The god of the Moon and Fire, the god of fire sacrifices and the hearth, Semargl Svarozhich stands guard in the heavens at night with a fiery sword. He doesn't let evil into the world. This is how he responded to the goddess of the night, Bathing Suit, who called him to the Ra-river for rusalia - love games:
I need to stay awake all night until dawn, I need to stand guard in the skies, So that the Black Snake doesn’t crawl out of the darkness, I don’t trample Zhito in a wide field, I don’t take away milk from cows, and little children from mothers. “The Book of Kolyada”, X a
Only once a year, on the day of the Autumn Equinox, does he leave his post, responding to the call of the Bathing Lady. And then the Night becomes longer than the day and evil penetrates the world like a black cloud.
And on the day of the Summer Solstice, nine months later, Semargl and Kupalnitsa give birth to children - Kostroma and Kupala. On this day the Kupala holidays begin.
According to legend, once upon a time, on the day of Kupala, the bird of death, Sirin, flew to the Ra River. She sang wonderful songs. But whoever listened to her forgot about everything in the world. He followed Sirin to the kingdom of Navi.
Kupala and Kostroma did not listen to the warnings of their mother Bathing, they ran secretly from her into a clear pole to listen to Sirin’s bird, and from that misfortune happened.
Fate separated brother and sister. At the behest of the Lord of Darkness, the geese-swans and the Sirin bird carried the baby Kupala to distant lands.
Many years have passed. And so Kostroma, walking along the river bank, wove a wreath. She boasted that the wind could not tear the wreath from her head. According to legend, this meant that she would not marry. The gods punished her for her boasting. The wind tore off the wreath and carried it to the water, where it was picked up by Kupala, who was sailing past in a boat.
Kostroma did not recognize her own brother, but custom ordered them to get married.
Kostroma, white, rosy, why do you love Kupala? I love Kupala because its head is curly, And its beard is curly. A wedding took place, and after the wedding the bride and groom learned that they were brother and sister.
Then they decided to commit suicide and drowned themselves in the river. Kostroma became a mermaid, or Mavka. The gods, taking pity, turned Kupala and Kostroma into the flower Kupala da Mavka (Ivan da Marya).
On the Night of Kupala, people will pick flowers, they will sing, they will begin to say, “Here is the grass-flower - brother and sister, then Kupala - and Kostroma. Brother is the color yellow, and sister is the color blue... “The Book of Kolyada”, X a
The song about Kupala and Kostroma from the Book of Kolyada, retold here, is a consolidated list of Belarusian Kupala songs. See: E.R. Romanov, “Belarusian s6ornik” (Vysh. 8. Vilna, 1912). P. V. Sheik “Belarusian folk songs” (St. Petersburg, 1874). Belarusian songs were also compared with other Slavic songs. Also see: A. A. Potebnya, “Explanation of Little Russian and related folk songs.” (Vol. 1-2, Warsaw, 1887), “Poetry of Peasant Holidays” (L., 1963), etc.
Kupala and Kostroma are twins, like Castor and Pollux. The consonance of names is not accidental. In Ancient Greece there was a sage Epimenides (see John of Lydia, On the Months, IV, 47), who sat for fifty years in the cave of Amalthea in Crete, and when he came out from there he began to claim that the gods told him that Castor was a woman. It should be noted that in ancient times Kupala (cf. Ind. Gopala, Kapila) was revered by the face of the Roofs - Kolyada. And Kostroma was also revered as a man; in India he can be correlated with Kardama Muni (Kapila’s grandfather).
Ivan and Marya are bathing on the mountain! Where Ivan fell - there the shore swayed, Where Marya bathed, the sea was agitated... Ivan's mother walks along the shore, wears a shirt... fine linen, embroidered with silk. Ivan's mother did not sleep all night, stole Peter's keys, closed the Earth with them, released dew. Kupala tunes (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian).
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru