Old Church Slavonic RPG

Symbolism of trees

[The most revered trees are oak and birch. They symbolize male and female principles. Their cult is as ancient as it can be traced, and in some places it survived until the 19th century in completely archaic forms. The oak, with its wide-spreading crown, was considered a natural temple - prayers were held near it, and marriage ceremonies were held under it. In some areas, rituals under the oak complemented the church service: after the wedding, the newlyweds went to the ancient sacred tree and walked around it three times.] [In folk tradition, birches were planted near the house - "for happiness", as a talisman against lightning, against hostile witchcraft, or simply on the occasion of the birth of a child. A birch log buried at the entrance to the barn was supposed to ensure offspring, and birch firewood placed in the oven after baking bread - the white color of future lambs.] [But the most powerful amulet is birch branches, both ritual (from the celebration of Ivan Kupala, Semik or Trinity) and ordinary ones. Even a simple birch broom could drive away troubles if it was leaned against the cradle of a child or the bed of a woman in labor. To prevent lightning from striking the house, branches were hung in the attic or tucked under the roof. They were stuck along the edge of the field - to have a good harvest of cereals or flax, placed in the garden between the beds - to drive away caterpillars, they also protected from birds and rodents. Wreaths woven for summer holidays were sometimes hung on cows' horns so that witches did not steal milk and did not put the evil eye on the cattle. They even protected from the walking dead and other evil spirits.]

Symbolism of trees

[Rowan was thought to be a tree clearly associated with evil spirits. This connection, partly harmful, was capable of being used by man for his own benefit. Rowan is a tree of witches: having turned into birds, they can sit on its branches. According to numerous beliefs, witches turn into birds and dogs, having thrown themselves over a rowan bush. In the Russian North, the wood goblin was called "rowan", and, according to the principle "a part neutralizes the whole", it was the rowan that protected from him: it was specially planted near houses so that the wood goblin would not have power over the people and cattle living there.] [Finally, rowan could serve as the most important of magical protections: they hung it around the house after returning from the cemetery. Folk culture is imbued with the strongest fear - the fear that the deceased will drag the living along with him, and therefore all funeral and memorial rituals are aimed at counteracting this. Rowan branches did not allow the dead to return to his home.]

Mother Earth

[The sacred force that rejected all impurity both literally and figuratively was the mother of the damp earth. She was not a goddess and had no personification at all, and, in fact, did without a cult. Speaking about the veneration of the earth in folk culture, we mean the physical earth - the soil and turf, which embodied the most good principle. Thus, peasants in the field before a meal wiped their hands on the earth, confident that it would cleanse any dirt, that is, dirt cannot go into the earth, it will remain on the surface. The same applies to unclean death: the earth does not accept the corpses of suicides and other people who died "wrongly".]

Communication with the dead

[An important feature of table manners during the "grandfathers" is the ban on using a knife. Explanations like "so as not to cut the "souls"" are undoubtedly late, and the essence of this rule again takes us to the myths of creation. The world before existence is thought of as merged, undivided, there are no boundaries in it (remember the ancient Indian image of the mother of the gods Aditi, whose name means "infinity"), and the act of creation is precisely the appearance of boundaries (for example, in the Mediterranean myth, the sky was cut off from the earth with a knife or sickle). This is precisely why it is forbidden to cut and chop when communicating with the world of the dead; if something needs to be divided, it should be broken.] [During the entire ritual, the doors of the house, the stove damper (we will talk about the connection between the stove and the deceased a little later), and the cemetery gates could be open. This day, as a day of contact with the other world, was completely excluded from ordinary human life: it was strictly forbidden to work, to do anything around the house (except cooking), and a particularly strict ban was imposed on all types of women's handicrafts. Sexual intimacy between spouses was also not allowed on the night before and after the "grandfathers": a child born due to the violation of the taboo would be mute or deformed, that is, having the features of the world of the dead (silence has already been mentioned, and the idea that what is straight in the world of the living is curved in the world of the dead is reflected in the proverb "the grave will straighten the hunchback", which in modern culture has an ironic connotation, and in traditional culture was understood literally).]

Communication with the dead

["Grandfathers" were celebrated at least three times a year: Maslenitsa (on the Saturday of Maslenitsa), Trinity (on the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Saturday before Trinity), autumn (on the Saturday before the day of Kuzma and Demyan, November 1); "grandfathers" could also coincide with Radunitsa (a day of remembrance on the second week after Easter; Radunitsa, unlike "grandfathers", took place in the cemetery, where they brought treats to the deceased, some of which they ate themselves, some were left). The further into the past this ritual went, the more actively they talked about how the deceased punished those who did not celebrate it: "if you don't celebrate it once, your cattle will die"; people could be struck by illnesses and other misfortunes. So, mother earth, bread and ancestors - "grandfathers" ("chury") - these are three forces that always accompanied a person: leaving home for a short time, he took bread as food; leaving his homeland for months or years, he took a pendant with his native soil. If a person did not violate prohibitions, observed rituals, that is, did not commit clearly wrong actions, then these three forces were exclusively good for him. As we will see later, communication with all other supernatural forces, small and great, was based on completely different principles: a person was never insured against their wrath, more or less destructive.] [So, mother earth, bread and ancestors – “grandfathers” (“chury”) – these are three forces that always accompanied a person: leaving home for a short time, he took bread as food; leaving his homeland for months or years, he took an amulet with native soil. If a person did not violate prohibitions, observed rituals, that is, did not commit clearly wrong actions, then these three forces were exclusively good for him. As we will see later, communication with all other supernatural forces, small and great, was built on completely different principles: a person was never insured against their wrath.]

Spirits and characters of the peasant estate

[Polaznik: This messenger of fate is called a polaznik. This is a real person, the first to come to visit during the New Year holidays. According to what this person is like, fortune-telling is done. If he is lucky, the year will be good; if he is a man, a boy will be born, if a woman - a girl. The polaznik (especially if he is the bearer of the desired qualities) is treated and praised in every possible way. The polaznik is a vivid example of the fact that good forces that help a person are more likely to be embodied in material objects, while harmful forces do not have a physical embodiment.] [Ovinnik: Of the spirits living on the territory of a peasant estate, the ovinnik was considered the most calm and benevolent. After drying, the grain was threshed in the threshing floor, which was often part of the ovin. The ovinnik, respectfully called the "ovin father" or even the "ovin king", was a spirit that protected the grain primarily from fire, as well as from other misfortunes. He also provides a good threshing when threshing. He was usually represented as an old man; in the Russian North - a good-natured man with a wife ("ovin grandmother"). The ovinnik participated in Christmastide fortune-telling, which can shock a modern person. Girls went into the ovin, lifted their skirts, exposing their buttocks. If the ovinnik touched the buttocks of one of them with his hairy hand, it meant that she would have a successful marriage. Unlike fortune telling in the bathhouse, where there was a high probability of the most terrible predictions, fortune telling in the barn, as we can see, was very benevolent: it brought either a happy prophecy or none at all.]

Spirits and characters of the peasant estate

[Brownie: The house spirit was either represented as the same person as the owner of the house, or as an old man with shaggy hair and a beard. Hairiness and shagginess are generally a stable sign of otherworldly creatures, but in the image of the house spirit it appears many times. The house spirit becomes furious if “a woman shows her hair” – that is, a married woman shows her uncovered hair to a stranger; it is said about the house spirit that he can braid horses’ manes at night; finally, if a woman felt heaviness in a dream, then it was “the house spirit who came to crush her” and she could feel his shaggy palms (like the barn spirit)] [Kikimora: Another domestic spirit that embodied the destructive qualities of the brownie was the kikimora. In the mass consciousness, the kikimora is certainly a "swamp spirit", she is represented as a tiny old woman in rags, whom you can encounter in a barn, a barn or a bathhouse. An encounter with a kikimora foretells trouble or even the death of one of the family members. If the house spirit torments cattle, then the kikimora torments chickens, she pulls out feathers from birds, etc. She also causes other, more well-known harm - she spoils women's untidy handicrafts at night: she tangles yarn, tears threads, and can set fire to tow. This is why peasant women always put away their handicrafts at night. The sound of spinning heard at night is the main sign of the presence of this spirit.]

Spirits and characters of the peasant estate

[The yard spirit, and in rare cases the house spirit, was sometimes represented as a serpent with a rooster's head, hatching from an egg laid by a rooster. Rooster eggs and the creatures hatching from them are widely and diversely represented in mythology. One of them is the khovanets, a Carpathian spirit that brings wealth to a person. One can't help but want to call it the personification of the neighbors' envy. Unlike the house spirit and others, the khovanets does not spoil anything - it takes care of the cattle, protects and increases the harvest, guards the house from thieves, works in the field, and looks after the apiary. But, since it is an unclean spirit, it demands that a person renounce the cross. Another appearance of the khovanets is associated with a miscarriage that occurs seven years after an abortion - that is why the spirit is often represented as a little boy. The khovanets lives in the attic, it can eat bread, but cannot stand salt (after all, salt, as has already been said, drives away evil spirits). The khovanets's treat is bread, milk and sugar. If it gets angry at a person (for example, for salty food), then in the best case it will leave the house, taking happiness with it, or break dishes, commit other outrages, and in the worst case it will drive a person to suicide. A tragic end is an indispensable part of the tales about the khovanets. People say that the household of a person who had a khovanets immediately after the death of the owner falls into decline, and the soul of the rich man goes to the eldest devil, who puts it in an egg, from which a terrible demon then hatches.]

Spirits and characters of the peasant estate

[Bannik: The most cruel and dangerous creature on the territory of a peasant estate was the bannik - a spirit living in the bathhouse. The bathhouse was considered an unclean place - paradoxically for a city dweller, but we are talking about ritual uncleanliness. First of all, the bathhouse is associated with the element of water, and earthly water (unlike rain) is close to death. After all, the world before existence in absolutely all mythologies is boundless dark waters. It is this water element that is embodied in the bathhouse.] [There were never any decorations in the bathhouse. All ornaments are essentially amulets, and the bathhouse is not just a point of exit of infernal forces into the world of people, it is a place where such contact is necessary and useful, since in the bathhouse they not only washed, but also told fortunes, and most importantly - gave birth.] [Everything connected with sex and childbirth was taboo in folk culture. Sex was not allowed "in front of the stove", that is, spouses had to fence themselves off with a curtain so that the stove would not "see" the sexual act. A woman during her period (which was extremely rare for a peasant woman, since she was almost always pregnant) became an unclean creature, was not allowed to bake bread, participate in rituals, almost all agricultural work, since her ritual uncleanliness could ruin the harvest - both future and already harvested. The same ritual (but not household) prohibitions applied to a pregnant woman.]

Spirits and characters of the peasant estate

[Bannik: The bathhouse is a place for fortune telling, precisely because it is a scary place (it is not for nothing that Pushkin's Tatyana is afraid to go there to tell fortunes). Fortune telling, like any wisdom, is a product of the world of death; in addition, in traditional folk fortune telling, approximately one prophecy out of ten predicted death in the coming year - and this approximately corresponded to the real situation with mortality. Such is the circle of beliefs associated with the bathhouse and the bathhouse spirit.] [It is important to understand that the bannik, for all its horror, is predictable. The rules of behavior with it are strictly regulated, and if they are not violated, then all the scary stories about how it suffocated a person with fumes will remain just stories. The same with fortune telling: it can bring news of illness or death, but it does not create trouble, but only warns of the inevitable.] <Those who will be discussed further behave more spontaneously and chaotically.>>

Spirits and characters of the outer world

<<Those who will be discussed further behave more spontaneously and chaotically.>> [Miller: Mills were placed on streams and rivers so that the wheel would spin as fast as possible, and therefore they were often far from the village. This alone demonized the real miller. And the bloody sacrifices he made to the water spirit turned into something completely nightmarish in legends.] [In addition to the remoteness (the mill stood practically on the border of "one's own" and "another's" world), the demonization of the miller was facilitated by his connection with the element of water, and therefore the miller with the windmill was practically not mythologized. As has already been said, water rather symbolizes death (and the world before existence)] [Water: The water spirit was the personification of the Lower World, the element of death. This is not the death that ancestors-grandfathers carry within themselves, they died in their time, were buried and help the living, being in the cycle of "death and rebirth". Death, embodied in the water spirit, are drowned people whose life was interrupted "before its time", they have no graves, and if they do, they are still perceived as evil spirits and their burials are sometimes opened (which will be discussed below). The water spirit, his pool, his victims adhere to the principle of "death and death": a person dies, becomes a ghoul and begins to destroy others.]

Spirits and characters of the outer world

[Water: Such a formidable creature cannot but be offered sacrifices, and these sacrifices must be of a special kind – complete. As has already been said, a sacrifice is food that people and supernatural beings eat together, thereby establishing or renewing their connection. It is quite obvious that sacrifices to the water spirit and similar characters pursue directly opposite goals: so that the connection is not established, so that the forces of death do not reach any of the living and do not drag others after him. This is precisely why the sacrifice to the forces of death was not divided between people and representatives of the other world, but was entirely given to the forces of the Lower World.] [The idea of him as a tall naked old man with a long beard (preferably green) is more from the realm of artistic creativity; folk tales say that he can pretend to be a log, a snag and drag a person who touches him under water; the water spirit also turns into animals - a dog, a cat and others, necessarily black in color. Finally, the water spirit may have no appearance at all and manifest itself only through sounds: loud laughter, clapping of hands, squealing, splashing, quacking, bleating... Sometimes this is done again in order to lure people into the water, sometimes it has no direct purpose, but any meeting with the water spirit, no matter how he looks, does not promise anything good, even if he did not try to destroy a person.]

Spirits and characters of the outer world

[Leshy: The Leshy is a little less dangerous than the Water Spirit, since he is not so keen on killing a person. However, the probability of becoming a Leshy's victim was high, since peasants went into the forest regularly, and from a very early age.] [Leshy is essentially a fertility deity for everything that lives in the forest, and in world mythology, if the fertility deity's right and left change places (the most striking example is the Hittite god Telepinu), this leads to pestilence, hurricanes and other cataclysms that kill all living things. By the way, a person can learn about the wrath of a Leshy by a sudden wind. Thus, we are talking about very deep (possibly dating back to Indo-European antiquity, possibly universal) ideas that the wrath of a fertility deity is associated with the exchange of right and left and threatens death to people. Another manifestation of the Leshy's wrath is his laughter and sudden cries in the forest (like the laughter of a water spirit and the noise of a brownie).] [Mermaids: Mermaids are among the most terrible of the undead – the restless dead, that is, people who have not lived out their time. These are not only and not so much drowned girls, but any girls (and sometimes young men) who died before marriage. Dead children could also "go into mermaids". If a girl was betrothed, but died before the wedding, then she was certainly considered a mermaid.]

Spirits and characters of the outer world

[Mermaids: This is what defines the appearance of a mermaid: a girl in a white (wedding) shirt, wearing a wreath symbolizing her maidenhood, and with her hair down. In some areas, girls were buried exactly like this. However, a wedding shirt is usually covered with rich embroidery, and these patterns are protective and dangerous for the undead (including mermaids). That is why the idea that a mermaid's shirt is simply white (in world mythology since ancient times, this is the color of invisibility) and, of course, not belted (since the belt is a symbol of the border separating the human world from the other world) is more widespread. All the same was with young mermaids.] [A mermaid's hair is always loose - this is her main feature. In the literary tradition, it is green, but in the folk tradition this is not so: the very fact of loose female hair is so anti-human that the color is no longer important.]

Gods

[Madder: Maslenitsa week is a time of communication with the dead, offering and eating ritual pancakes (pancake is a funeral food). The deceased could be treated in different ways: for example, a pancake was placed on a dormer window or on an icon case; it is especially interesting that pancakes were also given to beggars: real beggars were perceived as representatives of the "other world", and a request "there" could be conveyed literally from hand to hand.]

Holidays

[Ivan Kupala Day: Complex preparation is not required. The outfit should be simple, "rustic", without a lot of decoration. Girls should have a skirt or a floor-length dress, light and flowing. Guys should wear comfortable clothes of a simple cut and without excess. Natural decorations are welcome - wreaths, flowers, berry beads, etc.] [Prepare the bathhouse in advance, make a stuffed Morena for burning (it is decorated with ribbons, fruits, twigs). It is worth preparing logs for the fire in advance and preparing a site for dancing, round dances and street games.] [Customs and traditions: According to tradition, villagers and townspeople go to collect herbs, berries, roots. It is believed that they acquire magical properties, their natural power reaches its peak, and then they make medicines, teas, and healing drinks from them.] [The second important custom is to gather around a fire. Fire is one of the most important elements, which is closely intertwined with the holiday. A fire is definitely lit!] [The third point is water. Many traditions and customs are connected with water. In particular, this concerns bathing. On the night of the holiday, people do not bathe, but at the end of the day they plunge into rivers and lakes. It is believed that evening water heals, relieves illness, and improves health. ] [How to tell fortunes on Kupala: Unmarried girls weave wreaths and lower them into the water. If it floats far away, there will be a quick wedding and happiness. If it immediately washes up on the shore, then the girl does not have a partner and according to the signs, she will definitely be alone in the near future. Guys can fish out the wreath and exchange it for a kiss from the one who weaved it. You can only tell fortunes "in a white way" - without using blood, hair, personal belongings, etc.]

Holidays

[Ivan Kupala Day: Why look for the flower of the fern: It is believed that the flower protects evil spirits and blooms and opens only once a year. The one who finds the flower will acquire incredible abilities: he will begin to understand the language of animals, birds, will be able to control water, earth, negotiate with spirits, see buried treasures, open any locks, and also be invisible! Also, according to legends, this is the plant that blooms on Ivan Kupala.] [How to look for a fern flower correctly: You should look for a fern in the evening. Spread a tablecloth, draw a circle around it using a knife or a twig. You must not respond to voices and extraneous sounds - it is believed that evil spirits wake up during this period, trying to take the lives of forest guests. At midnight, they begin an active search. The one who finds the flower must quickly pick it, hide it and quickly run out of the forest without looking back. Since it is impossible for a fern to bloom, you can hear many legends and folklore tales about how the plant's flowers were found.]

Holidays

[Semik: An ancient and widespread folk holiday in Russia of the spring-summer calendar period. It was celebrated on the seventh Thursday after Easter, three days before Trinity. In the popular consciousness, Semik symbolized the borderline state of nature, when spring ended and summer began, it meant the period of flourishing natural forces and greening of vegetation. With the adoption of Christianity, this holiday began to be perceived in a single cycle with one of the most important church days - Trinity. At the same time, the people steadfastly preserved the ancient pagan ritual, designed to stimulate the growth of crops, primarily rye and barley. The fertility of the earth and the flourishing of vegetation have always been associated with the feminine principle, with the idea of a symbolic connection between women and the earth, which was in a state of fruiting, so Semik was perceived as a holiday for girls and young women.]

The way of life of the Slavs

The Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture. One of the main occupations was cattle breeding (breeding horses, cows and pigs, sheep). Crafts were also developed (blacksmithing, weaving, pottery, woodworking). Of great help were the following industries: hunting, fishing, beekeeping, fur trade.