Here is an excerpt from the upcoming new book: “Nature is preparing for winter sleep. Leshy goes into hibernation until the next spring snowmelt. Human festivities also subside. People are thinking about the finiteness of life, about an icy dream… This is the time when ancestors-grandfathers are remembered on a special day – Grandfather’s (Dedova) or Grandmother’s (Babkina) Saturday. All Slavs are sending off their spirits to Wyryi until next spring…”
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Lapti (bast shoes) and evil spirits
Lapti (bast shoes) and evil spirits.
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Bast shoes are often mentioned in connection to mythological creatures. Leshy and Polevik (field spirit) are often portrayed wearing lapti. Weaving bast shoes is a favorite activity of evil characters, and Vodyanoi in particular.
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Bast shoes were also used to appease evil spirits. Vologda fishermen and millers threw bast shoes into the water to get help from Vodyanoi. If the cattle were lost, the peasants of the Smolensk region appealed to Rusalki. They went to the forest and brought with them bast shoes, footcloth, bread & salt and left it in a sack on a tree with the words: “Please, Rusalki, accept my gift, and return the cattle!”. In the Kostroma region, when moving to a new house, the owners went to the old yard with one bast shoe and invited Domovoy to go with them in that shoe. In the Vladimir region, people supplied Domovoy with shoes, by hanging old worn “little lapti” in the yard.
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The need for shoes for Domovoy is understandable. But what would Rusalki do with them? 😉
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More interesting facts can be found in: “Slavic Antiquities” – encyclopedic dictionary in 5 volumes by Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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Have you noticed anything unusual on the picture?
We continue to work on the first story from the animated fantasy comic book series about customs and beliefs of the Slavic people in the early Middle Ages. The “static” PDF version of our graphic novel is ready and available in English for FREE download here: https://www.slovene.online/boar
A trickster character from our story
We continue to work on the first story from the animated fantasy comic book series about customs and beliefs of the Slavic people in the early Middle Ages. The “static” PDF version of our graphic novel is ready and available in English for FREE download here: https://www.slovene.online/boar
And this character you already met ;)
Here is another character, who is known under different names – Leszy, Borowy, Lisovik, Polisun, etc.
We continue to work on the first story from the animated fantasy comic book series about the life, customs and beliefs of the Slavic tribes in the early Middle Ages.
