According to various myths, legends and ancient legends, our world is inhabited not only by people, but also by various entities. Everyone heard about brownies, goblin, swamps, kikimors, but few saw them. One of the most interesting characters in folklore is the mermaid. This creature is mentioned both in Slavic texts and in European ones. Who is she? What does a mermaid look like?
Different and mysteriousThere are a great many names for this maiden. Our ancestors called it a bathing suit, Leshikha, shaggy (tickled), water drop, Navka, Navka, Mavka. Each region of Russia had its own names, and in Europe it was most often called the sea maiden. The Slavs considered the codweaver the spirit of ponds and fields, and what the mermaid looked like depended on it.
The traditional Russian navka outwardly looked like an ordinary human girl, the only difference from which was long and certainly loose blond hair (the connection of the words "blond" - "mermaid" is traced). The fact is that in those days a girl or a woman seemed straight-haired, without a braid, was considered shameful and unacceptable.
Residents of the northern part of the country had a different idea of what a real mermaid looks like. In their opinion, this is a woman of disgusting appearance, shaggy, messy, certainly with a huge bust, in some places in Ukraine these creatures looked like pale-skinned girls or teenagers with mud-colored hair.
Random meetingsThe way the mermaid looks depends on her origin, and with him the situation is also ambiguous. A mermaid could become a drowned woman, as she consciously shortened her eyelid, as well as a sacrifice of water, as well as a baby who died before baptism, a damned woman. At the same time, the Celts initially recognized these maidens as independent creatures - fairies, guardians and coasts of ponds and wells. For the most part, our ancestors held mermaids for malicious and dangerous people, but they were not overly afraid. There was an opinion that they can make a mess, swirl, entangle a traveler, tickle him to death.
These girls like to dance and sing songs (most often sad) about their bitter share and ruined life, especially often they catch their eye in the days of the mermaid week. It is the stories of such meetings that give us the opportunity to imagine what a mermaid looks like. They are afraid of the sign of the godfather, as, indeed, are the majority of similar creatures, since they belong to the world of the unclean. Another deterrent for them was the Chernobyl herb (wormwood).
Often, when in contact with people, the mermaid would conceive a traditional riddle: “Wormwood or parsley?” Anyone who picked parsley threatened to be tickled. Most of the people who supposedly met the rags say that they don’t have any clothes on them or there’s, but it’s a completely decrepit, ragged, more name than clothes. Therefore, when meeting with this representative of the subtle worlds, it was considered mandatory to give her a piece of tissue. It could be a scarf, apron. If there was absolutely nothing, then a piece of clothing should be torn off.
Of course, people of the technological age who have lost faith in miracles are unlikely to see what a mermaid looks like. In life, consisting of haste and pragmatism, there is no place for magical creatures, but perhaps somewhere else there are transparent cold lakes in which under the deceptive and alluring moon the beautiful wolves splash ...