Initially, mara (mora) in Slavic mythology is an evil spirit, the embodiment of death, pestilence. Later, mara partly lost her connection with death, but, judging by some legends, she retained her harmful character, the ability to shape-shifting. Mara is a ghost, a vision, a spirit in the guise of a woman, appearing in the house: “He walks like a mara,” “Behind the stove, the mara is black-black,” “Mara is like a man. They will leave the spinning wheel at night, so the punishment will come "," The mara sits on the roving, combing her hair. " Usually mara is seen in the guise of a tall woman or, on the contrary, a hunched over old woman, but almost always with long, flowing hair.
In the Yaroslavl region, the maru was represented as a beautiful girl in white. And according to the beliefs of the Olonets Territory, mara is “black”, dressed in rags and even kosmat: “Children used to be frightened by grandma and baked mara, they will put on a fur coat up to six and say: 'Here grandma or baked mara is coming." "In some places, mara is likened to kikimore brownie: she invisibly dwells in a hut, most often behind the stove. In the beliefs of the Pskov people, the marushka, like other spirits playing pranks in the house, quietly steals things.
There are creatures like the mara in the folklore of other peoples. The names are also similar, apparently going back to a single root. This is the mara of the Ukrainians, the evil spirit of the plague of the Serbo-Croats, the nightmare of the Poles. According to the available materials, the mara of Russian beliefs is not so much a nightmare as an embodied fate, a "spinning deity" broadcasting changes in the fate of the inhabitants of the house, as well as a destructive ghost for children.
In the southern and southwestern regions of Russia, madder was called a stuffed animal (doll, tree, branch), burned, torn apart or drowned during the holiday of the farewell to winter, as well as on the night of Midsummer's Day (July 7). Such a scarecrow could, apparently, embody the passing period of time - winter (death), welcoming spring as a deity associated with fertility and vegetation.
Thus, the essence of Mara in beliefs manifests itself in different guises. Remains unchanged its ghost, influence on the fate of people, as well as the ability to appear only at a certain time. It can be night or, on the contrary, noon, the period of the summer solstice or the ripening of loaves, the “fractures” of human destiny. It can be assumed that mara is also a kind of personification of different light states of the world, the universe in a female form: she is both a haze (noon, noon heat), and darkness (night, darkness, darkness). Actually, in the beliefs of the 19th-20th centuries, all this constitutes not so much a definite image as a complex of views, which underlies the ideas about a number of female mythological characters (kikimora, apprentice, mokusha, white woman, etc.).
Mara in the mythology of the peoples of Europe is also an evil spirit, the embodiment of a nightmare (hence the French cauchemar, English nightmare - "nightmare"). She sits down at night on the sleeping man's chest and causes suffocation. In the Middle Ages, mara was associated with incubi and succubi; it was also believed that nightmares were sent by witches or the devil.
People have always disliked and were afraid of maru. In her name there was an echo of those very terrible words: "pestilence", "horror", "grave darkness", she was considered a dark creature, decrepit and sterile, embodying the spirit of death. The relentless mara, who loved bloody sacrifices, sometimes mowed down entire tribes, sending pestilence to them. In the old days, wishing to appease Mara, to suppress her evil power, a kind of amulet ritual was performed in front of her straw appearance. In the place chosen for the game, they dug in a felled tree decorated with ribbons and wreaths, and a maru doll was planted under it. A table with food and drinks was set in front of her.
When in the end the doll was brought to the river, all the decorations were torn from it and under the general cries of "put to death", hoping that in this way they would get rid of the threat of disease, nightmares and even death.
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Pernatiev Yuri Sergeevich. Brownies, mermaids and other mysterious creatures