Zombies, werewolves, vampires and witches, it turns out, lived in the Caucasus mountains, however, called the story. And yet there were carried out the Jinn, devils, Hungry spirit and the Mother of diseases.
Our ancestors lived in a magical world full of amazing creatures — goblins, water, wood-goblins. With the advent of monotheistic religions, most of them died and the rest turned into demons and devils. But in the Caucasus, and now remember the ancient evil and know how to protect themselves.
If in the Russian fairy tales the house of the economic man, the folklore of the Caucasus gender equality. So, Ossetian patrons at home Binary-chicao there are both male and female. Lives this creature is commonly in the pantry. On the first Wednesday after the winter solstice he sacrificed a black chicken.
And Ingush in the same house dwelt several house — the number married. They were called the Tar is a good spirit, but for bad deeds he punishes by death of cattle and even children.
In the Dagestani legends house is a huge, hairy man with one nostril. At night, he bore down on the sleeper and suffocates them. To be saved, it is necessary to say a Muslim prayer, or at least move your hand.
The house is magical cap of invisibility. If you can take it, the house will fulfill all your desires, only to return his cap. But for this we need to have time to pop up over the door threshold — this border crossing house can’t. If he overtook the thief, then collected his hat with a flourish and beat the man with his paw on the rump. The imprint of his hand forever remains in the body, it is impossible to hide no clothes: the fabric on this place is spreading. Even today, seeing the man torn clothes, making fun of him: “Brownie hit that?”.
House-woman describe as:
it is believed that the good people of the house helps. But who among us is without sin? So remember the right tools from his visits: the house is afraid of fire and light, will never dwell in the house where a cat lives. Won’t choke if under the pillow amulet: knife, dagger or the Koran.
some of the Avars and Tabasarans were also ritual “samouskorenie” to help get rid of brownie. To do this in the latrine at the same time need to eat bread and to celebrate small need. After this fastidious house will always leave the man alone. But people rarely resorted to this ritual: after it stop dreaming of dead relatives.
a Completely separate character — the house of the serpent, the patron Saint of family and home. Lives in the lintel, walls, support beams or Foundation. To distinguish magic from ordinary snake, you can use the shahada — the Muslim “formula of monotheism.” If tReidy to say Arabic “there is No God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet”, house of the serpent will disappear. People believed that if you kill such a snake, the master of the house died.
One angry man once found in the attic of a snake’s nest with eggs. He defeated them, and then the snake left the house, but it began to die all newborns.
House snakes do not bite the inhabitants of the house and rarely leave their hiding place, but felt chirping, rustling, and even the ticking of the clock. Their supposed to feed the bread slices with melted butter or milk that is poured in the egg shells.
If brownies are often friendly to people, other evil spirits are extremely hostile. Especially terrible demons, whom the ethnographers referred to as antagonists of pregnant women, parturient women and newborns. They can kidnap a child from his mother’s womb, to inflict disease and death.
According to legends, demons steal the fruit not have any, and God-fearing and pious women. Theft happens at night, in a dream, unbeknownst to the mother. In the morning the poor will see a few droplets of blood or bloody imprint of a small foot your baby outside or to Lara with flour. To see this trail can only be his mother.
In some villages believed that the fetus in women steal the “mountain angels”. The Laks legends about Havdalah — mythical shepherds tours. They were in the shape of men with a long white beard and a white robe or the women with long hair, covering their nakedness. Sometimes they took a nine-month fetus from the womb and made him Havdala.
Lezgins talk about the “red woman” Alphab — goddess of forests, clean rivers and springs. She seductively beautiful. She has green eyes and bright white body. She walks naked, only a red hair cover her nakedness. She is very evil and tries to destroy the human race. People believed that it is able to penetrate a woman during childbirth and to kidnap her lungs, liver and spleen. But ALPA dangerous only to pregnant women — any man easy to cope with it. If the man finds her in the spring, where she washes the stolen bodies, and cut off one of her braids or finger, she will swear not to destroy more of his relatives and keep the oath.
In our days, the skeptics say that the demons, kidnaps the unborn child, there due such things as the stood pregnancy, false pregnancy. But still many of the Caucasian peoples preserved a reverent attitude to pregnant women, they are trying to protect with the help of talismans and not be left alone in the dark.
the Mother of diseases describe different. most Often it is the woman with long, disheveled hair, cracked skin, sharp claws and ��a lyk. She’s gallivanting around the world and carries epidemics and death to all who meet him. If she asks for food, you get starvation if the skin — Mora cattle. They also say that it can take on the appearance of beauties to charm a man. Then she disappears and the man goes mad from love. In some legends she is afraid of water, so asked the travellers to move it across the river. Once you get into the village, she scatters diseases among humans and animals.
to protect yourself from the Mother of diseases, Andi cooked a ritual brew “goody” of a mixture of nine grains and beans. This broth poured the entire perimeter of the village, inside this magic circle, the Mother of diseases, could not go.
Similar ceremonies were in other Nations, they were held on December 22, the winter solstice. This “disinfection” should be enough for the whole year.
In Balkhar was a demon of disease — Aju Baba, small, hunched, neatly-dressed old lady with a crutch and a headscarf pulled low over the forehead. Righteous people it gives good: the sick get well, the poor are getting richer, the grieving find comfort. With sinners all the way around.
the Demon of the disease is sometimes represented in zoomorphic form, as a rooster with the head of an owl, but with a cock’s comb. At dusk or night, he silently sat on the roof of the house, portending illness. If he was seen too often, it was waiting for wars, epidemics, pestilence of livestock. To appease him, on the tree hung the insides of the slaughtered animal. As Balkhar famous potters, as the victim could speak and very successful pitcher, which was shattered immediately after firing.
Rutuls left in the rock a lump of oatmeal with melted butter to Mother diseases ate and did not go to the village. The Vainakh imagined eternally dissatisfied woman with a knapsack, where she had taken the disease. With her departure went the disease. In the pandemonium of the Abkhazians had a God of smallpox Ahi Sochan and his wife — the goddess of Chania, koikoi responsible for headache and other diseases. In Ossetian mythology, the ruler of smallpox was Alardi — winged creature that lived in the sky and sometimes descending to the ground the stairs. In the mythology of the Karachai and Balkars there are a troop of spirits of different diseases, including the plague.
a Special category of evil associated with the afterlife world. For example, a Hungry spirit, an evil spirit of a dead man who didn’t get enough mortuary alms. He wanders in the image of incorporeal or tangible creatures and scares travelers. If it hits a person, the person will soon die. Met with him was on Thursday evening, read a special prayer and giving charity. It is also thought that the Hungry spirit is saturated with the smell. So he ate, cooked flour paste, or throw on a hot griddle the pieces of the rump.
In the Lak village of Tsovkra there is a legend about the wives and Abdullah Patimat, who lived near the cemetery. Every Friday Patimat bake thin pancakes, smeared with oil and distributed for the repose of the souls of the dead. One Friday she did not have enough butter, and she baked cakes. Once it was dark, the door began to knock and shouts: “Take sadaqah, give away cakes!” Patimat replied that she had nothing to lubricate the pellet and closed the door bolted. After some time again there was a knock and a voice: “Open the door, we brought than grease!” In the morning the owners found before the door the corpse dug up from the grave baby. Say, since Patimat never broke Friday custom, vigilantly making sure oil was not over.
In different parts of Dagestan and are now in the disbursement of alms, or when the end of the meal say a phrase-a mantra: “May I nourish the souls of the dead!”.
If a Hungry Ghost was like a Ghost, something wicked KAV from the beliefs of bitintel similar to a werewolf. It’s dead (or rather, bespokoiny), who during his life acted unjustly and after the death turned into a shaggy creature with a cat’s face, but no mustache. Staggering through the ruins and the cellars, he scares people, sometimes driving them to madness or to death.
There are Caucasians and zombies:
the Tabasarans have a character Checkafter — animated corpse with long hair and appropriate curse: “To you, becoming Checkafter, come from the grave!”.
In the folklore of the Nogai meet the ever-hungry eyeless corpse of Sipos who climbs into houses near cemeteries and eats everything edible, and Obir vampire with manners: it can take the guise of a cat and sucks the blood from children and young women.
he is like the Chechen Ubur sucking the blood of infants in the cradle. Judging from these names, the vampire — phenomenon is not purely Slavic, but at least Eurasian. In addition Ubora Chechens have more Almas — graveyard creature of the female sex, whose habits resemble the Irish Banshee. Their moaning and howling she foretells the death of a person.
Close relatives have a cemetery the spirits of the witches. As a rule, humped old woman that can fly, to liven up any subject, to predict the future, to inflict damage on people and livestock, to cause epidemics, drought, crop failure, become invisible, turn into animals or young beauties.
the Witch Kaftar of Anavar is so terrible that people who saw her die with fear. The peoples of southern Dagestan believed that this one-eyed old woman digs in the cemetery the bodies of children and eats them if they are not buried deeply.
Lezgins talk about Coskata — an evil old woman who’s greed has fed hungry guests, a burned breadom. For that the Almighty and turned her into a demon.
Chechen witch Garbo long before “Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows” had resurrected the touchstone. It was worth to spend that stone on the body of the dead as he was alive. But more often she used a sharp knife. Lured lost travellers in the night, and next morning ate.
Similar to the character is in the mythology of the Circassians. Is Brokeback the old woman-cannibal iron teeth and huge Breasts, which she threw back.
the Jinn and the most harmful of their kind — devils is perhaps the youngest of spirits. Believe in them now, and therefore are protected from them with prayers and amulets. There are even specialists, who expelled the Jinn from the illegally occupied human bodies.
Jinn-the homeless live on garbage dumps, in abandoned buildings, mills, cemeteries, stagnant waters, in the deep gorges, cliffs, caves and forest. According to popular belief, they can take human form, but you can recognize them on the hairy face, shaggy eyebrows, pointed features, particularly eye shape — not along and across — and heels turned out. From devils horsemen horses are always on three legs: front two and rear one.
Amulets against the wiles of the evil Jinn was a knife or dagger that has ever been slaughtered beast; the needle that sewed the shroud of the deceased, as well as an amulet made by a Mullah. Believed that evil spirits were powerless before a person who at least once in a lifetime washed up dead or were produced for the somebody gravestones monument.
In their world everything is upside down: when we have night and day. Say, that night in a deserted place you can hear the devils rejoice, feast and celebrate the wedding. If the person is caught Jinn for such fun, those trying to engage him in a dance circle and forced to dance to exhaustion. To get free, I had to read a prayer.
Genies could make a gift, help with the housework. Only it had to be kept secret. One woman from the village of mugi Jinn for services rendered predicted the birth of his son and gave the jar of flour and the sausage that did not end. Three years the family ate plenty, until the husband did not try to find out why the nl. As soon as his wife revealed the secret, flour and the sausage disappeared. Gone their son.
Everywhere were forbidden in the night to pour water over the threshold of the home: you can accidentally pour Shaytan, and that will give the person the disease. It was thought that the paralysis comes from slap, which was awarded the people offended Jinnah.
According to legends, every village there were people with the gift of communicating with the spirit world. For example, in the Avar village of Muni 15 years ago, there lived a woman named Sosat. The villagers believed that the entire home the work she performed Jinn. However, she reluctantly said that the Jinn could punish with beatings and stop to help on the farm.
Rita Roitman
