The hut on chicken legs is a coffin, and 4 more surprises of Russian folk tales

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Eerie historical interpretations of Russian folk tales.

Baba Yaga

The image of Baba Yaga goes back to the most ancient times of matriarchy. This prophetic old woman, mistress of the forest, mistress of animals and birds, guarded the borders of the "other kingdom" - the kingdom of the dead. In fairy tales, Baba Yaga lives on the edge of the forest ("Hut, stand in front of me, back to the forest"), and ancient people associated the forest with death. Baba Yaga not only guarded the border between the worlds of the living and the dead, but also was the guide of the souls of the dead to the next world, therefore she has one bone leg - the one that stood in the world of the dead.

The echoes of ancient legends have been preserved in fairy tales. So, Baba Yaga helps the hero get into the distant kingdom - the afterlife - with the help of certain rituals. She drowns a bathhouse for the hero. Then he feeds and drinks him. All this corresponded to the rituals performed on the deceased: the washing of the deceased, the "deceased" meal. The food of the dead was not suitable for the living, therefore, by demanding food, the hero thereby showed that he was not afraid of this food, that he was a “real” deceased. The hero temporarily dies for the world of the living in order to get to the next world, to the distant kingdom.

A hut on chicken legs

In Slavic mythology, the traditional habitat of the fabulous Baba Yaga is a kind of customs, a point of transition from the world of the living to the kingdom of the dead. Turning to the hero in front, to the forest with the back, and then on the contrary, the hut opened the entrance to the world of the living, then to the world of the dead.

The mythological and fabulous image of this unusual hut is taken from reality. In ancient times, the dead were buried in cramped houses - domina (in Ukrainian, the coffin is still called "domina"). The tales emphasize the cramped coffin-hut: "Baba Yaga is lying, a bone leg, from corner to corner, his nose has grown into the ceiling."

Domina coffins were placed on very high stumps with roots protruding from the ground - it seemed that such a "hut" really stands on chicken legs. The domovins were placed with a hole facing the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest, so the hero asks the hut on chicken legs to turn its front to him, to the forest with its back.

Smorodina river and Kalinov bridge

The Smorodina River is literally a watershed between reality and navu (the world of the living and the world of the dead), the Slavic analogue of the ancient Greek Styx. The name of the river has nothing to do with the currant plant, it is cognate with the word "stench". The currant is a serious obstacle for a fairy-tale or epic hero, it is difficult to cross the river, how hard it is for a living person to get into the world of the dead.

There is a ferry across the Smorodina River - Kalinov Bridge. The name of the bridge has nothing to do with viburnum, here the root is common with the word "red-hot": since the Smorodina river is often called fiery, the bridge across it seemed red-hot.

It is along the Kalinov Bridge that souls pass into the realm of the dead. Among the ancient Slavs, the phrase "to cross the Kalinov bridge" meant "to die."

Dragon

In Christianity, a snake is a symbol of evil, cunning, the fall of man. The snake is one of the forms of the devil's incarnation. Accordingly, for the Christianized Slavs, the Serpent Gorynych is a symbol of absolute evil. But in pagan times, the serpent was worshiped as a god.

Most likely, the patronymic of the Serpent Gorynych is not associated with the mountains. In Slavic mythology, Gorynya is one of the three heroes, who in even earlier times were chthonic deities who personified the destructive forces of the elements. Gorynya "was in charge" of the fire ("burn"). Then everything becomes more logical: the Serpent Gorynych is always associated with fire and much less often with the mountains.

After the victory of Christianity in the Slavic lands, and especially as a result of the raids of nomads in Russia, the Serpent Gorynych turned into a sharply negative character with features typical of nomads (Pechenegs, Polovtsians): he burned pastures and villages, took him to a full of people, he was paid tribute. Gorynych's lair was located in the "Sorochin (Saracen) mountains" - Muslims were called Saracens in the Middle Ages.

Koschei the Immortal

Kashchei (or Koschey) is one of the most mysterious characters in Russian fairy tales. Even the etymology of his name is controversial: either from the word "bone" (bony is an indispensable sign of Kashchei), or from "blasphemer" ("sorcerer"; with the advent of Christianity, the word acquired a negative connotation - "blaspheme"), or from the Turkic " koshchi "(" slave "; in fairy tales Koschey is often a prisoner of sorceresses or heroes).

Kashchei belongs to the world of the dead. Like the ancient Greek god of the afterlife kingdom Hades, who kidnapped Persephone, Kashchei kidnaps the protagonist's bride. By the way, like Hades, Kashchei is the owner of countless treasures. Blindness and gluttony attributed to Kashchei in some tales are characteristics of death.

Kashchei is immortal only conditionally: as you know, his death is in the egg. Here, the fairy tale also brought to us the echoes of the ancient universal myth about the world egg. This plot is found in the myths of the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Finns and many other peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia.

In most myths, an egg, often golden (the symbol of the Sun), floats in the waters of the World Ocean, later the progenitor, the main god, the Universe or something like that appears from it. That is, the beginning of life, creation in the myths of different peoples is associated with the fact that the world egg is split and destroyed. Kashchei is in many respects identical to the Serpent Gorynych: he kidnaps girls, guards treasures, and opposes a positive hero. These two characters are interchangeable: in different versions of one tale, Kashchei appears in one case, in the other - Serpent Gorynych.

It is interesting that the word "koshchey" is mentioned three times in the "Lay of Igor's Regiment": in captivity with the Polovtsy, Prince Igor sits "in a horse's saddle"; "Koschey" - a captive nomad; the Polovtsian Khan Konchak himself is called "the filthy koshchey".