To die for life». And again: «Children eat us from the nave (dead)», i.e. in the form of newborns bring us back to this world.
The next most important holiday in the list of the «Veles Book» is Krasnaya Gora, followed by Ovsen (Avsen, Usen, Tausen), i.e. the holiday of the autumn equinox. But here we stop at a paradox – today’s Krasnaya Gorka has nothing to do with the vernal equinox. We don’t have a holiday close to this calendar date – March 22. Krasnaya Gorka today is a holiday of the Easter fortyda.
In most cases, Krasnaya Gorka is called either Fomino’s Sunday (the next after Easter), or the first three days of Fomin’s week (including Sunday), or the entire Fomin week. B. A. Rybakov, analyzing the ancient Slavic calendar ritual, wrote in «Paganism of the Ancient Slavs»
that: «The church calendar, which in many cases has adapted to the old pagan times of prayers and festivities, greatly shattered these dates in cases where the church used a movable Easter calendar, at which the amplitude of fluctuations of the „great day“ (Easter) exceeded a month – from March 22 to April 25 according to the old style, or April 4 to May 8 according to our Gregorian style. A seven-week great fast was associated with Easter, drowning out all pagan festivity: the Trinity day also depends on the period of Easter. For these reasons, the ancient pagan holidays were shifted in one direction or another. The ancient Shrovetide was supposed to be celebrated in one of the solar phases – on the days of the vernal equinox, March 20—25, but in reality a wild spring holiday… moved away to February».
So, apparently, the ancient name of Shrovetide is «Red Mountain». And many facts confirm this. First of all, the presence of the appeal «Krasnaya Krasigorka» to the deceased mother, recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Arkhangelsk province (White Sea coast). Here, the bride is an orphan, going out to the crossroads, just like this: «My Red Krasigorka», addressed the deceased mother. We have good reason to believe that the mountain (be it a grave mound, a pyramid or an ice mountain that was built on Shrovetide) was a symbol of the mother’s womb of Mother Earth, Foremother or Mother-in-law.
There are enough grounds for conclusions. Recall that the wife of Zeus – «blonde Hera» – the supreme Olympic goddess, daughter of Kronos and Rhea, whose name means «guardian», «mistress», is called «Mother-in-law» in ancient hymns. Researchers note that in her image «features of the great female deity of the pre-Olympic period are seen» and indicate her connection with the chthonic forces. This great matriarchal Deity had a zoomorphic incarnation – a cow, and was called «drawing.» And her ancient fetish in the temple of Hera of Samos on the island of Samos was a wooden carved spinning board. We also note that the famous love scene of Zeus and Hera from the Iliad takes place among fragrant flowers on the top of Mount Ida. But Ida Mountain and the Ida River are in the north of Russia, in the Subpolar Urals.
Thus, «mother-in-law» in the archaic tradition, judging by the above, was called not only and not so much the wife’s mother as the oldest woman in the family or the Foremother. Here I would like to cite a number of ritual songs recorded by folklorists in the Vologda and Vladimir regions. The Vologda version was recorded in 1978 by a Leningrad folklorist (A. M. Mekhnetsov) in the village of Karmakino, Totemsky District:
Turu-turu, shepherd, do you sound far off?
From the sea to the sea, to the Keiev city (option «Kiev») There is our homeland, in the homeland there is an oak tree, an owl is on the oak, an owl is my mother-in-law, she grazed horses The «Keyev City» of this song is of unconditional interest. So in the ancient Greek tradition, the inhabitants of the north of Eastern Europe – Hyperboreans were considered the descendants of the titans – «who grew out of the blood of the most ancient titans.» But in the same tradition, Kei is the titan, the son of the heavens of Uranus and the land of Gaia. His daughters are Asteria (Star) and Leto. The first (Asteria), taking the form of a quail, rushed into the sea and turned into the wandering island of Delos. It was on Delos that the second sister, Leto, gave birth to Artemis and Apollo of Hyperborean, the great Olympic gods of Ancient Greece. Thus, the titan Key, who lived on the shore of the Kronian (Arctic) Ocean and owned the «Keyev city», where «our Motherland» of the Vologda ritual song was located, was the grandfather of the ancient Greek Apollo and Artemis. As for Leto, she was married to Zeus in the form of a quail (Zeus accordingly took the form of a quail). It makes sense to cite the ritual Kupala song recorded in 1969 in the Smolensk region:
And I’m from a kind
And I’m from a good kind,
And I’m from a kind.
And I’m dad,
And I’m a rich dad
And I’m dad.
And my dad,
And my dad – the month is clear,
And my dad.
And my mom,
My mom is a red sun
My math.
And my brothers,
My brothers are nightingales in the forest
My brothers.
And my sisters,
My sisters are in the life of the quail,
My sisters.
The month is clear
The moon shines at night,
The month is clear.
Red sun,
The red sun warms in summer
Red sun.
Siza nightingales,
Nightingales are singing in the summer,
Gray nightingales.
In the quail field
In the field, quails are calling for the harvest,
Quail in the field.
Let us return to the Vologda ritual song recorded in 1978, which refers to the «mother-in-law». In the Vladimir version, it sounds as follows:
Tutu-turu, shepherd boy,
Viburnum podozhok,
Where do you graze?
– From sea to sea,
From sea to sea
To the city of Toev.
There is my homeland.
An oak stands at home.
An owl sits on an oak tree.
The owl is my mother-in-law.
(Vladimir region, Murom district, Popolutovo village)
The second option:
Tutu-turu, shepherd boy,
Viburnum podozhok,
Are you chasing a breakaway? —
From sea to sea
To Chiev city?
An oak stands on the city.
An owl sits on an oak tree.
The owl is my mother-in-law
The little calf is motley.
(Vladimir region, Gorokhovets district, Bykosovo village).
Third option:
The man went on the water
To Kiev city.
There is my homeland.
There is an oak at home
An owl sits on an oak tree
The owl is my mother-in-law.
(Vladimir region, Melenkovsky district, the village of Levino).
The Tale of Tsar Saltan. I. Bilibin
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