Mother - Cheese Earth seemed to the imagination of a pagan who deified nature as a living humanoid creature. Grasses, flowers, shrubs, trees seemed to him her lush hair; he recognized stone rocks for bones; the tenacious roots of trees replaced the veins, the blood of the earth was the water seeping from its depths.
And, like a living woman, she gave birth to earthly beings, she moaned in pain in a storm, she was angry, causing earthquakes, she smiled under the sun, bestowing unprecedented beauty on people, she fell asleep in a cold winter and woke up in the spring, she died, burnt by drought.
And, like a true mother, a man resorted to her at every stage of his life. The hero will fall to the damp earth - and will be filled with new strength. Strike the ground with a spear - and it will absorb the black, poisonous serpent's blood, restoring life to the ruined people.
Whoever does not honor the land - a wet-nurse, according to the plowman, she will not give him bread - not only to his fill, but even from hand to mouth; whoever does not bow to the Mother - the Raw Earth with a filial bow, on the coffin of that person will not lie down lightly, but as a heavy stone. Whoever does not take handfuls of his native land with him on a long journey will never see his homeland again, our ancestors believed.
Patients in the old days went out into an open field, bowed to all four sides, wailing: "Forgive me, side, Mother - Cheese Earth!" "The more you get sick, the more you treat yourself!" - the people say, and the old people advise to endure those who hurt themselves - crashed to the very place and pray to the earth for forgiveness.
The earth itself is revered by the people as a healing remedy: it, dipped in saliva, heals wounds, stops the blood, and also applies it to a sick head. “How healthy the earth is,” they say, “just as my head would be healthy!”
“Mother - Cheese Earth! Take away any unclean reptile from a love spell and a dashing deed! - is pronounced here and there even now at the first pasture of cattle for spring pasture.
Mother - Cheese Earth
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“Let Mother cover me - Cheese Earth forever, if I'm lying!” - says the person, taking an oath, and such an oath is sacred and unbreakable. Those who fraternize not for life, but for death, mix blood from cut fingers and give each other a handful of earth: this means that from now on their relationship is eternal.
And in ancient times there were such sorcerers - healers who knew how to guess by a handful of earth taken from under the left foot of someone who wanted to know his fate.
"Removing the trace" from a person is considered to be the most unkind intention. To whisper skillfully over this taken out trace means, according to the old belief, to bind the will of the one whose trace is hand and foot. Superstitious people are afraid of this like fire.
“Mother is a nurse, dear land of cheese, - they are accountable for such a misfortune, - hide me from the fierce gaze, from any accidental daring. Protect me from the unkind eye, from the spiteful language, from the demonic slander. My word is as strong as iron. With seven seals it is to you, nurse Mother - Cheese Earth, sealed - for many days, for many years, for all eternal life!"
According to the views of the southern Slavs, the earth is flat and round. At the edge of the world, the dome of the sky connects to the Earth. An ox or a buffalo holds the earth on a horn; from time to time he gets tired and throws the load on the other horn - hence the earthquakes.
People also live in the underworld, everything is arranged in our way: the same plants, birds, animals.
At the creation of the world, the whole - the whole earth was level, but when the Lord dug the channels of rivers and seas, he had to create hills and mountains from sand and stones.
"The earth was created as a man, instead of Vlasov it has the past!" - the ancient omniscientists assured, and therefore endowed the past, potion - grass - with the magical properties of Mother - the Raw Earth.
“The herb is curative if you know it,” say the people. Such special connoisseurs of herbal potions and "fierce roots" were called zaleiniks, herbaceous, and they walked through meadows and forests, as in a garden planted with their own hands: every grass, every blade of grass knew its properties and place.