#slavic demon

[alexkujawa]

Am I back on Tumblr?  Let’s find out!

By the way, I am doing a preorder for a new book, 31 Slavic Beings of Myth & Magic, an Illustrated Folklore book. Check it out on my ETSY! 🖤💀🌿

[alexkujawa]

Am I back on Tumblr?  Let’s find out!

By the way, I am doing a preorder for a new book, 31 Slavic Beings of Myth & Magic, an Illustrated Folklore book. Check it out on my ETSY! 🖤💀🌿

[as-obu]

My take on Helltaker or should I said Slavtaker ~ Modeus and Zdrada.

[panda-charlotka]

AU Yeah August day 16 - supernatural

(if it’s not to late for that)

@auyeahaugust

I wanted o add this drawing to August challenge, so here it is!

But it can also be a stand-alone, even not necessarily connected to Miraculous Ladybug.

Cicha (aka The Silent One)

This is a demon from slavic mithology. I decided to depict Marinette as her cause this demonesse has the coolest design of them all.

Cicha looks like a little girl, with dusky skin, huge eyes and black hair. She wears white dress, a poppy crown and holds steel rod. She’s a demon of plague attacking children. Where she passes she leaves dead plants, dead calm and stink of the rotten flesh. 

She suddenly appears in the village where she approaches playing children unnoticed. Once she touches them, they drop down dead. Then she dissapears as abruptly as she came.

I learned about her from the book “Bestiariusz słowiański” by Witold Vargas and Paweł Zych. I recommend it to those who can speak polish ;)

[trulydisturbing]

Slavic Demon 'BABA YAGA' Being Brought To Life In New Film (Trailer)

Slavic Demon ‘BABA YAGA’ Being Brought To Life In New Film (Trailer)

If you’re not familiar with Slavic folk lore, neither are we but that doesn’t stop us from being interested in a new movie hitting Cannes this week called BABA YAGA: TERROR OF THE DARK FORREST. The film ties together a haunting with the popular Slavic demon, Baba Yaga.

The film is being directed by Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy who previously directed The Bride and The Mermaid: Lake Of The Dead.…

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[aishele]

„Studiuję etnologię dla beki” 100 days challenge - day 27/100 – Thomas i Znaniecki, “Chłop polski w Europie i Ameryce”

[dogmanoir]

Backpiece project wannado / don’t steal / By Dogma Noir To book contact: [email protected]

[magickpunk]

Slavic Atmospheric/Air Spirits

Hej dodole, mili Bože/Hey dodole, dear God,

e daj Bože daj sitnu rosu/Oh dear God, give wee dew

da narosi ovo polje/To water this field

hej dodole, mili Bože/Hey dodole, dear God 

S. Trkulja & Balkanopolis ‘Prizivanje kiše’ - Invocation of Rain

Definitely a ‘male’ category of demons (females are represented by Cloud Maiden (pol. obłoczyca, serb. oblakinja) or Air Woman (pol. powietrznica*)). W. Vargas and P. Zych say that it’s because being Planetnik (pol. płanetnik - from old-Polish word ‘płaneta’ which meant cloud. Plural form is płanetnicy) required an enormous strength to pull rainy clouds; also, their off-duty behavior - smoking, chewing tobacco, drinking a lots of vodka - wasn’t typical for women. Records about Planetnik are found from all areas of Poland. Sometimes he appeared under different names: Hail Man (pol. gradownik, gromowy), Cloud Man (pol. chmurnik), Clouds Maker (pol. chmurotwórca) and many others, but his main task was generally the same: to bring the rain or to prevent it, depending on the season. The village people imagined him variously. He could be a short, black-skinned man, an old man dressed in red cloak and wide-brimmed hat, carrying a ropes for pulling the clouds and sacks for hail; a child with a head of a sage man or a young man with wide arms and wet, black hair.  Z. Ogrodowska claims that he was extremely ugly creature with bloated stomach, googly eyes and crippled limbs, covered in rugs. 

Planetnik rose a great fear in peasants who had special methods to run him out or - if there was a drought - to plead for the rain*. One of the most common method was making the noise, ringing the church bells or so-called ‘Loreta Bells’; record from 1913 says about peasants from village Krępa who paid the Russian cavalry, staying at that time in the place, for shooting towards hail clouds.  

Who became Planetnik? According to legends people who were abducted by the storm or ‘by the rainbow’ (which was associated with the dragon*), unbaptized children, men killed by the lighting or who died during storm, people who committed suicide by hanging themselves (a specific image of this kind of demons is connected with them, namely they were depicted as men with a rope mark on their necks and were called Those-Who-Hanged (themselves), Powiesznicy*.

Talking about Slavic demonology we must remember that it had been subjected to Christian influence significantly. As soon as priests realized that their efforts to supersede old beliefs were rather futile, local legends and everything what was connected with ‘demonic sky’ became incorporated in sermons. Regarding atmospheric spirits, as an outcome of this blend, peasants believed that terrifying realm above the ground was a home for damned souls (when that soul got into devils’ hands, it was said that devils became so happy and threw a wild party - its ‘visual effect’ for mortals was thunderstorm) and disobedient angels*.

Latawiec** was seen as incarnation of wind or wind vortex; he came with the storm and was flying very quickly near to the ground, trying to escape lightning strike. Being aware that he was their target, Latawiec flew towards church towers, chapels or peasants’ houses. If lightning caused a fire, villagers didn’t cease it - people believed that it was divine punishment for sins committed by the house’s owners.

Common medical conditions like muscle or joint pain caused by cold weather or signs of illness were considered as a sign of evil power’s presence. In Polish sometimes it’s said that somebody has been ‘zawiany’ - to explain it, regarding former Slavs, let’s imagine a picture like this: after the whole day of hard physical work in the barn, while perspiring farmer was leaving the building he ‘encountered’ the gust of wind or draught; next day he didn’t feel so well (nowadays, we’d say that he had the first symptoms of flu) - for villagers it was a plain sign that something ‘evil’ was lurking in the wind.

Like was mentioned in the beginning, only the few female demons existed among Slavic atmospheric spirits. One of them were Obłoczyce (Cloud Maidens). In his book, Stworze i zdusze, czyli starosłowiańskie boginki i demony (1993) Cz. Białczyński states: ‘Cloud Maidens, minor goddesses, are creatures of slim, petite physique with the proportions of adult woman, but half her height. Their moves are smooth, basically they just fly in the air. Distinctive features of them are high foreheads and big eyes which shine with blue light; their straight hair are also of this color. The main task of Cloud Maidens is sewing the dresses for major goddesses, using drops of dew, fog and Indian summer’s shreds, snowflakes.’

Air Woman, powietrznica, was a demon who appeared during the storm and was transported by the wind. Sometimes she had a human form, but mostly she looked like a small bird. Air Woman was a soul of unbaptized child and when she encountered people she asked them about providing christening for her.

* female demon also associated with the air - Plague Maiden, morowa dziewica - would be included in ‘Slavic Spirits of Illness and Death’.

* Slavs had a few kinds of dragons. There were Fire Dragon, Money Dragon, Rye Dragon, Domestic Dragon, Air Dragon. The last one in Polish folklore was an antagonist of the Sun, it - in the disguise of a rainbow - drank the water from the sea and rivers and later he released it in the form of heavy rain. Seen as a Planetnik’s assistant, it dragged its tail (which was an air vortex or streaks of rain from the cloud) on the ground.

* In Balkan countries existed the special rain invocation dance called Dodola. Young girls (at the age of pre-puberty) dressed up with branches and with masks on their faces and wreaths on heads were walking from house to house, dancing and singing ‘dodole’. The landlady sprinkled their heads and legs with water and gave flour, wool, money, bacon; eggs were never given, because they symbolized hail. There were few variations of this custom: in some parts of Serbia, the group chose one main ‘dodola/dodolka’ who must have been an orphan; she took her shirt off and dressed herself up with grass and flowers. While she was dancing, other girls were singing. In another, dodole had gone to the graveyard where they took the cross from the grave of a stranger and then sank it in the river. There are also records about giving the flour to the widow for she could make kačamak (a porridge-like meal) which was eaten from the reversed plate - it was turned over so in this way ‘rain could pour down’. It happened that people blamed the dead ones for causing the drought - in this case, the grave had been opened and water had been sprinkled over the departured one. Folklorists claim that Dodole custom is an example of sympathetic magic (sprinkling with water symbolized rain), connected with the souls of those who died (dodole would be equivalent of rusalkas who for Eastern Slavs were the spirits of the young girls who had drown themselves or unbaptized children).

* In some cases Planetnicy weren’t a demonic beings at all but just a mortal men who had a skills to reign the clouds. Most of them were among windmills’ owners for whom the particular direction of wind was hugely important. In some areas of Poland it was believed that possessing a rope of a hangman could give a power to rule the rain. And while no one in the community wanted to take hangman’s body down (someone else from the nearby village was called to do this), his rope was considered as a lucky charm.

* After Christianization angels and devils were constantly present in Polish folklore and they were equal among other demonic creatures. Comparing these two it seems that devils accomodated better - almost every area of Poland had ‘its own’ devil.

* Sometimes Latawiec was nocturnal male demon, personification of shooting star or meteor, falling to Earth to have an intercourse with mortal women. Female equivalent was Latawica - this name is still used in some regions of Poland as a negative term for a woman believed to lead promiscuous lifestyle. 

** Latawiec means ‘a kite’, but regarding this particular term it’s derived from the verb ‘latać’ - ‘to fly’; in qolloquial language it can be used in the meaning of running quickly, being out and about etc.

Sources: B. Baranowski W kręgu upiorów i wilkołaków, B. i A. Podgórscy, Wielka Księga Demonów Polskich. Leksykon i antologia demonologii ludowej, P. Zych i W. Vargas Bestiariusz słowiański, Š. Kulišiíć, P. Ž. Petrović, N. Pantelić Srpski mitološki rečnik. 

Illustrations: 1. planetnik - mine, 2. planetnik - P. Zych, gromowy - mine, latawiec - P. Zych, obłoczyca - mine.   

Thanks to everyone who liked/reblogged my previous post about Slavic Spirits - wish I could tag all of you guys, but it’d make a horribly long post :( So sorry if you can’t see your name below:  akwasteland-9092, slavicafire,  kelcipher, czarkaidczarkaid, qcity-blackbirdqcity,  darkkres,  lamus-dworski, goddess29,  astarhot, samhain-shadows, karnilla74, mortar-pestle-broom, lokalnastriga, thewitchylibrary, which-is-a-witch, nabrzegujeziora, batsandnerds, mythologynut, jadis-white-witch, greenwater-witch, rubypersephoneseeds, slavmythologyref, old-slavic-gods-and-creatures, slavic-mythology, go--north, persephoine, kraljevinasrbija, secretromanticsstuff, new-beginner-witch, corvuscorax00a, mardou-f