#slavic folklore

[dreamingbanneret]

Ilya Muromets

[paperpoppies]

Baba Yaga

(1900) by Ivan Bilibin.

[feathered0ne]

my mum had dream about our dog Florka she was happy and playfull as always but all dirty in the ground and little bloody

our dog is dead

she dug herself out. Shes happy and free now

[sellos]

[apriecotti]

Jarilo/Jaruna - personification (alt. god of) fertility, spring and harvest

As I mentioned before, this is my own take on the scraps of Slavic deities info we've got these days. In my head he and Vesna/Zhiva are siblings or twins (kind of like Apollo & Artemis were god-twins).

Some info I found out about Jarilo was that one of his symbols was a horse, I thought it's fun for him to have an ability to shift into a horse (kind of like ancient Greek gods would shape shift into animals. For good purposes or bad ones...) which he could do! His other form was that if a a white horse.

Another interesting thing was that apparently he died with the end of spring and that there was an element of "replacement" happening? As he was supposed to be a personification of a Slavic holiday. To be honest I'm not quite sure how to understand it, would that mean he would die and reincarnate? Food for thought.

Perhaps the skull that's one of his attributes (besides the crops) is the skull of the previous Jarilo? I think it would be funny if one of the twins kept dying over and over again, while the other was thriving as she is the goddess of youth, thus can't really die or age.

And I like the motif of Zhiva being a dilligent and kind shepherd, while Jarilo is a reaper/harvester in theory, but he spends most of his time mingling with mortal women and forgets his harvest-deity duties until he suddenly dies - leaving Zhiva to take care of his mess. They'd fight all the time, as true siblings do ))

Here are some sketches of his accessories:

[zmiyina]

Slavic folklore life advice:

Ask the sun to make you the prettiest

[apriecotti]

. ꕤ ｡° Vesna/Zhiva – Slavic goddess of spring and youth

I wanted to draw the Slavic pantheon so to speak )) here is my take on Vesna ♪. ꕤ ｡°

There isn't much out there about Slavic gods and goddesses because of christianization among other things, so I'm taking my liberty with the names and symbols. So, this is definitely not accurate, but fun nonetheless.

I like the idea of her being a shepherd – equally of nature and animals (including humans); her hair strands turn into blossoming twigs. There's another god (?) called Jaruna/Jaryło, who served a similar purpose to her and I want to design them as siblings of youth and vigor, equals, female and male respectfully.

[404seikoko]

why abrahamic items don't work on vampires in my canon:

the idea of the modern vampire, while a mixture of many things, mostly comes from early slavic culture. the religion practiced when vampires were first introduced to this area was a native slavic faith.

therefore, i believe that only religious objects of this faith would affect vampires, though the degree would vary based on belief.

traditionally, at the end of winter, a large bonfire is burned symbolising the burning effigy of the goddess of winter and death, marzanna.

say a vampire in the lost boys were to come across a group of surf nazis having a bonfire party late in winter. that bonfire would almost act as a ward, as getting to close to it would have the same effect as garlic.

but let's say that the same bonfire was being held by a group of people who believed in that native slavic faith. not only would it act as a ward, getting too close could prove deadly to a vampire.