Russian Spirits PDF

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Russian Spirits...

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Russian Pagan Spirits Air Spirits

Gamayun

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Alkonost

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Etymology: comes from the word gam  or kam meaning noise , or the Belarussian word gamanitis meaning to speak  Appearance: ★ Depicted as a large bird with a woman's head  Behavior: ★ Served pagan gods Veles, Kolyada, and Dashbog ★ Symbol of wisdom and knowledge ★ Talking bird who foretells the future and tells fortune ★ The one to “sing” the “Old book of Vedas”  Residence: ★ Lives on an island in the east, close to paradise  Treats: ★ Unknown

Etymology: Unknown  Appearance: ★ Depicted as a creature with the body of a bird and the head of a beautiful woman ★ Depicted with hands and wings at the same time and holds a flower in her hand  Behavior: ★ Bird of the darn; rules the winds and weather ★ Associated with Khors ★ During Kolyada (falling on the Winter Solstice), Alkonost gave birth to children on the “edge of the sea” followed by clear windless weather for 7 days ★ Bird of sorrow, melancholy, and divine providence  Residence: ★ Also keeper of the Tree of Life

 Treats: ★ Unknown

Sirin

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Firebird

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Etymology: Unknown  Appearance: ★ A big, strong, and multicolored maiden bird ★ Has the body of an owl, a stern face, and a crown on her head ★ Depicted on wooden houses  Behavior: ★ Predecessor of Greed Sirens that lured in sailors with their singing, which ultimately led their ships to perish at sea ★ Has the magic function of protective nature, personifies beauty, and joy of living ★ Protector of people  Residence: ★ Depicted on wooden houses ★ Keeper of the Tree of Life  Treats: ★ Unknown

Etymology: associated with trar-ptitsa  meaning bird  Appearance: ★ Has silver and gold feathers, wings like flames, and its eyes sparkle like crystals ★ About the size of a peacock ★ The feathers shine so brightly that their beauty and light can blind people ★ Large bird with majestic plumage that glows brightly emitting red, orange, and yellow light, like a bonfire ★ Feather’s don’t cease glowing if removed  Behavior: ★ At night it leaves the cage and illuminates the garden ★ Eats gold apples that keep youth, beauty, and immortality ★ When it sings, pearls pour from its beak and

can cure the sick and return eyesight to the blind ★ It dies in autumn and revives in the spring like a Phoenix ★ Sometimes a sparking feather dropped out from the Firebird’s tail illuminates a dark room when brought inside and sometimes turns into gold  Residence: ★ Lives in a gold cage in the Garden of Irii (Paradise/Prav’)  Treats: ★ Gold apples and a gold cage  Other: ★ Symbolic character in Russian fairy tales and gives the hero a difficult task ★ It is extremely difficult to get hold of the firebird—to catch it, they use a gold cage with apples inside as a trap. Humans cannot catch the bird barehanded.

Finist

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Etymology: means fine young man  Appearance: ★ Fine young man able to turn into a falcon ★ Image of the groom, fearlessly fighting for his love ★ Immortal and embodies power, happiness, and eternal youth ★ Embodiment of Volkh, Slavic God of War and defender of Russia  Behavior: ★ Fights for his love ★ Personification of pure love as an invaluable gift. One who protects and strives for this gift attains a happy life  Residence: ★ Unknown  Treats: ★ Unknown

The Duck (Utochka) Etymology: Unknown  Appearance: ★ Slavic symbol of purifying the power of water ★ Images of the Duck attached to two sides of one Kolt (a traditional Russian female ornament fastened to headgear), guarded a woman wearing it from misfortunes and disasters ★ Stands for wellness, continuation of family line, and happiness

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Stiratim

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Birds and Symbolism

Etymology: Unknown  Appearance: ★ Associated with the image of a beautiful girl that she turns into (the Swan princess) Behavior: ★ She keeps the world under her right wing ○ When she is waving the wing, she sends misery and suffering ○ When she is lifting the wing, she brings light to the world ○ When she is lowering the wing, she brings darkness and death ○ Fragile, beautiful, can fulfill desires, but is sensitive to malice and evil 

Geese/Swans - represent Russian evil power in fairy tales; “gang” of robbers, performing the will of evil forces and stealing people Crow - the wisest bird, the messenger of the underworld, represents Baba Yaga Rooster - connected to the sun, time, and can see through great distances and anticipate events; can help or punish people

Forest Spirits

Baba Yaga

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Leshiy - Master of the Forest and Guardian of the Beasts

Etymology: translates to “the Bony-legged”  Appearance: ★ Depicted as a witch with a skinny, bony body  Behavior: ★ She is not good, but not entirely evil ★ She eats people and decorates her fence with their skulls ★ Flies through the air in a mortar, rowing with a pestle ★ Helps those who serve her  Residence: ★ Lives in a hut in the forest that stands on chicken legs, and must be commanded to turn around so that one may enter ★ Her fence is made of human bones and topped with skulls ★ The keyhole was a mouth filled with sharp teeth ★ On the Smorodina River, which is the gateway to the edge of Nav and Yav ★ Her house could run after its victims  Treats: ★ Unknown

Etymology: Comes from Russian word “les,” meaning forest  Appearance: ★ Looks like a peasant without a belt ★ Has the power to change his size and height ★ Pictured with a left flap of his coat ★ Wears shoes on the wrong feet Has glowing eyes ★ Black fur, wings, and a tail sometimes—typical features of the devil ★ Could look like a familiar person, forest beast (wolf, hare, bird), domestic animal (horse, piglet, rooster), or a mushroom ★ Sometimes in the form of a flying serpent and visits a woman in her husband’s absence

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 Behavior: ★ Made his presence in the forest through laughter, singhandclapping, and sounds of the forest ★ Carries off young girls, whom he sometimes married ★ Likes to abduct unbaptized infants and children cursed by their parents ★ He steals the kids from careless mothers  Residence: ★ Lives in the forest  Treats: ★ Bread, salt, kasha (porridge), and blini (pancakes) ★ Offerings were wrapped in clean cloth, tied with a red string, and placed at the forests crossroads ○ Captives could gain their freedom by reducing to eat the leshiy’s food—when they returned home, they would be wild-looking, covered in moss, and could no longer speak ★ His favorite beast is the wolf  Other: ★ On October 4th, it’s the first day of hibernation where all the forest spirits would chase wild animals and fight each other. ○ To protect themselves, peasants would turn their clothing inside out and palace their shoes on the wrong feet. ★ He has a wife and children—his wife is lesovikha, an ugly creature with huge breasts, sometimes a naked girl or a woman in a white dress

Water Spirits

Vodaynoy - the “Water Devil”

Etymology: comes from Russian word voda  meaning water  Appearance:

★ Imagined in human form as a naked man covered with mire ★ Bloated, bluish, and has a long beard and long hair ★ Sometimes covered in dirt or depicted as a peasant in a red shirt with a long beard ★ Also depicted as a human/creature with long toes, paws instead of hands, horns, a tail, and glowing eyes ★ Sometimes pictured as half fish half human

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Mermaid/Rusalka

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 Behavior: ★ Would tear the nets and hide the fish of fishermen ★ Unclean force and serves and the spirit with which the sorcerers make a pact  Residence: ★ Underwater in deep pools  Treats: ★ Millers and fisherman had a good relationship with him—millers offered bread and salt, vodka, or a black rooster. When a new mill was constructed, a black rooster was placed under the threshold as an offering. ★ Fishermen tried to offer tobacco or first catch with an incantation to the spirit  Other: ★ Married to a rusalka or vodianikha, a naked woman sitting on the bank at night combing her long tangled hair

Etymology: comes from Russian word rusyi , light color of hair, or from the word ruslo , meaning riverbed  Appearance: ★ Naked girls with long, flowing light-brown or green hair  Behavior: ★ Dance khorovod )circle dance) and sing by the light of the moon ★ Drown passing villagers ★ Souls of unbaptized or stillborn babies and

drowned maidens. The girls committed suicide because of unhappy love with a man or unbearable relations with their stepmothers ★ Connected with the unclean forces ★ Take their human lovers to their underwater palaces ★ Like to drown people, tickle them to death, and steal children  Residence: ★ Lived in underwater homes  Treats: ★ Unknown, but the sign of the cross, a magic circle, garlic, and some verbal charms can protect  from Rusalkas  Other: ★ Russian Rusalkas never have a tail ★ They can marry a man but it is never happy ★ They received their beauty and eternal youth from the devil ★ They are considered especially dangerous in the late spring during Rusalnaia Week, where they left their underwater houses to spend time in the forces and fields

Field Spirits

Polevoy or Polevik

Etymology: Russian word pole  meaning field  Appearance: ★ Shaggy fur and looks like an ugly little man ★ Color of his skin is dark, like the color of soil—imagined black as the earth, and his head was covered with long green grass rather than hair, or he wore no clothing or hat  Behavior: ★ Likes to play jokes on people, and often led peasants astray in the fields ★ Did not like to sleep on the boundaries of fields because his children played there and he liked to gallop their on his chargers Residence: ★ In the fields, preferably at noon

 Treats: ★ The best offering for Polevik is an egg

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Poludnitza

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Etymology: comes from Russian word polden meaning noon  Appearance: ★ Beautiful tall girl, sometimes dressed in white, a widow in the morning, or an old woman in rags in the evening ★ Sometimes appears as a nude girls who walks leisurely in the field  Behavior: ★ When she sees people working in the field during the hottest time of day (noon), she grabs them by the head and whirls them around until their get a headache, twist their heads, or breaks their bones ★ She lures children and gets them lost in fields of high rye stalks like the woods  Residence: ★ In the fields  Treats: ★ Unknown   

Home Spirits

        Bannik - Spirit of the Bathhouse

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Etymology: Comes from Russian word banya  meaning Bath  Appearance: ★ In dusk, he is an enormous cat that can stroke a washing man with a paw—a soft paw is good fortune and a sharp clawed paw is bad fortune ★ He is a small, old man with a big head and a green beard ★ He can show up as a burning log, coals, a heavy stone, or twig broom. ★ Sometimes assumes the appearance of a relative or acquaintance and washes himself in the company of those present who take no notice of him  Behavior: ★ He can strangle a person who does something wrong in banya or steam them to death and burn their skin ★ During rituals, he could forge a girl’s fingers together with iron bands ★ He can predict the future and people can consult him by standing with their back’s exposed in the half-open door of the bath, where the Bannik would stroke their back if everything was okay and would strike with claws if there was trouble ahead  Residence: ★ Lived in the bathhouse, a house apart from the main building with an area for dressing and steaming yourself ★ Bathhouse was considered to be unclean because the wife of Bannik (bannikha) liked to invite evil spirits ★ Sits under a bench and can live behind the stove or under the steaming shelf  Treats: ★ The last person to wash should leave a soap, fir branches, and water for the Bannik, and a formal “thank you” should be told to him. ★ Likes salted pieces of bread or a black chicken as a treat 

Other: ★ No loud talking, singing, or drinking in the Bathhouse ★ People often did not bathe alone or at night: carbon monoxide was accumulating and people could suffocate ★ The third turn at steaming was reserved for the Bannik and invited other spirits to join him. ★ WHen a bathhouse burned down and had to be rebuilt, people buried a black hen and uttered an incantation to the spirit ★ The bathhouse is where children were born and the new mother was never left alone there since demons attempted to steal the baby ○ If the baby is left in the bath, Bannik can replace it with his cub who always screamed, did not grow up, and did not start walking and eventually turned into a head or a broom

Kikimora

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Etymology: Derived from work kikka-murt meaning Scarecrow  Appearance: ★ Woman dressed in a traditional costume, with long flowing hair and no headdress  Behavior: ★ Domestic spirit that served as the oracle of disaster. ★ If spinning and needlework were not carefully put away at night, she would tangle them ★ She clangs dishes or stomps her feet to prevent children from falling asleep. ★ Caused damage in the chicken yard ★ Patronizes housewives by rocking babies to sleep, washing pots, and baking pies. ★ Dislikes lazy housewives and tickles little children out of sleep so that they cry all night and terrify older children by letting them see her with goat horns and bulging shining eyes  Residence:

★ In people’s homes  Treats: ★ Loves fern  Other: ★ Anyone that saw her spinning on the bench in the entrance would soon die ★ Carpenters may install kikimora into a house if a master doesn’t pay enough by sticking a doll in between logs that turns into the kikimora

Domovoy—spirit-protector of the house 

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Etymology: Dom, Russian word for House  Appearance: ★ Most of the time, he is invisible—when he did appear, it could be through a dog or cat of the family ★ Long grey beard ★ Wearing lapti  (sandals made of birch bark) ★ Soft, furry touch at night signaled good fortune, but a cold touch signaled misfortune or death  (Good) Behavior: ★ Overseer of domestic activities ★ Benevolent and important for function of the home ★ People can hear him through nocturnal creaks, moans, and bangs ★ If he loves someone, he will visit in the form of a gray cat and braid the hair of women. ★ Function as an oracle that foretold happiness and disaster through sounds and actions ★ Domovoy won’t leave his old home without a special invitation—”Domovoy, Domovoy, do not stay here, but come with our family.”  (Bad) Behavior: ★ Angered by family’s sloppy management, abusive language, or neglect of him. ★ If angered, he would cause the walls of the house to creak, bang pots, tangle needlework, spread manure on the door, and turn everything upside down. ★ Sometimes he hates a family member and

will choke sleeping people ★ Punished women who spin on Fridays or go outside without covering their heads. ★ If you made noise at noon, you could risk angering him and waking him from a deep sleep  Residence: ★ The dwelling itself, near the stove, under the threshold, or in the attic. ★ Families preferred not to sleep in these places  Treats: ★ Offer porridge, tobacco, bread, and salt ★ In order to please the spirit, families kept horses or cats in its favorite color ★ Domovoy disliked mirrors and goats, so the head of a goat was placed under the threshold. ★ New animals generally pleased the spirit, if they didn’t he would scatter its feet and tie its tail to the manger and the owner would exchange it for an animal of a different color.  Other: ★ Peasants avoided saying the name of Domovoy, instead they used: “the other half,” “owner,” or “grandpa.” ★ Spirit represented a former head of the family. ★ Some say he was married to the Kikimora

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