Traditions of Ancient Rus. Part 2

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

Fragments of the book by Y. Medvedev "Traditions of Ancient Rus"

SEKIRA BOYUDOOSTRAYA

Once upon a time there were two princes - Vseslav and Yaropolk. For many years they fought with each other for the land of Zalesskaya, and no one could gain the upper hand. And then one day Yaropolk sent ambassadors to the warring prince, ordering them to say the following:

- About the prince! I am afraid that the cup of heavenly patience will soon overflow because of the bloodshed that I and you are doing. Come, prince, to be my guest, let us settle the long dispute peacefully and conclude with a feast. I swear to you by the blessed god Radegast, the patron saint of guests, that I will meet and caress you as a brother. Let the strife leave the boundaries of the land.

Prince Vseslav listened to the ambassadors, wiped away the tears of joy and replied: - I don’t know how to reward you, ambassadors, for the good, long-awaited news. Tell your master: I will be his guest in a week.

All his squad approved the decision of the princes to reconcile, and only the old sorcerer Ostromir warned Vseslav against the trip, suspecting Yaropolk of treachery. But the prince did not heed his warnings and soon set out on a journey.

Yaropolk greeted the guest and his retinue cordially, richly endowed and without dispute ceded the land of Zalesskaya. The princes embraced in joy, the musicians sounded the trumpets, beat the tambourines, the singers sang their glory. And on the eve of the evening feast Yaropolk took the guests to the bathhouse to take a steam bath. Yes, only when they began to wash, he ordered the treacherous door to be laid with a log, and to set fire to the bathhouse. So all the guests were burnt alive, and the possessions of Vseslav went to the villain.

The years passed. Under the supervision of Ostromir, the boy Ratibor was growing up. No one, except the sorcerer, knew, did not know that Ratibor was the bastard son of the slain Vseslav. When Ratibor entered his mature years, the sorcerer revealed to him the secret of his birth.

And then one day at early dawn Ratibor went out into the open field, stretched out his hands to the fading stars and called out:

- Oh Radegast! How did you allow mortal violence against my father to take place? Why do you allow the perjurer who defiled your divine name to triumph?

No one answered in the heavens, only the wind swayed the grasses and the birds sang the sunrise.

The day passed, and at night the god Radegast and the rivers appeared to Ratibor in a dream:

- Do not rush to denounce me, man. Everything has its own term, for all its laws. What's the use if I asked Perun to incinerate the villain Yaropolk with lightning? Other villains would consider it an accident, nothing more. But if you yourself expose an oath-breaker, a traitor, a murderer and enter into single combat with him, people will once again be convinced of the justice of the heavenly judgment. Are you ready to summon Yaropolk to the judgment of God? Are you not afraid to take risks? Think, think hard …

- I'm not afraid, Radegast! - Ratibor answered without hesitation.

- Then tell me, what weapon is the prince wielding best of all?

- Sekiroi double-edged. Here he has no equal.

- So challenge him to fight with a double-edged ax. In three days, call me when there will be a holiday in my honor.

“I don’t even have a poleaxe.” Used to fight with swords.

- Do not worry. The morning is wiser than the evening,”said Radegast, and a cloud covered him.

Ratibor woke up, looking - a double-edged ax lay near his bed, and the rays of the sun played on its blades.

And on the holiday of Radegast, when Yaropolk's squad was feasting on a flowering meadow, Ratibor appeared in front of the princely tent and boldly proclaimed:

- Prince! I accuse you of perjury and murder! You invited my father to visit, swearing by the glorious name of our Radegast, and you yourself betrayed him and his comrades to a painful death. The time has come for reckoning. I challenge you to God's judgment. Do you wish to fight with me on double-edged axes for life and death?

- And how I wish, you bastard! - roared the offended Yaropolk and rushed into the fray.

He was an excellent warrior and soon inflicted a bloody wound on the offender. The forces began to leave Ratibor. But suddenly a ray of light burst from heaven, white-hot, like a steel strip in a forge. The beam blinded the prince for a moment, he closed his eyes - and then Ratibor took off the enemy's head with his ax, and he fell on the grass, bleeding. Before the warriors had time to come to their senses, Ratiborov's ax ascended into heaven and disappeared.

Before such a clear manifestation of divine will, people bowed down, fell to their knees, begging Ratibor to become their prince. Old Ostromir bandaged his wounds and sang praises to Radegast.

Ratibor ruled for a long time, fairly and happily. In his land, he erected beautiful temples to the god of hospitality, never ceasing to thank and glorify him for getting rid of the oath-breaker Yaropolk.

Radegast is a deity of abusive glory and war of the Northern Slavs. The city of Retra, in which his temple stood, was surrounded by a sacred dense forest and a lake, and although it had nine gates, it was allowed to enter only through one, to which a suspension bridge led. The main building was the temple of the god, in which his idol stood. This temple, located in the land of the Bodrich tribe, was considered the second largest and most beautiful in the entire Slavic world, after the temple of Svyatovid in Arkona.

They depicted Radegast armed from head to foot, with a battle ax with two points, in a helmet on which an eagle spread its wings, a symbol of glory, and with a bull's head, a sign of courage, on a shield.

Initially, this god Rizvodits was called, which meant enmity, quarrel and divorce, and then they began to call him Radegast, a "military guest", a warrior. At the same time, he patronized all peaceful alien guests who were given over to the protection of local gods.

The best horses were always kept in the temple of Radegast, for a warrior cannot be without a horse. The admirers and priests of Radegast believed that God rides at night on horseback, and if in the morning they saw that some horse was more tired than others, they guessed that Radegast had distinguished him and chose him for his invisible trips. The horse, the divine chosen one, was henceforth watered with the purest water, fed with selected grain and crowned with flowers - until the time when it was replaced by a new favorite of God.

They say that it was Radegast who once sacrificed the head of Bishop John of Mecklenburg, who wanted to convert the pagan Slavs to Christianity. In retaliation, after the destruction of the sanctuary, a marble statue of his head was placed in a church in Gadebusch in Mecklenburg.

The Temple of Radegast at Retra was destroyed in 1068-1069. troops of Bishop Burkhard of Schilberstadt, then restored and finally demolished by the emperor Lotar in 1126. Most of the statues (and around Radegast there were many images of warriors and gods) were destroyed, but some of the sacred objects were put into a bronze cauldron with a lid inscribed Slavic letters, and buried in the ground, hoping to extract when the temple will be later rebuilt. However, this never happened. The cauldron was uncovered in 1690, and all items were cast onto the bells.

Some Slavic tribes venerated Radegast as a god-giver of fertility. In some places he was perceived only as the patron saint of guests. There were legends that he loved to visit rich and poor people, accompanied by the maidens of fate, Dolya and Nedoli. If they were received favorably, this family was endowed with happiness, therefore, the guests were in high esteem among the Slavs, even the saying has survived: "A guest in the house - God in the house."

DEAD MOUNTAIN

In the year 1200 after the birth of Christ, a great and terrifying miracle happened in the village of Diveyevo. The month of the Senozornik, that is, July, on the 26th day, at sunset, the youth Ash, baptized by Bartholomew, collected medicinal herbs on Kudryavaya Gora. And suddenly he sees: walking past an oak tree, burned by lightning, a woman in a white robe, some embroidered with gold, and wearing a gold crown. In one hand she held flowers, outlandish, pale, as if made of wax, and in the other - a braid with a silver head. And the youth Ash became so scared that for a short time he lost his mind and lost his mind, and when he came to himself, he rushed with all his might to his native Diveevo, told his father-mother about what he had seen.

“You, Ash, are a well-known master of scary tales to weave,” said the father. - Know lie, but do not lie.

And then the voice of Rodomysl's great-grandfather was heard from the stove, Antipas in holy baptism. He measured it for a hundred years with a hook, for three years he lay on the stove, depleted, but his mind was bright.

- Yes, the kid is not lying, do you hear? Trouble struck. What year is it today? The leap year, in addition, the stargazers say, is the end of the century. So the spiteful Morena is coming to us - he will mow everyone down overnight. This has already happened when I myself was in adolescence.

- Oh, oh, all-merciful Svarog, and you, Lord-Savior, what are you punishing for ?! - howled the mother.

- Come on, take me off the stove! - commanded the great-grandfather, and when they put him on the bench, he said: - You, grandson, take the buck horse out of the stable. You will put me on horseback, you will tie your legs to the stirrups so that you do not fall, give me a battle bow and a quiver with arrows. You, woman, run through the village, tell people to jump out of their houses and fall on the grass in a layer, like the dead, struck overnight by lightning. And you, Ash, when you envy Morena again, start crying and reproaching Perun for killing innocent people. Alive! There is no time to linger!

After a while, seeing Morena at the end of the village, the youth Ash burst into bitter tears, began to moan loudly and threaten the heavens with his fist:

- All-dangerous Perun! Why did you punish innocent people with fierce death from your arrows? Why are you rampaging ?!

Morena looked in bewilderment at the defeated people, approached the youth, looked into his eyes with her dead eyes - and walked to the river, and then hid in the aspen forest behind the river, making her way to who knows where. After some more time, people began to rise from the grass, thanks to Svarog, Svarozhichs and Christ the Savior, that they did not allow the untimely death of the entire village. And the peasants, together with the youth Ash, went to Kudryavaya Gora. And what? At its foot, near the spring, they saw a great and terrifying miracle. Two skeletons rested on the grass: a rider and a horse. The rider's legs were tied to the stirrups, and in his hands he held a battle bow, but there was not a single arrow in the quiver.

For a long time the peasants were silent, and the youth Yasen shed tears over his great-grandfather Rodomysl, baptized by Antip, and over the dun horse. The next day, right there, on Mount Kudryava, they buried the bones in the ground, erecting a wooden cross. Only since that time is this mountain, near the village of Diveyevo, called Dead.

FORTY FLAX STUDS

The mistress ordered one girl to work on Friday, although Mokosh the goddess does not like this. She, of course, obeyed. Mokosh came to her and, as punishment, ordered her under pain of death (and Death stood with her alive) to hide forty slivers and occupy forty spindles with them. Frightened to the point of fever, the girl, not knowing what to think and do, went to consult an experienced and intelligent old woman. She told her to strain her on each spindle only one thread. When Mokosh came to work, she said to the girl: "I guessed it!" - and she disappeared herself, and the trouble got away with this time.

According to the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, Mokosh is a goddess whose influence on people is almost equal to Perun. It was the personification of the Mother of the Raw Earth, as well as the daughter of Perun, who, in some beliefs, turns into the moon. She was, as it were, a mediator between heaven and earth. Women wove wreaths in her honor on the new moon and burned fires, asking for luck in love and family life. This veneration was preserved in later legends, where Mokosh plays the role of destiny.

BUY TOUR YOUNG

Once the father of the Gods and Goddesses, Svarog, visited the land under the guise of a wanderer.

Looks: a large detachment of Basurman returns from the Slavic lands with rich booty. And the captives are driven away by many - beautiful virgins and youths.

But here, out of nowhere, a powerful bogatyr flew into the bassurman like a cloud. Wherever he swings his sword, there is a street, wherever he strikes with a spear, there is a side street.

For a long time and tirelessly he fought with the enemy's strength and finally defeated every single one. He overcame, untied the prisoners, fed and watered them from the Basurmans' stocks, but he himself did not even touch a piece of bread.

Svarog marveled at such an incredible prowess, approached the hero and said:

- What is your name, dignity, bui-tour well done?

- Father and mother were called Yarovit.

“You are brave and strong as a young god. And if you really became a god, what would you spend your strength on?

- I see that you are not at all simple, wanderer, - the hero replies. - If I had a divine share, then I would decorate my mother earth in the spring with grass-ant, and trees and bushes - with green foliage.

- Excellent occupation, - said Svarog. - But this is in the spring, Yarovit. And at other times of the year?

- And in summer, autumn and winter - and spring at the same time! - I would have covered the mother earth with the bodies of the nasty basurman.

- Here is such and such a god in heaven and I do not have enough! - exclaimed Svarog and ascended with Yarovit to the Iriy Garden.

Among the Western Slavs, Yarovit, being the god of spring thunderstorms, clouds and whirlwinds, was distinguished by a warlike character. His idol had a large shield covered with gold, revered as a shrine; he also had his own banners. With this shield and banners they went on military campaigns. At the same time, he was also the patron saint of fertility, sharing this responsibility with Yarila. On behalf of Yarovit, the heavenly warrior, the priest uttered the following words during the sacred ceremony: “I am your god, I am the one who dresses the fields with an ant and the forests with leaves; in my power are the fruits of fields and trees, the offspring of herds and everything that serves the benefit of man. All this I give to those who honor me and take away from those who turn away from me."

Illustrations: Victor Korolkov.

Traditions of Ancient Rus. Part 1