kingdom.” And the famous hut on chicken legs is like a passage into this world; That’s why you can’t enter it until it turns its back to the forest. And Baba Yaga herself is a living dead. The following details support this hypothesis. Firstly, her home is a hut on chicken legs. Why exactly on legs, and even “chicken” ones? It is believed that “kuryi” is a modification of “kurnye” over time, that is, fumigated with smoke. The ancient Slavs had the following custom of burying the dead: they erected a “death hut” on smoke-fuelled pillars, into which the ashes of the deceased were placed. Such a funeral rite existed among the ancient Slavs in the 6th-9th centuries. Perhaps the hut on chicken legs points to another custom of the ancients - burying the dead in domovinas - special houses placed on high stumps. Such stumps have roots that extend outward and really look somewhat like chicken legs.

Bannik

Bannik is a spirit that lives in a bathhouse. The bannik looks like a small, skinny old man with a long beard. He has no clothes on, but his whole body is covered with broom leaves. Despite its size, the old spirit is very strong; it can easily knock down a person and drag him around the bathhouse. Bannik is a rather cruel spirit: he loves to scare those who come to the bathhouse with terrible screams, and can also throw hot stones from the stove or scald with boiling water. If the bannik is angered, the spirit is even capable of killing a person by strangling his enemy in the bathhouse or flaying him alive. An angry bannik can also kidnap or replace a child.

Bannik is a very “social” spirit: he often invites other evil spirits to visit him to “take a steam bath”; he arranges such meetings at night after 3-6 shifts of bathers; it is dangerous to enter the bathhouse on such days. Bannik generally doesn’t like it when people disturb him at night.

Most of all, the spirit loves to scare women, which is why they should not go to the bathhouse alone. But what angers the bannik the most is when a pregnant woman enters the bathhouse; under no circumstances should such expectant mothers be left in the bathhouse unattended by men.
Bannik is able to become invisible and instantly move in space within his bathhouse. Women Banniki - Obderihi are able to change their appearance, turning into a cat or even a person.
In addition, the bannik is capable of revealing to people their future.
If you follow the basic rules, the bannik will never attack a person. But if the bannik is angry, then you can appease him: leaving the spirit a piece of rye bread generously sprinkled with coarse salt, in some cases it is necessary to sacrifice a black chicken, burying it under the threshold of the bathhouse. If, nevertheless, the bathhouse man attacked you, then you need to run out of the bathhouse with your back forward and call the brownie for help: “Father, help me out!..”. This spirit is also afraid of iron.

Berendey

Berendeys - in Slavic mythology - people who turn into bears. As a rule, these were quite powerful sorcerers, or people bewitched by them. Such a werewolf could be disenchanted either by the sorcerer himself, who cast the werewolf curse, or by the death of this sorcerer.

Beregini

Beregini - in Slavic mythology, good water spirits, in the guise of women. They live along the banks of rivers, predict the future, and also save small children left unattended and falling into the water. Belief in beregins (“those who live on the shore”, “protectors”) was, apparently, quite widespread in Ancient Rus'.
It is difficult to judge what the bereginians were like based on rather fragmentary evidence. Some researchers see them as “predecessors” of mermaids or identify them with mermaids. Indeed, bereginii are definitely associated with water; They, apparently, also control some significant aspects of people's lives. Therefore, the assumption of a connection between beregins and mermaids is not unfounded.

Water

The merman cannot be called either evil or good - he is a willful spirit guarding his pond, which, however, does not mind playing tricks on those who come there. The merman looks like an old man with a large beard and a fish tail instead of legs, the old man's hair has a green tint, and his eyes look like fish. During the day, the merman prefers to remain at the bottom of the reservoir, and with the rising of the moon it rises to the surface. The spirit prefers to move around the pond on horseback, mostly swimming on catfish.
The spirit lives in large freshwater bodies of water: rivers, lakes, swamps. However, sometimes it comes onto land and appears in nearby villages. On reservoirs for housing, the merman prefers to choose the deepest places or places with a strong circular current (whirlpools, places near water mills).
The vodyanoy jealously guards his pond and does not forgive those who treat him disrespectfully: the guilty spirit is capable of drowning or severely injuring. However, the merman can also reward people: it is believed that the merman can give a good catch, but he is also capable of leaving the fisherman without a single fish at all. The spirit also loves to play pranks: he scares people at night with strange screams, he can pretend to be a drowned man or a baby, and when he is pulled into a boat or pulled ashore, he will open his eyes, laugh and flop back into the water.
Mermen live in families; usually a merman has many wives - mermaids. Dragged to the bottom by spirit, people remain in the service of the waterman, entertaining the owner of the reservoir in every possible way and carrying out various assignments, however, you can buy him off, but the price will be commensurate - you will have to give up your first-born.
It is almost impossible to fight a merman in his native element, but you can scare him away from you with iron or copper, which in the end will only anger him more. Therefore, in ancient times they preferred not to anger the merman, and if he got angry, they tried to appease the spirit by throwing bread into the water, or sacrificing a black animal

Werewolf

A werewolf is a person who can transform into a wolf (bear). You can become a werewolf voluntarily or against your will. Sorcerers often transform themselves into werewolves to gain the power of the beast. They are able to transform into a wolf and back into a human at will. To do this, the sorcerer just needs to somersault over a stump, or 12 knives stuck into the ground with the tip, and if during the time the magician was in the guise of a beast, someone takes out at least one knife from the ground, then the sorcerer will no longer be able to return back to human form.
A person can turn into a werewolf even after being cursed, then the cursed person is not able to regain his human appearance. However, he can be helped: in order to remove the curse from a person, he must be fed with consecrated food and covered with a robe woven from nettles, while the werewolf will resist this ritual in every possible way.
Werewolves do not have supernatural durability and can be killed with ordinary weapons, but upon death, werewolves turn into ghouls and rise again to take revenge on their killer. To prevent such treatment from happening, the werewolf needs to stuff three silver coins into his mouth at the moment when he is dying, or pierce his heart with a hawthorn stake when the werewolf is in human form.

Volot

Volots are a small race of mighty giants that inhabited the territory of ancient Rus'. The Volots were once one of the most widespread races, but by the beginning of the historical era they had practically died out, forced out by people. Giants are considered the ancestors of the Slavs, which is confirmed by the appearance of heroes in the human race. Volots try not to contact or interfere with people, settling in hard-to-reach places, preferring to choose high mountain areas or hard-to-reach forest thickets for housing; they settle much less often in steppe areas.
Outwardly, a volot is no different from a human, if you do not take into account its gigantic size.

Gorynych

Another well-known fairy tale character. Serpent-Gorynych is the general name for dragon-like creatures. Although he does not belong to dragons, and according to the classification he belongs to snakes, Gorynych’s appearance has many draconic features. Outwardly, the Serpent-Gorynych looks like a dragon, but has many heads. Different sources indicate a different number of heads, but most often three heads are found. However, a larger number of heads rather indicates the fact that this serpent had already repeatedly participated in battles and lost heads, in the place of which a larger number of new ones grew. Gorynych’s body is covered with red or black scales, the serpent’s paws have large copper-colored claws with a metallic sheen, and he himself is large in size and has an impressive wingspan. The Serpent-Gorynych is capable of flying and spewing fire. Gorynych's scales cannot be pierced by any weapon. His blood can burn, and blood spilled on the ground burns it out so that nothing grows in that place for a long time. Zmey-Gorynych is able to regrow lost limbs, he is able to regrow even a lost head. He also has intelligence and is able to imitate the voices of various animals, including the ability to reproduce human speech, which distinguishes him from serpents and makes him closer to dragons.

Gamayun

Gamayun is half-bird, half-man. The hamayun has a bird's body, with bright motley plumage, and the head and chest are human. Gamayun is a messenger of the gods, so she spends almost her entire life traveling, predicting people’s fate and conveying the words of the gods.
By its nature, the hamayun is not aggressive and does not pose a direct danger to humans, but it has a difficult character and therefore behaves somewhat arrogantly, treating people as beings of a lower order.

Brownie

The brownie is a kind spirit, the keeper of the house and everything that is in it. The brownie looks like a small old man (20-30 centimeters tall) with a large beard. It is believed that the older the brownie, the younger he looks, since they are born old men and die babies. The god Veles patronizes the brownies, from whom the spirits inherited several abilities, for example, the ability to predict the future, but the main thing, of course, is wisdom and the ability to heal people and animals.
The brownie lives in almost every home, choosing secluded places to live: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind a chest, in a corner, or even in a chimney.
The brownie takes every possible care of his home and the family that lives in it, protecting them from evil spirits and misfortunes. If a family keeps animals, then the brownie will look after them; the kind spirit especially loves horses.
The brownie loves cleanliness and order in the house, and does not like it when the inhabitants of the house are lazy. But the spirit dislikes it much more when the inhabitants of the house begin to quarrel with each other or treat it with disrespect. An angry brownie begins to let him know that the person is wrong: he knocks on doors and windows; interferes with sleep at night, making terrible sounds or screams, sometimes even wakes a person up, pinching him painfully, after which large and painful bruises remain on the body, which hurt more, the more angry the brownie is; and in extreme cases, the spirit is capable of throwing dishes, writing bad messages on the walls and starting small fires. However, the brownie will not cause serious harm to a person, and sometimes the spirit living in the house plays pranks without any particular reason.

Firebird

The Firebird is a bird the size of a peacock, and in appearance it most closely resembles a peacock, only it has bright golden plumage with a tint of red. The firebird cannot be picked up with bare hands, as its plumage burns, and the firebird is not surrounded by fire. These birds spend most of their lives locked up, either in Iria or in private hands, they are kept mainly in golden cages, where they sing songs all day long, and at night these amazing birds are released to feed. The firebirds' favorite food is fruit; they love apples, especially golden ones.

Sinister

Sinister is an evil spirit that brings poverty to the house in which it has settled. These spirits are subordinate to Navya. Sinister is invisible, but he can be heard, sometimes he even talks to the people in whose house he has settled. It is difficult for an evil spirit to get into the house, since the brownie does not let him in, but if he has managed to slip into the home, it is very difficult to get rid of him. If the evil spirit has made its way into the house, then it shows great activity; in addition to conversations, the spirit can climb on the inhabitants of the house and ride them. Often evil spirits live in groups, so that in one house there can be up to 12 creatures.

Indrik Beast

Indrik - the beast - In Russian legends, Indrik acts as “the father of all animals.” It can have one or two horns. In Russian fairy tales, Indrik is portrayed as an opponent of the serpent who prevents him from taking water from the well. In fairy tales, the image of an indrik represents a fantastic animal that the main character hunts. In some fairy tales, he appears in the royal garden instead of the firebird and steals golden apples.

Kikimora

Kikimora is an evil spirit that sends nightmares to people. In appearance, the kikimora is very thin and small: her head is the size of a thimble, and her body is thin as a reed; she wears neither shoes nor clothes and remains invisible most of the time. During the day, kikimoras are inactive, but at night they begin to play pranks. For the most part, they do not cause serious harm to humans, mostly they just play small pranks: they sometimes knock on something at night, or they begin to creak. But if the kikimora dislikes one of the family members, then the pranks will become much more serious: the spirit will begin to break furniture, break dishes, and harass livestock. The kikimora's favorite pastime is spinning yarn: sometimes he sits in the corner at night and starts working, and so on until the morning, but there is no sense in this work, he only tangles the threads and breaks the yarn.
Kikimoras prefer human houses as a habitat, choosing secluded places to live: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind a chest, in the corner. Often kikimors are taken as wives by brownies.
Sometimes kikimoras appear before people's eyes, foreshadowing imminent misfortunes: if she cries, then trouble will soon happen, and if she spins, it means that soon one of the inhabitants of the house will die. The prediction can be clarified by asking the kikimora, then she will definitely answer, but only by knocking.

Surprisingly, in the minds of modern Russians, Orthodox culture coexists with echoes of ancient paganism. From childhood, everyone knows who a brownie, a goblin, a mermaid, a Baba Yaga or a kikimora (they also add a swamp) are. But in Rus' these mythical characters were taken seriously. They not only believed in them, they knew that they existed. Faith is an irrational feeling that does not require proof, but knowledge is based on evidence and facts. Well, wasn’t it the goblin who made a man wander in the thicket, who else but a mermaid could pull a young guy under the water? The brownie, getting angry, was able to turn over all the things in the house so that you couldn’t find it, and scald the banner with boiling water. The pedigree of the mythical Slavic creatures can be the envy of any nation; its roots go back to the Mesolithic, which means it is more than ten thousand years old. And although the Slavs did not have mountain or sea monsters, river and forest evil spirits were present in abundance. Let's see what kind of mystical creatures lived next to our distant grandparents.

If there is a house, then there is a brownie in it, where would we be without him? He is the keeper of the hearth. A kind grandfather, taking care of children, livestock, and caring for the prosperity of the family.

They called him brownie infrequently, usually grandfather, and everyone knew who they were talking about. In everyday life, this old man was unassuming; he lived in a stable or behind the stove.

The brownie had to be taken care of, fed and watered, so they left him in the closet at night. Grandfather was partial to porridge with butter - it was his favorite dish.

They loved the brownie and tried not to spoil their relationship with him. And if they were complicated, it was due to the negligence of the owners.

This is interesting

The Slavs had “tree mermaids” who lived in tree branches. Remember, from Pushkin: “The mermaid sits on the branches”

Oh, how grandfather did not like the mess in the house, unwashed dishes and floors, dirty things, unkempt livestock and discord in family relationships. An angry brownie could be dangerous and even deadly.

He could have killed a cow or a horse, broken dishes, set fire to a house. In a dream he could pinch his owners until they bruised, and he was also capable of strangling the sleeping person. So it was better to live with him in peace and harmony.

Leshy or woodsman

The appearance of this forest spirit is described in different ways, which is not surprising. The uncle forester loved, as they say, dressing up, like a provincial actor who plays all the roles in the theater at once.

Either he appears in the form of a decrepit and weak old man, then he turns into a terrible bear, or he can turn into just a tree. Sometimes it’s a simple man, only he’s covered in wool, and his clothes are a mess: the boots are put on backwards, and the caftan is wrapped on the right side.

But it happens that he appears before the traveler in a terrible form: without eyebrows or eyelashes, with an earth-colored face, green hair and eyes burning with fire. I wouldn’t want to meet this citizen in the forest at night.

This is interesting

In 2004, the village of Kukoboi (Pervomaisky district of the Yaroslavl region) was declared the “homeland” of Baba Yaga. Her "birthday" is celebrated on July 26th

The goblin also has a specific sense of humor. Firstly, he loves to confuse the wanderer, leads him in circles, confuses the paths. Secondly, he loves to scare people, to do this he screams in a completely wild voice, howls and laughs. After he panics, he rejoices and claps his hands.

In the forest he is the master. All animals obey him, and he takes care of them and protects them from uninvited guests.

The goblin is not always angry and harsh. If you treat him like a human being, then in return he will show you mushroom and berry places and help. He only needs one thing: when visiting the forest, a person respects local laws and does not cause harm to the forest. Grandfather the forester is very pleased if you leave him a bun, gingerbread or pie on a stump, that is, delicacies that do not grow in the forest.

If Baba Yaga flies in a mortar, Ivanushka the Fool chose a stove as a means of transportation, and Zmey-Gorynych makes do with his own traction force, then Vodyanoy cuts through river and lake surfaces riding on a catfish. In Slavic mythology, he is the ruler of lake and river depths, the head of various waters.

There is a ton of work in his household: at the bottom of rivers he grazes herds of carp, bream, catfish and other fish, and looks after his subordinates - undines, mermaids, and other inhabitants of the depths.

He takes on a variety of guises. Most often he walks (or swims) in his natural form, which is not very attractive.

This is interesting

Ilya Muromets is the only epic hero canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church

This is a naked grandpa with a fish tail and bulging eyes. He has a long beard and green mustache, and he himself is often wrapped in dirty sticky mud.

The merman likes to spend his leisure time in dangerous and deep places, in whirlpools and impassable swamps.

Day after day he dissects the depths of his possessions, establishing order and scolding careless employees, and at night he settles down in a pool or under a water mill.

Now there are none left, so maybe it finds a place to sleep somewhere in water utilities or wastewater treatment plants.

Grandpa is not easy, and some of his jokes are very scary. When appearing in public, he is able to take on their guises, appearing before a person in the form of a relative, sometimes a deceased one.

The drowned people are also the work of his hands. This is how he indulges, and the victims of his pranks come into his service, amuse and entertain the swamp king.

This is interesting

Sinister is an evil spirit that brings poverty to the house in which it has settled. Sinister is invisible, but he can be heard, sometimes he even talks to people

According to other sources, he is not such a villain. On the contrary, it helps fishermen and millers, and other people whose work is related to water.

And his jokes are not evil, but stupid: well, he will stuff brooms into the nets, tangle the fishing line, tear the nets, scatter the fish - not fatal.

It can, of course, make you very angry. Therefore, there is no need to behave on the water as in a stable: litter on the shore, throw any rubbish into the water, the merman does not like this.

The mermaid is one of the favorite characters in literature, music, and painting. These mythological heroines are present in the works of Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Nabokov, Goethe, and remember the charming little mermaid of the storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.

In Slavic mythology, these young ladies are not so pretty and romantic. Most often these are harmful, vengeful and evil beasts, drowned women or dead unbaptized children.

Sometimes a mermaid is a beautiful girl who sits by the water and combs her long hair. Seeing a passerby, she immediately disappears into the depths.

Combing hair is a witchcraft action, and meeting a mermaid on the shore who does this foreshadows impending disaster.

By the way, mermaids do not have a fish tail; this is a common modern opinion; in popular beliefs, the tail is mentioned very rarely.

In most of the same traditional Slavic beliefs, the mermaid is not a young beauty, but an old ugly undead - hunchbacked, with a huge saggy belly, long sharp and dirty claws and green tangled hair.

It is mortally dangerous for bathers to encounter them; mermaids know neither pity nor compassion.

Kikimora

There are domestic and swamp kikimoras.

This is a real pest. Don’t feed him bread, let him do some dirty tricks. She disturbs children in their sleep, tortures livestock, breaks dishes, and confuses yarn.

She lives in the attic or behind the stove, but even there she cannot sit quietly: she makes noise, screams, knocks, and disturbs her sleep. Such a mischief. And she looks the part: an old hag with a long nose and a nasty, squeaky voice.

The devil's girlfriend. And since she has a boyfriend, she takes care of herself, a real fashionista. She dresses up in clothes made of moss and weaves marsh herbs and plants into her hair.

But in essence, like her relative, she is the same rubbish. She lives in a swamp, the conditions, of course, are not very comfortable, maybe that’s why she’s embittered towards the whole world. He steals little children and drags lost travelers into the quagmire. In terms of female attractiveness, it’s also not very good, so it hardly shows itself to people, it only screams from its swamp at night in a loud, shrill voice.

In the house there is a brownie, in the bathhouse there is a bannik.

This, unlike the brownie, is a more evil and insidious spirit.

His appearance is deceptive, a kind of old dandelion, small, naked, with a beard covered with mold.

But he does evil things: fainting, accidents, and even deaths in the bathhouse - his pranks.

The jokes are also sadistic: scalding someone who is washing with boiling water, shooting hot stones from a stove at naked people.

Maybe tear off a piece of skin from a living person and drag it into a hot oven.

But...if you prepare and leave him a basin of cold, clean water for his sole use, and give him a couple of drinks, he will soften up.

According to other beliefs, he is not such a monster, but, on the contrary, a spirit sympathetic to people.

This is interesting

Dashing is an evil humanoid creature. Feeds recklessly on the flesh and suffering of people and animals

Often sick people were left in the bathhouse in his care, and he helped and cured even the hopeless.

In everyday life, the old man is unpretentious, lives under the shelf, or somewhere next to the heater.

The female version of the bannik is shishiga. took the form of a relative or friend, went into the steam room and could steam her friend to death.

Barabashki is a Russian poltergeist.

But behind these little hooligan spirits there is a terrible story.

It was believed that if parents cursed their children, even if not out of malice, but by accident, then they disappeared or died for no reason.

In reality, they were climbed up and carried away by some mysterious old men into some otherworldly distance, into the mysterious unknown.

Mysterious grandfathers raised their charges and took care of them for the time being. But there came a period when dead babies had to return to the world.

This is interesting

Werewolf - a person who can transform into a wolf or a bear

The children turned into various otherworldly entities, settled in some house and began their harmful and destructive work. You don’t need to explain to anyone what a poltergeist is; you’ve probably read it or watched movies.

Just like a character from H.G. Wells’s science fiction novel “The Island of Doctor Moreau.” This genetic monster hatches from a rooster egg that was hatched by a toad. That's why his head is like a rooster's, his tail is like a snake's, and his body is like a toad's. He is enormous in stature and kills with his breath or just with his gaze.

His breath is something else, it makes rocks crack and the grass instantly dries up. But there is still salvation; it is enough to place a mirror in front of his terrible mouth. The second way is the crowing of a rooster, for some reason this monster is afraid of it.

Our readers are well acquainted with this character of Slavic mythology. The ghoul is the same thing, but countless films have been made about him, and a lot of books have been written.

By the way, the most terrible story, in my humble taste, is “The Ghoul” by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy. This little story just freezes the blood in your veins. It was written based on the stories of villagers about ghouls, that they rise from their graves, drink blood and are capable, like a plague, of devastating entire villages. A ghoul is a werewolf. He can transform into wild animals, has monstrous strength and other supernatural abilities.

Map of 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 the 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 increasingly separated from each other, forming three modern branches of the largest family of related peoples in Europe. Eastern Slavs are Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians; Western - Poles, Slovaks and Czechs (the Baltic Slavs were assimilated by their Germanic neighbors in the 12th century); southern - Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians. Despite the division of the Slavs, their mythologies have retained many common features to this day.

Thus, all Slavs know the myth about the duel between the thunder god and his demonic opponent and the victory of the thunderer; All Slavic traditions are familiar with the ancient custom of burning an effigy at the end of winter - the embodiment of dark evil forces or burying a mythical creature like Maslenitsa and Yarila among the Russians and Belarusians and Herman among the Bulgarians.

Slavic mythology and the religion of the Slavs were composed of the deification of the forces of nature and the cult of ancestors. The only supreme god, the “creator of lightning”, like Indra among the Hindus, Zeus among the Greeks, Jupiter among the Romans, Thor among the Germans, Perkunas among the Lithuanians - among the Slavs 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 high gods were considered the sons of Svarog - Svarozhichi; 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 herds Veles originally also a solar 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 among individual Slavic tribes, new, more defined and more bizarre forms.

Thus, among the Western Slavs the highest god was considered Svyatovit, and corresponded to it Triglav- a three-headed idol that was worshiped in Shchetin (Stettin) and Wolin. In the city of Retra, the same highest god, the son of Svarog, was called Radegasta, and in Czech and Polish legends he appears under the name Kroka or Kraka.

Already ancient writers assumed that the name Svyatovit appeared as a result of the confusion of the pagan god with the Christian saint Vitus; the name Radegost was also supposed to be transferred to the god from the name of the city, and the city received this name from one of its princes. Krak, according to the legend of Kozma of Prague, was a wise and fair judge and ruler of the people. Whatever these guesses may be, there is no doubt that all the names listed meant the same high god and that they all appeared later.

The vague evidence that has reached us about the Slavic gods, which is explained in folk tales and songs, boils down to the struggle between the light and dark forces of nature, fertility and infertility, summer and winter, light and darkness, life and death, Belbog and Chernobog. Intertwined with these ideas were views on the afterlife and the cult of ancestors. The souls of the deceased lived in some distant country at the end of the world, where the sun sets; this country was called by the Slavs navyem, vyryem, iriya, paradise, hell. The deceased must be prepared for this country as if on a long journey, which is achieved by proper burial.

Until the funeral rites are performed, the soul wanders on earth; among the southern Slavs the soul in this state is called Vidogonya. The soul is doomed to eternal wandering on earth if the correct ritual has not been performed; Thus, the souls of girls or children who drowned in water become mermaids, waving, with a pitchfork. To make it easier for the deceased to travel to the kingdom of the dead, the Slavs resorted to burning: the fire of a funeral pyre instantly separated the soul from the body and sent it to heavenly dwellings.

Fight of Dobrynya Nikitich
with Zmey Gorynych

In the cult fire of the funeral pyre, P. N. Milyukov sees a connection between two independently emerging 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 himself turned into a symbol of the soul of the ancestor, which under the name Rhoda, 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; it equally honored the elemental heavenly god and the tribal deity of the family community.

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, Slovenian Skrat), which, under the guise of a fiery serpent, flies through a pipe and brings the owner all kinds of 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 and visits red maidens (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 had come to: the Slavic gods continued to merge with the elements that they personified and did not yet have clear anthropomorphic features. Likewise, the cult of ancestors among the Slavs had not yet developed into such distinct, complete forms and did not have such strict legal consequences as among the Greeks and Romans.

The religious views of the Slavs come down to those ancient layers of religious beliefs that constitute the common property of the peoples of the Aryan tribe: they formed 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 cult, 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 known rituals, who had a hierarchical structure and over time acquired the significance of a leading caste. Other Slavic tribes had neither public idols, nor temples, nor priests; Representatives of clan unions made sacrifices to the clan and heavenly gods. It was only under the influence of the Varangians that the Russian Slavs 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, Khorsu, Dazhdbog, and in Novgorod, Dobrynya - to Perun over Volkhov. Under Vladimir, for the first time, temples appeared in Rus', probably built by him, in which, according to the saga of Olav 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 not yet able to supplant the remnants of pagan beliefs.

After 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 relegated them to the position of “demons”, and partly remained faithful to their ancestral gods. Kozma of Prague († 1125) says: “and hitherto among many of the villagers, just like among pagans, some honor springs or fires, others adores forests or trees, or stones, others make sacrifices to mountains or hills, others bow to idols, deaf and dumb. which he made for himself, praying that they would rule his house and himself." By these idols Kozma obviously means the household gods, which the Czechs called with skrits And with grilles, among Russians - brownies, etc.; The Czech brownie Křet was depicted by the Czechs in the form of small bronze figurines, the size of a finger, which is why he was called Paleček (boy the size of a finger).

The most interesting reflection of Slavic mythology is the association of pagan beliefs with Christian holidays. Like other Aryan peoples, the Slavs imagined the entire cycle of the seasons as a continuous struggle and alternate 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 incorporated the pagan content of this holiday into the celebration of the Nativity of Christ, and the celebration of Christmastide itself received the Greco-Roman name. carols.

The rituals with which the pagan Slavs greeted the onset of spring and the summer solstice were also, to a greater or lesser extent, timed to coincide with Christian holidays: such as Rusalia, Semik, Kupalo. Given 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 like Yarila, Kostroma, etc., the number of which probably increased thanks to the narrow-minded 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, and benevolence, while others were credited with cunning, malice, and deceit. The ancients believed that all these creatures - beregins, pitchforks, watermen, field workers, etc., constantly interfere in their lives and accompany a person from the day of birth until death.

The Slavs believed that good and evil spirits were near them, that they helped to harvest a bountiful harvest and brought illnesses, promised a happy family life, order in the house and punished for unseemly deeds. The Slavs feared and revered the gods, of whom there were relatively few and who controlled natural phenomena and elements - thunderstorms, fire, rains, trying to appease them 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, “The History of Poland” by Jan Dlugosz (1415 - 1480), which gives a list of deities and their correspondence from Roman mythology: Nyya - Pluto, Devana - Venus, Marzana - Ceres.

Czech and Slovak data on the gods, as many scientists believe, need a critical attitude. Little is known about the mythology of the southern Slavs. Having early fallen 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 mythology of the Eastern Slavs has been most fully preserved. 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 entailed the destruction of the idols of the so-called Vladimirov pantheon (they were solemnly thrown into the Dnieper), as well as the ban on paganism and its rituals. The old gods began to be identified with Christian saints: the thunderer Perun turned into Saint Elijah, the god of wisdom Veles into Saint Blaise, the sun god Yarilo into Saint George. However, the mythological ideas of our ancestors continue to live in folk traditions, holidays, beliefs and rituals, as well as in songs, fairy tales, conspiracies and signs. Ancient mythological characters such as goblin, mermaids, merman, brownies and devils are vividly imprinted in speech, proverbs and sayings.

Developing, Slavic mythology went through three stages - spirits, nature deities and idol gods (idols). The Slavs revered the gods of life and death (Zhiva and Moran), fertility and the plant kingdom, heavenly bodies and fire, sky and war; not only the sun or water were personified, but also numerous house and forest spirits; worship and admiration were expressed in the offering of blood and bloodless sacrifices to them.
In the 19th century, Russian scientists began to explore Russian myths, tales and legends, understanding their scientific value and the importance of preserving them for subsequent generations. The works of F.I. were key to the new understanding of Slavic mythology. Buslaeva, A.A. Potebnya, I.P. Sakharov, such specific works as the three-volume study by A.N. Afanasyev “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature”, “Myths of Slavic paganism” and “A brief sketch of Russian mythology” D.O. Sheppinga, “Deities of the Ancient Slavs” by A.S. Famintsina.

The first to emerge was the mythological school, which is based on the comparative historical method of study, the establishment of an organic connection between language, folk poetry and folk mythology, and the principle of the collective nature of creativity. Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) is rightfully considered the creator of this school. “In the most ancient period of language,” says Buslaev, “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 from the name a legend or myth arose again.” "Epic ritual" 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 Russian science was transferred by Buslaev to folklore and applied to the study of the mythological legends of the Slavs.

Poetic inspiration belonged to one and all, like a proverb, like a legal maxim. There was a whole people who were poets. Some individuals were not poets, but singers or storytellers; they only knew how to tell or sing more accurately and skillfully what was known to everyone. The power of tradition reigned supreme over the epic singer, not allowing him to stand out from the group. Not knowing the laws of nature, neither physical nor moral, epic poetry represented both in an inseparable totality, expressed in numerous similes and metaphors. The heroic epic is only a further development of the mythological legend. The theogonic epic gives way to the heroic at that stage of the development of epic poetry when legends about the affairs of people began to join pure myth. At this time, an epic epic grew out of the myth, from which the fairy tale subsequently emerged. The people preserve their epic legends not only in epics and fairy tales, but also in individual sayings, short 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 developed into a school of comparative mythology and the theory of borrowing. The theory of comparative mythology was developed by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev (1826-1871), Orest Fedorovich Miller (1833-1889) and Alexander Alexandrovich Kotlyarevsky (1837-1881). Their focus was on the problem of the origin of myth in the very process of its creation. Most of the myths, according to this theory, go back to the ancient Aryan tribe. Standing out from this common ancestral tribe, the peoples spread its legends throughout the world, therefore the legends of the “Dove Book” almost completely coincide with the songs of the Old Scandinavian “Elder Edda” and the most ancient myths of the Hindus. The comparative method, according to Afanasyev, “provides a means of restoring the original form of legends.” Epic songs are of particular importance for understanding Slavic mythology (this term was introduced into use by I.P. Sakharov; before that, epic songs were called antiquities).

Russian heroic epics can be ranked alongside heroic myths in other mythological systems with the difference that the epics are largely historical, telling about the events of the 11th-16th centuries. The heroes of the 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 fought). Initially existing in an 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 ​​​​the people's idea of ​​the world and the universe (like fantasy or religion), but is embodied even in everyday life - be it rites, rituals, cults or the agricultural calendar, preserved demonology (from brownies, witches and goblin to banniks and mermaids) or a forgotten identification (for example, pagan Perun with the Christian Saint Elijah). Therefore, practically destroyed at the level of texts until the 11th century, it continues to live in images, symbolism, rituals and in the language itself.