Yarilo
![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Jarylo (
Etymology
The
Sources
The only historic source that mentions this deity is a 12th-century biography of the proselytizing German bishop Otto of Bamberg, who, during his expeditions to convert the pagan tribes of Wendish and Polabian Slavs, encountered festivals in honor of the war-god Gerovit in the cities of Wolgast and Havelberg. Gerovit is most likely a German derivation of the Slavic name Jarovit.
Up until the 19th century in
All of these spring festivals were basically alike: processions of villagers would go around for a walk in the country or through villages on this day. Something or someone was identified to be Jarilo or Juraj: a doll made of straw, a man or a child adorned with green branches, or a girl dressed like a man, riding on a horse. Certain songs were sung which alluded to Juraj/Jarilo's return from a distant land across the sea, the return of spring into the world, blessings, fertility and abundance to come.
Myth
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Donetsk_step_04_kudlaenko.jpg/220px-Donetsk_step_04_kudlaenko.jpg)
Radoslav Katičić and Vitomir Belaj attempted to reconstruct the mythology surrounding Jarilo. According to these authors, he was a fairly typical
Jarilo was a son of the supreme Slavic god of thunder, Perun, his lost, missing, tenth son, born on the last night of February, the festival of Velja Noć (Great Night), the pagan Slavic celebration of the New Year. On the same night, however, Jarilo was stolen from his father and taken to the world of the dead, where he was adopted and raised by Veles, Perun's enemy, Slavic god of the underworld and cattle. The Slavs believed the underworld to be an ever-green world of eternal spring and wet, grassy plains, where Jarilo grew up guarding the cattle of his adoptive father. In the mythical geography of ancient Slavs, the land of the dead was assumed to lie across the sea, where migrating birds would fly every winter.
With the advent of spring, Jarilo returned from the underworld, that is, bringing spring and fertility to the land. Spring festivals of Jurjevo/Jarilo that survived in later folklore celebrated his return. Katičić identified a key phrase of ancient mythical texts which described this sacred return of vegetation and fertility as a rhyme hoditi/roditi [3] (to walk/to give birth to), which survived in folk songs:
- ...Gdje Jura/Jare/Jarilo hodit, tam vam polje rodit...
- "...Where Jura/Jare/Jarilo walks, there your field gives birth..."
The first of the gods to notice Jarilo's return to the living world was
However, since Jarilo's life was ultimately tied to the vegetative cycle of the cereals, after the harvest (which was ritually seen as a murder of crops), Jarilo also met his death. The myth explained this by the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife, and so she (or their father Perun, or their brothers) kills him in retribution. This rather gruesome death is in fact a ritual sacrifice, and Morana uses parts of Jarilo's body to build herself a new house. This is a mythical metaphor which alludes to rejuvenation of the entire cosmos, a concept fairly similar to that of Scandinavian myth of Ymir, a giant from whose body the gods created the world.
Without her husband, however, Morana turns into a frustrated old hag, a terrible and dangerous goddess of death, frost and upcoming winter (like the Celtic Cailleach), and eventually dies by the end of the year. At the beginning of the next year, both she and Jarilo are born again, and the entire myth starts anew.
Description
As befitting an
Scholars Katičić and Belaj also suggested that the god had some equine characteristics, or, alternatively, was conceived of as a horse.
- Folk accounts strongly emphasize the presence of a horse (in Belarusian festivals, for instance, Jarilo was symbolized by a girl dressed as a man and mounted on a horse), and also the fact Jarilo walked a long way and his feet are sore. Thus, he is a rider on a horse who also "walks".
- In historic descriptions of West Slavic paganism, one often finds references to sacred horsesheld in temples, which were used for divination, and predictions were made on the basis of how the horse walked through rows of spears sticking from the ground.
- In certain customs of some Baltic and Slavic wedding celebrations, a horse symbolizes a young husband.
- In some Slavic folk songs, an angry young wife, apparently cheated upon by her husband, kills a horse or orders her brothers to kill it for her.
- Jarilo's identification as a mischievous god may involve the ability of shapeshifting. This is seen in other mischievous pagan deities, such as Prometheus and Loki, who himself once took the form of a horse.
Comparison with other deities
From comparison to Baltic mythology and from Slavic folklore accounts, one can deduce that Jarilo was associated with the Moon. His somewhat mischievous nature, which ultimately results in his betrayal of his wife, was likened to the Moon's changing phases.
He has also been compared to other death and rebirth gods associated with agricultural fertility, like Greek Adonis and Olympian god Dionysus.[9]
Identification with St. George
With the advent of Christianity, Jarilo became identified with
See also
- Tetri Giorgi
- 2273 Yarilo
- Yaroslav (disambiguation)
- Yarovit
References
- OCLC 37725456.
- ^ Leeming, David.From Olympus to Camelot: The World of European Mythology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2003. p. 129.
- ISBN 978-953-6927-49-4.
- ^ Leeming, David. From Olympus to Camelot: The World of European Mythology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2003. p. 129.
- ISBN 9781576070635.
- ISBN 978-0-7656-8047-1
- ISBN 978-1-136-14172-0.
- ISBN 9781576070635.
- ^ Leeming, David. From Olympus to Camelot: The World of European Mythology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2003. pp. 129-130.
- ISBN 978-953-6927-98-2.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
Bibliography
- V. Belaj. "Hod kroz godinu: mitska pozadina hrvatskih narodnih običaja i vjerovanja" [Walk through year, mythical background of Croatian folk beliefs and customs], Golden Marketing, Zagreb 1998.