Let continue to talk about the meaning of Russian fairy tales. These are the secrets hidden in ordinary children's tales. It's time to re-read them again!
Tale “Swan-geese"
The main character of the fairy tale goes in search of her brother, who was taken to the forest by geese-swans. However, in fact, the girl does not go after her brother to the forest at all, but to the kingdom of the dead. Along the way, she encounters many symbols of life that can hold her in the world of the living: this is an apple tree, and an oven, and bread. However, the heroine refuses all the above. Then she goes to the milk river with jelly banks. It is jelly and milk that are ritual dishes that are served at the wake. The river is the border of two worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead. There is no turning back.
Soon the most entertaining character of this tale appears - Baba Yaga. In ancient times, it was called Yoga. Yoga was a goddess and was engaged in transporting people to another world. She did this with the help of her hut, which could spin in all directions. Due to what? Due to chicken legs. In any children's book, we will see that the grandmother’s hut is actually chicken paws. But our ancestors, speaking of chicken legs, did not mean chicken at all. The adjective “curies” comes from the verbs “smoke”, “smoke”, “smoke”. So there were no legs at the hut at all. She hung in the air, above a pillow of smoke.
Baba Yaga invites children to sit on a shovel and pops a shovel into the oven. What a horror, isn't it? However, such a rite really existed in Ancient Russia and was called crossing. If the baby suddenly became restless, cried a lot and was sick, this ritual was performed with him. They put the baby on a bread shovel and popped it into the oven. After which the child seemed to be born again, rebooted, to say the modern language. So in the fairy tale “Geese-swans” of the brotherhood, the sister is crossed in order to return to the world of the living.
Tale “Zmei Gorynych"
One head is good... it's about the Zmei (Snake) of Gorynych, you can continue the saying: one head is good, but two? Pathology. And if there are three or even a damn dozen, then we are no longer a man, but a filthy monster. In different epics and tales, the Zmei Gorynych has a different number of goals - then three, then twice as many, then nine, or even twelve at all. No wonder folk wisdom says: fear has big eyes! Certainly with fright, it seemed to the good fellows who had the honour to meet in the military battle with Gorynych that the monster had more goals than them. Or exaggerated, like fishermen bragging about the size of a caught fish.
And maybe, the Zmei, in addition to fighting qualities, also possessed remarkable intelligence, hence the metaphor - many-headed? The aura of mystery, as expected, surrounds the superhero in everything. How many times our Russian hero has met him on the military field, and even could not count for sure on his head!
And about the wings, it’s completely silent, as if there weren’t any, but this Zmei is unique - unlike other reptiles, it is not a creeping creature, but a flying one. He always appeared before ordinary mortals through the air. Although he knew how to walk and swim. In some legends, he even lived on the seashore in coastal caves, in the mountains (hence, they say, and his middle name is Gorynych).
Another element subject to the Zmei is fire. In case of danger, he erupted from his own gut. What kind of miracle stove worked inside him is not known, maybe, instead of a heart, a fiery motor, but it was a fire that became the last argument in the battles in which this hot guy constantly got involved. The portrait is completed by a long tail with an arrow and powerful clawed paws.
Of course, such harsh men do not recognize outfits, but history has not preserved a description of the body that allows claiming female reciprocity. But in the annals of Polesie recorded confirmation of the male power of the Zmei - he had at least two sons. They helped his father in everything, always participated in battles with him, and even sometimes surpassed him in cruelty and bloodthirstiness. It is logical that they called them Zmeis Heads. Here is another explanation for why our Gorynych has three heads - one of his own, plus two of his children.
What a miracle? Whose? Where from ?!
About this and much more - in the next part.