"A Ukrainian Ceremony In Which An Egg Was Used To Cure Fever Has Been Documented. A Babka Rolled An Egg

Ukrainian pin magic

Attach a safety pin to clothing to protect the wearer from bad energy.

Mostly done by parents for their children, but adults have been known to attach pins for themselves.

📍📍📍

“Along with celebration, feasting, and games, people would remember the dead. The dance moved from sacred groves and rivers to graves: there the tryznas* took place, with activities the same as in spring. *Tryzna - the ending part of funerary rites, normally consisting of a sacrifice, military-themed games, a feast to honour the deceased person; turned into a dinner during Christian times. At the same time the term meant the three days the winning army received for plundering and celebration. By some definitions, a fight, a competition, a battle.”

— Mykola Kostomarov on celebration of Yarylo’s holiday, supposedly in late May-early June.

Hello! Regarding your post about opening asks, I was wondering if you have any advice about searching for Ukrainian sources about folklore/magic/superstition etc that are actually specific to Ukrainian beliefs? Every time I try to do research I find things that *say* Ukrainian, but all the sources are Russian. For example when I try to read about Mokosh, who is said to be an earth goddess for "all slavic people" (already a red flag statement) I can only find Russian sources and stories. People tend to lump us into one group, an issue Im sure you're familiar with. Either way, thank you for your time!! <3

That is a simple one - you would have to be more specific in your research. Do not look up Ukrainian beliefs about Mokosh, Ukraine nor Ukrainians (or Russians, for that matter) did not exist when this deity was worshiped. Research the history itself, or any particular region, subject, or group, and make your own conclusions.

With Mokosh, however, the trick is that the one reliable primary source in existence, the Tale of Bygone Years, also known as the Primary Chronicle, only states the name itself, without a hint towards gender or patronage. The rest, academically, is conjecture derived from romantic pet theories and the images of the Virgin Mary and St. Friday in folk imagination. This is not to say there is no earth goddess making herself known through this name, or through the saints mentioned, for that matter, but it has to be acknowledged there is no way of knowing who this being was at the time of writing.

Hello I was wondering about popular or common Slavic embroidery patterns ? I unfortunately don’t know how to embroider myself, but I would like to incorporate it into my drawings and paintings as art is a big way for me to connect spiritually. Thanks so much !

First of all ”Slavic embroidery patterns” are a huge subject. There are many Slavic states and countless smaller regions within those states that have their own unique and characteristic patterns.

Having said that here are some sources for you to check out:

Polish folk embroidery by Jadwiga Turska

Ukrainian folk embroidery by K. R Susak and N. A. Stefyuk

Some Balkan Folk Embroidery Patterns by Edith Durham

Ukrainian Rushnyky: Binding Amulets and Magical Talismans in the Modern Period by Frank Sciaccia

And make sure to check out the great blogs we have here: Polish Costumes, Zvetenze, Me-Sharing-With-The-World, Eastern European Crafts and Pagan Stiches.

Best of luck!

Reminder that if you're asking spirits to help you with something long-term (i.e. protecting your home, bringing in job opportunities etc) it's good practice to have an agreement on "rest" and "finished" commands. I.e.

"When I tell you that it is time to sleep, return to your vessel and rest until I ask you to continue again."

"When I tell you that your work is done, I will thank you with an offering and our relationship is completed so you may leave my space."

Signed, someone who forgot to do this and had an unhappy spirit asking where their offerings where because I forgot to say that I now *had* job and didn't need them bringing me more!

Are there are Slavic runes or symbols I can/should familiarize myself with? If so, do you have any sources you can point me towards? Very much appreciated.

This is not the subject I am particularly well versed in but no, to the best of my knowledge Slavs did not have any runic alphabet of their own, Glagolitic script being the oldest known Slavic writing system. Now there is one mention, by a 9th century bulgarian writer, that Slavs of the past did not write books but for the purposes of counting and divination they used a system of strokes and incisions. Following an old post Lamus Dworski made in Polish ages ago I believe the aforementioned signs might be something similar to tamgas.

Unfortunately it also came to my attention that there are some problematic modern groups of conspiracy theories-loving pagans and self-appointed history specialists who believe Slavs did have their own alphabet it was just destroyed by evil Westerners or Jews and all traces of it have been hidden. Just like all traces of Great Lechia, Slavs defeating Julius Cesear and other proofs of Slavic racial and cultural supremacy. If you catch a scent of those people best stay far away from them.

When Fern Blooms (Hope Floats): Elusive

Kupala Night, also called Ivanа-Kupala, is a traditional eastern Slavic holiday which is celebrated in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Russia during the night from 6 to 7 July (on the Gregorian calendar). (This corresponds to 23-24 June on these countries’ traditional Julian calendar.) Calendar-wise, it is opposite to the winter holiday Koliada. The celebration relates to the summer solstice when nights are the shortest and includes a number of Slavic rituals.

The name of the holiday was originally Kupala; a pagan fertility rite later adapted into the Orthodox Christian calendar by connecting it with St. John’s Day which is celebrated on 24 June.

The Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian name of this holiday combines “Ivan” (John, in this case John the Baptist) and Kupala which was thought to be derived from the Slavic word for bathing, which is cognate. However, it likely stems from the proto-Slavic kump, a gathering. The two feasts could be connected by reinterpreting John’s baptizing people through full immersion in water. However, the tradition of Kupala predates Christianity. The pagan celebration was adapted and reestablished as one of the native Christian traditions intertwined with local folklore.

The holiday is still enthusiastically celebrated by the younger people of Eastern Europe. The night preceding the holiday (Tvorila night) is considered the night for “good humour” mischiefs (which sometimes would raise the concern of law enforcement agencies). On Ivan Kupala day itself, children engage in water fights and perform pranks, mostly involving pouring water over people.

Many of the rites related to this holiday are connected with the role of water in fertility and ritual purification. This is due to the ancient Kupala rites. On Kupala day, young people jump over the flames of bonfires in a ritual test of bravery and faith. The failure of a couple in love to complete the jump, while holding hands, is a sign of their destined separation.

Girls may float wreaths of flowers (often lit with candles) on rivers, and attempt to gain foresight into their romantic relationship fortune from the flow patterns of the flowers on the river. Men may attempt to capture the wreaths, in the hope of capturing the interest of the woman who floated it.

There is an ancient Kupala belief that the eve of Ivan Kupala is the only time of the year when ferns bloom. Prosperity, luck, discernment, and power befall whom ever finds a fern flower (Chervona ruta). Therefore, on that night, village folk roam through the forests in search of magical herbs, and especially, the elusive fern flower (Chervona ruta).

Traditionally, unmarried women, signified by the garlands in their hair, are the first to enter the forest. They are followed by young men. Therefore, the quest to find herbs and the fern flower (Chervona ruta) may lead to the blooming of relationships between pairs within the forest.

According to folklore, the flower is Chervona ruta. The flower is yellow, but according to legend, it turns red on the eve of Ivan Kupala Day. Ferns are not angiosperms (flowering plants), and instead reproduce by spores.

In Gogol’s story The Eve of Ivan Kupala, a young man finds the fantastical fern-flower, but is cursed by it. Gogol’s tale may have been the stimulus for Modest Mussorgsky to compose his tone poem Night on Bald Mountain, adapted by Yuri Ilyenko into a film of the same name.

SOURCES: Image #1: Wikimedia Commons: License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Source Photographer: Simon Kozhin/С.Л.Кожин Title: Kupala Night, Divination on the Wreaths Artist: Simon Kozhin/С.Л.Кожин Image #2: Wikimedia Commons:   Title: Night on the Eve of Ivan Kupala Artist: Henryk Hector Siemiradzki License: Public Domain Image #3: Wikimedia Commons: Title: Івана Купала (Ivanа-Kupala). Stamp of Ukraine (1998) License: Public Domain Text:  Wikipedia: Kupala Night:  Fern Flower: Chervona ruta. License:  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Hello, do you know anything on black salt in Ukrainian folk magic? I'm asking because i found this supposedly traditional Ukrainian recipe for black salt, but i never heard about black salt in folk magic, always thought about it as a kind of new age thing. This recipe says to mix salt, ashes from herbs, rye flour and water and make dough, and then burn it on charcoals, and specifically make it on Holy Thursday. What do you think?

Variations on Thursday salt, as it tends to be known here, are quite well-known, indeed. Burned on charcoal, or in a cast iron vessel should only a stove be available, with herbs, or flour, depending on the region and availability - one traditional manner would be to attach it to a wall of a wood oven and allow the concoction to burn through.

Perhaps the simplest recipe involves cooking it on a dry cast iron skillet with a bit of rye flour and prayer till it blackens.

Ukrainian Night Tarot

I’ve been searching for a Ukrainian Deck since I started reading cards, so you have no idea how excited I was when I saw Mariya Tobischek (dvodushnyk // oldgodstemple on ig) doing art for the cards. But now the kickstarter for the whole deck is live.

In honour of that here are some of my favourite cards so far

And a bonus card

“Interestingly, travellers, nomads, and foreigners also were thought to have a special status and possess secret knowledge. They were often imagined as soldiers, beggars, hermits, old men, and so on. Seeing most of them as intermediaries between the worlds, as possessing magic knowledge, is not accidental, as, in Ukrainian folk imagination, occult powers are connected to paths and the other side. Foreigners and visitors had powers ascribed to them as they come from “the outside” (unlike people of settled lifestyle), and that is where they go, as well.”

— Ritual and Magic in Ukrainian Cultural Tradition, by Iryna Ihnatenko