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Hair in Slavic tradition

Do you believe in the hair magical powers?  😉

We continue to familiarize you with the customs and beliefs of the ancient Slavic people, while working on the animated fantasy comic book series. Here we will reveal a little secret – in such posts, as if jumping forward, we shed light upon and help to understand the events that will occur in our story …;)

HAIR, according to the ancient Slavic tradition, is the place of concentration of human vitality. In magic, cut off hair was perceived as a substitute (double) of a person. Thus, the hair that fell out during combing, could not be thrown away to prevent a witch to put a hex on you, etc. Or an evil person could cast a spell that would prevent a girl from getting married, when her hair is placed in the hollow of a tree. Therefore, people hid their hair in various crevices, buried it in the ground and at the crossroads, laid it under large stones, or burnt it.

The Slavs also believed in the special hair powers for healing and love magic. For example, Croatian girls, to bewitch young guys, tried to quietly put their hair in the food of their chosen ones. In Moravia, on the contrary, the guys sought to charm the girls, while carrying with them three hairs of their chosen ones twisted in a ring.

Source: “Slavic Antiquities” – encyclopedic dictionary in 5 volumes by Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Photo credit: https://vk.com/nyonaka

Hair in Slavic tradition

Boars in Slavic tradition

Today we are giving an answer for the previous post’s question, as well as we will reveal a title of our first story about a life of Slavic tribes in the Early Medieval times… Guessed already? 😉 Indeed it is a BOAR! Introducing a concept art of one of the leading characters in the story…

According to archeology, the worshiping traditions of the Boar (Wieprz) by the Slavs are ancient. In 1908, 1975 and 1984 ancient oak trees with boar jaws affixed in them, were elevated from the bottom of Dnieper and Desna rivers. These sacred oak trees are dated from VIII to X century – covering a long period of history when sacrifices were made to the Slavic gods near these trees (an oak – is the tree of Slavic god Perun).

Well, this is about forest boars, but there were marine as well …In the very first years of XI century, Thietmar of Merseburg in his “The Chronicon” talks about a legend of the Slavic tribe Ratari, whose principal city of Rethra (Ridegost) was located on the Baltic Sea: “An old legend, enmeshed in various superstitions, testifies that when they are in a grave danger, a huge boar with white glistening fangs comes out of the sea… to reveal itself to many.”

Thus, the boar was specially honored by our Slavic ancestors.

Boar