Karna's name can be found in The Lay of Igor's Host. There she is mentioned as the personification of the grief that gripped the Russian land after the death of the soldiers. Together with her sister Jelly, she sweeps over the battlefield, mourning the lost. It is possible that these two characters were perceived by our ancestors as goddesses of sorrow and remembrance for the dead or guides to the world of the dead.
The very word "karna" has its roots in ancient times. It has been established that the cult of a goddess with this name existed in Ancient Rome, where she was called "Carna". Unlike the Slavic Karna, the ancient Roman deity patronized the most important organs of the human body; her name can be roughly translated as "meat" or "flesh". Approximate descriptions of sacrifices to this goddess, performed on the first of June, have survived to this day.
The name of the Slavic goddess is considered by modern researchers to be derived from "cariti" - "to pity" or "to cry". Karna, like her sister, Zhelya, is most often called the daughters of Chernobog and Mary, although this theory has no solid evidence. According to the legends that have come down to us, these two sisters performed functions approximately characteristic of the Scandinavian Valkyries. Their task was to mourn the dead and bring Navi to the world. It is possible that Karna grieved only for the people who died in battle, sinking onto the battlefield at nightfall. The surviving warriors heard a woeful female cry from the darkness that enveloped the battlefield.
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Karna is the Slavic goddess of sorrow.
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15 December 2019
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Karna's name can be found in The Lay of Igor's Host. There she is mentioned as the personification of the grief that gripped the Russian land after the death of the soldiers. Together with her sister Jelly, she sweeps over the battlefield, mourning the lost. It is possible that these two characters were perceived by our ancestors as goddesses of sorrow and remembrance for the dead or guides to the world of the dead.
The very word "karna" has its roots in ancient times. It has been established that the cult of a goddess with this name existed in Ancient Rome, where she was called "Carna". Unlike the Slavic Karna, the ancient Roman deity patronized the most important organs of the human body; her name can be roughly translated as "meat" or "flesh". Approximate descriptions of sacrifices to this goddess, performed on the first of June, have survived to this day.
The name of the Slavic goddess is considered by modern researchers to be derived from "cariti" - "to pity" or "to cry". Karna, like her sister, Zhelya, is most often called the daughters of Chernobog and Mary, although this theory has no solid evidence. According to the legends that have come down to us, these two sisters performed functions approximately characteristic of the Scandinavian Valkyries. Their task was to mourn the dead and bring Navi to the world. It is possible that Karna grieved only for the people who died in battle, sinking onto the battlefield at nightfall. The surviving warriors heard a woeful female cry from the darkness that enveloped the battlefield.
It is impossible to say for sure which of the peoples borrowed the name of the goddess from another. On the one hand, the ancient Roman Carna is mentioned in the works of Ovid, who correlated it with Cardea. On the other hand, even now you can still find geographical names in the territories of modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which bear a resemblance to the name of Karna. It is possible that the name of the goddess appeared among different peoples independently of each other, and the similarity is a mere coincidence.
Also, this goddess is credited with participating in funeral ceremonies, where she tried to take on some of the grief of the deceased's loved ones. In this regard, there is another name for Karna - Kruchina. Some experts have suggested that this goddess could personify rebirth, the cyclical nature of life and death and was not perceived by the ancient Slavs solely as a symbol of death and burial.
How our ancestors outwardly imagined Karna is not reliably established. There is a version that the goddess appears as a figure wrapped in black clothes, emitting a melancholy cry. Carnation flowers are an obligatory attribute of Karna. Perhaps the custom in our time to leave carnations on the graves originates precisely in the pagan beliefs of our distant ancestors.