The poetic view of the Slavs on the nature of the Afanasievs. My diploma on A.N. Afanasyev, “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature.” IV. The element of light in her poetic representations

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Experience in the comparative study of Slavic legends and beliefs in connection with the mythical tales of other related peoples

The historian and folklorist Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev (1826–1871) is very widely known as the publisher of Russian Folk Tales. He was a deep researcher of Slavic legends, beliefs and customs.

The result of his many years of research experience was “Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature” - a fundamental work devoted to the historical and philological analysis of the language and folklore of the Slavs in connection with the language and folklore of other Indo-European peoples. His work has still not been surpassed in the world science of folklore. It is significantly inferior to the well-known “Golden Bough” by J. Frazer and “Primitive Culture” by E. Taylor.

Afanasyev’s book reveals the living connections of language and traditions, moreover, it resurrects the foundations of Russian thinking, which is especially important now, when the language and thinking of the Russian people are disfigured by newspaper cliches, thieves’ jargon and slang of all kinds, littered with foreign words.

Various poets and writers turned to her: A. K. Tolstoy and Blok, Melnikov-Pechersky and Gorky, Bunin and Yesenin. Especially the last one.

This publication sequentially reproduces all three volumes of “Poetic Views,” published during the author’s lifetime in 1865–1869. They have been translated into a new spelling with some preservation of the features of the old spelling in order to give a taste and aroma of the verbiage of a bygone era.

One of the most curious forms of God's judgment is casting lots into the water. An old song tells: the rich merchant Sadko sinned, did not give sacrifices to the Sea King (= Ocean), and now his ship stopped in the middle of the wide sea and would not move. We need to find out the culprit - who insulted the deity? For whose sake did the inevitable misfortune befall? Sadko said to the shipbuilders:
And to a place you all gather,

And cut the lots, you are set,

And write to everyone’s names,

And you throw them into the blue sea:

Which would float on top,

And even those darlings would be right;

That some people are drowning in the sea,

And we will push them into the blue sea.

1 “Comparison of the laws of King Stefan Dusan of Serbia with the ancient ones. zemsk resolution Chekhov", op. Palatsky - in Ch. O.I. and D., year 1, II, 25-26; Ancient Czech law, art. Ivanisheva - in J.M.N.P. 1841, vol. XXX, 139.

2 Preliminary legal information for full explanations Russian. Pravdy, op. N. Kalachova, articles 118-9, 141.

3 Collection state gram. and agreements, II, No. 1.

4 Ambassadors. Dalia, 3, 5, 194; Starosv. Bandur., 199.

5 Abev., 77.

Another time, Sadko orders to cut the willow lots: whose will float on top - he has sinned, and whose will drown - those “right darlings”. Both times the lot pointed to the owner of the ship: his fallen lot sank, and the dead one floated on the water 1 . We find the same motive in a Russian folk tale 2 and in a Swedish song about Ger-Peder 3 . German, loos - lot in the north is used to mean a branch; Let us note that among the various likenings of lightning, it was also represented as a tree branch or a vine (donnerruthe, see Chapter XVIII). According to this meaning of the drawing rods, they could be replaced by hot coals. When treating with incantation water, it is customary to throw red coals into it, counting the names of familiar faces; in whose name the coal sinks is accused of spoiling or bringing the evil eye to the patient 4 . In an updated form, the ritual described in the song about the rich merchant Sadka still exists today: when it is necessary to find out who is to blame for theft or another offense, commoners take a bowl of water and throw rolled up notes into it with the names of family and friends marked on them; whose note jumps out of the bowl is the one to blame 5 . Thus, the sacred element itself (water) is called upon to respond by drowning or raising lots.

The noisy splashing, eternal movement and rapid floods of water, forcing us to see in them something living and powerful, the fall of water from heaven in the form of rain, dew and snow, its fruitful power and participation in all functions of life - all led to the deification of this element. Believing in its heavenly origin, transferring ancient ideas about the cloudy sky and rain springs to the ocean-sea, rivers, lakes and springs, fantasy gave these latter to the control of gods, spirits and nymphs, in which the personification of earthly waters was combined with legends about the lords of spring thunderstorms and showers. Greek Ποσειδών (ancient forms: Dorian Ποτιδάς, Ποςίδης and Ποςείδης; the root is the same as in the words: Ποτος, Ποτίςω, Π οταμος, the supreme ruler of all waters was depicted as a gray-haired old man; he lives in the depths of the sea - in a glorious palace, as Homer calls it. his ruler and shaker of the earth: epithets indicating in him the embodiment of the all-world ocean and a deity akin to Zeus, whose thunders shake the earth; like Zeus, he wields a golden whip (= lightning) and rides wildly flying, golden-maned horses. Rivers and streams were revered among them. of the Greeks by children born of the gray Ocean 7: a view shared by the Slavs. The riddle is included in the ancient manuscript: “whose mother sucks its children?” - The sea flows into the rivers 8 Below we will see that Russian folk legends depict rivers as daughters. The ancient myth personified the Big Rivers as bearded elders (beard = poetic representation of a cloud, see Chapter XXI), who poured water streams from their urns 9; small springs and springs - as beautiful nymphs. In German mythology, the god of the sea Egir (Oegir, Gothic form Ôgeis, English Êge, Old Ver. German Uogi), in whose name J. Grimm sees an indication of a formidable, frightening deity: from the root aga, ôg
1 Kirsha Dan., 337-9.

2 N.P.Ck., V, 31.

3 Songs of Razi, people, translated by Berg, 435.

4 The same is observed among the Khorutans. - Sat. Valyavtsa, 248.

5 Sakharov., I, 65.

6 Griechische Myth. Prelpera, I, 443.

7 Pictet, I, 116: Skt. Zsaua - container, stay, galâcaya - container of waters; from the form of Zsauapa were formed ώχεανος (ώχειανος), Irish. aigein, oigean, oigian, kimr. eigiawn, eigion.

8 Archive of historical legal information, I, art. Busl., 48.

9 D. Myth., 566-7. The Finns represented the sea god Ahti as an old man (U. 3. A. N. 1852, IV, 511).

in the ancient German language derivatives appeared, meaning fear, horror, awe (Goth. agis, 6g, Old Ver. German akiso, egiso, English egesa, Scand. oegja - terroriesse); the word oegir (see explanation in Chapter XX) was also used to designate the sea 1. Likewise, among the Scythians the sea bore the mythological name Thami-masadas - terrible, terrible 2. The easily moving, “ever-noisy” sea especially amazed the imagination with its frantic, terrifying disturbances; and pictures of a sea storm are inseparable from the representation of thunderstorms and rapid whirlwinds. Therefore, Odin, the raiser of thunderstorms, was also taken as the ruler of the waters, equivalent to Neptune (1, 162); the Finns give the thunderer Ukko power not only over the clouds, but also over the waters: he raises the waves and tames them at will; on the contrary, Lithuanians attribute power over the winds to their sea god (Divevitis), and fishermen, going out to fish, pray to him not to allow the winds to disturb the sea 4 . Aegir has a wife named Rân; they live in the sea and have nine daughters, whose names the Edda means waters and waves; the blond hair and white veils of these mythical maidens are poetic representations of the snow-white foam of the nine sea waves and fast-moving streams. Obviously, streams and rivers, which in Germany are mostly given names of the feminine gender, from ancient times stood in the same relationship to the sea deity in which the Greek myth placed them to the Ocean 5. Flying rain clouds were personified either by a crowd of spirits helping the thunder god in his creative exploits, or by beautiful full-breasted wives pouring living water of rain onto the earth; The imagination of infantile peoples populated earthly sources with similar creatures. These are the apas (waters) mentioned in the Vedas, the guardians of the immortal drink-amrita, Greek and Roman nymphs of various names - naiads, nereids, kamen, German nyxes, Lithuanian wandynnije or undine dejwe (water maidens) and Slavic water maidens. Nixes are presented in both male and female forms: nix - husband. gender, and nixe - feminine (= niks, nikse, Old Upper German nihhus, nichus, English nicor, plural niceras - monstrous spirits living in the sea; nikker - evil spirit, devil = nickel, nickelmann , Middle-Upper German wassernixe - siren, Scand. nikr, Finnish näkki, Estonian nek. One, as a deity who stirs the seas and rivers, was called Nikarr (Hnikarr) and Nikuz (Hnikudhr): the first name corresponds to the Anglo-Saxon nicor, and the last is Old High German. nichus. Flower νύμφαία (numphaea - from νύμφη) to the new top. -German the adverb is called nix-blume (or seeblume, seelilie), which indicates the identity of the Greek nymphs with the German nixes; water lily - wasser männlein and mummel = mühmchen, wassermuhme. Other names for water spirits: wasserholde, brunnenholde (holde - genius), wassermann, seejungfer, meer weib, meerminne, Danish. bröndmand (brunnenmann), Swedish. strömkarl (stromgeist). Water spirits live in ponds, springs and rivers (for example, in the Sal, Danube, Elbe); but they have many similarities with the spirits - the inhabitants of the mountains, since clouds in ancient metaphorical language were likened to mountains. The Germans say about drowned people that they are carried away by the merman (“der nix hat sie an sich gezogen”) or went to the goddess Rana; children who fall into a well, according to folk tales, fall into the power of the nixa, who graciously accepts them into her home. Vodya-
1 D. Myth., 216-7.

2 Years. rus. lit., book. 1, 137-8.

3 U. 3. A. N. 1852, IV, 523.

4 Traits of Lithuania. people, 88, 128.

5 D. Myth., 218.

Noah usually appears as the same long-bearded old man as the Roman demigods of the rivers; sometimes he, like dragons, is depicted with many heads, and sometimes he takes on the image of a wild boy, wearing a red cap on his head or with disheveled hair, which resembles mountain dwarfs 1; The Finnish nakki has iron teeth (= a metaphor for lightning) - a belief not alien to the Slavs, for in the Russian spell for toothache we find the following appeal: “Water miracle! take the crowbar tooth from the servant of God" 2; in other spells addressed to Baba Yaga and mythical animals, it is said: “take a burdock tooth, and give me an iron one” (I, 398). Virgo-nyxes often appear between people; they can be recognized by the wet edges of the dress and apron. They have much in common with the prophetic swan maidens, or, better said, water and swan maidens are completely identical. The swan bird is one of the most ancient personifications of the white summer cloud (I, 274); Indian apsarases (= âpas) turned into her image; prophetic maidens of both the Slavs and Germans often appear as white swans on the waters: the foreknowledge assigned to them is the gift of the immortal drink that they possess; dancing, music and singing (= metaphors of spinning whirlwinds and howling storms) constitute the favorite activities, joy and fun of all water spirits; The people explain the turbulence of the rivers and whirlpools as a consequence of their dancing. With all these signs: material strength and a penchant for dancing, music and songs, they become close to the airy creatures of stormy thunderstorms - elves and witches. Folk sagas attribute to the mermen an unquenchable thirst for blood: blood here is a metaphor for the rain, which the cloud spirits greedily drink in; oblivion of the original meaning of this metaphor imparted to the mermen the severe cruelty with which they, dragging the drowned into their underwater dwellings, suck the blood out of them. They turn the same bloody vengeance on their comrades, if these latter, having left the waters, go over to the people and then return back again 3. The German Rana partly corresponds to the Lithuanian Jurata, queen of the Baltic Sea; The sea itself is also called by this name. The following poetic legend has been preserved about it: at the bottom of the Baltic waters stood the wonderful Jurata Palace, the walls were made of light amber, the thresholds were made of gold, the roof was made of fish scales. Annoyed by the young fisherman who was catching fish in her domain with nets, the goddess gathered the undines under her control, and on amber boats they sailed to the place where the river Sventa (Szwenta - sacred) flows into the sea. With enchanting songs, Jurata wanted to lure the fisherman into the abyss of water and punish him with death there, but she was captivated by his beauty and forgot revenge. From then on, the goddess sailed there every evening and spent happy hours with her lover. But Perkun found out about her secret meetings, threw thunderbolts into the depths of the sea, crushed the amber palaces, chained the fisherman to a cliff at the bottom of the sea, and placed the queen’s corpse in front of him. When a storm stirs up the sea, the groans of an unfortunate young man can be heard in its noise; sea ​​waves throw out pieces of amber - the remains of the glorious palace of Jurata 4. According to the view of the Indo-European peoples, the thunder god pursues fleeing nymphs during a thunderstorm as his mistresses; the lightning with which he smashes the clouds is likened either to a phallus or to a fiery sword breaking cloud castles
1 The same connection with dwarfs is also indicated by stories attributing red hair, red clothes and red hats to the nix. - Beiträge zur D. Myth., II, 292.

2 Sakharov., I, 22.

3 D. Myth., 455-462, 465.

4 Semensk., 23-26; Illustration 1848, No. 26; Izv. Ak. N., I, 115; Rus. Sl. I860, V, 18; West. Europe 1830, XV-XVI, 272-3.

and punishes the guilty with death. In the sea goddess of the Lithuanian legend we recognize the type of this cloud nymph; Perkun takes revenge on her for her love for a mortal - a trait that belongs to a later adaptation of the myth.

The deification and worship of waters was expressed among the Slavs in the same images and with the same characteristic features as among other tribes of Aryan origin. From the testimony of Procopius we learn that the Slavs adored rivers and nymphs (= water maidens), made sacrifices to them and used the sacrifices to tell fortunes about the future 1 ; Svyatoslav’s warriors, according to Leo the Deacon 2, after burying their fallen comrades in battle, immersed roosters and babies in the waves of the Danube. Nestor says about the clearings: “then I ate the abominations, consuming lakes and treasures and groves, like other abominations” 3 ; in the Gustina Chronicle it is said: “the people then were ignorant and ignorant of God... godless sacrifices were offered to their God by the lake, and by the well, and by the groves,” and in another place: “others by the treasures, by the lake, and by the groves of the sacrifices offered to the Shah. Because of this, to one certain god, the sacrifice of people is swamped, and even to this day, in some countries, crazy people create a memory of him” 4. In the church charter of St. Vladimir mentions those praying by the water 5. Kirill Turovsky rejoices that with the adoption of Christianity “they will no longer be called the god of the elements... no source” 6. The Old Slavic translation of Gregory the Theologian included an interesting insertion about the worship of water among the Slavs, from which above we cited evidence of sacrifices made to students with a prayer for rain; further we read: “the rivers are called goddesses, and the beast that lives in it is called as God, it is required to create” 7. The rule of Metropolitan John (12th century) condemns those who “eat with the demon and the swamp and the well” 8. The life of the Murom prince Konstantin Svyatoslavich speaks of the services that the pagans brought to the rivers and lakes, and that “for the sake of weakness” they washed themselves at wells and threw pieces of silver into them 9 . In the ancient instructive words we read: “do not call yourself a god... neither in rivers, nor in students” 10; “and the friends come to the treasures to pray and mosque in the water, making a sacrifice to Velear, and the friends come to fire and stones, and rivers, and banks... not only in the past in desecration, but many are still doing this... And over the sources of light burning and eating the idol sacrifice" 11. The word about fasting, published in the “Orthodox Interlocutor” 12, among the forbidden superstitions, also calls “prayers of the treasure trove and the river.” Ancient chronicles testify to the worship of water among the Baltic Slavs. Dietmar says that the Kolobrez people revered the sea as the abode of the water gods; he also mentions the sacred Lake Glomach, which had the power to foretell the future; Ebbo and Sefrid - about holy streams that flowed around trees dedicated to the gods; and Helmold indicated
1 Sreznev., 20.

3 P.S.R.L., VII, 263; compare “Chronicle, containing. Ross in himself, the history from 852 to 1598 "(Moscow, 1781): "I'm drinking trash, I'm eating idols in the wells."

4 P.S.R.L., II, 234, 257; the same in the Synopsis.

5 Add. How. Ist., I, no. 1.

6 Memory XII century, 19.

7 Izv. Ak. N., IV, 310.

8 Rus. Dost., I, 94.

9 Karam. I.G.R., I, note. 214.

10 Moscow. 1844, 1, 243.

11 years. rus. lit., vol. IV, dep. 3, 108-9. The Alemans and Franks, making prayers to the springs, also lit fires. - D. Myth., 550.

12 1858, I, 166.

calls for the custom of swearing by sources!. Among the Czechs, the cult of water was still in full force during the time of Cosmas of Prague (“hiс latices colit”); when Prince Bretislav drew attention to the remnants of paganism, he forbade, among other things, sacrifices and libations made by the people over the springs: “item et superstitiosas institutiones, quas villani adhuc semipagani in Pentecosten tertia sive quarta feria observabant offerentes libamina super fontes mactabant victimas et daemonibus immolabant." At the beginning of the 12th century, the Bishop of Prague zealously rebelled against sacrifices to sources (“non ad fontes sacrificia ullo modo facere”) and admonished the Czechs not to seek their help either during the plague or in other needs 2 . These ancient testimonies of worship and sacrificial offerings to waters are confirmed by beliefs and rituals that have survived to this day, which are performed at springs, wells, rivers and lakes. The Khorutans call the sea “water of light”; and the Slovaks believe that the spirit of God lives in the waters that wash the earth, and as soon as it leaves the waters, the end of the world will immediately come; The latter have a custom of throwing various foods into streams and lakes in the spring 3 . It was said above about the prayers performed by the Czechs with kneeling at rivers and springs; Moreover, on the evening before Christmas, they put a full spoonful of each dish into a special, specially placed cup and after dinner they throw it all into the well, with the following lamentation:

Hospodár tě pozdravuje,

A ro mě tobě vzkazuje:

Studánko, uživej s námi hody,

Ale za to dej nám hojnost" vody;

Po zemi až bude žižeŭ,

Svym pramenem ty ji vyžeňt 4 .

In Moravia, along with food, they throw money into wells and lament:
Studànko, studànko!

Tu ti nesu veceričku;

Pověz ty mne pravdu,

Co se te ptat budu s .

When someone drowns, Czechs gather at the place where this misfortune happened, pray and throw freshly baked bread and two wax candles into the water; Until the beginning of this century, it was their custom on St. Feyt to drown roosters and hens in lakes, ponds and swamps: the antiquity of this sacrificial offering is attested by Kosma of Prague, according to whom the Czechs, at the beginning of spring, went to the springs, strangled black hens and roosters and threw them into the air, invoking the devil 6 . Spitting and urinating in the water, as the Russian people say, is like spitting in your mother’s eyes; this is a sin in which the unclean rejoices 7. When opening rivers, you should not throw stones or debris into them, so as not to aggravate the awakening
1 Sreznev., 22; Makush., 16-11.

2 Grohmann, 43.

3 Sreznev., 19, 23.

4 Translation: the owner congratulates you and says to you through me: spring! share the festive meal with us and in return give us plenty of water; if there is a drought on earth, you will turn it away (drive it away) with your stream.

5 Translation: Student, student! I'm bringing you dinner; tell me the truth - what I will ask you about.

6 Grohmann, 50-51, 74-75.

7 Ibid., 44; Ambassadors Dahl, 1048. According to Herodotus (Book I, Chapter 138), the Persians forbade spitting and urinating in rivers.

current element (Arkhang. lips.); At this time, the water can be difficult, and residents of the banks of the Irtysh, wanting to facilitate the opening of the named river, throw crumbs of bread into it 1. During fires, peasants place glasses of water on the windows and believe that this water will not allow the flames to spread further (Orenb. gub.). According to the schismatics, a spirit rests on the waters, which they worship not only over wells, but also in houses over vats filled with water; They throw silver money into both. Among the Belarusians, the newlywed, going for water for the first time, leaves a pie and some small money near the well, as a sacrifice to the household deity; Among the Bulgarians, she goes to the well with millet in her sleeve and, scattering grains around it, bows to all fours 4. In Serbia, porridge is prepared from various grains and on St. Barbarians also sprinkle it on the water at Christmas, with the following lamentation: “good jytpo, okay water! I give you some varice (porridge), and you give me some water and jaritsa, jajitsa and mushka glavitsa and svaka sreitsa” 5 . These sprinkle rituals indicate prayers addressed to the springs, may they send down the seed of rain and may there be fertility in the fields, herds and in the newlywed family. After their ablutions, sick people throw copper and silver money, rings, earrings and cufflinks into springs and lakes revered by saints; on those holidays when horses are given spring water to drink, a silver coin is dropped to the bottom of the spring 6 . In Vladimir province. “meeting” waters (at the confluence of one river with another) are considered the most healing; peasants bathe in them to cure various illnesses and after bathing leave neck crosses, colored rags and ribbons on the coastal broom bushes 7 . German tribes sacrificed roosters, horses, goats and lambs to springs, whirlpools and rivers; Even now it is customary to throw bread and fruits into the water to the niks 8 . In the epic tales of the Russian people there are living personifications of rivers and lakes, the Sea King (Khorutan. Morski kralj)” and water spirits and maidens. Particularly interesting are the epics about the Novgorod merchant Sadka. Previously, he was poor, had only a harp and went to feasts to entertain guests with musical sounds. Once he got bored, he came to Lake Ilmen, sat down on a white-flammable stone and began to play spring goose 10:

How the water in the lake began to shake,

The King of the Sea appeared,

thanked him for the joy and promised him a treasure from Lake Ilmen as a reward - three fish and golden feathers, with which he could buy all the countless riches of Novgorod. Sadko threw a net into the lake and pulled out the promised treasure, which in our epic corresponds to the Nibelungen treasure kept in the depths of the waterfall by a pike
1 Etn. Sat.., VI, 118.

2 Rus. simple holiday, I, 16.

3 Belarusian. adv. songs, ed. E. P, 41.

4 Miladin., 521.

5 Srp. pjechnik, 54.

6 Sakharov., II, 22, 36, 47; Rus. in St. last, IV, 98-111; Rus. Devoted Makarova, I, 32; II, 77-78; Orenb. G.V. 1847, 52; Moscow Observ. 1837, XII, 505; O. 3. 1822, No. 21, p. 30.

7 Vladim. G.V. 1852, 25. The Chuvash, having drunk cold water, as soon as they feel unwell, throw money, eggs and bread into the river or well from which they quenched their thirst. - Notes from Alex. Fuchs about the Chuvash and Cheremis, 58.

8 D. Myth., 462, 549-550, 961-2.

9 Sat. Valyavtsa, 186-191.

10 Made from sycamore.

Andvari 1. The King of the Sea, according to popular belief, rules over all the fish and animals that are found in the seas 2. Another epic tells: the rich guest Sadko sailed across the blue sea; suddenly his ship stopped and wouldn’t move. They began to cast lots to find out the culprit; the lot fell on the owner himself. Sadko admitted: “I’ve been running, he says, on the sea for twelve years, I haven’t paid tribute to the Tsar of the Overseas, I haven’t put bread and salt into the blue Khvalynskoye Sea!” The shipmen threw him into the water, and immediately the ship sailed on its way 3 . Sadko, thrown into the sea, was carried by the wave to the Sea King. There is a big hut - all wood; Sadko entered the hut, and in it the Tsar of the Sea was lying on a bench: “You are a rich guest!” - the king says to him, - I have been waiting for you for twelve years, and now you have come on your own. Play the tinkling harp for me.” Sadko started playing and began to amuse the king; The King of the Sea danced - and the blue sea shook, and fast rivers overflowed, and many ships with goods sank. The king took it into his head to marry his guest, he brought thirty girls and ordered them to choose a bride; In folk tales, the Sea King invites a good young man to choose one of his daughters as his wife. Sadko went to bed with the chosen maiden: from midnight, while awake, he threw his left leg over his young wife, and when he woke up in the morning, he himself found himself near Novgorod, and his left leg in the Volkh River 4. So, the Tsar of the Sea gives his daughter the Volkhov River to a rich guest: this name in popular speech (“for the thuja for the Volkhov River”) and in the Novogorod Chronicle (“through the Volkhov River”) is used in the feminine form, and therefore fantasy without violating the grammatical meaning could personify the Volkhov River as a maiden 5. The above legend about Sadok’s meeting with the Sea King is also conveyed in the following variation: when the lot indicated the culprit, the shipmen took him and launched him onto the water on an oak board; with a harp in his hands, Sadko swam across the sea and was brought to the chambers of King Vodyanik and his wife Queen Vodyanitsa:

The plank sank to the bottom of the blue sea,

A great kingdom has appeared at the bottom,

And in the kingdom of the feast - a feast of honors
Vodyanik said to the guest: “Play the spring harp, enjoy our feast of honors;
I give my beloved daughter

To you, to the glorious Oyuyan Sea.”

So poetically, in an ancient form, the folk epic depicts the confluence of a river into the sea: King Vodyanik gives his daughter the river in marriage to a foreign country, to distant regions of the ocean. Sadko began to play the gusli, Tsar Vodyanik began to jump, Queen Vodyanitsa began to dance, the red girls led a round dance - and there was fun from morning to evening; from those demonic dances
1 Rybnik, 1, 370-2.

2 Abev., 306.

3 Compare with the Little Russian Duma about the “Black Sea Storm” (Collected Ukrainian songs, 48): for the sin of Alexei Popovich, the Black Sea raged. Popovich says:
You will do well, brothers,

Take me yourself

You'll grab this white stone,

Yes, you will smell the Black Sea.

As Popovich began to repent, the storm began to subside.

4 Kirsha Dan., 337-343; at Rybnik., I, 380, Sadko woke up in Novgorod “on the Chernava River on a steep ridge.”

5 Rybnik., III, 233.

The ocean blue sea shook,

The ships were all broken,

All the people were drowned 1.

It is obvious that Sadko, whose wonderful playing of the harp makes the ocean-sea ripple, replaced in legend the most ancient god of thunder and winds: in the howls of a thunderstorm, our ancestors heard the magical sounds of the harp-samogud. The marriage of Sadok to the river maiden, in the original presentation of the myth, was the marriage of the thunder god with a cloud nymph (see I, 163 ff); the ship on which he sailed across the blue sea is a well-known metaphor for a cloud. To stop the sea storm, Sadko had to break the sonorous strings and stop playing the harp; a later legendary addition explains this by the intervention of Nikola the saint, who appears to Sadku in a dream and orders:
“Hey you are, Sadko the merchant, a rich guest!

And tear your gold strings

And throw away the ringing harp;

The King of the Sea danced for you,

And the blue sea shook,

And the rivers flowed fast,

They sink a lot of beads 2, ships,

Souls are drowned in vain."

And here Sadko the merchant, a rich guest,

He tore the gold strings

And he throws down the ringing harp;

The King of the Sea stopped jumping and dancing:

The blue sea has calmed down,

The fast rivers have calmed down.

Such participation is given by the song of St. Nicholas, because among the people he is known as an ambulance and guardian on the waters (I, 241) and is even called “sea” and “wet” 3. When a noisy thunderstorm passes and the broken strings of the samogud harp fall silent, that is, the thunder and winds subside, at the same time the depths of the sea calm down.

Closely related to the analyzed epics about Sadok is the folk tale about the Sea (Water or Pallet) Tsar and his daughter’s belongings 4 . In one version of this tale, the Sea King is directly called Ocean-Sea 5; in other lists, his role is transferred to the snake, the devil and the lawless Miracle-Yud. This Slavic Neptune is mentioned in other fairy tales 6. As the bringer of dark clouds that darken the heavenly light and often harm the ripening harvest, raining Perun

1 Rybnik., I, 365-9; III, 241-251. At this meeting with the Sea King, Sadko resolves a dispute between him and the queen about what is more expensive in Rus': damask steel-iron or red gold? The same episode develops in the fairy tale about Ivan the Beschastny. - N.R. Sk., V, 31. For resolving the dispute, the Tsar of the Sea rewards Ivan the Blessed with expensive semi-precious stones. This question about metals and the detail about semi-precious stones are in connection with legends about treasures lying in the depths of waters and in cloud mountains.

3 Geographic Shchekatov's Dictionary, III, 525.

4 N.R. Sk., V, 23; VI, 48, 49, 60, 61; VIII, p. 529 et al. ; Slov. pohad., 61-75; Erben, 103-112; Gal-trich, 26; Wolf, pp. 286-300; Tale Grim., 51, 56, 181; Gan, 54; Shtir, 3; Mater, for studied, adv. words., 62, 94-100.

5 Proceedings Kursk. governor statistical Committee, 1, 518-520. 6 N.R. Sk., II, 21; VIII, 24.

(Jupiter pluvius) since ancient times combined in its character, along with beneficial properties, the traits of a demonic being; the same dual character was adopted by the Sea King, who (as has already been proven) was originally a raining thunderer. That is why it is so common in folk tales to replace the Sea King with the devil. In the German fairy tale, published in Galtrich's collection, the Pekel Prince, identical with our Sea King, retains all the attributes of the most ancient deity of thunderstorms: he has a wonderful scourge (= lightning), the blows of which make the whole kingdom shake and call forth countless armies; he rushes to the milk pond and, having drunk on the boiling milk (= rain), bursts with a terrible crash and dies - just as a cloud broken by thunder and poured by rain disappears. The name Miracle-Yudo confirms the same idea: it is mostly given to the mythical serpent (dragon-cloud), and this has a basis: the word miracle (choud, shud, monster = wonder, miracle) in the old days meant a giant 1, and it is known that in During the long era of the development of religious and poetic views of nature, all its mighty forces (whirlwinds, storms and thunderstorms) were personified in the titanic images of giants. The legends about snakes and giants stand in the closest and closest affinity, and, according to the tale, the Sea King takes on the image of a serpent. Yudo = Judas - a name that during the Christian period began to be given to the devil and other demonic creatures; in Germany, Judas Iscariot is believed to have a red beard - a distinctive feature of Donar 2. Among the names used to designate water creatures, Grimm cites the New Central German meerwunder 3. The content of the tale about the lord of the sea and his daughter in brief words is as follows: the king was going home, and the day was hot - the sun was burning so hot! From great thirst, the king falls on his belly to the ground and begins to swallow icy water from the lake; Then the Sea King grabbed him by the beard and did not want to release him until the captive made a promise to give him what he did not know at home. And at that time the queen gave birth to a son. According to an agreement with the Sea King, Ivan Tsarevich, having reached his youth, goes to the underwater kingdom; comes to the blue sea and hides behind the bushes. So Twelve doves (ducks, swans) flew in, threw off their wings (or feathers), turned into red maidens and began to swim: they were the daughters of the Sea King. Ivan Tsarevich crept up slowly and took the wings of Vasilisa the Wise. The girls took a swim, took off their wings and flew away like doves; Vasilisa the Wise remained alone. She began to beg the good fellow to return her wings; The prince gives them away on the condition that the beautiful maiden agrees to be his bride. In some versions, the place of Vasilisa the Wise is taken by the Swan-bird, a red maiden. These swan maidens (about which see more in Chapter XXIII), according to their original meaning, are the personifications of spring, rain clouds; together with the bringing down of legends about heavenly sources to earth, swan maidens become daughters of the Ocean-Sea and inhabitants of earthly waters (seas, rivers, lakes and springs). Thus they become related to nymphs, nyxes, elves and mermaids; the latter, according to the villagers, are under the command of the merman grandfather. According to this, swan maidens are given prophetic character and wisdom; they perform difficult, supernatural tasks and force nature itself to obey them. The name swan, used in popular speech mostly in the feminine gender,
1 Dictionary of Church Slav. language Vostokova, II, 570; Starosv. Band., 597.

2 Die Götterwelt, 191.

3 D. Myth., 455.

actually means: white (light, shiny; Latin albus, sabin, alpus, Slavic laba, labe = German alp, elb, älf); such a fundamental meaning of it was subsequently renewed by the constant epithet: white swan. As long as the people consciously treated this word, they had the right to apply it to white clouds, illuminated by the rays of the spring sun, and to the bright streams of springs and rivers. This is how the river Laba = Elbe got its name; like scandia, elf, this name is also used as a common noun, generally meaning a river; Among the Czechs we find the expression: bilý Dunaj, among the Bulgarians: bel Dunav 1. One of the most curious ancient books contains a story about how the hero Potok married a beautiful woman who first appeared to him on the quiet backwaters of the sea in the form of a white swan. The legend recorded by Nestor 2 mentions three brothers Kiy, Shchek and Horeb and their sister Lybid; the first gave its name to Kiev, the other two brothers to the mountains Shchekovitsa and Khorevitsa; Lybid is the ancient name of the river that flows into the Dnieper near Kiev 3. Ivan Tsarevich comes to the underwater kingdom, in which, just like on earth, meadows and groves bloom, rivers flow and the sun shines: this is an airy, transcendental country where heavenly bodies shine, paradise flowers and trees grow and rain streams rustle . The Sea King entrusts the prince with difficult feats that are impossible for a common man to accomplish; Vasilisa the Wise does everything for him. At the end of various trials, the young man was ordered to choose a bride from among the twelve daughters of the Sea King, and he chooses the most cunning and beautiful - Vasilisa the Wise 4. The prince married his betrothed and planned to leave the underwater kingdom with her. The flight of a loving couple is accompanied by various transformations in order to hide from pursuit in this change of images; and the Sea King with his army pursues the fugitives: according to the instructions of the German and modern Greek editions, he rushes like a black cloud sparkling with lightning. Among the transformations taken on by the fugitives, the following is especially interesting: the prophetic maiden turns her beloved into a fish (perch), and she herself becomes a river. The angry Sea King conjures her: “May you be a river for three whole years!” So, the daughter of the Sea King returns to her primitive elemental state, just as Sadko went to bed with the red maiden and threw his left leg over her at midnight, and the next morning he woke up near Novgorod, and his left leg in the Volkhov River. This fairy-tale poem describes the spring marriage of a cloud maiden with a young thunder god, who meets with her in the underwater region of the Sea King, i.e. that is, in a sea of ​​dark, thunderclouds covering the sky. According to the modern Greek edition, when the prince gets to the Sea King, his native country dresses in mourning and does not shed its black veils (= becomes enlightened) until after his happy return home. Fleeing from the underwater possessions of the Sea King, the prophetic maiden overflows like a river, i.e. this maiden is only freed from the cloudy depths and appears in this world when rain streams run to the earth from the sea of ​​celestial clouds: flow in some Slavic dialects is used in the sense of running away (I, 248-9). The following legend is told about one spring, four miles from Belgrade: the beautiful Paraska, taken prisoner by the Tatars, ended up in the pasha’s harem, but
1 East. ocher. rus. words., I, 240-1; Potebn., 90.

2 P.S.R.L., I, 4.

3 Geographer. Shchekatov's Dictionary, III, 1214.

4 And in the song about Sadka, the Sea King orders the daring merchant to choose a bride for himself. Sadko began to choose: he let a lot of girls pass by, and Chernavushka was walking behind - and he took her for himself. The river near which (instead of the Volkhov) the newlywed found himself in the morning was also named after Chernava. - Rybnik, I, 379.

remained unyielding; Once at night, entering her chamber, the pasha saw an angel ready to protect the maiden, and, struck by horror, he left without locking the door. Paraska broke free and ran along the estuary, but the chase sent after her caught up with the fugitive in the rocks and was about to grab her, when suddenly she spilled into a clear spring 1 . The beauty's name indicates her connection with the mythical Friday = goddess of spring thunderstorms (Freya).

According to folk epics, some mighty heroes and their wives, dying, spilled into wide, glorious rivers. While settling throughout Europe, the Slavs gave the rivers those ancient names they brought from the East, which were initially used as common nouns for rivers or water in general. Thus, the names: Sava, Drava, Odra (Oder), Ra, Upa, Oka, Don, Danube, Dvina are of Aryan origin and in Sanskrit have related forms and roots with the indicated general meaning: dhuni, dhûni (river) still retains its the original meaning in the Caucasus, where among the Ossetians the forms dun and don mean any river and water; among the Slavs, Don became its own name, and the form dun with the ending av formed: Dunav and then Danube 2. The word Danube, which serves as the proper name of a famous river, is still used as a common noun for all large and small rivers; examples can be seen in Galician and Polish songs: “beyond the rivers beyond the Danubes” 3. Such common nouns given to earthly rivers could equally serve to designate water-bearing clouds. Both, as we know, were related in the mythical tales of the people, and beliefs concerning the heavenly streams themselves were attached to the earthly waters, on the banks of which the tribe lived. While tradition ruled over the entire system of life, the localization of myths continued with each new migration. That is why, in accordance with the ancient concept of thunderous rain clouds as powerful giants of the divine breed, the Russian folk epic personifies the large rivers familiar to it in the form of heroes of old times; a hero (from the word god) is a divine being and therefore endowed with extraordinary powers and gigantic dimensions, befitting the formidable elements of nature. Just as the Indians recognized the Ganges as a deity, the Germans recognized the Rhine, so the Slavs connected divine properties with the Danube, Dnieper, Western and Southern Bug and other significant rivers. The name Bug is only a special form of the word god, Czech. bůh 4, and in the article list of the 17th century, instead of: “Bug-river” we encounter the form: “God-river” 5. The content of epics about river heroes introduces us to the area of ​​ancient mythical views. The Danube hero ran over the young princess Nastasya in an open field: this heroic, powerful maiden scoured the world like a daring woodpile; Under her was a wonderful horse - in two shots it swept stones from under its hooves. She shouted in a loud voice “like a snake” - the grass in the field withered, the flowers fell off, the stones rolled. The knights began to test their strength, they hit their clubs - the clubs broke, they hit them with sabers - the sabers got chipped, they came to hand-to-hand combat and
1 Ch. O. I. and D. 1865, III, 216.

2 Pictet, I, 141.

3 Ch. O. I. and D. 1863, III, songs of the Galicians. and an acne. Rusi, 24, 111, etc.

4 The sound about in the Little Russian dialect turns into and, and in Ruthenian, Carpathian into u: instead of god they say big, bug (buig, 6jyg), instead of sheep - vivtsa, vuvtsa, vjuvtsia. - Thoughts on history. rus. lang., 44. In the charters of the Pomeranian princes we find the names: Bugislav. Lutebug, Yuterbuk = Bogoslav. Lutogod, Yutrogod. - R.I. Sat., I, art. Safarika, 73-74; Belarusian Pan Buk - Lord God (Ethn. Sat., II, 117).

5 Notes from Odessa. total history and ancient history, II, department. 2 and 3, 592.

were present from morning to evening and from evening to broad daylight; Finally, the Danube overpowered and knocked the enemy to the ground, he wants to take his hot heart out of him, but he saw the white female breasts and recognized the princess. Here they got along with each other, Danube married the princess, and went together to the glorious Kiev city. We came to Prince Vladimir; At the honorable feast, the Danube hero became drunk and began to boast of his youth. Nastasya the Queen tells him: “Don’t brag, quiet Danube Ivanovich! If he goes to shoot, then there are no archers anywhere opposite me.

On your brave little head

I put my silver ring;

I’ll shoot an arrow three times from a bow,

I'll let the silver ring pass through,

And I won’t lose a ring from my head.”
The challenge was accepted, and the princess missed her arrow three times through the ring placed on the head of the Danube, and never dropped the ring 1. Danube Ivanovich also decided to test his prowess, put a ring on Nastasya the Queen’s head and wants to shoot with an explosive bow; and the young wife begged him: “Don’t shoot, Dunayushka! I have a child sown in my womb: knee-deep legs in silver, elbow-deep arms in gold, frequent stars on the braids.” The Danube did not listen and shot a red-hot arrow; did not hit the ring, but hit his wife in the white chest, killed the princess and thought: “Do I have anything sown with her?” He spread out her womb with a damask dagger, and in the womb there was a sweet child - knee-deep legs in silver, elbow-deep arms in gold, with frequent stars on her braids. Then he felt like he was in trouble, it seemed like great annoyance; he planted the dagger in the damp ground with the blunt end and fell on the sharp end with a zealous heart: was it because of the hot blood -
Where Dunaev's little head fell -

The Danube River flowed,

Where did Nastasya’s little head fall?

The Nastasya River flowed.

Or:
Underneath this place

Two fast rivers flowed,

And they diverged into two streams 2.
Sometimes Danube the hero is replaced by Don Ivanovich, and Nastasya the queen is replaced by Neproya (Dnepra is the female form instead of the male Dnepr); how Don Ivanovich killed his wife Nepra the Queen and she fell on the damp ground, drenched in hot blood, he made a knife-dagger, and he himself reprimanded:
Where did the head of the white swans fall?

This is where the head and gray goose fall! -

and fell on the tip.
It was here that the Don River flowed from them

From Christian blood from vain,

The river is twenty fathoms deep,

And the river is forty fathoms wide 3.
1 According to other options, the ring is placed near a damask knife - and Nastasya the Queen shoots a measured mile away, passes the arrow through the ring and cuts it on the knife edge into two halves: both in appearance and in weight the halves are equal.

2 Rybnik., I, 178-194; II, 44-51; Arr. to Izv. Ak. N. 1853, 166-7; 1854, 310-7; Kirsha Dan., 85-101;

3 Rybnik., I, 194-7.

According to popular legend, the Sukhman River (Sukhona?) had the same beginning. Sukhman the hero went to an open field, came to the Nepre River and saw: it does not flow as before, not as before, the water and sand have become clouded. To the question: what happened to her? Mother Nepra River will say: “How could I flow in the old way, when the Tatar force stands behind me - forty thousand; They pave viburnum bridges -

“They pave during the day, and at night I dig;

Mother River is exhausted!”

Sukhman jumped on his good horse to the other bank, pulled out the oak tree by the roots and unleashed the Tatar force, killed all the filthy ones, but he himself received three bloody wounds. Dying, the hero chanted:
"Drips of the Sukhman River

From my blood from the heat,

From hot blood from vain” 1.
Blood is one of the oldest metaphors for water and rain; the global flood (= spring flood), according to legend, came from the blood of giant clouds who fell slain in a thunderstorm battle (I, 403). Tales about rivers formed from the blood of murdered heroes and their wives express, therefore, the same idea as the myth about the heavenly origin of earthly waters: these rivers flow from rain clouds dying under the blows of Perun’s club. Therefore, Nepra (Nastasya) the princess, with all her characteristic features, resembles those warlike maidens (Valkyries and pitchforks), in whose image thunderclouds were personified: she was given exorbitant strength, a passion for war, and the glorious art of shooting well-aimed arrows (= lightning). In the battle of Sukhman the hero with the Tatars, we learn a myth inserted into the historical frame about the military competition of the thunder god with demonic forces. In connection with these data, the Novgorod legend about the Volkhov River is of particular interest. It was indicated above that she was personified as a virgin, one of the daughters of the Sea King; but another personification was also allowed, corresponding to the male form of Volkh, Volkhov. An ancient chronograph claims that Volkhov was a fierce sorcerer (magician - sorcerer, magician); in the form of a crocodile, he settled in the river, which received its nickname from him, and there was a waterway in it; the sorcerer drowned and devoured everyone who did not worship him; superstitious people revered him as a god and called him Perun and Thunder 2. As for the mention of the crocodile, this detail is explained by a literary update: the crocodile here takes the place of the monstrous serpent (dragon) lying around the springs and rivers (see Chapter XX).

Folk legends refer to rivers, lakes and streams as living beings, capable of understanding, feeling and expressing themselves in human speech. About the Volga and Vazuza in the Tver province. They say: “Volga and Vazuza argued for a long time about which of them was smarter, stronger and more worthy of greater honor. They argued and argued, did not out-argue each other, and decided on this. “Let’s go to bed together, and whoever gets up first and comes to the Khvalynsky Sea sooner, that one of us is smarter, stronger, and more worthy of honor.” Volga went to bed, and so did Vazuza. At night, Vazuza got up slowly, ran away from the Volga, chose a path that was straighter and closer, and flowed. Having woken up, Volga walked neither quietly nor quickly, but as it should; in Zubtsovo I caught up with Vazuza

1 Rybnik., I, 26-32.

2 Rus. West. 1862, III, 37-38; Ross's story. Shcherbatova, I, 190.
Yes, so menacingly that Vazuza got scared, called herself her little sister and asked the Volga to take her into her arms and carry her into the Khvalynskoe Sea. And to this day, Vazuza wakes up earlier in the spring and awakens the Volga from its winter sleep” 1. Here two rivers are personified, arguing about eldership and racing; The setting of the fable is obviously taken from nature: covered with ice, the rivers fall asleep for the winter, and in the spring they awaken and, throwing off the winter shackles, overflow from the melted snow and, in a fast and noisy run, rush to carry their abundant waters into the distant sea, as if driving one another. The Volga, receiving side rivers, according to the beautiful poetic expression of the Russian people, brings them to the blue sea in its mighty arms (in its embrace). This legend about the Volga and Vazuza is associated with other rivers in other parts of Russia. This is how the story goes about the dispute between the Dnieper and the Desna. When God determined the fate of the rivers, the Desna was late to arrive on time and did not have time to beg for primacy over the Dnieper. “Try to get ahead of him yourself!” - God told her. The Desna set off on its journey, but no matter how it hurried, the Dnieper still got ahead of it and fell into the sea, and the Desna had to join its mouth to the fast Dnieper 2. In Tula province. a similar story applies to the rivers Don and Shatu, which both originate in Ivan Lake and, therefore, seem to be born from it. Ivan the Lake had two sons: Shat and Don, which is why the latter is called Ivanovich in songs. Shat, against his parents’ will, wanted to take a walk in foreign places, went to wander, but no matter where he came, he was not accepted anywhere; Having wandered around uselessly, he returned home. Don, for his constant quietness (“quiet Don”), received his parents’ blessing and boldly set off on a long journey. On the way he met a raven and asked: where is he flying? “To the blue sea,” answered the raven. “Let's go together!” They reached the sea. Don thought: if I dive across the whole sea, I’ll drag him with me too. "Crow! - he said, “do me a service: I will dive into the sea, and you fly to the other side, and as soon as you reach the shore, caw.” The Don dived into the sea, the raven flew, cawed - but too soon; The Don remains as we see it when we bring it up 3. The following two sayings exist among the people about the rivers Don and Shat: “Shat staggered foolishly, but fell into the Upa; and Don rolled into the field and married the sea” 4; “two brothers and both are Ivanovichs, and one is Don, and the other is Shat,” that is, one is efficient, and the other is a connecting rod 5. G. Borichevsky 6 recorded the Belarusian legend about the Dnieper and Sozha rivers, the beginning of which was copied from the biblical story of Esau and Jacob. Once upon a time there lived a blind old man in Dvina; he had two sons: the eldest - Sozh, the youngest - Dnepr. Sozh had a violent temper, wandered through forests, mountains and fields; and Dnepr was distinguished by meekness, stayed at home and was his mother’s favorite. Sozha was not at home when the mother deceived the old father into blessing his youngest son for eldership. Dvina pronounced a blessing on him: “Overflow, my son, with a wide and deep river, flow through cities, wash countless villages to the blue sea; let your brother be your servant. Be richer and fatter until the end of time!” The Dnieper flowed like a river through lush meadows and dense forests; and on the third day Sozh returned home and began to complain. “If you want to command your brother,” his father told him, “run quickly through hidden paths, impassable
1 N.R. Sk., IV, 40.

2 Moscow. 1846, XI-XII, 154.

3 Ibid., 1852, XIX, 101-2. Tulsk G.V. 1852, 27.

4 Tulsk. G.V. 1857, 26. See above about the Sea King’s marriage of his river daughter to the ocean-sea.

5 Ambassadors Dalia, 802.

6 Nar. sl. times., 183-5.

dark forests, and if you overtake your brother, then may he serve you!” Sozh set off in pursuit through impassable places, eroded swamps, cut through ravines and tore out the roots of oak trees. The hawk told the Dnieper about this, and he accelerated his run, cutting through the high mountains so as not to turn to the side. And Sozh persuaded the raven to fly straight to the Dnieper, and as soon as he overtook him by even a step, he would caw three times; he himself dived underground, hoping to jump up at the cry of the raven and thus get ahead of his brother. But the hawk attacked the raven; The raven croaked before it overtook the Dnieper River; Sozh jumped out of the ground and fell into the Dnieper waters with all its might. The participation of the raven and the hawk in the competition between the rivers is remarkable, which again points to the ancient connection of folk tales about rivers with the mythical ideas of rain-bearing clouds; for both the raven and the hawk were common personifications of these latter. The following legend about the Dnieper, Volga and Western Dvina has also been preserved: these rivers were formerly people, the Dnieper was a brother, and the Volga and Dvina were his sisters. They were left orphans, suffered through every need and finally decided to go around the world and find places for themselves where large rivers could overflow; They walked for three years, found places and all three stopped to spend the night in the swamps. But the sisters were more cunning than their brother; As soon as the Dnieper fell asleep, they slowly got up, occupied the best, sloping areas and flowed like rivers. My brother woke up in the morning and looked to see that his sisters were far away; Irritated, he hit the damp ground and, in pursuit of them, rushed in a noisy stream along ditches and gullies, and the further he ran, the angrier he became and dug up the steep banks. A few miles before the confluence, his anger subsided and he calmly entered the depths of the sea; and his two sisters, hiding from pursuit, fled in different directions. This is why the Dnieper flows faster than the Dvina and Volga, which is why it has many branches and rapids 1.

The above epic about the Novgorod guest Sadok says that the Sea King endowed him with great wealth; another old song attributes this to Lake Ilmen, which is personified as a kind young man and is called the brother of the Volga. One day Sadko, along the Volga River, cut off a large loaf of bread, sprinkled it with salt and lowered it into the water with these words: “Thank you, Mother Volga! I walked around you for twelve years - I didn’t see any sorrow over me. And I’m going, well done, to visit Novgorod.” And the Volga River passed him by: “Bow down from me to my brother, the glorious Lake Ilmen.” Sadko arrived at Lake Ilmen and bowed to him from the Volga River:
“And you are a goy, glorious Ilmen-lake!

Sister Volga is sending you a petition.”

After hesitating for a little while, a daring, good fellow came from Lake Ilmen and asked: “How do you know sister Volga?” Sadko said; the fellow gave him permission to throw three nets into the lake, and the merchant guest caught a lot of fish, both white and red, and put them in three cellars; No matter what cellar he looked into later, the fish all turned into money - into silver and gold. This was a gift to him from the glorious Ilmen Lake 2. There is another legend about this lake. On the western side, a small river flows into it, called the Black Stream. Long ago, someone built a mill on the Black Stream, and the fish prayed to the Black Stream,
1 Tereshch., V, 43-44.

asking him for protection: “we had space and freedom, but now a dashing man is taking away our water.” And this is what happened: one of the Novgorod inhabitants was fishing with a fishing rod on the Black Stream; A stranger, dressed all in black, approaches him, greets him and says: “Do me a favor, so I will show you a place where fish are teeming.” - What kind of service? “When you are in Novgorod, you will meet there a tall, thick-set man in a blue caftan with ruffles, wide blue trousers and a tall blue hat; tell him: Uncle Ilmen-lake! Black Brook sent you a petition and told you to say that a mill was built on it. As you say, so it will be!” The Novgorodian promised to fulfill the request, and the black stranger showed him a place where tons of fish had accumulated. The fisherman returned to Novgorod with rich booty, met a man in a blue caftan and handed him a petition. Ilmen answered: “Take my bow to the Black Stream and tell him about the mill: this has never happened before, and it never will!” The Novgorodian fulfilled this order, and then the Black Stream began to flow at night, Lake Ilmen cleared up, a storm arose and furious waves demolished the mill 1.

Song legends preserved a living memory of sacrificial offerings to the sea and rivers. Just as Sadko honored the Volga with bread and salt, so Ilya-Muromets honored his native Oka. Setting off from his homeland to perform heroic deeds, he dropped a crust of bread into the Oka as a farewell - for giving him water and food 2. Until now, our common people, after a happy voyage, thank the river with some kind of offering. Stenka Razin, according to Struys, brought his mistress, a captive Persian princess, as a gift to the Volga. Inflamed by wine, he sat on the edge of the boat and, looking thoughtfully at the waves, said: “Oh, you, Mother Volga, great river! You gave me a lot of gold and silver and all sorts of good things, you fed me and nurtured me, endowed me with glory and honor; and I haven’t thanked you with anything yet. Fuck you, take it!” With these words, he grabbed the princess and threw her into the water 3. Should anyone happen to drown in a river, especially if it is an innocent child, the Germans usually say: “der flussgeist fordere sein jährliches opfer” 4 ; about unauthorized drowners we say: “damn the ram!” About some springs and lakes there is a belief in Bohemia that every year a person is destined to drown in them 5 . If sacrifices were used to gain the favor of water deities, then, on the contrary, disrespect for them entailed inevitable disaster. According to one old song, a young man drove up to the Smorodina River and prayed for a ford to be shown to him. The river was carried by a human voice - the soul of a red maiden:
“I will say that the river is fast, good fellow,

I'm talking about horse fords, about Kalinov bridges, frequent transportation:

From the horse ford I take a good horse,

With the transportation of a frequent Circassian saddle,

From the Kalinov bridge to the daring young man,

And you timeless fellow -

I’ll let you through anyway.”
1 West. R.G.O. 1853, 1, mixture, 25-26.

2 Songs of Kireev., I, pp. XXXIII.

3 North Archive 1812, X, 30-32; The Riot of Stenka Razin, op. Kostomarova, 94.

4 D. Myth., 462.

5 Grohmann, 49.

Having crossed the river, the young man began to boast with his stupid mind: “they said about the Smorodina River - neither one on foot nor on horseback can pass through it; but she’s worse than a rain puddle!” The good fellow had to toss and turn, he did not find the horse ford - the Smorodina River drowned him in its deep pools, and drowned him - he said: “Timeless fellow! It’s not I who drown you, it’s your boasting that drowns you!” 1 . This beautiful legend reminds us of Homer’s poetic story about the rivers Xanthus and Simois, pursuing Achilles with their furious waves; the furious anger of the rivers is caused by the fact that the hero dammed their waters with the corpses of the killed Trojans and, mockingly, said to the enemies:

“Not a mighty stream, silvery abyss, will save you

Xanth! Dedicate to him, as before, countless oxen,

Throw live, sound-footed horses into the waves, as before:

You will all perish with a cruel death..." 2

Rivers also take a similar part in national strife in the Slavic epic. Thus, in the Czech song about the Slaughter, stormy streams destroy enemy Germans who want to cross to the other side, and carry their own (Czechs) unharmed to the shore. When Igor left Polovtsian captivity and ran to the Donets, this river (as the Word about the regiment tells) greeted him: “Prince Igor! You have not little greatness, but (Khan) Konchak has no love, but the Russian land has joy.” - “Oh Doncha! answered Igor, with no little greatness, cherishing the prince on the waves, spreading green grass for him on his silver brezes, dressing him with warm mist under the canopy of the green tree, guarding him with nogol on the water, seagulls on the streams, and devils in the winds.” Igor honors the Donets for cherishing him on his waters, covering him with darkness from enemy pursuit, spreading soft grass along his banks and forcing the river birds to protect his peace. That’s not what the Stugna River did, he says; “having a thin stream” and devouring other people’s streams, she drowned young Rostislav 4. It is clear why Yaroslavna considered it her duty to turn to the Dnieper with such a prayer: “about the Dnieper-Slovotica 5! You pierced stone mountains through the Polovtsian land, you cherished Svyatoslavl’s nosads (boats) on yourself... Cherish, sir, my love (my husband) towards me, and I would not have sent tears to him to the sea early” 6 . The Serbs have survived the oaths: “The water is alone!” (meaning: disappear without a trace!) - “the abyss of the sea did not survive!” - “The sea hasn’t dried up!” 7. In a Serbian fairy tale, the hero, going to Fate for a solution to difficult issues, came “to the water of the day, to the ground: oh water! oh water! bring me. And the water is drunk: where are you going? And he jojs where you are going. Onda ha brought the water, in my speech: we pray, brother,
1 Kirsha Dan., 296-8. In another song, Princess Marya Yuryevna, escaping from captivity to Holy Rus', asks the fast river to let her through to the other side, and the river of the princess obeyed, made small crossings for her, narrow crossings. - Years. rus. lit., book. II, 124-5. The Germans did not dare to measure the depths of the waters, so as not to offend the deities; They say that once a swimmer began to throw a lot into the water, and from there a terrible voice was heard: “If you start measuring, I will devour you!” - D. Myth., 564.

2 Iliad, XXI.

3 Cherned - teal.

4 Rus. Dost., III, 234-241.

5 Slovutich (verbal, glorious) - this epithet is still given to the Dnieper in a Little Russian song; see approx. to Izv. Ak. N. 1853, 218: “Dnieper-speak.”

6 Rus. Dost., III, 216-8. In popular speech, expressions are common: Mother Volga or Oka, Father Blue Don or Dnieper, etc. - Russian in St. last, II, 30. In Maloros. In the song, the good fellow invites the Dnieper to fraternize with him. - Ukr. Maksimovich's songs, 148.

7 Srp. n. poslov., 36, 298-9.

pitaj Usuda (Fate), why ja nemam kinda? When he found Fate, he asked: “What happened, but is she dumb?” - “And Usud persuaded me: for this I am dumb, because I never strangled a man; ale ne shawl se, ne kazoo joj, dok te ne prenese, jep ako joj kazhesh - odmah he te udaviti. Onda he captured Usuda, pa pohe kuhi. Kad dohe na onu water, water ha zapita: shta je code Usuda? And he persuaded joj: bring me, pack hy ti onda casati. When he brought the water, he drank it, but it was far away, and he was still alive: oh, the water! oh water! Nisi Nikad strangled a man, for that kind of thing. Whenever the water is foreign, it suddenly flows behind him, and he runs away, just as soon as it flows away” 1 . A German fairy tale tells how a young hunter was drawn into a pond by a nixa; his loving wife comes to the pond and calls her beloved. The hunter jumped ashore, grabbed his girlfriend by the hand and ran with her away from the deceptive places; but as soon as they took a few steps, the whole pond rose and, with a terrible noise, rushed into a wide field - in pursuit of the fugitives, whom it covered with water 2.

As the poetic personifications given to rivers, lakes and springs became more and more separated from their elemental basis and acquired an independent, independent existence in the beliefs of the masses, waters began to be considered as the dwellings of these fictional creatures. The most ordinary everyday needs required that a person settle near the water. Therefore, the spirits - the inhabitants of wells, ponds, lakes and rivers where relatives settled - were as close to them as deities as the flames lit on the family hearth. Popular beliefs convey many analogous features that reveal the affinity of the merman with the brownie and equally bring them closer to the elves - and this is understandable: just as the latter is the thunder god installed on the hearth, so in the former we recognize the idea of ​​​​the rain deity, brought down to the earthly streams. Traces of this ancient concept are still visible in the character of the merman. Our peasants call him by the same name of grandfather that is assigned to the brownie; this name is sometimes given to the goblin 3, who originally also belonged to the category of cloud spirits (see Chapter XVII). When Satan, the people say, with all his army was thrown out of heaven by the fiery arrows of God, the unclean ones fell - some into dark dungeons and hellish dens, others into forests and waters, others into residential buildings, and others remained forever spinning in the air; This is how underground spirits (dwarfs, inhabitants of mountain caves), goblin, water, house and air demons = spinning whirlwinds 4 appeared. This wonderful legend contains an ancient myth about the struggle of the thunder god with demonic forces, updated with the biblical legend about proud angels cast out of heaven. In a spring thunderstorm, Perun comes out to battle the demons, smashes them with his thunder club, throws them from the heights of the air along with falling lightning and rain showers and forces them to take refuge in the gorges of the mountains, in dense forests and in the depths of waters (all of this: mountains, forests and waters - metaphorical names of clouds). As representatives of dark rain clouds, against which Perun’s blows are directed, the water ones mix with evil spirits; folk proverbs say: “if there was a whirlpool 5, but there would be devils” 6; “every devil is free in his swamp bro-
1 Srp. n. propov., 13.

2 Tale. Make-up, 181.

3 Tereshch., VI, 127.

5 A whirlpool from muddy, muddy; The devil is called a troublemaker.

6 “It’s a swamp, but there will be devils.”

die"; “Where is the balota, where the devil is”; “the devil will be without the devil, and the devil will be without the devil” 1 ; “Is Aidze used to it, dear? - and in the swamp" 2; “The devil is rich in pennies, but sitting in a swamp”; “Ganya, like the devil in the swamp”; “there are devils in the still waters” (“the quiet swamps have devils breeding”); “It’s just a stone’s throw from the pool to hell!” - “get everyone into the water and bubble up!” - “You cross the devil, but the devil looks into the water”; “wherever the devil was, he was at the mouth of the river”; “It’s stirring, yak bis pid gribley” 3. Grandfather-waterman (vodnik, vodovik, vodnik, wodny muz = German, wassermann) lives in whirlpools, hollows and whirlpools of rivers, ponds or lakes, also lives in swamps - and is then called bogweed 4; He especially loves to settle under the water mill, near the wheel itself. It was explained above (vol. I, 147-151) that the mill was taken as a poetic designation of a thundercloud and that it was in this idea that the basis of the mythical connection between the waterman and mills lies. For each mill they put one waterman, and even more if it has two or three sets: every waterman manages his own wheel, or, as the Belarusians put it: “every devil spins water on his stake.” While the wheel is in motion and spinning with elusive speed, the waterman sits on top of it and splashes water. The miller must certainly be a sorcerer and make friends with the unclean; otherwise things won't go well. If he manages to appease the waterman, then the mill will always be in good working order and will begin to bring in big profits; on the contrary, if he doesn’t get along with him, then the mill will stop continuously: the waterman will either take the fingers off the gear wheel, or suck a hole right by the poles - and the water will leave the pond before the miller notices this mischief, then it will catch up with the reins and flood the wheels 5 . One man built a mill without asking the waterman, and in the spring the latter swollen the water with such force that he completely destroyed the building: a story similar to the legend about the mill that was destroyed by Ilmen-Lake and the Black Stream 6 . A water mill in relation to a mill has the same meaning as a brownie in relation to a residential building; just as no dwelling can stand without the protection of deceased ancestors, which is why its foundation is done on someone’s head, so just like every new water mill (according to popular belief) it takes a tax, that is, it drags a person into the pool 7 . When building a mill, it is enough to put a pledge on a living creature: a pig, a cow, a sheep (a hint of ancient sacrifices) or a person, and sooner or later the crow will find his promise and drown him in the water 8; a large mill is being built for at least ten heads (Tambov. lips). People imagine the merman as a naked old man, with a large puffy belly and a swollen face, 9 which is quite consistent with his elemental character. At the same time, like all cloud spirits, he is a bitter drunkard. Wine and honey were the most common metaphors for rain; falling to the clouds, the god Indra greedily pulled an intoxicating drink (soma) from them and absorbed it into his huge

1 “There is a devil in the swamp.”

2 “Children, hell, sound? - and in the swamp."

3 Nomis, 49, 58, 60, 62, 104; Arr. to Izv. Ak. N. 1852, 33-34; 1853, 177, 191; Ambassadors Dalia, 12; Archive of historical legal information, P, art. Busl., 79, 86, 102; Collection of 4291 messages, 21, 175. In the plot printed by Sakharov (I, 33), we read: “I will run into the dark forest to a large lake, in that lake a boat is floating, in that boat sits the devil and the devils.”

4 Add. region next, 11.

5 Modern 1856, XI, mixture, 16-17; Arr. to Izv. Ak. N. 1852, 36-37; Tereshch., VI, 11-12.

6 Son of the Father. 1839, vol. VIII, 81.

7 Ambassadors Dalia, 1041.

8 Modern 1856, XI, mixture, 25.

9 Ibidem, 16.

belly; the ancient satyrs and silenes and related goblins and devils are distinguished by the same characteristics. Water and unclean spirits like to gather in taverns and spend time drinking, playing dice 1 and cards 2. The likening of rain to honey forced us to recognize water as the patron of beekeeping; From time immemorial, it has been customary to collect the first swarm that emerges into a bag and, tying a stone to it, drown it in a river or pond - as a sacrifice to the water one; whoever does this will have a lot of bees 3. On St. Zosima and Savvaty, the beekeeper, who wants to have an abundance of honey, takes a honeycomb from the hive and at twelve o’clock at night goes to the mill and immerses it in water, casting a spell (see Vol. I, 194-5). Since harvests depend on the rainy Perun, then (according to Lusatians) the appearance of a water one gives a harbinger of future bread prices; dressed in a robe, the edges of which are always wet, he appears in the markets and sells rye: if the purchase takes place at a high price, then one must expect high prices (crop failure), and if at a low price, then the bread will be cheap 4 .

Mermen live as complete housewives; in pools, among reeds and sedges, they built large stone chambers; They have their own herds of horses, cows, sheep and pigs, which they drive out of the waters at night and graze in adjacent meadows. We find the same herds among the thunder god and giants: these are the familiar zoomorphic personifications of clouds and clouds. Vodoviks are almost always married and have many children; they marry water maidens, known among the Slavs under different names (sailors, waterwomen, wodny zony, dunavki, mermaids, etc. - see Chapter XXIII); They also enter into contact with the human world, marrying drowned women and those unfortunate girls who were cursed by their father or mother and, as a result of this curse, were taken by evil spirits to underwater villages. Plunging to the bottom of rivers and lakes and suffocating in deep waters, mortal maidens pass into the kingdom of departed souls and mix with crowds of elemental creatures, become elves and mermaids (see Chapter XXIV) and therefore become available to the love of the water 5. When, during high water, due to the spring melting of snow or from long torrential rains, the river overflows its banks and breaks bridges, dams and mills with the rapid pressure of waves; then the peasants think that all these troubles occurred because the water-drinkers drank at the wedding, indulged in riotous fun and dancing, and in their riotous train destroyed all oncoming obstacles 6 . The wedding celebration, which the ancient man contemplated in a thunderstorm, was transferred by him to the spring floods of the rivers; the connection of this belief with the legend about the dance of the Sea King, when he gave his daughter in marriage to the rich guest Sadok, is obvious and does not require explanation. When
1 Playing with dice means the same thing as the game with balls explained above - see vol. I, 534; its inventor was Wuotan. - D. Myth., 958.

2 Described. Olonets. lips Dashkova, 217-8; Tereshch., VI, 135.

3 Rus. Demon. 1860, 1, 82.

4 D. Myth., 460.

5 N.R. Sc., VIII, 19 and p. 453; O. 3. 1848, IV, 144-5: one girl drowned and lived with a merman for several years. Once on a clear day she swam to the shore, saw the red sun, green groves and fields, heard the buzzing of insects and the distant sounds of bells; longing for her former earthly life overwhelmed her - and she could not resist the temptation: she left the water and set off for her native village. But neither her family nor her friends recognized her there. Sad she walked along the shore in the evening and was again captured by the merman; two days later, her mutilated corpse lay on the sand, and the river was noisy and agitated - then the vengeful merman was mourning his irrevocable loss.

6 Modern 1856, XI, mixture, 19, 26-27; Son of the Father. 1839, vol. VIII, 82; O. 3. 1848, IV, 144; Volkslieder der Wenden, II, 267.

a merman's wife must give birth to him, he takes the form of an ordinary person, appears in a city or village and invites a midwife with him, leads her to his underwater possessions and generously rewards her for her work with silver and gold 1 . They say that once fishermen pulled out a child in their nets, who frolicked and played when they lowered him into the water, and languished, sad and cried when they brought him to the hut. The child turned out to be the creation of a merman; The fishermen released him to his father - with the condition that he catch as many fish as possible in their nets, and this condition was sacredly observed by them 2.

Water is an essential property, the necessary nature of a merman: if he appears in the village, he will be easily recognized, because water is constantly dripping from his left flap; Wherever he sits, the place always turns out to be wet. In its native element, the water one is irresistible, but on earth its strength weakens 3. The owner of certain waters, throughout their entire expanse he possesses fish and other animals that are found there; everything that happens on rivers, ponds or lakes happens according to his will: he protects the swimmer in stormy weather, gives the fisherman a happy catch, looks after his nets and deliriums and at the same time, in accordance with the destructive properties of the element he personifies, prone to evil pranks. All the troubles on the water come from him: he lures swimmers into dangerous places, overturns boats, washes away rows and dams, spoils fishing gear and scares cattle at a watering hole. It happens that fishermen, raising the net, pull out the water grandfather along with the fish, who immediately breaks the net, dives into the water and releases all the caught fish after him. One fisherman, seeing that the body of a drowned man was floating along the river, took him into the boat, but, to his horror, the dead man suddenly came to life: he jumped up, laughed and rushed into the pool. This is how the merman played a joke on him 4 . Usually the crowfish rides on a catfish, and in some areas it is not recommended to eat this fish because it is a damn horse; A caught catfish should not be scolded, lest the water one hear it and decide to take revenge for it 5 . If the merman wants to saddle a peasant’s horse, bull or cow, then the poor animal breaks under him, gets stuck in the mud and dies. To protect their horses and cows from this misfortune, while crossing them across the river, the villagers draw a cross on the water with a knife or scythe (= emblems of Perunov’s weapon). They think of drowned people that they are being carried away by a merman, and if it weren’t for him, then, according to the common people, no one would have drowned. The reason a drowned man's corpse is bloated and blue is because he was crushed by the merman. Once a hunter went into the water to get a shot duck; then someone grabbed him by the neck and dragged him to the bottom; He fought off with an ax, but his neck was all covered in bruises - you know, traces where the merman’s fingers were! In Little Russia, children, before they begin to bathe, chant:
Devil, devil!

Don't break the brushes;

You're in the water, and I'm in the water.
Having crushed a person, the merman separates the soul from the body and takes it into his service (i.e., joins the elves), but throws the body away, and therefore it floats up 6 .
1 Notes of Avdeev., 147.

2 O. 3. 1848, IV, 145.

3 Memory. book Archangel. lips to 1864, 73; Grohmann, 11-12.

4 Rus. Demon. 1856, III, Art. Maksimov., 82; Crow. G.V. 1850, 10.

5 Illustration. 1846, 247, 333.

6 Modern 1856, XI, 26; Rus. Demon. 1856, III, 82; Son of the Father. 1839, IV, 80.

Dark pools and whirlpools where mermen live are considered the most dangerous places; whoever decides to swim across them risks certain death. You should not swim without a neck cross even after sunset: the cross is a sure protection against demonic obsession, and night is the time of intense activity of the merman. “What a swim now,” the peasants say after sunset, “now the water has healed!” In the same way, when waking up at night, you should not drink water: “how can you drink at night if the waterworm has healed! Just look - the water sickness will become attached.” They say about those suffering from this disease: “That’s right, I drank without blessing!” This belief about the sending of a disease to watermen serves as new evidence of its connection with the elves (see Chapter XXII). It heals on a watery night, that is, according to the original meaning of the myth - in the darkness of rain clouds that cover the sky and turn a bright day into a dark night. Along with night time, the entire week in which the holiday of Elijah the Prophet falls is considered dangerous for swimming; On these days, dedicated to the thunderer, Perun produces thunderstorms, and the merman looks for victims. In daylight, the merman mostly hides in the depths, 1 but in the darkness of the night it swims up and even comes ashore to comb its hair with a comb.

On moonlit nights, he slaps the water with his palm - and his sonorous blows can be heard far along the reach, or dives with a speed imperceptible to the eye: in the midst of perfect silence, the water will suddenly swirl somewhere, foam, a water miracle will jump out of it and at the same moment disappear, and half a mile from this place the water swirls and foams again and the head of the merman 2 is again exposed. At night, the watermen fight with the goblin, causing the roar and crackling of falling trees to go through the forest and the sound of splashing waves to be heard loudly in all directions 3: a belief hinting at battles of thunder spirits; The roar and crackling in the forest and the sonorous blows on the water correspond to thunderclaps, from which the dark jungle of clouds is crushed and rain streams pour down.

The Czechs are convinced that over those people whom fate has determined to drown, the merman receives a mysterious power that cannot be denied by anything. To this day, in Bohemia, fishermen reluctantly agree to help a drowning person; They are afraid that the merman will deprive them of their happiness in fishing and drown them at the first opportunity. Here they say that the merman often sits on the shore, with a club in his hands, on which multi-colored ribbons flutter. These ribbons are surrounded by water shoots and grasses; with them he lures the children, and as soon as he succeeds, he grabs them and mercilessly drowns them in the water 4. In Rus', he was seen floating on a block of wood or driftwood: he sits on it naked, covered in mud, wearing on his head a high boyar’s cap made of green kuga, and around his body a green belt made of the same grass 5 . Personifying springs and rivers in living human images, fantasy turned the mythical creatures it created into dresses growing in their waters and along the banks of the grass. Lusatians tro- flower or seed bud

1 Only when it rains and is sunny does he come out of the water and warm himself, sitting on the shore. - Grohmann, 233.

2 O. 3. 1848, IV, mixture, 145-6; V, 24; Abev., 68; Illustration 1845, 298.

3 Tereshch., VI, 135; Son of the Father. 1839, IV, 81.

4 Grohmann, 11-12.

5 Illustration. 1845, 298.

stnik is called wodneho muža porsty, potacžky, lohszy 1 . But just as grasses and plants in general were likened to the hair of mother earth and the waters that irrigate her (I, 72), this metaphor, when applied to water spirits and maidens, gave rise to the legend about the green hair and beard of the waterman grandfather and the green braids of mermaids 2 . German legends also often give green hair, green clothes and green hats to nyxes 3 .

Like the brownie, who drags everything from neighbors' storerooms and barns into his own house, the merman manages to call back fish from other people's rivers and lakes 4 . This is how common people explain the decline and complete disappearance of fish in certain waters. They explain this somewhat differently, assuring that one merman lost all his goods to another. So they say about the watermen Konchozersky and Pertozersky that they, as neighbors, played cards (a later replacement for the ancient game of balls), and the first won all the vendace from the latter; Since then, this fish has ceased to be caught in Pertozero 5.

In summer the merman is awake, and in winter he sleeps; for the winter cold blocks the rains and covers the waters with ice. With the beginning of spring (in April), when a new life begins, when the brownie changes his skin and discovers a mad passion to break and spoil everything, the merman awakens from hibernation - hungry and angry; out of frustration, he breaks the ice, stirs up the waves, scatters the fish in different directions, and completely torments the small ones. This legend perfectly expresses the idea of ​​​​the awakening of waters from winter sleep: the awakened river rushes in full swing, throwing off ice sheets and, with the pressure of hollow water and ice floes, demolishing bridges, gatis, mill gear and coastal warehouses and buildings. In Arkhangelsk province. the rising water is said to heal 6 . Around this time, the angry merman is appeased with sacrifices. Peasants buy a horse in peace, without haggling on the price; for three days they feed her with bread and hemp cakes; then they entangle her legs with a rope, put two millstones around her neck, cover her head with honey, weave red ribbons into her mane and at midnight lower her into an ice hole (if there is still ice) or drown her in the middle of the river (if the ice has passed). The merman waits for three days for this gift, expressing his impatience with the swaying of the water and a dull groan. Appeased by the offering, he humbles himself (see Vol. I, 324). For their part, the fishermen honor the merman with a sacrificial libation; the eldest of them pours oil into the river, saying: “Here’s a housewarming gift for you, grandpa!” love and favor our family" 7. To prevent the waterman from breaking the dams, the millers once a year bring him a fattened black pig as a gift; whoever does not do this, he tortures him during sleep (compare with the beliefs about house maras), and the dam will probably be washed away 8. Just as the rooster, which served as a symbol of fire, was dedicated to the brownie and was considered the best sacrificial food for him, so the goose, a representative of the water element, was dedicated to the water one. EU-

1 D. Myth., 455-7. The greenery floating on the surface of the pond is considered by the Czechs to be the skin of a dead merman. - Grohmann, 233.

2 Tereshch., VI, 124; Son of the Fatherland, IV, 80.

3 Beiträge zur D. Myth., II, 281-2.

4 Sakharov., II, 81.

5 Son of the Father. 1839, IV, 81; Tereshch., VI, 135.

6 Region Sl., 62.

7 Sakharov., II, 21; Ambassadors Dalia, 978.

8 Tereshch., VI, 11-12.

If it is thrown out of the chimney, then in order to protect the house from fire, they lower a live goose into it: this remedy, according to popular belief, is as saving as water pouring on a fire. Geese and ducks live all summer on rivers, lakes and ponds, under the supervision and protection of the water grandfather 1; and for the winter they leave the numb waters. In mid-September, when the approach of winter becomes noticeable, a goose is brought to the merman as a parting gift - in gratitude for guarding domestic geese and ducks throughout the summer 2.

In the mythical tales of antiquity, clouds and clouds were likened to fish swimming in the ocean of air. This idea was also combined with those human images in which fantasy personified heavenly and earthly sources. Water spirits and maidens either completely turn into fish, or appear with mixed forms of man and fish. Thus, Greek sirens, German nyxes, Slavic morayans and mermaids appear from head to waist as young maidens of wonderful, seductive beauty, and below the waist they have a fish tail. Protruding their beautiful heads, snow-white shoulders and breasts from the waters, they sing enchanting songs and attract unwary young men who, unable to resist the passionate influx of love, rush into the waves and drown in the treacherous elements. Russian folk tales speak of prophetic (“wise”) maidens who swim in sea and river waters either as white swans or golden-finned fish; caught on a fishing rod and thrown to the ground, this fish turns into a red maiden, marries a fairy-tale hero, captivates everyone with its beauty and surpasses everyone with the power of enchantment 4 . In the Polish version of the same fairy tale, the hero throws a silver-haired fishing rod with a golden float into the waters and catches a mermaid - half-maiden, half-fish, gifted with wondrous beauty and a charming voice 5 . According to ancient poetic views, in a spring thunderstorm, the thunder god went out to catch fish-clouds and for this purpose threw a lightning rod into the heavenly waters, or he pursued a light-footed cloud nymph, and as soon as he overtook her, he shared love with her. Fantasy combined both of these ideas together: a fish caught by a fairy-tale hero turns into a prophetic maiden, with whom he enters into a marriage union. There is still the following interesting story in Rus': one young industrialist played the gusli in his gallet every evening, and as soon as he started playing, you could hear someone dancing in front of him. He wanted to know what this meant? and so he hid a lighted candle under the shard, and when he suddenly illuminated the gallet with it, a pale-faced beauty with light brown braids stood in front of him: she was a mermaid, or, in another version, a girl cursed by her father, who lived with the unclean in the depths of the sea 6 . We find a similar story in Khorutan tales, where the heroine is a maiden who was kidnapped as a child and taken to the sea; there the sea maidens fed her, taught her to dance, and her white body
1 Illustration. 1846, 247. Along with the rooster and the goose, it gives a foreshadowing of future weddings. The girls blindfold the gander and let him into the hut; whichever one he approaches and pecks, she will soon be married. - Mayak, XVI; Kherson. G.V. 1846, 10.

2 Sakharov., II, 57.

3 Beitäge zur D. Myth., II, 282; D. Myth., 459; Gromann, 11.

4 H.P. Sk., VII, 22.

5 Glinsk., IV, 31-57; I, 237-8.

6 H. P. Ck., VIII, 19; Passek., Ill., 191-5.

treated with fish scales 1. In Ukraine there is a belief that when the sea plays (= worries, makes noise), sea people swim to its surface - “half a man, and half a fish” and sing songs; the Chumaks then come to the sea, listen and learn those glorious songs, which they then sing throughout the cities and villages? In other places, these “sea people” are called pharaohs, mixing the ancient legend about the Morians with the biblical legend about the Pharaoh’s army, drowned in the waves of the Red Sea. They say that these people have fish tails and that they have the ability to predict the future. In the superstitious imagination of the peasants of Saratov and other provinces, the pools are inhabited by unclean werewolf spirits, taking on the images of various fish; Great danger threatens the fisherman who would hit such a fish with a sharp point. According to folk stories known in northeastern Russia, a merman often turns into a fish, and mostly a pike 3 .

1 Sat. Valyavtsa, 241-2. The category of these mythical dancers should also include those fairy-tale princesses who were so addicted to dancing that every night they went to the underworld (= to the land of dark clouds), indulged in frantic dancing there and each time wore out a pair of new shoes. - N.R. Sk., VI, 56; VIII, pp. 525-6; Mater, for study. adv. words., 36-37; Kulda, I, 86; Tale Make-up, 133.

2 Moscow. 1846, XI-XII, 154; Kulish, II, 36.

3 Modern 1856, XI, mixture, 22-24; Vladim. G.V. 1844, 52; St. Petersburg Led. 1865, 65; Spirit of Christians. 1861-2, XII, 275. The Greeks imagined Triton (the water god) with a long fish tail.

Afanasyev Alexander Nikolaevich

Poetic views of the Slavs on nature (Volume 1)

Afanasyev A.N.

Poetic views of the Slavs on nature:

Experience in comparative study of Slavic legends and beliefs

in connection with the mythical tales of other related peoples.

The historian and folklorist Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev (1826 - 1871) is very widely known as the publisher of Russian Folk Tales. He was a deep researcher of Slavic legends, beliefs and customs. The result of his many years of research experience was “Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature” - a fundamental work devoted to the historical and philological analysis of the language and folklore of the Slavs in connection with the language and folklore of other Indo-European peoples. His work has still not been surpassed in the world science of folklore. It is significantly inferior to the well-known “Golden Bough” by J. Frazer and “Primitive Culture” by E. Taylor.

Afanasyev’s book reveals the living connections of language and traditions, moreover, it resurrects the foundations of Russian thinking, which is especially important now, when the language and thinking of the Russian people are disfigured by newspaper cliches, thieves’ jargon and slang of all kinds, littered with foreign words.

Various poets and writers turned to her: A. K. Tolstoy and Blok, Melnikov-Pechersky and Gorky, Bunin and Yesenin. Especially the last one.

This publication consistently reproduces all three volumes of “Poetic Views”, published during the author’s lifetime in 1865 - 1869. They have been translated into a new spelling with some preservation of the features of the old spelling in order to give a taste and aroma of the verbiage of a bygone era.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers.

I. The origin of myths, the method and means of studying it

The rich and, one might say, the only source of various mythical ideas is the living human word, with its metaphorical and consonant expressions. To show how necessary and naturally myths (fables) are created, we must turn to the history of language. The study of languages ​​in different eras of their development, based on surviving literary monuments, has led philologists to the fair conclusion that the material perfection of a language, more or less cultivated, is in inverse relation to its historical destinies: the older the era of the language being studied, the richer its material and shapes and more comfortable his body; The more you move into later eras, the more noticeable become the losses and injuries that human speech undergoes in its structure. Therefore, in the life of a language, in relation to its organism, science distinguishes two different periods: the period of its formation, gradual addition (development of forms) and the period of decline and dismemberment (transformations). The first period is long; it long precedes the so-called historical life of the people, and the only monument from this deepest antiquity remains the word, capturing in its pristine expressions the entire inner world of man. In the second period, immediately following the first, the previous harmony of the language is disrupted, a gradual decline in its forms is revealed and their replacement by others, sounds get mixed up, intersect; This time mainly corresponds to the oblivion of the root meaning of words. Both periods have a very significant influence on the creation of fabulous ideas.

Every language begins with the formation of roots or those basic sounds in which primitive man denoted his impressions made on him by objects and natural phenomena; such roots, representing an indifferent beginning for both the name and the verb, expressed nothing more than signs, qualities common to many objects and therefore conveniently applied to designate each of them. The emerging concept was plastically outlined by the word, as a true and apt epithet. Such a direct, immediate relationship to the sounds (5) of the language lives on for a long time among the masses of the simple, uneducated population. Even to this day, in our regional dialects and in the monuments of oral folk literature, one can hear that figurative expression that shows that for the common people a word is not always just a sign indicating a known concept, but that at the same time it depicts the most characteristic shades of the subject and bright, picturesque features of the phenomenon. Let's give examples: zybun - fragile soil of the earth in a swamp, run - running water, lei (from the verb to pour) - torrential rains, senognoy - light but persistent rain, listoder - autumn wind, creeping - snowblood that spreads low on the ground, torn - a skinny horse, a licker - a cow's tongue, a chicken - a hawk, a croak - a raven, a cold-weed - a frog, a snake - a snake, a scab - an evil person, etc.; Folk riddles are especially rich in such sayings: blink - an eye, blow your nose, sniff and sniff - a nose, babble - a tongue, yawn and yadalo - a mouth, rake and wave - hands, a dejected pig, babble - a dog, tenacious - a child and many others, in which we find a direct, obvious indication to everyone of the source of the representation*. Since various objects and phenomena can easily be similar in some of their characteristics and in this respect produce the same impression on the senses, it is natural that man began to bring them together in his ideas and give them the same name, or at least names derived from from one root. On the other hand, each object and each phenomenon, depending on the difference in its properties and actions, could and did cause in the human soul not one, but many and heterogeneous impressions. That is why, due to the variety of characteristics, several different names were given to the same object or phenomenon. The subject was outlined from different sides and received its full definition only in a variety of synonymous expressions. But it should be noted that each of these synonyms, denoting a certain quality of one object, at the same time could serve to designate the same quality of many other objects and thus connect them with each other. Here lies precisely that rich spring of metaphorical expressions, sensitive to the most subtle shades of physical phenomena, which amazes us with its strength and abundance in the languages ​​of ancient education and which subsequently, under the influence of the further development of tribes, gradually dries up. In ordinary Sanskrit dictionaries there are 5 names for hand, 11 for light, 15 for cloud, 20 for moon, 26 for snake, 35 for fire, 37 for sun, etc.**. In ancient times, the meaning of roots was tactile, inherent in the consciousness of the people, who connected not abstract thoughts with the sounds of their native language, but those living impressions that visible objects and phenomena made on their senses. Now let us imagine what confusion of concepts, what confusion of ideas should have occurred when the root meaning of words was forgotten; and such oblivion, sooner or later, certainly befalls the people. That sympathetic contemplation of nature, which accompanied man during the period of language creation, subsequently, when the need for new creativity was no longer felt, gradually weakened. Moving more and more away from initial impressions and trying to satisfy newly emerging mental needs, the people discover the desire to turn the language they created into a firmly established and obedient instrument for transmitting their own thoughts. And this (6) becomes possible only when the ear itself loses its excessive sensitivity to the spoken sounds, when, by the force of long-term use, the force of habit, the word finally loses its original pictorial character and from the height of poetic, pictorial representation descends to the level of abstract naming - it becomes nothing more than a phonetic sign to indicate a known object or phenomenon, in its entirety, without an exclusive relationship to one or another attribute. The oblivion of a root in the people's consciousness takes away from all the words formed from it - their natural basis, deprives them of their soil, and without this, memory is already powerless to retain all the abundance of word meanings; At the same time, the connection between individual ideas, based on the kinship of roots, becomes inaccessible. Most of the names given by the people under the inspiration of artistic creativity were based on very bold metaphors. But as soon as the original threads to which they were originally attached were torn, these metaphors lost their poetic meaning and began to be taken for simple, untransferable expressions and in this form were passed from one generation to another. Understandable to fathers and repeated out of habit by their children, they were completely incomprehensible to their grandchildren. Moreover, having survived centuries, fragmented into localities, exposed to various geographical and historical influences, the people were not able to preserve their language in all the integrity and fullness of its original wealth: previously used expressions grew old and died out, became obsolete as grammatical forms, only sounds were replaced other related, old words were given new meaning. As a result of such centuries-old losses of language, the transformation of sounds and the renewal of concepts contained in words, the original meaning of ancient sayings became darker and more mysterious, and the inevitable process of mythical seductions began, which entangled the mind of a person all the more tightly because they acted on him with the irresistible convictions of his native word. One had only to forget, to lose sight of the original connection of concepts, for the metaphorical likening to acquire for the people all the meaning of a real fact and serve as a reason for the creation of a whole series of fabulous tales. The celestial bodies are no longer only in a figurative, poetic sense called “the eyes of the sky,” but in fact appear to the people’s mind under this living image, and from here arise the myths about the thousand-eyed, vigilant night guard - Argus and the one-eyed sun deity; winding lightning is a fiery serpent, fast-flying winds are endowed with wings, the lord of summer thunderstorms is endowed with fiery arrows. At first, the people still retained the consciousness of the identity of the poetic images they created with natural phenomena, but over time this consciousness weakened more and more and was finally completely lost; mythical ideas were separated from their elemental foundations and accepted as something special, existing independently of them. Looking at the thundercloud, the people no longer saw Perun’s chariot in it, although they continued to talk about the air trains of the thunder god and believed that he really had a wonderful chariot. Where there were two, three or more names for one natural phenomenon, each of these names usually gave rise to the creation of a special, separate mythical person, and completely identical stories were repeated about all these persons; So, for example, among the Greeks we find Helios next to Phoebus. It often happened that permanent epithets associated with a word were also attached to the object for which the said word served as a metaphor: the sun, once called a lion, received both its claws and mane and retained these features even ( 7) when the most animal likeness was forgotten***. Under such a charming influence of the sounds of language, both religious and moral beliefs of man were formed. “Man (said Bacon) thinks that the mind controls his words, but it also happens that words have a mutual and reciprocal influence on our mind. Words, like a Tartar bow, act back on the wisest mind, greatly confuse and distort thinking.” Expressing this thought, the famous philosopher, of course, did not foresee what a brilliant justification it would find in the history of the beliefs and culture of pagan peoples. If we translate simple, generally accepted expressions about the various manifestations of the forces of nature into the language of extreme antiquity, then we will see ourselves surrounded everywhere by myths, full of vivid contradictions and inconsistencies: the same elemental force was represented as a being both immortal and dying, in both the male and female field, and the husband of a famous goddess and her son, and so on, depending on the point of view from which a person looked at her and what poetic colors he gave to the mysterious play of nature. Nothing interferes more with the correct explanation of myths than the desire to systematize, the desire to bring heterogeneous legends and beliefs under an abstract philosophical standard, which predominantly plagued the previous, now outdated methods of myth interpretation. Without strong supports, guided only by their own, unrestrained guess, scientists, under the influence of the inherent human need to grasp the hidden meaning and order in incoherent and mysterious facts, each explained myths according to their own personal understanding; one system replaced another, each new philosophical teaching gave birth to a new interpretation of ancient legends, and all these systems, all these interpretations fell as quickly as they arose. Myth is the most ancient poetry, and just as free and varied a people’s poetic views on the world can be, so free and varied are the creations of their imagination, depicting the life of nature in its daily and annual transformations. The living spirit of poetry does not easily succumb to the dry formalism of the mind, which wants to strictly delimit everything, give everything an exact definition and reconcile all sorts of contradictions; the most curious details of the legends remained unsolved for him or were explained with the help of such cunning abstractions that are in no way consistent with the degree of mental and moral development of infant peoples. The new method of myth interpretation is trustworthy precisely because it gets down to business without drawing up conclusions in advance and bases every position on direct evidence of language: correctly understood, this evidence stands firmly, like a truthful and irrefutable monument of antiquity.

Afanasyev Alexander Nikolaevich

Poetic views of the Slavs on nature (Volume 1, Chapters 1-4)

Afanasyev A.N.

Poetic views of the Slavs on nature

Comparative Study Experience

Slavic legends and beliefs

in connection with mythical tales

other related peoples.

II. Light and darkness

III. Heaven and earth

IV. The element of light in her poetic representations

The historian and folklorist Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev (1826 - 1871) is very widely known as the publisher of Russian Folk Tales. He was a deep researcher of Slavic legends, beliefs and customs. The result of his many years of research experience was “Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature” - a fundamental work devoted to the historical and philological analysis of the language and folklore of the Slavs in connection with the language and folklore of other Indo-European peoples. His work has still not been surpassed in the world science of folklore. It is significantly inferior to the well-known “Golden Bough” by J. Frazer and “Primitive Culture” by E. Taylor.

Afanasyev’s book reveals the living connections of language and traditions, moreover, it resurrects the foundations of Russian thinking, which is especially important now, when the language and thinking of the Russian people are disfigured by newspaper cliches, thieves’ jargon and slang of all kinds, littered with foreign words.

Various poets and writers turned to her: A. K. Tolstoy and Blok, Melnikov-Pechersky and Gorky, Bunin and Yesenin. Especially the last one.

This publication consistently reproduces all three volumes of “Poetic Views”, published during the author’s lifetime in 1865 - 1869. They have been translated into a new spelling with some preservation of the features of the old spelling in order to give a taste and aroma of the verbiage of a bygone era.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers.

I. The origin of myths and means of studying it

The rich and, one might say, the only source of various mythical ideas is the living human word, with its metaphorical and consonant expressions. To show how necessary and naturally myths (fables) are created, we must turn to the history of language. The study of languages ​​in different eras of their development, based on surviving literary monuments, has led philologists to the fair conclusion that the material perfection of a language, more or less cultivated, is in inverse relation to its historical destinies: the older the era of the language being studied, the richer its material and shapes and more comfortable his body; The more you move into later eras, the more noticeable become the losses and injuries that human speech undergoes in its structure. Therefore, in the life of a language, in relation to its organism, science distinguishes two different periods: the period of its formation, gradual addition (development of forms) and the period of decline and dismemberment (transformations). The first period is long; it long precedes the so-called historical life of the people, and the only monument from this deepest antiquity remains the word, capturing in its pristine expressions the entire inner world of man. In the second period, immediately following the first, the previous harmony of the language is disrupted, a gradual decline in its forms is revealed and their replacement by others, sounds get mixed up, intersect; This time mainly corresponds to the oblivion of the root meaning of words. Both periods have a very significant influence on the creation of fabulous ideas.

Every language begins with the formation of roots or those basic sounds in which primitive man denoted his impressions made on him by objects and natural phenomena; such roots, representing an indifferent beginning for both the name and the verb, expressed nothing more than signs, qualities common to many objects and therefore conveniently applied to designate each of them. The emerging concept was plastically outlined by the word, as a true and apt epithet. Such a direct, immediate relationship to the sounds (5) of the language lives on for a long time among the masses of the simple, uneducated population. Even to this day, in our regional dialects and in the monuments of oral folk literature, one can hear that figurative expression that shows that a word for a commoner is not always just a sign indicating a well-known concept, but that at the same time it depicts the most characteristic shades of the subject and bright, picturesque features of the phenomenon. Let's give examples: zybun - fragile soil of the earth in a swamp, run - running water, lei (from the verb to pour) - torrential rains, senognoy - light but persistent rain, listoder - autumn wind, creeping - snowblood that spreads low on the ground, torn - a skinny horse, a licker - a cow's tongue, a chicken - a hawk, a carkun - a raven, a cold-weed - a frog, a snake - a snake, a scab - an evil person, etc.; Folk riddles are especially rich in such sayings: blink - an eye, blow your nose, sniff and sniff - a nose, babble - a tongue, yawn and yadalo - a mouth, rake and wave - hands, a dejected pig, babble - a dog, tenacious - a child and many others, in which we find a direct, obvious indication for everyone of the source of the idea 1. Since various objects and phenomena can easily be similar in some of their characteristics and in this respect produce the same impression on the feelings, it is natural that man began to bring them closer together in his ideas and give them the same name, or at least names derived from the same root. On the other hand, each object and each phenomenon, depending on the difference in its properties and actions, could and did cause in the human soul not one, but many and heterogeneous impressions. That is why, due to the variety of characteristics, several different names were given to the same object or phenomenon. The subject was outlined from different sides and received its full definition only in a variety of synonymous expressions. But it should be noted that each of these synonyms, denoting a certain quality of one object, at the same time could serve to designate the same quality of many other objects and thus connect them with each other. Here lies precisely that rich spring of metaphorical expressions, sensitive to the most subtle shades of physical phenomena, which amazes us with its strength and abundance in the languages ​​of ancient education and which subsequently, under the influence of the further development of tribes, gradually dries up. In ordinary Sanskrit dictionaries there are 5 names for hand, 11 for light, 15 for cloud, 20 for month, 26 for snake, 35 for fire, 37 for sun, etc. 2. In ancient times, the meaning of roots was tactile, inherent the consciousness of the people, who connected not abstract thoughts with the sounds of their native language, but those living impressions that visible objects and phenomena produced on their feelings. Now let us imagine what confusion of concepts, what confusion of ideas should have occurred when the root meaning of words was forgotten; and such oblivion, sooner or later, certainly befalls the people. That sympathetic contemplation of nature, which accompanied man during the period of language creation, subsequently, when the need for new creativity was no longer felt, gradually weakened. Moving more and more away from initial impressions and trying to satisfy newly emerging mental needs, the people discover the desire to turn the language they created into a firmly established and obedient instrument for transmitting their own thoughts. And this (6) becomes possible only when the ear itself loses its excessive sensitivity to the spoken sounds, when, through the force of long-term use, the force of habit, the word finally loses its original pictorial character and from the height of poetic, pictorial representation descends to the level of abstract naming - it becomes nothing more than a phonetic sign to indicate a known object or phenomenon, in its entirety, without an exclusive relationship to one or another attribute. The oblivion of a root in the people's consciousness takes away from all the words formed from it - their natural basis, deprives them of their soil, and without this, memory is already powerless to retain all the abundance of word meanings; At the same time, the connection between individual ideas, based on the kinship of roots, becomes inaccessible. Most of the names given by the people under the inspiration of artistic creativity were based on very bold metaphors. But as soon as the original threads to which they were originally attached were torn, these metaphors lost their poetic meaning and began to be taken for simple, untransferable expressions and in this form were passed from one generation to another. Understandable to fathers and repeated out of habit by their children, they were completely incomprehensible to their grandchildren. Moreover, having survived centuries, fragmented into localities, exposed to various geographical and historical influences, the people were not able to preserve their language in all its integrity and the fullness of its original wealth: previously used expressions grew old and died out, became obsolete as grammatical forms, only sounds were replaced other related, old words were given new meaning. As a result of such centuries-old losses of language, the transformation of sounds and the renewal of concepts contained in words, the original meaning of ancient sayings became darker and more mysterious, and the inevitable process of mythical seductions began, which entangled the mind of a person all the more tightly because they acted on him with the irresistible convictions of his native word. One had only to forget, to lose sight of the original connection of concepts, for the metaphorical likening to acquire for the people all the meaning of a real fact and serve as a reason for the creation of a whole series of fabulous tales. The celestial bodies are no longer only in a figurative, poetic sense called “the eyes of heaven,” but in fact appear to the people’s mind under this living image, and from here arise the myths about the thousand-eyed, vigilant night guard - Argus and the one-eyed sun deity; winding lightning is a fiery serpent, fast-flying winds are endowed with wings, the lord of summer thunderstorms is endowed with fiery arrows. At first, the people still retained the consciousness of the identity of the poetic images they created with natural phenomena, but over time this consciousness weakened more and more and was finally completely lost; mythical ideas were separated from their elemental foundations and were accepted as something special, existing independently of them. Looking at the thundercloud, the people no longer saw Perun’s chariot in it, although they continued to talk about the air trains of the thunder god and believed that he really had a wonderful chariot. Where there were two, three or more names for one natural phenomenon, each of these names usually gave rise to the creation of a special, separate mythical person, and completely identical stories were repeated about all these persons; So, for example, among the Greeks we find Helios next to Phoebus. It often happened that permanent epithets associated with a word were also attached to the object for which the said word served as a metaphor: the sun, once called a lion, received both its claws and mane and retained these features even ( 7) when the most animal likeness has been forgotten 3. Under such a charming influence of the sounds of language, both religious and moral beliefs of man were formed. “Man (said Bacon) thinks that the mind controls his words, but it also happens that words have a mutual and reciprocal influence on our mind. Words, like a Tartar bow, act back on the wisest mind, greatly confuse and distort thinking.” Expressing this thought, the famous philosopher, of course, did not foresee what a brilliant justification it would find in the history of the beliefs and culture of pagan peoples. If we translate simple, generally accepted expressions about the various manifestations of the forces of nature into the language of extreme antiquity, then we will see ourselves surrounded everywhere by myths, full of vivid contradictions and inconsistencies: the same elemental force was represented as a being both immortal and dying, in both the male and female field, and the husband of a famous goddess and her son, and so on, depending on the point of view from which a person looked at her and what poetic colors he gave to the mysterious play of nature. Nothing interferes more with the correct explanation of myths than the desire to systematize, the desire to bring heterogeneous legends and beliefs under an abstract philosophical standard, which predominantly plagued the previous, now outdated methods of myth interpretation. Without strong supports, guided only by their own, unrestrained guess, scientists, under the influence of the inherent human need to grasp the hidden meaning and order in incoherent and mysterious facts, explained myths - each according to his own personal understanding; one system replaced another, each new philosophical teaching gave birth to a new interpretation of ancient legends, and all these systems, all these interpretations fell as quickly as they arose. Myth is the most ancient poetry, and just as free and varied a people’s poetic views on the world can be, just as free and varied are the creations of their imagination, depicting the life of nature in its daily and annual transformations. The living spirit of poetry does not easily succumb to the dry formalism of the mind, which wants to strictly delimit everything, give everything an exact definition and reconcile all sorts of contradictions; the most curious details of the legends remained unsolved for him or were explained with the help of such cunning abstractions that are in no way consistent with the degree of mental and moral development of infant peoples. The new method of myth interpretation is trustworthy precisely because it gets down to business without drawing up conclusions in advance and bases every position on direct evidence of language: correctly understood, this evidence stands firmly, like a truthful and irrefutable monument of antiquity.

In the hymns of the Vedas and in the mythical tales of the Greeks, Zorya is depicted either as a mother, or as a sister, or as the wife or lover of the Sun. She was represented as a mother because she always precedes the sunrise, brings it out after her and thus (46) gives birth to it every morning. According to the research of Max Müller, the simple, natural phenomenon that at sunrise the zorya goes out and disappears - in the metaphorical language of the Aryans it turned into a poetic legend: the beautiful maiden Zorya runs from the rising Sun and dies from the radiant embrace and hot breath of this fiery lover. So young Daphne runs away from the loving Apollo and dies in his arms, i.e., rays, for, among other similes, the rays of the sun were also called golden hands. The same meaning lies in the following metaphorical expressions: “the sun overturned the chariot of the dawn”, “the shy dawn hides its face at the sight of its naked husband - the Sun.” The brightly shining sun seemed naked, in contrast to another metaphor, which spoke of the sun, covered with dark clouds, as if it were a deity who had thrown clothes (robes, veils) over himself. Abandoned by the Morning Zorya, the lonely Sun made its procession across the sky, searching in vain for its friend, and only approaching the limits of its daily life, ready to go out (= die) in the west, it again, for short moments, found the Zorya, shining with wondrous beauty in the evening dusk.

The evidence presented clearly shows that in that ancient time, when patriarchal, blood ties dominated the entire structure of life, man found relationships familiar to him in all natural phenomena; the gods became good family men, there were fathers, spouses, children, relatives. Personifying the divine forces of nature in human images, he transferred his everyday forms to them. But such family ties of the gods were the fruit not of dry, abstract reflection, but of a living, poetic view of nature, and depending on how this view changed, the mutual relations of the deified luminaries and elements also changed: one and the same deity could be the father, then the son of another, to be born from two or more mothers, etc. That is why even where, under the influence of the successes of folk culture, the activity of the mind was caused to agree on various mythical ideas (for example, among the Greeks), even there we are struck by the confusion and the contradiction of myths. It is obvious that among peoples who stood at a much lower stage of development, features indicating uncertainty and unsteady fermentation of thought should appear even more clearly. The very absence among the Slavic tribes of such names for the month, morning and evening dawns and stars, which would, over time, turn from common nouns into their own, not easily recognizable in their original root meaning, indicates that we are dealing with an era of the broadest and freest poetic ideas, we are present, so to speak, at the very birth of mythical tales.

The same creative, fertile power that the pagan contemplated in the bright rays of the summer sun, he saw in the summer thunderstorms, shedding beneficial rain on the thirsty earth, refreshing the air from the suffocating heat and giving the fields a harvest. Many different beliefs, traditions and rituals undoubtedly testify to the ancient Slavic worship of heavenly thunder and lightning. The solemnly powerful phenomenon of a thunderstorm rushing through the air spaces was personified by them in the divine image of Perun-Svarozhich, the son of the great god of Heaven; lightning was his weapon - a sword and arrows, a rainbow - his bow, clouds - clothes or beard and curls, thunder - a distant sounding word, the word of God heard from above, winds and storms - breath, rains - a fertilizing seed. As the creator of heavenly flame, (47) born in thunder, Perun is also recognized as the god of earthly fire, brought by him from heaven as a gift to mortals; as the ruler of rain clouds, which from ancient times were likened to water sources, he receives the name of the god of seas and rivers, and as the supreme manager of the whirlwinds and storms that accompany a thunderstorm, he receives the name of the god of winds (see below). These various names were originally given to him as his characteristic epithets, but in the course of time they turned into proper names; with the darkening of ancient views, they disintegrated in the popular consciousness into separate divine persons, and the single ruler of the thunderstorm was fragmented into the gods of thunder and lightning (Perun), fire (Svarozhich), water (Sea King) and winds (Stribog). Along with the reduction of mythical ideas and legends about the heavenly flame of lightning to earthly fire, about rain streams to earthly sources, adoration of the hearth, rivers, lakes and students naturally arose.

In such images the Slav worshiped the all-creating forces of nature, which for a living being are good, good and beautiful. It is natural for a person to feel attachment to life and fear of death. Having deified everything connected with fertility and development as good, he had to instinctively, with anxious fear, retreat from everything that seemed to him contrary to the creative work of life. With the sunset of the daylight in the west, the eternal activity of nature seems to be suspended, silent night covers the world, clothing it in its dark covers, and everything plunges into a sound sleep - a sign of death forever soporific; with the darkening of the bright rays of the sun by winter fogs and clouds, colds and frosts begin, the sky ceases to shine with lightning and send rain, earthly life freezes and a person is condemned to hard work: he must build a home, settle at the hearth, prepare food and warm clothes. Primitive tribes developed the belief that darkness and cold, hostile to the deities of light and heat, are created by another powerful force - unclean, evil and destructive. Thus arose dualism in religious beliefs; at first it flowed not from the moral demands of the human spirit, but from purely physical conditions and their various effects on living organisms; man had no other measure than himself, his own advantages and disadvantages. Moral foundations are developed later and are attached to ready-made provisions of dualism, generated by the most ancient view of nature. Thus, our distant ancestors, whose circle of understanding was necessarily limited to the external, material side, divided the entire diversity of natural phenomena into two opposing forces. Among the Western Slavs, this dual view of God's world was expressed in the worship of Belbog and Chernobog, representatives of light and darkness, good and evil. In Helmold’s chronicle we read: “est autem Slavorum mirabilis error, nam in conviviis et compotationibus suis pateram circumferunt, in quam conferunt non dicam consecrationes, sed execrationis verba, sub nomine deorum boni scilicet atque mali, omnem prosperam fortunam a bono deo, adversamamalo dirigi profitentes ; ideo etiam malum deum sua lingua dibol sive Zcerneboch, id est nigrum deum, appelant.” Surviving geographical names and folk legends indicate that the belief in Belbog and Chernobog was (48) once common among all Slavic tribes, including Russians: Belbug - an island with a monastery on the Reg (in Pomerania); Bialobozhe and Bialobozhnitsa - in Poland; White Gods - a tract near the high road from Moscow to Trinity, 15 miles before reaching there; Trinity-Belbozhsky Monastery - in Kostromsk. dioceses; Chernobozhye - in Porkhov district, Chernobozhna - in Bukovina, Chernobozhsky town - in Serbia; in the land of the Lusatians, near Budishin, there is Mount Chernobog and not far from it another - Belbog, about which a legend has been preserved as places of pagan worship. In Bamberg, an idol of Chernobog was found, depicted in the form of a beast, with a runic inscription inscribed as the Pomeranian Slavs pronounce: Tsarni bu; The late Safarik wrote a scientific study about this discovery in his time. According to Helmold's testimony, the Luneburg Slavs until a later era called the devil Chernobog. According to the story of the Gustino Chronicle (under the year 1070), the ancient Magi were convinced that “there are two gods: one is heavenly, the other is in hell”; Bessarabian settlers answer the question: do they profess the Christian faith? They answered: “We worship our true Lord - the white God,” and in Ukraine the oath survived: “Let the worst God kill you!” There is still a living memory of the ancient Belbog in the Belarusian legend about Belun. Belun appears as an old man with a long white beard, in white clothes and with a staff in his hands; he appears only during the day and leads travelers lost in the dense forest to the real road; There is a saying: “There is no forest without Belun.” He is revered as the giver of wealth and fertility. During the harvest, Belun is present in the fields and helps the reapers in their work. Most often he appears in the eared rye, with a bag of money on his nose, beckons some poor man with his hand and asks him to wipe his nose; when he fulfills his request, money will fall out of the bag, and Belun disappears. The proverb: “Music got lost (must have made friends)” with “Belun” is used in the sense: happiness visited him. This scattering of wealth by Belun is based on the ancient concept of sunlight as gold.