Russian Fairy Tales
Domovoi Since
the introduction of Christianity into Russia, something of a demoniacal
nature has attached itself to the character and the appearance of the
Domovoy, which may account for the fact that he is supposed to be a
hirsute creature, the whole of his body, even to the palms of his hands
and the soles of his feet, being covered with thick hair. Only the
space around his eyes and nose is bare. The tracks of his shaggy feet
may be seen in winter time in the snow; his hairy hands are felt by
night gliding over the faces of sleepers. When his hand feels soft and
warm it is a sign of good luck: when it is cold and bristly, misfortune
is to be looked for.
He is supposed to live behind the stove now,
but in early times he, or the spirits of the dead ancestors, of whom he
is now the chief representative, were held to be in even more direct
relations with the fire on the hearth. In the Nijegorod Government it
is still forbidden to break up the smouldering remains of the faggots 6
in a stove with a poker; to do so might be to cause one's "ancestors"
to fall through into Hell. The term "ancestors 7" is universally
applied to the defunct, even when dead children are being spoken of.
When a Russian family moves from one house to another, the fire is
raked out of the old stove into a jar and solemnly conveyed to the new
one,
the words "Welcome, grandfather, to the new home!" being uttered when
it arrives. This and the following custom have been supposed to point
to a time when the spirit and the flame were identified, and when some
now forgotten form of fire-worship was practised:--On the 28th of
January the peasants, after supper, leave out a pot of stewed grain for
the Domovoy. This pot is placed on the hearth in front of the stove,
and surrounded with hot embers. In olden days, says Afanasief, the
offering of corn was doubtless placed directly on the fire 8.
In
some districts tradition expressly refers to the spirits of the dead
the functions which are generally attributed to the Domovoy, and they
are supposed to keep careful watch over the house of a descendant who
honours them and provides them with due offerings. Similarly among the
(non-Slavonic) Mordvins in the Penza and Saratof Governments, a dead
man's relations offer the corpse eggs, butter, and money. saying: "Here
is something for you: Marfa has brought you this. Watch over her corn
and cattle, and when I gather the harvest, do thou feed the chickens
and look after the house."
In Galicia the people believe that their
hearths are haunted by the souls of the dead, who make themselves
useful to the family, and there are many Czekhs who still hold that
their departed ancestors look after their fields and herds, and assist
in hunting and fishing. Directly after a man's burial, according
to them, his spirit takes to wandering by nights about the old home, and watching that no evil befalls his heirs.
In
Lithuania the name given to the domestic spirits is Kaukas, a term
which has never been thoroughly explained. They are little creatures,
like the German kobolds, being not more than a foot high. The peasants
sometimes make tiny cloaks, and bury them in the ground within the
cottage; the Kaukas put them on, and thenceforward devote their
energies to serving the friendly proprietor of the house. But if they
are badly used or neglected, they set his homestead on fire. Similar
little beings, called Krosnyata, or dwarfs, are supposed to exist among
the Kashoubes, the Slavonic inhabitants of a part of the coast of the
Baltic. The Ruthenians reverence in the person of the Domovoy the
original constructor of the family hearth. He has a wife and daughters,
who are beautiful as were the Hellenic Nymphs, but their favours are
deadly to mortal men. In one district of the Viatka Government the
Domovoy is described as a little old man, the size of a five-year-old
boy. He wears a red shirt with a blue girdle; his face is wrinkled, his
hair is of a yellowish grey, his beard is white, his eyes glow like
fire. In other places his appearance is much the same, only sometimes
he wears a blue caftan with a rose-coloured girdle. Every where he is
given to grumbling and quarrelling, and always expresses himself in
strong, idiomatic phrases. In Lusatia he takes the form of a beautiful
boy, who goes about the
house dressed in white, and warns its
inhabitants, by his sad groaning, of impending woe. When hot water is
going to be poured away, it is customary there to give warning to the
Domovoy, that he may not be scalded.
The Russian Domovoy hides
behind the stove all day, but at night, when all the house is asleep,
he comes forth from his retreat, and devours what is, left out for him.
In some families a portion of the supper is always set aside for him,
for if he is neglected he waxes wroth, and knocks the tables and
benches about at night. Wherever fires, are lighted, there the Domovoy
is to be found, in baths 9, in places for drying corn, and in
distilleries. When he haunts a bath (banya) he is known as a Bannik;
the peasants avoid visiting a bath at late hours, for the Bannik does
not like people who bathe at night, and often suffocates them,
especially if they have not prefaced their ablutions by a prayer. It is
considered dangerous, also, to pass the night in a corn-kiln, for the
Domovoy may strangle the intruder in his sleep. In the Smolensk
Government it is usual for peasants who quit a bath to leave a bucket
of water and a whisk for the use of the Domovoy who takes, their place.
In Poland it is believed that the Domovoy is so loath to quit a
building in which he has once taken up his quarters, that even if it is
burnt down he still haunts it, continuing to dwell in the remains of
the stove. And so they say there, "In an old stove the
devil warms,"
for the devil and the Domovoy are often synonymous terms in the mouths
of the people, who regard Satan with more sorrow than anger. In Galicia
the, following story is told "About the Devil in the Stove:"--
There
was a hut in which no one would live, for the children of every one who
had inhabited it had died, and so it remained empty. But at last there
came a man who was very poor, and he entered the hut, and said, "Good
day to whomsoever is in this house!" "What dost thou want?" cried out
the Old One 1. "I am poor; I have neither roof nor courtyard," sadly
said the new comer. "Live here," said the Old One, "only tell thy wife
to grease the stove every week, and look after thy children that they
mayn't lie down upon it." So the poor man settled in that hut, and
lived in it peacefully with all his family. And one evening, when he
had been complaining about his poverty, the Old One took a whole potful
of money out of the stove and gave it him.
In Galicia and Poland a
belief is current in the existence of an invisible servant who lives in
the stove, is called Iskrzycki [Iskra is Polish for a spark], and most
zealously performs all sorts of domestic duties for the master of the
house. In White-Russia the Domovoy is called Tsmok, a snake, one of the
forms under which the lightning was most commonly personified. This
House Snake brings all
sorts of good to the master who treats it
well and gives it omelettes, which should be placed on the roof of the
house or on the threshing-floor. But if this be not done the snake will
burn down the house. It rarely shows itself to mortal eyes, and when it
does so, it is generally to warn the heads of the family to which it is
attached of some coming woe.
"Once upon a time a servant maid awoke
one morning, lighted the fire, and went for her buckets to fetch water.
Not a bucket was to be seen! Of course she thought 'a neighbour has
taken them.' Out she ran to the river, and there she saw the Domovoy--a
little old man in a red shirt--who was drawing water in her buckets, to
give the bay mare to drink, and he glared ever so at the girl--his eyes
burned just like live coals! She was terribly frightened, and ran back
again. But at home there was woe! All the house was in a blaze!"
It
is said that the Domovoy does not like to pass the night in the dark,
so he often strikes a light with a flint and steel, and goes about,
candle in hand, inspecting the stables and outhouses. Hence he derives
a number of his names. Sometimes he appears as Vazila [from vozit', to
drive], the protector of horses, a being in shape like a man, but
having equine ears and hoofs; at other times as Bagan, he is guardian
of the herds, taking up his quarters in a little crib filled for his
benefit with hay. On Easter Sunday and the preceding Thursday he
becomes visible, and may be seen crouching in a corner of his stall. He
is very fond of horses, and often rides
them all night, so that they
are found in the morning foaming and exhausted. Sometimes, also, he
goes riding on a goat. When a newly purchased animal is brought home
for the first time, it is customary in several places to go through the
following ceremony. The animal is led to its stall, and then its
possessor bows low, turning to each of the four corners of the building
in succession, and says, "Here is a shaggy beast for thee, Master! Love
him, give him to eat and to drink!" And then the cord by which the
animal was led is attached to the kitchen-stove.
With the idea that
each house ought to have its familiar spirit, and that it is the soul
of the founder of the homestead which appears in that capacity, may be
connected the various superstitious ideas which attach themselves in
Slavonic countries to the building of a new house. The Russian peasant
believes that such an act is apt to be followed by the death of the
head of the family for which the new dwelling is constructed, or that
the member of the family who is the first to enter it will soon die. In
accordance with a custom of great antiquity, the oldest member of a
migrating household enters the new house first, and in many places, as
for instance, in the Government of Archangel, some animal is killed and
buried on the spot on which the first log or stone is laid. In other
places the carpenters who are going to build the house call out, at the
first few strokes of the axe, the name of some bird or beast, believing
that the creature thus named will rapidly consume away and perish. On
such occasions the
peasants take care to be very civil to the
carpenters, being assured that their own names might be pronounced by
those workmen if they were neglected or provoked. The Bulgarians, it is
said, under similar circumstances, take a thread and measure the shadow
of some casual passer-by. The measure is then buried under the
foundation-stone, and it is expected that the man whose shadow has been
thus treated will soon become but a shade himself. If they cannot
succeed in getting at a human shadow, they make use of the shadow of
the first animal that comes their way. Sometimes a victim is put to
death on the occasion, the foundations of the house being sprinkled
with the blood of a fowl, or a lamb, or some other species of
scapegoat, a custom which is evidently derived from that older one of
offering sacrifices in honour of the Earth Goddess, when a new house
was being founded. In Servia a similar idea used to apply to the
fortifications of towns. No city was thought to be secure unless a
human being, or at least the shadow of one, was built into its walls.
When a shadow was thus immured, its owner was sure to die quickly.
There is a well-known Servian ballad--one of those translated by Sir
John Bowring--in which is described the building of Skadra [the
Bulgarian Scutari] by a king and his two brothers. At first they cannot
succeed in their task, for the Vilas pull down at night what has been
built in the day, so they determine to build into the wall whichever of
the three princesses, their wives, comes out the first to bring them
refreshment. The two elder
brothers warn their wives, who pretend to
be ill, but the youngest of the ladies hears nothing about the
agreement, so, she comes out, and is at once seized upon by her
brothers-in-law, and immured alive.
A similar story is told about
the second founding of Slavensk. The city was built by a colony of
Slaves from the Danube. A plague devastated it, so they determined to
give it a new name. Acting on the advice of their wisest men, they sent
out messengers before sunrise one morning in all directions, with
orders to seize upon the first living creature they should meet. The
victim proved to be a child (Dyetina, archaic form of Ditya), who was
buried alive under the foundation-stone of the new citadel. The city
was on that account called Dyetinets 2, a name since applied to any
citadel. The city was afterwards laid waste a second time, on which its
inhabitants removed to a short distance, and founded a new city, the
present Novgorod.
The Domovoy often appears in the likeness of the proprietor of the house, and sometimes wears his
clothes.
For he is, indeed, the representative of the housekeeping ideal as it
presents itself to the Slavonian mind. He is industrious and frugal, he
watches over the homestead and all that belongs to it. When a goose is
sacrificed to the water-spirit, its head is cut off and hung up in the
poultry-yard, in order that the Domovoy may not know, when he counts
the heads, that one of the flock has gone. For he is jealous of other
spirits. He will not allow the forest-spirit to play pranks in the
garden, nor witches to injure the cows. He sympathizes with the joys
and sorrows of the house to which he is attached. When any member of
the family dies, he may be heard (like the Banshee) wailing at night;
when the head of the family is about to die, the Domovoy forebodes the
sad event by sighing, weeping, or sitting at his work with his cap
pulled over his eyes. Before an outbreak of war, fire, or pestilence,
the Domovoys go out from a village and may be heard lamenting in the
meadows. When any misfortune is impending over a family, the Domovoy
gives warning of it by knocking, by riding at night on the horses till
they are completely exhausted, and by making the watch-dogs dig holes
in the courtyard and go howling through the village. And he often
rouses the head of the family from his sleep at night when the house is
threatened with fire or robbery.
The Russian peasant draws a clear
line between his own Domovoy and his neighbour's. The former is a
benignant spirit, who will do him good, even at
the expense of
others; the latter is a malevolent being, who will very likely steal
his hay, drive away his poultry, and so forth, for his neighbour's
benefit. Therefore incantations are provided against him, in some of
which the assistance of "the bright gods" is invoked against "the
terrible devil and the stranger Domovoy." The domestic spirits of
different households often engage in contests with one another, as
might be expected, seeing that they are addicted to stealing from each
other's possessions. Sometimes one will vanquish another, drive him out
of the house he haunts, and take possession of it himself. When a
peasant moves into a new house, in certain districts, he takes his own
Domovoy with him, having first, as a measure of precaution, taken care
to hang up a bear's head in the stable. This prevents any evil Domovoy,
whom malicious neighbours may have introduced, from fighting with, and
perhaps overcoming, the good Lar Familiaris.
Each Domovoy has his
own favourite colour, and it is important for the family to try and get
all their cattle, poultry, dogs and cats of this hue. In order to find
out what it is, the Orel peasants take a piece of cake on Easter
Sunday, wrap it in a rag, and hang it up in the stable. At the end of
six weeks they look at it to see of what colour the maggots are which
are in it. That is the colour which the Domovoy likes. In the
Governments of Yaroslaf and Nijegorod the Domovoy takes a fancy to
those horses and cows only which are of the colour of his own hide.
There was a peasant once, the story runs,
who lost all his horses
because they were of the wrong colour. At last the poor man, who was
almost ruined, bought a miserable hack, which was of the right hue.
"What a horse! there's something like a horse! Quite different from the
other ones!" exclaimed the delighted Domovoy, and from that moment all
went well with the peasant. It is a terrible thing for a family when a
strange Domovoy gets into a house and turns out its friendly spiritual
occupant. The new comer plays all the pranks attributed to
"That shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Goodfellow,"
pinches
sleepers as the fairies in Windsor Park pinched Falstaff, but without
equally good reason, and renders life a burden to the haunted
household. Fortunately there is a means of expelling him, which is to
take brooms, and with them to strike the walls and fences, exclaiming,
"Stranger Domovoy, go away home!" and on the evening of the same day to
dress in holiday array, and go out into the yard, and call out to the
original tenant of the hearth, "Grandfather Domovoy! Come home to
us--to make habitable the house and tend the cattle!" Another means is
to ride on horseback about the yard, waving a fire-shovel in the air,
and uttering an incantation. Sometimes the shovel is dipped in tar.
When the Domovoy rubs his head against it he is disgusted, and quits
the house.
Sometimes a man's own Domovoy takes to behaving
unpleasantly
to him, for the domestic spirits have a dual nature, answering to that
which the old Slavonians attributed to the spirits of the storm. The
same forces of nature which fattened the earth and made it bring forth
harvests, often manifested themselves as destructive agents; so the
Domovoy, although generally good to his friends, sometimes does them
harm, just as fire is at one time friendly to man, at another hostile
3. Every now and then, the peasants believe, a house becomes haunted by
teazing, if not absolutely malicious beings, who make terrible noises
at night, throw about sticks and stones, and in various ways annoy the
sleeping members of the family. When the regular Domovoy does this, all
he needs in general is a mild scolding. Various stories prove the truth
of this assertion. Here is one of them. In a certain house the Domovoy
took to playing pranks. "One day, when he had caught up the cat, and
flung her on the ground, the housewife expostulated with him as
follows: 'Why did you do that? Is that the way to manage a house? We
can't get on without our cat. A pretty manager, forsooth!' And from
that time the Domovoy gave up troubling the cats."
One of the many
points in which the Domovoy resembles the Elves with whom we are so
well acquainted, is his fondness for plaiting the manes of horses.
Another is his tendency to interfere with the breathing of people who
are asleep. Besides
plaiting manes, he sometimes operates in a
similar manner upon men's beards and the back hair of women, his
handiwork being generally considered a proof of his goodwill. But when
he plays the part of our own nightmare, he can scarcely be looked upon
as benignant. The Russian word for such an incubus is Kikimora or
Shiskimora (the French Cauche-mare). The first half of the word, says
Afanasief 4, is probably the same as the provincial expression shish =
Domovoy, demon, etc. The second half means the same as the German mar
or our mare in nightmare. In Servia, Montenegro, Bohemia, and Poland
the word answering to mora, means the demoniacal spirit which passes
from a witch's lips in the form of a butterfly, and oppresses the
breathing of sleepers at night. The Russians believe in certain little
old female beings called Marui or Marukhi, who sit oil stoves and spin
by night. No woman in the Olonets Government thinks of laying aside her
spindle without uttering a prayer. If she forgot to do so the Mara
would come at night and spoil all her work for her. The Kikimori are
generally understood to be the souls of girls who have died
unchristened, or who have been cursed by their parents, and so have
passed under the power of evil spirits. According to a Servian
tradition the Mora sometimes turns herself into a horse, or into a
dlaka, or tuft of hair. Once a Mora so tormented a
man that he left
his home, took his white horse and rode away on it. But wherever he
wandered the Mora followed after him. At last he stopped to pass the
night in a certain house, the master of which heard him groaning
terribly in his sleep, so he went to look at him. Then he saw that his
guest was being suffocated by a long tuft of white hair which lay over
his mouth. So he cut it in two with a pair of scissors. Next morning
the white horse was found dead. The horse, the tuft of hair, and the
nightmare, were all one.
The Domovoy generally turns malicious on
the 30th of March, and remains so from early dawn till midnight. At
that time he makes no distinction between friends and strangers, so it
is as well to keep the cattle and poultry at home that day, and not to
go to the window more than is necessary. It is uncertain whether his
short-lived fury at that season of the year arises from the fact that
he is then changing his coat. Some authorities hold that a kind of
mania comes over him then, others that he feels a sudden craving to get
married to a witch. Anyhow it is considered wise to propitiate him by
offerings. These gifts can take almost any edible shape. In the Tomsk
Government, on the Eve of the Epiphany, the peasants place in a certain
part of the stove little cakes made expressly for the Domovoy. In other
places a pot of stewed grain is set out for him on the evening of the
28th of January. Exactly at midnight he comes out from under the stove,
and sups off it. If he is neglected he
waxes wroth, but he may be
appeased as follows:--A wizard is called in, who kills a cock and lets
its blood run on to one of the whisks used in baths; with this in hand
he sprinkles the corners of the cottage inside and out, uttering
incantations the while. It may be as well to remark, that while unclean
spirits fear the crowing of cocks, it never in any way affects the
Domovoy.
Another way of pacifying the irritated domestic spirit is
for the head of the family to go out at midnight into the courtyard, to
turn his face to the moon, and to say, "Master! stand before me as the
leaf before the grass [an ordinary formula], neither black nor green,
but just like me! I have brought thee a red egg." Thereupon the Domovoy
will assume a human form, and, when he has received the red egg, will
become quiet. But the peasant must not talk about this midnight
meeting. If he does, the Domovoy will set his cottage on fire, or will
induce him to commit suicide.
We have already mentioned the custom
of literally or figuratively sacrificing a victim on the spot which a
projected house is to cover. Generally speaking that victim is a cock,
the head of which is cut off and buried, in all privacy, exactly where
the "upper corner" of the building is to stand. This corner, opposite
to which stands the stove, is looked upon with great reverence by the
peasants, who call it also the "Great" and the "Beautiful." There the
table stands on which is spread the daily meal in which the ancestors
of the family were always
supposed to participate. In all
probability, says one Russian commentator, their images used to stand
close by, and were transferred to the table at meal-time, but since the
introduction of Christianity they have been replaced by holy icons, or
sacred pictures. In that same corner every thing that is most revered
is placed, as Paschal eggs and Whitsuntide verdure. Towards it every
one who enters the cottage makes low obeisance. The peasants still
believe that the souls of the dead, as soon as the bodies they used to
inhabit are buried, take up their quarters in the cottage behind the
sacred pictures, and therefore they place hot cakes upon the ledge
which supports those pictures, intending them as an offering to the
hungry ghosts. The sound of the death-watch is believed to be as
ominous in Russia as in England, In Bohemia it is supposed to be caused
by such ghosts as have just been mentioned, who are knocking in order
to summon one of their descendants to join them.
The threshold of a
cottage is not so important as its "front corner," but many curious
superstitions are attached to it. On it a cross is drawn to keep off
Maras (hags). Under it the peasants bury stillborn children. In
Lithuania, when a new house is being built, a wooden cross, or some
article which has been handed down from past generations, is placed
under the threshold. There, also, when a newly-baptized child is being
brought back from church, it is customary for its father to hold it for
a while over the threshold, "so as to place the new
member of the
family under the protection of the domestic divinities." On the other
side of the threshold that power which produces peace and goodwill in a
family loses its influence, so kinsfolk ought to carry on their mutual
relations as much as possible within doors. A man should always cross
himself when he steps over a threshold, and he ought not, it is
believed in some places, to sit down on one. Sick children, who are
supposed to have been afflicted by an evil eye, are washed on the
threshold of their cottage, in order that, with the help of the Penates
who reside there, the malady may be driven out of doors.
Allusion
has already been made to the customs observed when a Russian peasant
family is about to migrate into a new house. So strange are they, that
they are well deserving of a fuller notice. After every thing movable
has been taken away from the old house, the mother-in-law, or the
oldest woman in the family, lights a fire for the last time in the
stove. When the wood is well alight she rakes it together into the
pechurka (a niche in the stove), and waits till midday. A clean jar and
a white napkin have been previously provided, and in this jar,
precisely at midday, she deposits the burning embers, covering them
over with the napkin. She then throws open the house-door, and, turning
to the "back corner," namely to the stove, says, "Welcome, dyedushka
(grandfather) to our new home!" Then she carries the fire-containing
jar to the courtyard of the new dwelling, at the opened gates of which
she
finds the master and mistress of the house, who have come to offer
bread and salt to the Domovoy. The old woman strikes the door-posts,
asking, "Are the visitors welcome?" on which the heads of the family
reply, with a profound obeisance, "Welcome, dyedushka, to the new
spot!" After that invitation she enters the cottage, its master
preceding her with the bread and salt, places the jar on the stove,
takes off the napkin and shakes it towards each of the four corners,
and empties the burning embers into the pechurka. The jar is then
broken, and its fragments are buried at night under the "front corner."
When distance renders it impossible to transfer fire from. the old to
the new habitation, as, for instance, when the Smolensk peasants
migrate to other Governments, a fire-shovel and other implements
appertaining to the domestic hearth are taken instead. In the
Government of Perm such "flittings" take place by night. The
house-mistress covers a table with a cloth and places bread and salt on
it. A candle is then lighted before the holy icons, all pray to God,
and afterwards the master of the house takes down the icons, and covers
them over with the front of his dress. Then he opens the door which
leads into what may be called the cellar, bows down, and says,
"Neighbourling, brotherling! let us go to the new home. As we have
lived in the old home well and happily, so let us live also in the new
one. Be kind to my cattle and family!" After this they all set off for
the new house, led by the father, who carries a cock and a hen. When
they arrive at the cottage
they turn the fowls loose in it, and wait
till the cock crows. Then the master enters, places the icons on their
stand, opens the cellar-flaps, and says, "Enter, neighbourling,
brotherling!" Family prayer follows, and then the mistress lays the
cloth, lights the fire, and looks after her cooking arrangements. If
the cock refuses to crow it is a sign of impending misfortune. These
customs are all of great antiquity. The part allotted in them to the
icons dates, of course, from the time in which Christianity became the
religion of the country, but a similar part may formerly have been
played by images of domestic gods or deified ancestors. The whole
ceremony is one of the most striking relies of that heathendom which
once prevailed over the entire face of the land, and which still crops
up in many of its remoter districts, sometimes half concealed by a
Christian garb, sometimes exposing itself in downright pagan nakedness
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