Did you try to summon spirits as a child? Have you heard fairy tales on how to summon good spirits, wanted to check their truthfulness yourself? The Slavs knew for sure that spirits surround them everywhere, live in forests, fields, rivers, even in dwellings. True stories recorded by ethnographers in the Russian North served as the basis for a conversation about the challenge of the spirit.
On the Kupala holidays, natural spirits are especially common to people. Let's tell what we know about them, and you listen to our tale.
Summoning spirits in nature
Every locality has its own perfume. In the fields - the owner of the Field, the mistress of the Field. Mistress of the Field, Midday, tall, stately. Appears at noon. They say that Midday frightens those who work at noon, it is supposed to rest at this hour. Checks if the parents left a forgotten baby in the field. Midday, like Polevik, often appears with a strong wind, a whirlwind on a clear day. Since ancient times, they tried to appease the polevik, they brought gifts to the owner of the field so that the grain would be born, so that the animals would not damage the crop. When they let the cattle graze in the fields, they also entrusted it to Polevik's care.
They say that Polevik and Polevaya are not always affectionate to people, but the Slavs knew how to call the good spirits of nature to their aid:
And in the forest there is a field and there is a beautiful mistress of the field. Once I dressed up in the yard, and the hog ran away. And lost it, they cannot find it. I asked my grandmother, and she said, go get bread, three kopecks, stand on the road along which he ran, and say: "Master of the field, I will give you bread and a gold treasury, and you bring me a hog home" - and throw [bread and money] over the right shoulder. I did it, I looked in the evening, the hog came. This goblin drove. If something gets lost, say so too, and it will help. And the field can be good, and sometimes it is evil (Novgorod Region, Starorussky District, Kanshino, 1990).
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There is a field owner, he takes care of the cattle. Beaver Ivanitch, a shepherd, herded horses, I saw him often. The field master is alone in the field, and there is an owner on each field. Scare scares, but does not touch. I was small. The field was all stripes, the end was running. Self-grown clover was mowed. The mother says: "Go and steal." I went to rob. Suddenly it blazed, thunder rumbled. He [the field owner] came out of the rye, said, "Go home." And I think no, I will plunder, a little is left. He again: "You are told, go home." I dropped my rake and ran. He told the grandmas, they said, this is in front of the bad. And he was like a man, only so gray-haired (Novgorod Region, Starorussky District, Griva, 1990).
I will drive out the cattle and first of all I ask the field man, because he is the owner in the field: "Father in the field, mother of the field, with her little children, thank you for keeping my cow!"
Summoning the spirits of the house
It is known that each house has its own guardian spirit, the Brownie, is. In the old days people knew how to conduct a conversation. When moving to a new hut, the Brownie was appeased. They said "I bought a house, but with the Brownies", so Dedushko-Khozyayushko lives in every house. The lonely Brownie, who was forgotten in the abandoned housing, is sad, howls scary at night. Therefore, they certainly tried to transport Grandfather-Brownie to a new home.
Here's what they said about how to summon spirits, Brownies:
There is a grandfather brownie. When you move to a new house, you have to ask. You worship: “Grandpa brownie! Let go! " If you don’t ask, it’s going to scare you. At night he walks around the house, you sense that he is walking, but you do not see to see. If you leave, you won't call grandfather, he will cry. "Let's go, - you will call, - grandfather-lure, come with me." And if you don’t call, someone howls (Arkhangelsk region, Pinega river basin, Kevrola, 1984)
There is a housekeeper in the house. Tatka wanted to sell the horse, but we are asleep, but in the lower courtyard he is howling: pity for the horse. My brother put his head down, and there he sits on the horse's mane like a lastock, weaves into a braid, like some cat. Loves, duck weaves a braid. I wove everything, she cut it off. (Arkhangelsk Region, Mezensky District, Ust-Peza, 1986).
Summoning spirits, flying kites
They say that the Slavs have spirits with whom it is not joyful, dangerous to meet. No one deliberately dared to summon the dashing spirits. Sometimes, he says, the spirit of the fiery serpent came by itself, without an invitation. If a woman grieves for her beloved who has gone to war or died, a flying kite may come to her in the form of her husband. She will become a desire-fulfilling spirit, and everything that is fulfilled will turn out to be a deception, and a woman withers away from that every day. Then the neighbors notice that something is wrong with the little girl: during the day he does not show himself to people, at night he locks himself in the hut, as if he is talking with someone, turns pale, loses weight. In the North they know a remedy for such a disaster:
I had a girlfriend, also Masha. And when the war began, her peasant was taken to the front. She kept crying. And he (the husband) began to fly to her. They told her that it was not him, but the devil flies. She brushed it off. And he brought her a chest with gifts, but did not order to open it. Once on the stove, she stroked his head, and his head was bumps, uneven. And he said that they wounded him like that. She strained herself. He went away, and Masha went to the window. I looked - there were sparks at the porch (according to legends, the fiery snake disappears, becoming sparks), but it is not there. In the morning she opened the chest with gifts, and there was horse dung.
The kite-love began to fly to one woman. This woman began to say to her neighbors: "My husband is coming to me." Neighbors say: "Where does he come to you - your husband is far away."
And the women taught: “You take the comb; sit on the bed and comb your hair and put the hemp in your mouth and grunt it. The snake will come up to you and ask: "What are you doing?" - You answer him: "Combing." - "What do you eat?" - Lyubak will ask you. - You answer him: "I eat lice." - Lyubak will answer: "How can a woman eat lice bones?" - And you will answer him: "Is it possible for an inanimate bone to go to a living one?" “Lyubak will be embarrassed by these words and will not come to you again.” Baba answered the snake, as her neighbors taught. Lyubak was embarrassed by such words, hit the door at full swing and never appeared in that courtyard.
