Another 29/02/20 The wild pagan cults of the Slavs
Mythology of the ancient Slavs was closely connected with nature. Our ancestors lived in symbiosis with the elements, and their ceremonies and rituals were designed to emphasize this unity. The researchers note that the amplitude of the character of the religious traditions of the Slavs was quite wide: from civilian agricultural to a brutal and bloody cults.
the Mother – Land of Cheese
From time immemorial the basis of Slavic mythology was the cult of the goddess called Mother – Land of Cheese. She gave life, she was taken away. As pointed out by the scholar of Slavic mythology, Y. I. Smirnov, Slavs imagined her as a woman: grass, shrubs and trees – her luxuriant hair, their roots are veins, the cliff – bones, streams and rivers – the life blood of the. The name of the Earth Mother swore by eating at the same pinch of soil, and this oath could not be broken, because the land would not be a perjurer. Still preserved the phrase “To me to sink into the ground”.
as the rites for Mother Earth has brought the grain.
the Cults of love and fertility
an echo of the ancient Slavic veneration was Kind; he was sent from heaven to earth the souls of men. Rod was a patron of men, and the women cared for his daughter [rozhanitsy]. Among the rozhanitsy known two: Lada and her daughter Lola.
the Lada was considered the protector of the family, the goddess of love and beauty, and fertility. A collector of Russian folk tales A. N. Afanasiev wrote: “In folk tales of Lado still means tenderly beloved friend, lover, fiancé, husband, and the female form (Lada) – a lover, bride and wife.” Goddess Lola took care of the first spring shoots, flowers and delighted in the girl’s love.
Rozhanitsy women brought gifts of flowers and berries. Rituals that promote fertility, was associated with a naked body.
In the grain field with the goal of a good harvest was performed a kind of ritual. “The mistress went into the field and pretended that bears between his legs she put the loaf,” said Professor N. M. Nicholas in his book “History of Russian Church”. During Holy week, the last week of lent, also conjured that the bread was born better. The owner was shaking the plow, simulated plowing. A naked woman was collecting in the corners of cockroaches, wrapped them in a rag and stand on the road. Spoke and hex for cattle and poultry.
In the Vyatka province on Maundy Thursday before sunrise naked lady of the house had to run with the old pot in the garden and tilting his on his pot remained in this position for a coke during the summer is guarding the chickens from birds of prey.
And near Kostroma until the XVIII century been such a pagan ritual naked girl sat like a witch, Pamela the handle three times and “rode” around the house.
Jari
It was a fun God of the spring sun and fertility, patron of love and fertility. His name comes from the word “Yar” – the “power”. The deity was represented not only a young man dressed in white and on a white horse, but sometimes a woman, dressed in white pants and shirt, and holding in his right hand an effigy of a human head and in its left a bundle of ears: symbols of life and death. On the head of Yarilo was the first wreath of wildflowers.
Arilyn day was celebrated on April 27. On this day, the girl seated on the white horse, which took around a ritual pole or tree at a high place. Then the horse was tied and drove around the dance, singing the arrival of spring. The second festival dedicated to the Yarilo was celebrated in the middle of the summer before Peter’s post. This time the deity was depicted as a young man, dressed in white robes decorated with ribbons and flowers. He led the celebration, which ended with refreshments and festivities.
Yarilo is celebrated as “disseminating or spring morning sunlight, stimulating plant virtue in herbs and trees and carnal love in humans and animals, youthful freshness, strength and courage in the man” (P. Efimenko. “Zap. Imp. Rus. Geogr. Common. at the same time. Ethnography”, 1868).
the Cult of Veles – God of animals and the underworld
Winged serpent Veles was worshipped as the patron of cattle and wild animals. He also rules the underworld, and he was dedicated to the unquenchable fire. When I removed bread, as a gift to the Velez left a bundle of uncompressed ears. For the health and fertility of cattle slaughtered white lamb. The rite of bringing Veles human sacrifice is described in the “Legend of the building of the city of Yaroslavl”
“When he came the first pasture of cattle on pastures, the sorcerer was killed for him the calf and heifer, in ordinary time from the wild beasts of the victims were burned, and some very bad days — and of the people. When the flame at the Hair faded, the sorcerer on the same day abandon Keremet, and by lot chose otherwise, and this slew the sorcerer and spreading fire, it burned in his body as a sacrifice, only able to osvetlit this dreadful God” (Voronin N. Bear cult in the Upper Volga region XI century). A new fire was allowed to produce only by friction of wood on wood: if he was considered “alive”.
With the advent of Christianity, Veles was replaced by a Christian Saint with a similar name – the PriestMartyr Blaise. As pointed out by the scholar of Slavic mythology, Y. I. Smirnov, on the memory day of this Saint, February 24, the peasants were treated Pets the bread and drink the baptismal water. And if the cattle are attacked by disease, the people “opahivanie” the village was laid out around it plow the furrow, and passed around with the icon of St. Blaise.
the Cult of fire
the fire-God was Svarog (other names Svyatovit, Radegast) and his son Svarozhich. The fire was considered the Slavs to be sacred. It could not spit, throw dirt. When the burning fire was forbidden to swear. The fire was attributed to healing and cleansing properties. The sick person was passing through the fire, which was supposed to die the forces of evil. The bride and groom before the wedding, conducted between two bonfires to purify and protect her future family from possible damage.
Smashing crockery in modern weddings – Atholsedges worship Svarog, just before they beat the pots on the stove.
Svarog and brought the bloody sacrifice, which defined lots or pointed out by the priest. Often they were animals, but could be people. “Among the various victims of the priest is wont sometimes to bring in the victim and the people — Christians, saying that this sort of blood brings special pleasure to the gods” (Gelmold. Slavic chronicle, 1167-1168 gg.). Adam of Bremen in the chronicle of the eleventh century “Deeds of bishops of the Hamburg” tells the story of the death of John, Bishop of Mecklenburg: “the barbarians cut off his hands and feet, body thrown on the road, the head cut off and stuck on a spear, brought it as a sacrifice to God Radegast as a sign of victory.”
the Cult of the gods of war
When strengthened princely power, the primacy of the cult of fertility was replaced by the cult of war. Near Veliky Novgorod were located the temple – Peryn, where the gods of this cult human sacrifices were offered. One of the first written references of the ritual murders can be considered the message in the Byzantine “Strategicone of Mauritius” (VI-VII centuries). In it, in particular, talking about the Slavic tribes of antes and sklaviny.
In the old days, Peryn was an island, but in the 1960-ies the water regime was disturbed by the construction of the dam. As a result, the river became shallow and Perini around the island United with the mainland. In Kiev the sanctuary, hosted by Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich in 980, were several idols: a wooden Perun with a silver head and Golden mustache, Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Mokosh and Simargl. Of the victims that were sacrificed to these gods, there is evidence in a number of foreign sources.
the German Bishop thietmar of Merseburg in the “chronicle” (XI century) wrote:
“How many in the country [the Slavic – ed.] areas, so there are temples and images of the individual demons revere infidels, but among them mentioned the city [the temple – ed.] enjoys the greatest respect. Visit it when you go to war, and upon return, if the campaign was successful, celebrated its correstawski gifts, and what the victim should bring the priests that it was desirable to the gods, this was wondering as I have said, by horse and Aristotle. Anger of the gods propitiate the blood of people and animals”.
the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon (mid X century) tells the story of the siege by the Byzantines of Prince Svyatoslav in the city Dorostol. The author called all the Northern barbarians, the Scythians, but, of course, true of the Scythians did not exist, and we are talking about the pagan Slavs and rusah:
“the Scythians did not survive the onslaught of the enemy; much depressed with the death of its leader (Tmora, the second person in the army after Svyatoslav), they threw the shields over their backs and began to retreat to the city, and the Romans pursued them and killed. And so, when night came on, and shone the full round moon, the Scythians went out to the plain and began to pick up their dead. They piled them in front of the wall, they spread out a lot of fires and burned, stabbing with the custom of their ancestors many prisoners, men and women. Having made this bloody sacrifice, they strangled a few infants and males, drowning them in the waters of Istria.”
the fact of the sacrifice of prisoners and babies Slavs is confirmed by other medieval authors, and archaeologists. B. A. Rybakov in his book “Paganism ancient Rus” writes that the ancient settlement Babina Gora on the banks of the Dnieper, which belonged, in his opinion, the early Slavs were a pagan sanctuary, where they sacrificed babies. Testify, the conviction of the researcher, the children’s skulls found buried near without items that usually accompanied the burial. He suggests that Babin mountain “can be thought of as a sanctuary of a female deity like Mokos”, where the victims were children.
Ibn rust, the beginning of the X century:
“There they [the Slavs – ed.] healers, of which the other precepts of the king, as if they were their rulers. It happens that they are ordered to offer sacrifice to their Creator, whatever you want to them: women, men, and horses, and when ordered to healers, not to execute their orders n’re not supposed in any way. Taking human or animal, a witch doctor throws him the noose around his neck, hung the victim on a log and waits until it suffocates, and says that it is a sacrifice to God.”
In the chronicle “Tale of bygone years” mentions a young man, a Christian, which the pagans wanted to sacrifice: John, son of Theodore the Varangian. The son and his father were killed by a mob of fanatical pagans. Later the Church canonized them as saints and martyrs. What God was to sacrifice a young outsider, the chronicler does not specify. B. A. Rybakov believes that Perun. But after just 8 years after the creation of temples in Kiev Prince Vladimir adopted Christianity and “commanded to cast down idols — some chop, and other burn. Perun also ordered to attach to a horse and dragged him from the mountains on Borichev to the Stream and put twelve men pounding his sticks. This was done not because the tree something feels, but desecration demon which deceived people in this manner — that he took revenge on people.” Beaten Perun thrown into the Dnieper, and the Prince’s men were commanded to push it from the shore, until it passes the threshold.
Galina Pogodina
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© Russian Seven
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