#rusalka

[wearevindictaa]

VindictA Face of the Clown MV

[wearevindictaa]

VindictA Face of the Clown mv pls dont repost without tag!

[vyvilha]

a collection of traditional ukrainian rusalka songs, recorded in different villages (each song is titled by the name of the village). these songs are meant to accompany a ritual called "provody rusalok" — escorting the rusalky, that signify the end of rusalka week, and serve as a guide for rusalky to find their way back to the otherworld

[zmiyinaart]

Under the old willow-tree

Happy Rusaliyi to all who observe!

[vyvilha]

a rusalky post for rusalky week. i want to share some ukrainian folk stories about relationships between the rusalky and their living relatives. and if you don't know, rusalka is an undead natural spirit, usually (but not always) of a girl who died a violent death, or died prior or during the rusalka week. recordings of folk texts are taken from the work "ukrainian mythology" by volodymyr halaichuk, translated by me.

• a girl died before rusalka week. and her sister remained. the dead girl was buried in her clothes, but they forgot to give her her favorite skirt, that she wanted. she came back as a rusalka. she came to her sister, and asked: "oksana, can you get me my skirt?". oksana asked: "what do you need it for?" "i will go party". and so for the whole rusalka week, she visited her sister. every evening oksana left her the skirt on the hedge, and her sister took it and partied. but then the mother noticed it, as the skirt was constantly dripping wet. the rusalka sister told oksana to not utter a single word to her mother about what is happening. but once her mother pressured her, and the girl told her so and so. after that, the rusalka stopped coming.

• there was a good girl, and she died. she wanted to be buried in her silk skirt, but the mother didn't fulfill her wish. the girl died before rusalka week. then the neighbors started dreaming that the girl was asking "why didn't mother give me my skirt?". then, when the rusalka week came, the mother placed the skirt in the corner of the house. then, when the next day came, she looked at it, and the skirt was dripping wet. and so they knew that the rusalka girl came

• a girl died on rusalka week. and so a year came by, but the parents still mourned. but during rusalka week, they saw her khustka move, and so the father pounced on it, and hugged it tightly, and didn't let it go. turned out it was their girl. he placed her on the corner of the house. and so she stayed in one place for a whole year. only when the dziady (ancestors' holiday) came, she ate the steam from the food offering, and then again returned to her corner. but then when the rusalka week came, she looked through the window, and clapped her hands, and exclaimed "my people are coming!" — and she was gone.

• there was a dead girl of 15 or 16 years, who's parents catched her, and locked her in the house. she sat at the clay stove in the corner, her face to the wall, as she refused to turn her face to them. then they noticed that when they cook food, she disappears, and so they knew she was eating the steam from the food. from now on, they left the house before eating, so that she could eat the steam in peace. and so she lived here for a whole year. but then pentecost came, and then three days more, and then she jumped from the stove, and exclaimed "oh! oh! my people are here! my people are here!" — and nobody saw her afterwards.

• once a group of musicians returned from the party late at night, and their way was through the fields. and towards them another group of musicians walked on the same road. when they finally crossed paths, the living recognized that the other group was dead. the dead musician spoke "so what are we gonna do now? now we are doing a playing competition. the one who wins gets the girl from the others' group". and so they played, and the living won. the musician who won chose a girl and said "you're going with us". in that village was a mother, who's daughter drowned herself on the pentecost. when the rusalka got to the village, she recognized the girl as her daughter. she stood in the corner of the house for the whole rusalka week, never talking, facing the corner. and when the week passed, they never noticed when and how, but she disappeared.

[zmiyina]

Hello! So I am curious, how have you venerated Rusalkas? Are there any intuitions you’ve experienced by doing so? If you are comfortable sharing.

I grew up with Rusalkas, now that I think about it.

It is well known these days that we take a lot of information for Slavic Paganism from folklore - but in a living culture "folklore" is not just old ethnographic monographies. So the belief in Rusalkas happens to be something I was actively raised with.

The Green Holidays and Rusaliyi were big in our home every year. Now that I am writing this, this is actually the period that begins right about now, so what a good timing with the question!

So, in the modern calendar this is a week celebrated after Pentecost (31st of May this year), or a few days before and after, usually Thursday to Thursday. This way it normally lands on late May or early June. There is a theory that the origins of this holiday can potentially be linked to the Roman holiday of Rosalia, which could have spread with their imperial reach.

Whether it is true or not, but there are a few key features of this celebration now. One is the belief that during this time Rusalkas venture into the land, play and joke -sometimes lethally, - with people, and are essentially celebrating the awakening of the earth and their own coming into full power.

Very simply, it's believed that the earth during this time is rightfully theirs, so they roam freely, and can take a young man of woman they likes with them, and tickle them to death. People take precautions, for example avoiding bodies of water or sometimes even bathing, because these maidens are absolutely in their right to take you under at this time. Lovage and wormwood are thought to be protective. When weaving in the home was more prevalent, women would also leave offerings of cloth hung from the trees for them.

Homes are generally decorated with tree branches and herbs. This custom is alive and well even in apartment buildings, where you will see herbs hung up even in hallways and staircases. The herbs chosen are often fragrant or medicinal.

People also remember their own dead, and youths gather for games.

The Thursday of this week is believed to be a so-called Rusalkas' Easter, or Easter of the Dead. This is their main celebration for the ancestors and Rusalkas, who essentially are also the dead. For example, we have stories of congregations of the dead holding a special celebratory service at local churches, lead by an equally dead priest. In any case, in rural areas it all usually culminated in saying farewell to all these visitors: the community held a festive procession out of the village, after which the domain over the earth returned to the living.

Now, what it seems to show to me - and stay with me here, please - is that in the Slavic worldview existing in the category of "spirit" and "matter" was mutually permeable. Now we tend to think as the physical matter or physical earth as the source of life, then you pass on, and you move on into spiritual existence. But what this interaction I described above demonstrates, really, is that the vital presence of what we see as "no longer with us" is continuous. Spirit circulates like water does. If it is no longer looking like a liquid, it does not mean it is not participating in life.

I will share one belief about water spirits I have held since very small that was not given to me by anyone, and which was definitely not encouraged. So, I grew up in this fairly small town surrounded on three sides by a bend of a river. Lots of water, you know. And I did spend my childhood on the banks of that river with a friend of mine. Even then, starting in elementary school, I had an intimate feeling that the Ruler of this river, the spirits that take care of it, do not have tolerance for being unappreciated. If humans take too much from their home, they see it as their right to take us with them, too. Which should have concerned me as someone who could not even swim, but I had figured water was everywhere anyway, and if they pick someone as their share, they can choke on a spoonful of water as well as drown in a lake.

So on that cheery note I am going to leave this answer, hah.

[sumisahirat]

Forbidden Swamp Boba

I am just a Fae with certain appetite 🐸🪷

[unwelcome-ozian]

Rusalka

Rusalka: A water nymph in Ukrainian demonology who has the appearance of a long-haired, pretty young girl and represents the soul of a drowned girl or an unbaptized dead child. According to folk belief the rusalky are naked, covered only by their long tresses, or dressed in a shift, or rarely in a full girl’s costume. On their heads they wear wreaths of sedge. They live in groups in crystal…