In the photo: Bard, noon and midnight
We used to think that the time for secrets and mysticism is first of all night. At this time of day, dark silhouettes are illuminated by ghostly moonlight, shadows creep in, floorboards creak and the wind howls mysteriously. The day is somehow not particularly suitable for secrets. Everything is visible, the sun is shining, no riddles
Nevertheless, in Russia they knew one devil, whose time was precisely the day. Moreover, not just a day, but noon - when the sun is high overhead. This is the time of the triumph of light, when objects stop casting a shadow. The creature became active not only at the wrong time, but also in the wrong place for devilry - in an open field, where everything is visible at a glance. The name of this demon is midday. Sometimes - noon (this is if they believed that he was female).
The spirits of the fields in Slavic mythology had some subordination. Noon, or, as it was also called, field, was the eldest among them. He was a relative of the brownie, and he was responsible for order during the sowing work. His assistants were midday - perhaps relatives of mermaids (in any case, they loved to tickle travelers in midday just like mermaids).
Both the noon and the field could not tolerate those who worked at noon, and could punish for this with a loss of reason. These children of Slavic mythology are small deities associated with land and fertility, therefore folk fantasy settled them, as they say, in an open field. Midday women were responsible for how rye, wheat and oats grew, closely watched the people who came to their possessions, and did not like very much if the people remained to work in the field at noon.
Midday were not only the spirits of the fields, but also the spirits of the intolerable heat of the sun, that scorching heat that the sun brings down on the earth, climbing as high as possible into the sky. It was believed that if a worker remains in the field at noon, he offends the field spirits, and those, who are not particularly evil by nature, can take revenge on him and even kill him. Therefore, the peasants did not work at noon, this was prohibited. Midday parties could catch. Or they could not catch - the person himself stopped and could not take his eyes off them.
Midday girls could appear in the form of beautiful maidens with long blond flowing hair, dressed in snow-white clothes. Their eyes shone with an unearthly blue cornflower blue (by the way, cornflowers were sometimes called “midday eyes”). If a random traveler suddenly stumbled upon noon, then he should have prayed, and if he sat in the field to have a snack, then he left part of the food as a sacrifice to the white-haired and pale beauties.
Not only the beauty of the midday mesmerized, but also the dance. There was a legend that the spirits of heat are very fond of dancing and have achieved extraordinary skill in this matter. If a girl suddenly accidentally found herself in the field meets a noon and dances her, then she will give her untold riches as a dowry.
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But in general, they did not look for meetings with midday. Wealth is a good thing, but you can say goodbye to life, warned beliefs and advised to be especially careful young mothers who took newborn children into the field. Legends warned that a midday child left on the border could be dragged away or tickled to death.
Noon days were born by the popular consciousness for a reason. Obviously, people who were engaged in agriculture feared heatstroke. In fever, the body is unable to maintain a normal body temperature, which leads to serious disorders. For example, sunstroke can disrupt the brain and bring a person to death. A lethal outcome, according to doctors, is likely in 30 percent of cases.
People with cardiovascular diseases should be especially careful. For them, it can end in a coma or cardiac arrest. Heatstroke can occur unnoticed. It seems to have gotten hotter than usual, well, a little dizzy - just think, which does not happen in the heat. And suddenly a person could fall to the ground and lose consciousness, or begin to see what is not, talk to the air, behave wildly and strangely.
Since people did not see a rational explanation for this, they came up with noon days, which supposedly let a magician on a person and tortured him. They could, for example, force them to answer questions. In this they are a bit like the Sphinx - the Egyptian monster also loved to make riddles. True, the Sphinx ate the slow-witted, and they simply killed the midday ones - no cannibalistic habits were noticed behind them.
It was believed that if a person was unlucky and he met with a noon, then he had a chance of salvation. Since this creature was strong only at noon, it was necessary to drag out the time until the sun came out of the zenith, for example, very slowly, thoroughly and tediously to answer questions. As soon as noon passed, the noon day disappeared, and the person remained unharmed. If the noon day won, then she turned a person into a creature similar to herself - she made him the spirit of the field.
In Slavic mythology, midday women had an opposed character - the so-called bat. It was also a female perfume. But the noons were, in principle, harmless. There were even legends that they punish only for the deed - the negligent, evil, lazy and irreverent to the gods. Some researchers believe that the noon days belonged to the category of berekinas - divine creatures designed to protect something (in this case, crops and crops).
But the bat were one hundred percent demons and could not boast of divine origin. These were childless witches who did not calm down after death and turned into evil spirits. They did the same things that, in the opinion of fellow villagers, they did during their lifetime.
They allegedly stole milk from cows and eggs from birds, strangled chicks, let diseases and crop failures, spoiled babies, beat and pinched newborns so that the children cried all the time and did not allow anyone to sleep in the hut (hence the other name for the night lays - crickets). Their appearance could be different. They are sometimes described as tall, black-haired women in black clothes who entered houses through windows or doors. But any nightmares could be called myotis - dreamed worms, ghosts, bats, dried old women and old people, ravens.
Out of fear of the bat, mothers were afraid to leave diapers in the yard after sunset, to leave the house and carry the baby. They covered the cradle with a canopy, and also did not bathe the children and did not wash the diapers and linen in the water that stood at night. And they certainly surrounded the baby with amulets so that the crickets could not come close. For example, a branch of a thistle was placed under the pillow - this grass, as the name implies, was credited with the magical ability to drive devils.
Above the cradle, a kuwatka doll could hang - not sewn, but twisted from rags, with a knotted head, without hard parts. On the one hand, it was a child's toy, and on the other, a talisman that distracted the attention of evil spirits (by the way, this doll did not have a face). The mother made the first kuwatka for the child when she was still pregnant, and did not use either needles or scissors in the manufacture. Sharp objects, apparently, were associated with something negative.
When the baby was born, the mother put the doll with her in bed, and then, when the baby was born, the doll was sent to his cradle. It was believed that the rag waterwalk protects the baby from the evil eye, disease and cry. There was even a conspiracy that was uttered when the doll was twisted: "Kriksa-varaksa, this is fun, play with it, but the baby is not May."
But if the child, despite all these tricks, still cried and was sick, then the mother could decide that the bat is too strong and cunning, and therefore she is not flattering at the doll, nor is she afraid of the thistle. Then they arranged a special ceremony to drive out the bat. To do this, they fumigated the hut with various plants, put dolls made of rags or diapers on the windows (so that the bat would not get into the windows). Well, the ceremony itself was carried out to drive out the bat.
One woman made notches on the walls with a knife, boiled water in a cauldron and cut off a lock of a child's hair. The mother had to ask: "What are you doing?" And the woman answered her: "I cut, soar and cook myotis." The mother ended the ritual dialogue with the words: "Drive, boil, steam, cut them so that they never return."
It seems that the bat is a kind of generalized image of night horror, like a beech, with which young children are sometimes frightened even today if they do not want to go to bed. Like, you won't fall asleep - then the beech will come to you. Who the beech is is not explained, and the child himself imagines something very, very scary. Sometimes beech is called babay, or babayka, which, in principle, is the same thing.
These spirits, which only frighten children, are most likely degenerate moths. Only myotis scared everyone, without exception, and the beech has enough gunpowder only for minors, because modern adults do not believe in it. And it would never even occur to them to expel the beech. The maximum they will agree to is not to turn off the lamp (but children are usually happy with this too - it is believed that beech cannot stand light and only comes in the dark).
Degeneration is a sad thing, but it's better than disappearing without a trace. Of course, the beech is not as scary as the bat, but nevertheless he is a creature that everyone knows, there is no need to explain anything to anyone about the beech, this is a popular character. But the antipodes of the bat, the noon, disappeared from the popular consciousness altogether, as if they had never existed. There was simply no room for them.
For example, a person lives in a city, goes to work from nine to six, spends all the time indoors - either in an office, or in a cafe, or in an apartment. And he sees the field only in a picture on the Internet or on TV - there is asphalt all around. In the village, they rarely remember the noon day. First, for a long time there was a struggle against prejudices and superstitions (which is correct), during which many legends and myths were lost (which is sad).
Second, today's peasant labor has become mechanized. No one sows, plows or reaps by hand - there are harvesters, and the harvesters have a roof that protects from the sun's rays. Thirdly, heatstroke has ceased to seem like some kind of mysterious ailment that arises for no reason. Its causes, symptoms, how to prevent it and what to do if it does happen are known. The mystery disappeared, and with it the myth of the beautiful fair-haired maidens with cornflower blue eyes disappeared. And this myth, perhaps, is a bit of a pity.
