This eccentric woman also has a lot of nicknames - kikimora, kikimorka, shishimora, domozhirikh, shamshurka, etc. This is a truly homely spirit, since as they say, a lonely brownie or a bannik could marry a kikimora; moreover, sometimes the goblin himself or the water person wooed her. The name comes from the name of the Slavic goddess Morena (Mary). Later, the root "kick" was added to the name, which meant hunchback or crookedness. Another name - shishimora - is traced to the Russian dialectal verbs "shishit, shishat" ("swarm, move, do stealthily"), and this is a fairly accurate definition of the behavior of a kikimora. However, there is also the verb "kykat" - to shout, make harsh sounds.
At first, among the ancient Slavs, the kikimora was a night deity of sleepy dreams. Later, kikimors began to call daughters unbaptized or cursed in infancy by mothers, who are carried away by devils, and sorcerers are thrown into someone's house. Although these "ladies" are invisible, they are thrown around with the owners. It is believed that the kikimora settles in houses built in a "bad" place, that is, where murders were committed, where a strangled man is buried, an unrepentant deceased, a child is killed or died, or where his body is buried. And according to sources of the 18th century, a kikimora is a child kidnapped by evil spirits. Later it was believed that kikimors are children born from the connection of girls with a "fire serpent".
If a kikimora has started up in the house, it means that it is unsuccessful, something "unclean". Appearing in the house, she began to do small dirty tricks: she threw and beat the pots, interfered with sleep, knocked with a view, thrown from the underground with bulbs, from the stove - with fur coats and pillows; She pulled out hair from the owner, feathers from chickens, sheared wool from sheep and made beds for cattle from this wool, annoyed people with howling, squeaking, crying. In general, if a kikimora starts up in a house, then it will no longer be possible to live in it - the owners will certainly survive. Here is a story recorded in the Vyatka province: “In the Sarapul district, in a newly built house, there was a kikimora: no one is visible, but a human voice groans; as soon as they sit down at the table, someone invisible will immediately say: “Get out of the table!” But if they don't listen, they will start throwing fur coats or pillows from the stove; so the kikimora of the owners survived from the house.”
Kikimora's birthday, March 2, is closely associated with Chernobog's daughter Mara - the goddess of evil, enmity and death. On this day we said goodbye to winter and welcomed spring. In the house they washed all the dishes, throwing away all the old and broken ones, and got rid of the worn out clothes. From the house to the well or the intersection, they swept the path and threw out the old stuff.
Kikimora was usually represented as an ugly, crooked old woman, with her hair loose, dressed in rags, entangled in algae and overgrown with moss. As one Vologda blade of grass says: “A peasant's kikimora got into the habit of riding a mare at night, and it used to drive her to the point that she would leave all in soap in the manger. The owner contrived to guard her early in the morning on a horse. He sees: a small woman is sitting, wearing a shamshur headdress, and is driving around the manger. He whipped her over the head with a whip, but she jumped off and shouted at the top of her throat: "Not hurt, not hurt, just knocked down a sham-pit!"
The kikimora usually lives in residential, as well as empty houses, in taverns, less often in the courtyard, bathhouse, barn, on the threshing floor, in the chicken coop. In the house, he chooses the places that other evil spirits prefers: behind the stove or on the stove, in the attic, underground. It is believed that the creature is constantly present in the house, but allows itself to be seen or heard only at night. In some localities, it was thought that before Christmas time she lived on the street or in the threshing floor, and then left no one knows where. On Christmastide he gives birth to children - shushkans, who immediately fly into the chimney and live on the street until Epiphany.
In some places of the Vologda and Novgorod provinces, there were ideas about kikimors as seasonal creatures: it was believed that they appear only on Christmastide or even only one night before Christmas. Perhaps, the local custom of dressing up with kikimors on Christmastide was connected with these performances. The mummers - most often they were old women - came to the Christmas games in the form of these mythological creatures: they put on torn clothes, took a large stick representing a spindle, sat on the beds with their legs hanging down, and "spun", "setting an example" for the girls. When they laughed at the disguised old women and grabbed them by the legs, the "kikimors" beat them with a "spindle stick."
Kikimora, as has already been said, likes to smoke in the house: then suddenly it will rumble, crackle on the ceiling; then in the dark he will roll up in a ball to someone from the family under his feet and knock him down like a sheaf of oat; then, when everyone is asleep, he walks around the hut, hums, roars and sniffs like a bear cub; then in the middle of the night it jumps across the floor with blue lights … Children, after the tricks of the kikimora, were often found at dawn sleeping with their heads down, and their feet on the pillow.
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This home spirit, like other similar creatures, is primarily associated with the stove and with the household. According to old stories, the kikimora really dislikes lazy housewives. She tries in every possible way to annoy them: she bothers young children so that they cry at night, frightens teenagers with the shine of her bulging eyes and horns on their heads, spoils household utensils and strands. On the contrary, the kikimora favors good housewives, skillful and diligent. To make their work easier, she cradles small children at night, washes the dishes, arranges so that the dough rises well and the pies are baked. The hostess, who caused the dislike of the kikimora, needs to find a fern in the forest, insist on its bitter root in water and wash all the dishes with this solution. Kikimora adores this plant, and for such a service will cease to be disgraceful.
One of the traditional activities of the kikimora, behind which it can be seen, is spinning. It was believed that her favorite place for "work" was the corner to the right of the entrance next to the stove, where rubbish was usually swept from all over the hut. She can also appear and sit on the threshold near the door or spin while sitting on a bench. The peasants said that when the kikimora spins, the whistle from the spindle is heard throughout the hut. However, although the kikimora spins, as the proverb says, "you can't get a shirt from her." Hence the mockery of the lazy: "Sleep, girl: the kikimora will spin and weave for you." She tries to sew, but more often tears and confuses wool, burns a tow, while constantly jumping up and twisting the thread not from left to right, but vice versa. The seams are uneven, and the work is never finished.
According to some beliefs, the fact that the kikimora is spinning in an unusual way (jumping up or twisting threads in reverse) may have a special witchcraft meaning. In particular, “backhand” (on the contrary), “from herself,” the bride twisted on the eve of the wedding, she spun a harsh thread - a talisman against sorcerers. "Reverse" threads made during the holidays played an important role in household use and rituals. So, on Maundy Thursday, the women twisted the threads “sideways” and then tied them up in case of diseases of the arms and legs. On this day, they spun several threads with their left hand and tied them to a birch tree - for each family member one thread: whoever lost the thread, he would die.
Kikimora, unlike people, sometimes spins only on Christmastide, on those twelve days of January that determine the course of the next year. Obviously, this is the spinning of the "threads of fate" of the house and its inhabitants. She personifies fate, fate. The actions of the kikimora-fate, and not only the spinning one, explained cattle diseases, and various diseases of chickens, as well as misfortunes, malfunctions in the house and farm, the reasons for which were incomprehensible to the owners.
According to traditional beliefs, this creature can act as a harbinger of bad events in the family. In many localities in the Russian North, it was believed: if a kikimora with a spinning wheel on the front bench - this is the death of one of the household members. When she comes out of the underground or cries - unfortunately too. In the Vologda villages, there was a belief that, in the face of a disaster, a girl-lacemaker kikimora began to clatter bobbins suspended on a special pillow for lace-making. The people believed that if you catch a kikimora and cut her hair in a cruciform manner on the crown of her head, she will become a man, but she will retain some shortcomings for life: curvature, stuttering, weak mind, etc.
However, occasionally a kikimora or mythological characters close to her portend good by their appearance. In the Arkhangelsk province, for example, it was believed that if a housewife, similar to a kikimora, seemed to be sitting at a loom, then this would be profit. The following story tells about this:
“Once at night I wanted to go out, got up, I looked - the moon was shining, and on the bench by the window, the housewife was sitting and spinning everything, and you could hear the thread going: 'dzi' da dzi ', and saw me, but did not leave. And I fell asleep, bowed to her and said: “God save me, mother!” And then I remembered how my mother taught me to do. She took a little shanchka and put it down beside her. But she spins nothing - she spins everything. And we had a lot of wool that year!"
Kikimora-fate is a rather unpredictable creature, therefore, in beliefs there are few ways to appease her or enter into a contractual relationship with her. The "chicken god" stone, the neck of a broken jug, an old bast shoe, and a flap of red cloth, suspended in a chicken coop, helped from her leprosy. Protecting the cattle from the kikimora, a "pig stick" was placed in the stable (under the nursery). In the house "for prevention" they put camel wool with incense under the stove pole, did not leave unbidden yarn, spindles, spinning wheels, bobbins.
Often, when this evil spirits appeared in the house, healers were called in who could expel it. On this day, in the morning, the healer settled in an empty house, examined all corners, swept the stove and read plots. In the evening he announced that the evil spirits were expelled from the house for all time.
It was possible to expel the kikimora on their own by sprinkling the house with holy water and, again, by reading special conspiracies. In some provinces of Russia, the kikimora was escorted out of the house on March 17 (according to the old style), on the day of Gerasim Grachevnik. The exile was accompanied by sentences such as: "Oh, you goy you, kikimora brownie, get out of the house-keeper sooner, or else they will hurt you with hot rods, burn you with fire and pour black tar".
It was believed that, as in the case of other mysterious creatures, one can protect oneself from it by saying a prayer, God's name, or, on the contrary, swearing. One of the ways to get rid of the kikimora was to tie the salt shaker used in the family with a juniper: according to legends, in this case, the kikimora will not be able to take salt from it and salt the bread to its housewife husband. So that she did not torment chickens, according to one of the 18th century medical books, camel wool and incense should be put under the pole.
Here's another recipe for getting rid of harmful tenants, including kikimora: “At noon, harness the logs, but don't look that summer. Bring the logs to the entryway, spread the fur coat on them with the fur up. Take an old broom and use it to sweep the hut, on the ceiling, under the roof, and say up to three times: “Honest home, holy corners! Sweep away you from flying, from floating, from walking, from crawling, from every enemy, in days and nights, at every hour, at every time, for endless years, from now to everlasting. There, cursed ones! "Throw a handful of earth three times over your shoulder by the entrance to the logs, and spit three times; after that, take the logs and a fur coat to the forest."
At all times, worn bast shoes were considered protection against kikimor. It was hung on a wall in a house, a barn or a chicken coop: the saboteurs, seeing such protection, immediately went as far from this place as possible. They also smashed an earthen jug, but so that the neck remained intact. He was hung on a string, like a bast shoe.
You can also sew a doll out of rags. It is she who will symbolize the generally harmless, but mischievous evil spirits. Then you should ask a stranger to hide the doll somewhere in the house or outbuildings in the yard. A person should not tell the owners where this place is. They need to find the safely hidden thing themselves. The search can take a day, a week, or a month. But as soon as the doll is found, it should be immediately burned. After that, the otherworldly entity will disappear and will never return.
Eyewitnesses claim that kikimor can be occasionally seen even today. If a river flows through the city or there is a lake nearby, then there are definitely mysterious creatures there. They appear on the streets in the form of small groups of playful girls. They run, laugh, that is, they behave like ordinary children. You can recognize a kikimor by their clothes. Their dresses are of the same style, only the color is different. The same slippers are on the feet, and the hair is always loose. In winter, short fur coats, green knitted hats and dark boots. Everyone's height is the same, their faces are like twins. They constantly laugh loudly, and walk quickly, almost at a run.
After walking for a walk, they go to the water and jump from the steep bank. There are no splashes or waves. One or two seconds - and the "girls" disappear into the depths. Next time they may appear in a month, in a year, or even in 10 years.
Pernatiev Yuri Sergeevich. Brownies, mermaids and other mysterious creatures