According to a common misconception, Santa Claus and Snow Maiden emerged recently, in the 19th century. Father Frost was first mentioned in the fairy tale "Moroz Ivanovich" by Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky, written in 1840.
The Snow Maiden appears in Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl's fairy tale “The Snow Maiden Girl” (1861), here she is a girl made of snow. But in the play by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky "The Snow Maiden" (1873), this is already a young girl - the daughter of Frost and Spring.
But these are literary tales, "literary". In folk tales, Frost (Morozko, Grandfather Treskun) and Snegurochka (Snegurushka, Snowflake) appeared much earlier. Let's try to follow their path.
What is a myth?
Long before folktales turned into oral stories of grandmothers to their grandchildren and granddaughters, they were myths. What is a myth?
Our ancient ancestors worshiped different spirits. On certain days of the year, bonfires were kindled, spirits were summoned with special songs and dances, and the spirit “appeared” - usually settling into the body of the priest, well, or as we would say today - the priest represented this spirit. Then the members of the tribe played out some story with the participation of this spirit. For example, how winter fights against spring, and spring wins.
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Today we would call it a "performance", a "performance" but for ancient people it was all very serious - for real! Spring will linger, the harvest will not have time to ripen, hunger will begin. Old people and children will die, warriors will weaken, enemies will attack …
These "performances", during which the members of the tribe told each other and their patron spirits, how the world arose, how the seasons change, why it rains, why the seed ripens in the earth, and are called MYTH.
Over time, people more and more learned to influence nature; the survival of the tribe now depended not so much on the help of the spirits as on the skill and experience of people. The myth ceased to be a sacred act and "disintegrated": into science, art and religion.
Science began to develop from observations of nature (how to track down an animal? When to sow a plant? How to know if it will rain tomorrow?).
From carving wooden idols, choral singing, dancing and communicating with the spirit, the fine arts, music, and theater began to develop.
Religion began to develop from the notions of justice and injustice of spirits, from a feeling of helplessness before fate and a desire to "lean" against some reliable intercessor.
And stories about the world, about spirits, about a tribe and its heroes have become just stories. And they turned into fairy tales.
Over thousands of years, fairy tales have changed a lot, overgrown with new everyday details, but some traces of ancient myths still remain in them …
Patronymic of the Snow Maiden
The story of Santa Claus is in his name. Today the word "pestilence" means "epidemic", "mass fatal disease." However, earlier this word meant the same as the Latin mors, Italian morte, Spanish muerte, French mort and, most importantly, the ancient proto-Indo-European * mertis - that is, directly "death".
If Santa Claus was once the spirit of winter and death - Mor, then the patronymic of his alleged daughter must be Morovna. And in Slavic mythology there is a character with a very similar patronymic!
This is Marya Morevna.
Clever, beautiful, the bride of Ivan Tsarevich, a sorceress who managed to chain Koshchei the Immortal himself … But in some fairy tales, for some reason she is a friend of Baba Yaga. And in some - just her daughter.
What unites a clever and beautiful woman with an ugly, evil old woman?
Historians and ethnographers claim that the ancient Slavs, besides other gods, worshiped the goddess of winter and death - Moru or Morena (Marena).
This name (Morena or Marena - there were no spelling rules in the XII century) is found in Novgorod birch bark letters. In one, the author asks Marena to influence the prince when he becomes too generous to bestow merchants: "Marena, give our prince reason, remind your winter anger." In another we read: "Tell your sons, let Marena bring grain for me in tribute."
One of the birch bark letters mentioning Marena.
It turns out Morevna is not a middle name, but just a distorted name of an ancient deity!
Madder is still preserved in Polish and Bulgarian folklore (among the Bulgarians - under the name of Mara-lishanka). At the beginning of winter, she is a young beautiful girl, but gradually she grows old and by the end of winter turns into an evil ugly old woman. (That is why Marya Morevna is either a daughter or a friend of Baba Yaga!)
Celebrating the end of winter, in Poland and Bulgaria they made a Marena doll and burned (that is, buried) it. (The Snow Maiden in Russian fairy tales also dies during the spring holidays, jumping over a fire.)
Scarecrow of Madder intended to be burned at the end of winter.
This means that Marena is born to let nature die, and dies when nature is about to come to life. Otherwise, it is impossible to replace the old with the new. This is precisely why Dead Water is needed in fairy tales. Living Water is not enough to revive the hero! First, it must be sprinkled with Dead Water, without this magic will not happen.
And what about Marya Morevna? She takes Koshchei the Immortal prisoner - that is, immortality that prevents the departure of the old and the emergence of the new. And the unlucky Ivan Tsarevich, having given Koshchei to drink, frees immortality from the captivity of Morevna-Marena and thereby brings countless troubles to the earth - disrupts the natural course of things.
Madder.
For the ancient Slavs, death was the transfer of a person from the bodily, visible world (which was called "reality") into the world of spirits, which was called "nav". By the way, Baba Yaga is a guide from the world of the living to the world of the dead (that is, spirits and ancestors), from the ordinary world to the world of magic and unprecedented abilities. Often, without her help, Ivan Tsarevich is not capable of anything. (Remember, and Living water is powerless without the Dead?)
And Marya Morevna - the mistress of winter and death, possessing incredible magical power and wisdom, holds immortality (Koshchei) in captivity, because immortality disrupts the natural course of things: the eternal cycle of summer and winter, life and death, ordinariness and magic, human weakness and strength spirit (which is given to a person by spirits - his gods and ancestors.
It turns out, friends, on New Year's Eve, not some literary characters of the 19th century, adapted for the New Year's holiday in 1937, come to us.
What is New Year's holiday? Replacing the old with the new - "dead" for "living". It's just that now we have no connection with nature and the harvest, like our ancestors, so we celebrate it not in the spring, like them, but in the winter. But just like a few thousand - thousand! - years ago, on this holiday "the spirits of winter" come to us. Mor and Marena. Ded Moroz and Snegurochka.