Water is necessary for human life. Slavic tribes, leading a sedentary lifestyle, settled near water bodies. However, this dangerous element can deprive the harvest, housing and even life. Before natural events, the primitive man was defenseless. Under conditions of ignorance of the laws of nature, a belief in supernatural forces arose.
Who is Water?
Mysterious and powerful spirits in the representations of primitive people were the masters of the territories under their control and possessed human qualities. Depending on the degree of danger, the person endowed them with anger or good nature. One of the representatives of the supernatural forces was the spirit of water, called the Water in honor of the element it controlled.
Water in Slavic Mythology
According to the ancient Slavs, the cause of all the troubles associated with water was Water. Mythology presents him as an evil, but humanized character:
- The spirit of the water does not live as a hermit. He is surrounded by many wives, whom he chooses from the young drowned women who have turned into mermaids. And at nights, turning into a man, he visits his widows. You can learn Water by dripping from his clothes water. Born of his children, Water takes back to his pond. In the same place grow up his children, born mermaids .
- The owner of the water is friendly with the owner of the forest. Often two quarrelsome quarrels quarrel, and then the noise and crash all over the neighborhood terrify superstitious peasants.
- The watermark is known with the miller. It is difficult to call friendship, it is rather business cooperation. Miller gives Water with grain, flour and beer, from time to time brings victims, for which the mill is always home to a black cock or cat. A Water does not break the mill wheel and protects the dam.
What does Watery look like?
In mythology, locality deities and spirits are described as deep old men and old women, leading economic activities that are usual for a person. Was not an exception and Water, the myths about which describe underwater pastures, where grazing his herds, narrate about the drowned people who become his workers, as well as about the unsightly appearance of the owner of the water. Description Water varies in detail depending on the place of its habitat, but there are common features:
- flabby, swollen body, entangled in mud and algae;
- long green hair and the same beard;
- membranes between the fingers;
- legs that resemble crow's feet, or the lower part of the body in the form of a mermaid's tail.
Where does Water live?
Any pond becomes a habitat for the Water, whether it is a lake, a river, a swamp or an artificial pond. His dwelling is a burrow dug in the ground. In rivers and lakes it is decorated with smooth stones and seashells, and in dams and marshes - duckweed and seaweed. The entrance to the dwelling is in the pool - the deepest place of the reservoir. In winter, when underwater life freezes under a thick layer of ice, the spirit falls asleep in its halls.
In the spring, the owner of the water gets out of his lair hungry and angry. He with a crash breaks the ice, frightens fish and other aquatic inhabitants. To ensure that in the flood of the Water did not do harm, and in the summer did not deprive fishermen of the catch, the peasants coax him with treats. In the course are edible supplies (bread, flour) and drink (beer and mead). When the threat of flooding is too great, more radical measures are needed - sacrificial offerings. In the water throw black animals (roosters and cats) or the skull of a horse.
Similar rituals can be repeated in the summer, if too many accidents on the water occur. In the people it was believed that the spirit was angry, as evidenced by the large number of drowned. There are legends that these traditions are an echo of more ancient and cruel rites, when as a victim a live horse or a beautiful girl was sent to the bottom of the reservoir. During the summer, water is usually quiet and calm. At night, he gets out on the beach and combs his beard with a comb.
How to call Water?
Our ancestors knew how to evoke the water spirit:
- Fishermen released the first catch back into the water with the request to catch up more large fish.
- If you bring home the hairbrush found on the beach, then no one needs to call. The water itself will come for its crest.
Modern recommendations on how to evoke the spirit of water are more concerned with mermaids and suggest the use of:
- mirrors and combs;
- gift-decoration;
- silver ring.