The myths of the Slavs were cyclical, meaning that they would repeat every year over a series of festivities according to changes of seasons and nature. According to Russian folklore, if one wanted to gain magical knowledge, they needed to address the Forest Lord, Leshi. He later wore the garland fearlessly into battle against the thieves and easily defeated them. The herb Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) is mentioned in an early 16th-century Russian manuscript where it is described as an agent that cures female infertility. In the core regions of Christianisation themselves the common population remained attached to the volkhvs, the priests, who periodically, over centuries, led popular rebellions against the central power and the Christian church. In addition, she revealed what it means to become a Slavic witch or sorcerer/ sorceress and how the vocation itself would pervade all aspects of life in order to explore the power of the mind and its so-called “influence of one’s own destiny”. [58] Veletskaya highlighted how the Old Believers have preserved Indo-European and early Slavic ideas and practices such as the veneration of fire as a channel to the divine world, the symbolism of the colour red, the search for a "glorious death", and more in general the holistic vision of a divine cosmos. It was believed that this spell will be transmitted in the form of a message by the three brothers who ruled the winds over the ocean: the Northern, the Eastern, and the Western Wafts. Celebrate the Full Moon with an Esbat Ritual. According to him, a nominal, superficial identification with Christianity was possible with the superimposition of a Christianised agrarian calendar ("Christian–Easter–Whitsunday") over the indigenous complex of festivals, "Koliada–Yarilo–Kupala". [35] These three-, four- or many-headed images, wooden or carved in stone,[27] some covered in metal,[17] which held drinking horns and were decorated with solar symbols and horses, were kept in temples, of which numerous archaeological remains have been found. For instance, the Christmas period is marked by the rites of Koliada, characterised by the element of fire, processions and ritual drama, offerings of food and drink to the ancestors. Understandably, there are many myths and legends that mention magic and witchcraft and some of them even portray the origin of witches and sorcerers. Christianization of the countryside was the work, not of the eleventh and twelfth, but of the fifteenth and sixteenth or even seventeenth century. [17] The biographers of Otto of Bamberg (1060/1061–1139) inform that these temples were known as continae, "dwellings", among West Slavs, testifying that they were regarded as the houses of the gods. Slavic Shrovetide: Pagan Traditions 06 February, 2018 The holiday came to us from the ancient times and truly its ritual component is rather multifaceted and complex. [61], In the eleventh century, Slavic pagan culture was "still in full working order" among the West Slavs. Many elements of the indigenous Slavic religion were officially incorporated into Slavic Christianity (which manifested itself in the architecture of the Russian Church, icon painting, etc. [17] Different continae were owned by different kins, and used for the ritual banquets in honour of their own ancestor-gods. The person should cut down an Aspen tree and have its top fall down to face the East. So, Slav men, young and old, mask themselves as bears, horses and gypsies and in more recent times, as doctors, policemen, an… If your family uses a holiday tree during the Yule season —and many Pagan families do—you might want to consider a blessing ritual for the tree, both at the time you cut it down and again before you've decorated it. The second source is the archeological finds, but debates continue over the identification of Slavic and none-Slavic cultures, the extent of migration and diffusion as opposed to autochthonous development . [68] Belief in the holiness of Mat Syra Zemlya ("Damp Mother Earth") is another feature that has persisted into modern Slavic folk religion; up to the twentieth century, Russian peasants practised a variety of rituals devoted to her and confessed their sins to her in the absence of a priest. [35] They were wooden buildings with an inner cell with the god's statue, located in wider walled enclosures or fortifications; such fortifications might contain up to four continae.