Kami and the Religions of Japan

It has been argued that the Shintoism of Japan is made up of a big tradition and many little traditions. It might be more accurate however to state that Shintoism, or at least the major Shinto tradition which involves the imperial line is a construct which has been used to supersede the original religions of Japan. Japan is after all a fairly large place with many traditions which while similar can also be as drastically different from one region to the next as the Irish are to the Welsh, or the Cornish, or the people of Brittney. In other words Japan has or at least had a different religious tradition for each of its localities. Then during the Seventh through the Eighth Centuries the Imperial Court wrote a new text which introduced the idea of heavenly Kami to Japan, Kami who's goal it was to bring order to the Japan's existing kami and belief system.
In "A New History of Shinto," Teeuwen and Breen discuss extensively how what is now considered to be the primary tradition of Shintoism was constructed from Buddhism and Chinese belief systems in order to provide more power and support to the imperial Court. Even today the largest Shinto organization seems to be focused on this goal. This is not to say that the original faiths of Japan don't exist within Shintoism. These belief systems are very resilient and have adapted to this larger system with varying degrees of effectiveness. Rather this is to say that it is Japan's small traditions which make up its original faith. These small traditions are what exist within the folktales and folklore of Japan. In the tales of Bears which become the guardian kami of a village (http://zeluna.net/japanese-fairy-tales-bearspirit.html).
There are two sets of belief systems which merged in Pre-Shinto Japan, those of the Ainu and Emishi peoples who lived in Japan for thousands of years before the coming of the Altaic peoples from Korea who make up about 60% of Japan's Genetic makeup and who's language dominates the country. It seems likely, especially in studying the fairy tales of the Ainu that there was some amount of similarity between these two peoples. There are some Ainu fairy tales which can be used to better understand the original faith of these peoples. In addition I would recommend studying the works of Kunio Yanagita, the founder of Japanese folklore studies.
Many of these tales paint a very different picture of Kami then that depicted by the big tradition of Shintoism. It is interesting to note however that while the primary political movements of Europe attempted to demonify the traditions of the people Shintoism attempted to purify them, to remove their rough edges. To me though these rough edges are what makes folkloric research so interesting so worthwhile. Because Court religions, the belief systems of nobles were so sterile, they didn't deal with the scary realities of the ordinary person the way they needed to be dealt with. This is why small traditions persisted all over the world and especially in Japan for so long.

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Understanding Russian Fairy Tales - part 1

A man saw an older woman enter a Russian church and light a candle for a saint but then was surprised when she went to light a candle to an image of Lucifer being cast out of heaven. Surprised the man asked her what she was doing and she told him that essentually since there is no way to know where one will end up it didn't hurt to have friends everywhere (Haney, 1999).
Such thinking is an important aspect of many Russian fairy tales, where one of the primary moral lessons is that one must learn to respect that which is fearful and at times cruel. In the "Black Smith and the Demon" this a black smith shows disrespect to an icon of a demon, spitting on it and calling it ugly. So the demon kills his friends and frames the blacksmith for the crime. When the blacksmith apologizes for the wrong he he committed to the demon the demon then saves him. Baba Yaga, perhaps one of the most feared and loathsome creatures in Russian folklore is also the donor, the one who supplies hero's with the ability to succeed in their quest, to grow up.
It makes sense for the Russian serfs who made up the majority of Russia's ancient population to try to pacify the cruel and the dangerous. After all all those that can harm you need to be placated as most Russians were powerless before the mighty. These mighty beings from Ivan the Terrible to the local Lords where the heroes of the Russian tales but they must also have been feared, at least to some extent. Thus we see that within the Russian world good and evil mesh together into a single figure more then in many other tales. Certainly I have argued that internal dualism (the presence of good and evil in a single being) is an important feature of most of the original belief systems of Eurasia, and so is present in most fairy tales. Still the idea seems more well defined within Russian fairy tales. A certain amount of rugged toughness was required to survive in a land where one could die of cold or heat and so no season gave any real respite to the bitter whims of the natural world. Russia too has also existed in the world between the raiders of the East and the West, who have attacked them constantly. While any one group from the Scythians to the Mongols may have attacked many places they did seem to do the most damage to Russia.

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Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is perhaps one of the most feared of all creatures within Russian fairy tales. A hag witch whom appears as a monstrous old lady with long greasy hair, a sign of her freedom and wildness. She is interesting however because despite how feared she has become she's obviously plays a duel roll. On the one hand she's the witch who devours girls who get lost in the woods, who threatens the weak and the faint of heart. Yet at the same time she tales on the roll of the donor within fairy tales. She's the one who tells the hero how to kill their immortal foes, or gives them the magical object needed to complete their quest. Of course it's interesting to note that she only does this for male characters who tend to seem perfectly at ease with her, to understand exactly how to act. Because she represents the wilderness and that is their element. Girls are only in the woods in Russian fairy tales because they have been lost or left their. Thus their test in the forest is much more scary.

The obvious duel role of Baba Yaga has led to speculation that she was once purely good. That Christianity perverted her. I think that this is a misconception. In the post Christian world we want to divide things neatly into good and bad. Perfect and imperfect. We forget that even in places which never converted many of the deities and fairy like creatures still retain a duel role. Baba Yaga doesn't represent good or evil, she represents the world which the heroes of fairy tales have now found themselves. These heroes are entering the adult world, a world which is both good and bad. Which provides opportunity and danger. Baba Yaga like nearly all fairies appears to people at a time of inbetween, when they are not yet adults but are no longer children. A time when that which challenges someone also makes them stronger. When people have conflicted emotions about those challenging them to be better. In the modern and perhaps even the past era she is the employer which people portray as a cruel hag but which provides what they need to advance in society.

The world isn't always divided into good and evil then, sometimes its divided into growing experiences, into challenges. And while Baba Yaga represents something harsher then the modern day challenges we tend to face, she was exactly what was needed when nearly everyone was a serf.

To learn more about Baba Yaga visit http://zeluna.net/russian-fairy-tale-babayaga-fairy.html

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The Stone of the Bear Kami

In the Japanese fairy tale "The Bear Guardian," we see one of the more interesting aspects of the ancient Japanese belief systems, which is that nearly any kind soul may become a kami in the form of a tree or stone. Certainly the peoples as far away as Ireland and Iceland held similar beliefs but they have long since lost most of their tales so one must dig to find the hidden meaning under their fairy tales. In Japan however such meaning is out in the open for anyone to see. This is what makes Japan so interesting because while most peoples have lost their ideas about the nature of the soul and the world the people of Japan have not.
In the story of "The Bear Guardian" a lumberjack gathers wood in the forest when he comes across a bear which had been injured by an arrow. The lumberjack helps the bear who in turn then helps him bring wood out of the mountain. Eventually the bear becomes a giant stone beside the road, who's soul is believed to protect the village and those out in the woods.
Bears are of course often considered to be sacred beings in their own right, the Ainu of Northern Japan believed that bears were heavenly kamuy in an earthly form. Women of the villages might even go so far as to breast feed bear cubs themselves in order to take proper care of these important spirits. Stones as previously mentioned are also of sacred significance, especially among the Altaic, Indo-European and Uralic peoples living in northern Eurasia. Some of the most important kami of Japan are said to reside inside of stones. In another fairy tale the powerful kami of thunder and rain lives in a large stone on a mountain. The parents of most of the kami of Japan are also said to reside in (or be the souls of) two large rocks.

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Translating Russian Fairy Tales

We are beginning the process of translating Russian Fairy Tales to English to help people learn about the historic culture of Russia the land where Asia and Europe meet. Go to http://zeluna.net/russian-fairy-tale.html to learn more.

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Kivi and the West Wind

One of the most common themes in older fairy tales is for characters to ask the
wind for help.

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Lamps midwinter blossoms

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Sleeping

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Fairies of Frozen Mid-Night Sun

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Midwinter Blossoms - Fairy Art

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Searching for Neolithic Eastern Europe's Fairies and Deities part 3.

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Wild and untamed

Despite what can be seen as a civilizing nature the fairies of the nymph types were ultimately wildness fairies, wild and untamed. (Ralston, 1872) describes the rusalki by stating that;

They are generally represented under the form of beauteous maidens with full and snow-white bosoms, and with long and slender limbs. Their feet are small, their eyes are wild, their faces are fair to see, but their complexion is pale, their expression anxious. Their hair is long and thick and wavy, and green as is the grass (sometimes it is black, or blond). Their dress is either a covering of green leaves, or a long white shift, worn without a girdle. At times they emerge from the waters of the lake or river in which they dwell, and sit upon its banks, combing and plaiting their flowing locks, or they cling to a mill-wheel; and turn round with it amid the splash of the stream. If any one happens to approach, they fling themselves into the waters, and there divert themselves, and try to allure him to join them. Whomsoever they get hold of they tickle to death Witches alone can bathe with them unhurt.

A more recent scholar describes them as:

In contrast to the bride, there is a female folk figure in East Slavic lore whose hair is permanently loose and uncontrolled; she is the rusalka.
She is pale, lithe, often beautiful female spirit who lives in the water, forest and fields. She is known to swing aon tree branches waiting to entice unsuspecting male passersby whom she often attacks and at times tickles to death.
Hair is light brown, blond, or green, loose hair, blazing eyes and magnificent breasts…. Noted for her beautiful voice and melodious laugh…. If her hair ever dries out she will perish.

She goes on to state that they ride wildly through pastors on horses, dance freely in meadows. In essence they are symbolic of the freedom and happiness so often denied to women in later Europe. Their wild hair is extremely which is significant to their character and this is symbolic in the Slavic lands as hair is symbolic of sexual status.

In the wedding ritual the bride is “sold” to her new husband and his family, and must leave her home and village. As part of the ritual, she “sell her braid to her new husband, and is valued for the thickness of her braid. I will argue that this act is symbolic of the women’s giving over her sexual potency and autonomy to her husband…

Because the various Slavic fairies have no braids they can be said to be free from any obligation and they cannot be sold or given over to anyone. Without the knots of a braid they are not tied down to anything as the fairies of the nymph type tend to be.
Of course the tying down associated to marriage was not always so strict;

Philippa Rapport maintains that the wedding rituals of the tenth through the fifteenth century show diminishing domestic and social status of women with the increasing influence of the church.
Ihttps://journals.ku.edu/index.php/folklorica/article/viewFile/3689/3532

Vila and rusalka in the Slavic lands are to a certain extent a folk memory of freer times. However, they go beyond this by being able to shirk nearly all reasonability, when a fairy of a nymph type bares their children they give it over to humans to be raised as they have no family ties. Yet despite the fact that they don’t raise their own children they do in fact raise the children of other people. They raise those who will become leaders and heroes, the fairies of the nymph type have every advantage then for they still raise children as many people want too but they do not have to raise children who are disobedient or difficult, only those who will grow up to do great things. Their children are Zeus and Dyonisis thus their civilizing power comes from their wild freedom and their freedom comes from their civilizing power. This contrasting nature is important to the fairies of the nymph types. In Greece the religious places associated with nymphs were natural places, often in caves. So the heroes and the civilizers of society lived and were raised in caves while at the same time caves were the birth place of monsters and the dangerous nature. In Slavic lands it was said that;

they run about the meadows, or they frolic among the high-standing corn and,
rocking upon it, make it wave to and fro. Whole bevies of
them live on lonely spots along the streams, or in deep places
and under rapids. Sitting in the depths of brooks and rivers,
they entangle the fishermen's nets; by breaking the dikes they
flood the adjoining fields and wreck the bridges; and they may
also cause fatal storms, dangerous rains, and heavy hail.
Rising to the surface of the stream on clear summer nights,
they bathe, sprinkling the water around them and frolicking in
the waves; they like to sit on the mill-wheel, splashing each
other, and then they dive deep, crying, "Kuku." In late spring
especially they come out of the water, and run about the
neighbouring woods and thickets, clapping their hands and
turning somersaults upon the grass, while their laughter re-
sounds far and wide in the forests. In the evening they like
to rock upon slender branches, enticing unwary wanderers;
and if they succeed in leading any one astray, they tickle him
to death, or draw him down into the depths of the stream.

The Rusalky are extremely fond of music and singing; and
their fine voices lure swimmers to deep places, where they
drown. The water-nymphs also divert themselves by dancing
in the pale moonlight, and they inveigle shepherds to play with
them, the places where they dance being marked by circles
in which the grass is particularly luxuriant and green. Fond of
spinning, they hang their yam on trees; and after washing
the linen which they weave, they spread it on the banks to
dry. If a man treads on such linen, he becomes weak and lame.

Larson states that;
The word numph, paradoxically can refer to the Greek Maiden as a virgin bride and her divine counterpart in the chorus of Artemis, or it can refer to a local fertility deity, often manifestly unchaste, who presides over the spring and woodland..... Nymphs combine the forbidden allure of virgin Artimus with the lust of the sexually aware Aphrodite; yet a social deities believed to inhabit not Olympus but caves, trees, and springs they are much more accessible.... The nymph is also idolized myth poetic version of the village girl at the peak of her sexual desirability.... She has  supernatural power and assumed superiority over the male so that her desires are central to the narratives of their stories..... Unlike the chorus of Artemis, which attempts to preserve sexual purity, the nymphs in general are likely to engage in sexual sport with Hermes, the silens, or even a bemused shepherd.

Fairies of the nymph type then represent both the a certain amount of wishfulness for women and the sexual fantasies of men. For they are free, boys who dare to harm their linins, or insult them are punished. She is superior to males and yet is desirable to them. She is never rejected, never has to truly worry what others will think of her. She is also never going to be tied down. For boys she represents both the fantasy of the shy girl and the agressive willing girl. The fairies of the nymph type allow them to imagine having a dominant mate while continuing to think of their future or current brides as submissive.
This internal dualism as previously mentioned is important to naturalistic worship, because nature itself is clearly internally dualistic, as mentioned in Grimm’s Fairies

So while later religions and societies would place the duel nature of creative and destructive of fertility and desolation in separate beings it was common for people who worshiped nature to think of them as being in the same being. So when people later thought of the fairies as evil or dangerous it may not be a complete change in their nature but rather a shift in focus.
As part of this dualism we also see that they were both feared for their deisire to snatch away both males and females and that they would give comfort to those who’s loved ones had been snatched away. This is because death by natural forces was thought to be a selection by the gods, a means by which they took people to live among them. In both accounts of Hylos (Herkuleses assistant who was taken by the nymphs) they are said to have taken him, not drowned him. In one he becomes their husband in the other they hold him in their laps like a weeping child while they comfort him. In either case however he is now free from mortal concerns. In essence one can imagine that he will find a form a bliss in their free heaven.
In the Rome an epitaph states that a five year old girl was carried of by the naides to be a their playmate.
In many later mythologies its stated that fairies will try to get girls to join them or that fairies of the nymph type are the souls of girls who drowned before marraige or unbaptized. What’s likely is that these myths are a remnant of a form of heaven in which some girls could get to live out their fantasy of being free, of dancing wildly, punishing those who wronged them, while at the same time bringing life to their village and people. For men this too represents a form of heaven where they are allowed to be blissfully passive.

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Danuta Taken by Fairies

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Moss Folk

Moss Folk are a form of wood wives, Germanic fairies which will ask mortals to bake bread for them and then pay the mortals in piles of wood chips if the human is smart enough to bring it home.

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Fairies Tales

Fairies Tales are fairy tales from the fairies perspective, in which humans are the secondary characters.

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Their in the water, Eastern European deities and fairies part 2

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Civilizing beings
To a certain extent the nymphs are civilizing beings they help herdsmen increase their herds, helping people to build wealth and increase their livelihoods. Further certain ones have been known to help grapes ripen, farms to be fertile and more. This in turn helps to solidify them as agricultural spirits. One could say that nymphs were the more rustic the more original form of the domesticated Muses of Greek Mythology.
Much of the depiction of nymphs could in essence be said to be a form of idealization of rural life through poems and plays by those who live in the city. We see something similar occur to the fairies during the Victorian era when to a large extent fairies became a form of idolized life, of youthfulness and a desire for immortality as well as a stereo typical image of the country life. This relationship between the nymphs and the rural poor is to be expected because as previously mentioned these are the people who were likely the most influenced by the indigenous populations of Europe. They are also often the slowest to change religiously. Among the Slavic peoples it was held that;

The fairies are fond of singing and dancing; and enticing
young lads and shepherds or singers to dance with them, they
distribute happiness or misfortune among them.

The Rusalky live in woods, meadows, fields, and waters.
Generally appearing when the corn begins to ripen in the
fields, and concealed amidst it, ready to punish him who
wantonly plucks the ears, they dance and make merry,
adorned with the many-coloured blossoms of the poppy and
with their hair flying loose. (MacCulloch)

The Rusalkas have much to do with the harvest, sometimes making it plenteous, and at other times ruining it by rain and wind. The peasants in White-Russia say that the Rusalkas dwell amid the standing corn; and in Little-Russia it is believed that on Whit-Sunday Eve they go out to the corn-fields, and there, with joyous singing and clapping of hands, they scamper through the rye or hang on to its stalks, and swing to and fro, so that the corn undulates as if beneath a strong wind. (Ralston 1872)


It’s interesting to note that the cults to these nymphs were rarely to them as individuals, but rather to them in the plurality. After all a grove a trees can be extensive so it would seem rare indeed to give each tree a name and a personality. Much like ancestor worship many of the nymphs then remained nameless; there was just the realization that they were the mothers of life and fertility. Going beyond this general statement however was the realization that humanity was born from the nymphs of the Ash tree in Greek mythology and from the Ash trees themselves in Germanic mythology (but from the god of the earth in Celtic).
Because of their status as the mothers of humanity the civilizing powers of nymphs were also more important to the cities of Greece then nearly any other beings as attested to by the fact that they were placed on the coins the cities stamped. What we see then is that groups of people and cities were intertwined with nymphs, nymphs who were the mothers of the city as the deities would mate with the nymphs in order to produce the founding heroes of each city making them in essence truly the mother goddess of that city, with the people directly descended from her. We see to a certain extent a similar idea in Celtic lands where the River spirits were the mother of a people. Because of this the relationship which different peoples had with each other was often describe in terms of the relationship and movements of nymphs. People were said to learn many of the arts from nymphs or nymph like beings such as the Muses. They were in essence a sort of Tutelary spirit, which could encourage prosperity in cooperation with local heroes. Further as the water the spirit of the water source which the city uses they are the ones who keep the people alive and every day the people must go out to gather water from them. In a way this makes reverence to them much more routine then it would be for any other deity.
In Slavic lands the vila went beyond the role of mother to also take the role of sister;

The belief that a Vila may
become a man's sister also points to the existence of close rela-
tions between them and human beings; and it is a popular conviction that not only every young lad and, indeed, every honest
man has a fairy for his sister who helps him in case of need, but
even some animals, such as stags, roes, and chamois, for whom
the Vily have a special liking, may possess such supernatural
kindred.

Perhaps one of the nymphs most important roles was in presiding over and protecting marriage. In later Greece much of this definition appears to have become more and more patriarchal, however even as this occurred the nymphs themselves retained a certain amount of wildness, of freedom as did the rusalka and the nixes of the rest of Europe. Showing that although they were important symbols in marriage they still retained some of their original spirit.
Given the archeology which helped formulate the idea of goddess based worship in Europe the early nymph cults are of special interest not just because of their apparent survivability but because of the way statues were used in relation to their cults. Several Attic grave reliefs show young girls playing with doll like objects. It has been argued that these naked figures are not to be considered toys but as votives dedicated by girls to insure fertility and sexual maturation. The dedication of anatomically exaggerate votives in this sense could have had a socializing function, teaching girls that the most important parts of their bodies were their wombs and their breasts, that they were bound to become mothers and that their identity was based in large part on reproduction.
Boys in these reliefs on the other hand are shown playing with balls and toys. Certainly Greece by this time was under the influence of patriarchal society, but the only evidence we truly have for the matriarchal society theory are the small figurines of women with exaggerated reproductive parts or which appear as charms that were found throughout Europe and the best record we have of cults which were influenced by the Neolithic European beliefs are the nymph, rusalka and the Celtic sacred wells to which such figures were often offerings.
Other statues of nymphs were nuptial dedications, given to the nymphs on the occasion of the ritual bath before the marriage to insure fertility. So while it seems likely that Greece and many other societies within Europe became more patriarchal over time and so the symbolism of the need women’s fertility became less an idea of power it also seems quite possible that the statues found throughout Europe had multiple meanings, including as offerings for fertility rather than as an indication of a general worship of fertility goddesses.
What’s important to understand is that its seems likely that many of the figures found throughout Europe resemble those later dedicated to nymphs and so may themselves have been dedicated allowing us to glimpse into the past religion of some of the Neolithic Europeans.
Some of the nymphs of mythology were considered to have come into being before the deities with some of them even raising Zeus. And so we come upon another important role which they played in helping to build civilization, they raised heroes, deities and those who brought culture to humanity. Similarly the various Slavic water fairies were said to take and raise children;

feeding them with honey and instructing them in all kinds of knowledge.
This is significant not just because of the desirability of honey to children but because the bee was the sacred animal and the messenger of the nymphs and it was they who taught humans how to gather honey.

So to a certain extent nymphs were greater and more important than the deities but although the race of nymphs were older then the gods however they were not immortal. The trees whose spirits they are die, wells dry up, the world changes and these changes represent the birth and death of nymphs. This is an obvious part of being a true nature deity, for nature isn’t stable and must always change and we cannot forget that for all their civilizing qualities nymphs, rusalka, and the others always remained nature spirits.

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Fairies at the Threshold

Every morning people go bustling to their jobs coffee in hand, a mild stimulant to help them fight through their otherwise sleepy lives. For most people by the time they reach their early twenties there is no longer any mystery left in the world, no sense of wonder. But if they looked just a little closer they would be surprised to find that the world is filled with wonder, that the whole world is teaming with fairies just waiting to burst across our thresholds.

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Little Red Hood

For a long time I've found it very interesting that Little Red Riding Hood wears Red. Many people have tried to interpret Red Hoods red hood as part of a modern slant.
But looking through fairy tales I don't see any of these interpretations anywhere else. What one sees is that fairies and other magical are the ones who wear red caps and hoods.
In some parts of Europe the color red is also used to protect against fairies, so in order for a fairy to harm or kidnap someone they must then get them to take off anything red that they are wearing. Perhaps this is why the wold asks Little Red to take of her clothes in so many versions of the story.

This had led me to write my little red riding hood stories with Red Hood as a witch, a fairy doctor or a fairy herself.

As part of this I have made the wolf into a forest spirit.

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Where are the Local Deities and Fairies of the pre-Indo-Europeans

Where are the Local Deities and Fairies?
So given that Indo-Europeans were so apt to borrow from other cultures and that they had thousands of years of interaction with the peoples of Europe we must presume that to the extent that goddess worship existed in Neolithic Europe it must still exist, so where are they?

Their in the WaterWater fairies were among the most common and ultimately the most important deities of many of the Indo-European farmers and pastoralists and it seems likely that this importance was shared by the Neolithic peoples. Briggs in fact held that water fairies were the most common of all the fairy types the Celtic peoples believed in. Many of these well spirits appear to have existed before the Indo-European invasion and so were so important the belief in them survived from Neolithic Europe the way until well after the post-Christian era. There can be;

“No doubt the Indo-Europeans had no monopoly in religious feeling and observance of this (the worship of water) type; it may go back tens of thousands of years. But it must have been part of their religion, and its prevalence among their linguistic and cultural heirs must be due at least in some degree to the power of Indo-European tradition.” (M. L. West)

This makes sense because while the earth is omnipresent it is generally unchanging with the exception of earthquakes. When water runs through a desert however it is surrounded by fertile life; plants and animals thrive. There are few dances for good earth; there are no dousing rods or rituals to search for good earth, or very many prayers for the earth to be good. Yes there is a desire for the fertility of the fields but there are similar prayers asking for animals to be fertile. Further fertility doesn’t always have to mean earth. More often people pray for rain, people search for water; earth is everywhere but fresh springs are special and rain is necessary for the earth to have any value.  So from Nymphs of Greece and Rome to the Nixes of Germany, the Rusalka of Russia and the Sacred wells of the Celts the deities of healing and life, the ones revered by pastoralists and farmers were most often deities of the water, not earth mothers.  

It’s important to understand that many of the ideas deities, that gods and goddesses of Pre-Christian Europe are nothing like the gods and goddesses we think of today. Rather they tended to resemble fairies, heroes or at their most powerful - giants. In the “Golden Bough” Frazer writes that:

“by primitive peoples the supernatural agents are not regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to man; for they may be frightened and coerced by him into doing his will….. Nor does he draw any very sharp distinction between a god and a powerful sorcerer. His gods are often merely invisible magicians who behind the the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations which the human magician works…”

“Religion of Ancient Rome” points out that the Romans had no formed deity when they first entered Europe, rather they worshipped spirits which later evolved into the deities of Rome. We see this theme repeated over and over again, MacCaulloch believed that the deities took the form that the peoples needed most such that fairies evolved into more overarching gods and goddesses of fertility and that fertility gods and goddesses evolved into deities of the arts and war as these became more important.
I would continue these arguments to say that while many deities may have been conceived fairly early, much of what was conceived was a general sense of spirits, beings to be worshiped in the larger sense.

Nymphs were some of the most important deities of the Greek lower classes and countryside, but also of their cities in general. As previously mentioned these peoples are the most likely to continue their original culture, and to have had a separate religion from the the upper classes who were most likely representative of the conquerors. This argument is supported by that fact that in many cases nymphs were identified with indigenous populations, and that they had merged with Greek religion through the process of syncretism. True nymph like creatures were said to live in everything, mountains, trees, fields and more but they were nearly always associated with water, further the most important ones were associated with water. One of the main and most important functions of the nymphs was to provide fresh water. As part of this they also presided over human fertility, child birth and care. They were healing deities who helped farmers and pastoralists to increase their crops and herds. But nymph worship isn’t confined to the Greeks. The Greek historian Procupius testifies that the ancient Slavics worshiped beings simlar to the nymphs offering sacrifices to them (mythology of world MacCullach). And while the Rusalky and Vilas of Eastern Europe came to be feared in modern times people often still preyed to them for fertility and a good harvest. Further people tended to acknowledge the importance of Vila’s to their history;

“The Vily are believed to have lived originally in close con-

tact and friendship with human beings. In the happy days of

yore, when the fields produced wheat and other sorts of cereals

without the help of man, when people lived In peace and con-

tentedness and mutual goodwill, the fairies helped them to

garner their harvests, to mow their grass, to feed their cattle,

and to build their houses; they taught them how to plough,

to sow, to drain meadows, and even how to bury the dead.

But so soon as men had departed from their old virtues, when

the shepherds had thrown away their flutes and drums and

songs, and had taken whips into their hands and commenced

to crack them in their pastures, cursing and swearing, and

when, finally, the first reports of guns were heard, and nations

began to make war against each other, the Vily left the country

and went to foreign lands. That is why only very few chance

to see them dancing in the fields, or sitting upon a bare rock

or a deserted cliff^, weeping and singing melancholy songs.

and at Whitsuntide they sit on trees, asking women for

a frock and girls for a shirt, whence women hang on the branches

strips of linen or little shreds torn from their dresses, this being

meant as a sacrifice to propitiate these water-nymphs.”

In like manner the Slovenians believe that the fairies were

kind and well disposed toward human beings, telling them what

times were particularly suitable for ploughing, sowing, and har-

vesting. They themselves also took good care of the crops,

tearing out weeds and cockles; and In return for all this they

asked for some food, which they ate during the night. So long

as their anger was not aroused, they would appear every sum-

mer; but when mankind commenced to lead a sinful life, and

when whistling and shouting and cracking of whips began to

Increase In the fields, the Vily disappeared, never to return

until a better day has dawned. The belief that a Vila may

become a man's sister also points to the existence of close rela-

tions between them and human beings; and it is a popular con-

viction that not only every young lad and, indeed, every honest

man has a fairy for his sister who helps him in case of need, but

even some animals, such as stags, roes, and chamois, for whom

the Vily have a special liking, may possess such supernatural

kindred. The fairies will aid their brothers in danger, will bless

their property, and will bestow all sorts of presents upon them.

In numerous folk-tales Vily are married to young men. They

are dutiful wives and excellent housekeepers, but their hus-

bands must not remind them of their descent, or they will

disappear forever, though they still continue to keep secret

watch over the welfare of their children.

Some have argued that the “moist earth” was the most important deities to the ancient Slavs and that she was the most important goddesses. Pointing out that people would even take a peace of moist earth in their mouths when swearing an oath. But it’s important to keep in mind that while the moist earth was important, any earth wasn’t. People didn’t speak of the earth in general, they didn’t accept dry earth for oaths and it was the Vila and the Rusalky who made the earth moist. It was their actions that lead to the earth being suitable for taking oaths and growing crops.

Julious Ceaser when making plans to control and invade the Celts put in his reports that they worshipped nymphs and as previously mentioned Brigg’s stated that water fairies were the most common of all fairies. Further more than any other peoples their mother goddesses were of the water. Danu the mother of the Tuatha De Dannan which became the Daoine Sidhe or fairies of Ireland (Briggs) was associated with Rivers in the Indo-European languages and mythologies. Among the the Gaulic people Dea Matrona was their mother goddess and she was associated with the river Marne. In later years sacred wells would retain so much importance for the Celts that the Catholic Church would be forced to rededicat them to Saints because they could not stop people from worshipping them. In “The Religion of the Ancient Celts” MacCalloch states that the church was not the first ones to rededicate the rivers and wells but that the Celts had rededicated them after they came to dominate the preexisting inhabitants of Western Europe.

The most wide spread female deities within Europe then are not deities of the land but of the water. As importantly they are often fairy like beings, and while it would be easy to argue that they were lessoned by those who conquered to the role of fairies I would argue that the relationship with fairies whose homes can be seen, who are believed to live in features of the land nearby like neighbors members of the village are much more intimate deities. The types of fertility and healing deities that people tend to need to believe in, which is why their cults lasted longer than those of any other deities in Europe. Because of this it makes sense that rather than the nymph like beings being made less by the Indo-European peoples the upper pantheon was made more. After all one expects epic stories to be told of a few characters who do more interesting things. So just as we now tell stories of secret agents and football players even though doctors and grocers might be more important and common we should expect that ancient peoples would tell tales of war and seasonal gods even if they prayed more often to gods and goddesses of the hearth, farm, and water.
Despite being only occasionally defined by name these water fairies have a complex nature, one which symbolizes both the natural world and the civilization of humanity. In this sense they can be said to be the bridge between the humans who pray to them and the natural world on whose lives these people depended.


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Searching for Neolithic Eastern Europe's Fairies and Deities

If the Kurgan Hypothesis proves to be correct then the
Proto-Indo-Europeans and the largest Eastern European
Civilization Lived side by side for over a thousand years.

The synthesis of cultures

Its early spring and the ground is still touched by spots of melting snow with little rivulets of water running down between flowers waiting to bud and fields that will soon be ready for planting. A small group of young girls follows these small rivulets of water down to a beautiful cluster of trees which cling to the side of a river as it runs through the countryside. Even here, in the fertile heart of the bread basket of Russia it’s obvious that water is the source of life, the source of fertility. So the girls tie scarves to trees, they perform circle dances while singing and praying to the spirits of the water imploring them to dampen the earth and to keep it damp through until harvest time. The Rusalky comply as they come out of the water and dance through fields damping the ground for the year, bringing their life giving water to what would otherwise be a lifeless earth. Meanwhile the girls cast divinations or swear oaths of eternal sisterhood, as they dance once more free for that moment. Even thousands of years after the Slavic nations had become Christian they still preyed to the water goddesses for fertility.
Somewhere in Christian France and Wales girls approach other bodies of water, a sacred well with trees nearby to which they tie pieces of cloth. They then throw in offerings into the water in hopes that the spirit of the water can help them have children, grant them luck or make their fields fertile. To the North in Iceland a woman is scolding her child for playing too loudly near the goddesses who live in the rocks as she offers food to them for luck. In Ireland the remnants of a story are being told of the goddess of a river who bore the Tuth De Dannon which the Irish believed to be the fairies.
Throughout Europe despite the best efforts of the Christian Church to stamp out the old religions and ideas people still made idols of “corn mothers” to insure a good harvest, gave food to the spirits in the rocks, and prayed to the rivers and wells for luck centuries after their conversion. The gods, goddesses, fairies, and spirits of the world survived not because people didn’t believe in the Christian god but because while it was nice to believe that they would go to the Christian heaven they still had to live, still had to survive with and against the forces of nature much as they had for thousands of years. So while the priests might change from worshiping Zeus, Jupiter and Odin to Christ for the safety of their nation and the soldiers might change their prayers for victory such changes did not affect most people. They would pray to the higher gods of course and hope to get into heaven but after words they would go home and spend the rest of the week asking the natural world for more fertile fields. So it is that most people in a society, the people who work the fields and live in the country will follow the old religion for thousands of years after everyone else’s religion has changed.

Because it’s clear that much of the old faiths of the peoples of Europe’s survived the coming of Christianity it seems likely that these faiths also survived the coming of the Indo-Europeans to a certain extent as well.
There are three very good reasons to presume that at least to some extent the later faiths of Indo-European Europe would resemble at least to some extent those of Neolithic Europe; 

1-Survival of belief among the people

As already pointed out many of the faiths and beliefs remained intact to some extent long after Europe became Christian, there were parts of Slavic Europe that believed in their Vila until the 1960s. The people of Greece still told stories of nymph like spirits until the last century as well. Ancient beliefs and folk magic’s were attested to all over Europe by researches in the 19th century; so even with the threat of the Christian Churches hell fire and inquisition, even with their pastors and the powerful Church doing their best to stamp out such beliefs the beliefs survived for thousands of years. So assuming then that the Indo-Europeans could stamp out the beliefs of the Neolithic Europeans with limited mobility and less organized efforts seems laughable at best.


2- There is a common misconception is that at some point about 5000 years ago hoards of violent Indo-European horsemen poured into Europe bringing with them the invention of war as they quickly decimated Europe’s peaceful and defenseless peoples and cultures. In order to truly come to an understanding of Neolithic European culture we must begin by correcting this mistake because while it’s true that the Indo-European peoples did come to dominate Europe such that perhaps 95 percent of Europe’s population in 1000 AD spoke a language descended from the Indo-Europeans through economic advantage as well as a military invasion it’s unlikely that they completely decimated the culture of the Neolithic Europeans. Rather if we examine the history of Indo-Europeans encounters with other peoples they we see that the Indo-Europeans adopted deities from the peoples they encountered. For example the Germanic peoples seem to have adopted Odin from the Uralic peoples to the North. In Greece aspects of Zeus were adopted from the near east as were Poseidon, Athena and Aphrodite. The Romans adopted so much from the Etruscans that many Roman nobles claimed to be Etruscans decades after they had conquered them in battle. The goddess like women who weave fate which exist throughout Europe seem likely to have been part of the pre-Indo-European belief system. In addition the Germanic peoples spent hundreds of years after they had destroyed the Roman Empire trying to be Roman. The Indo-European migration into Europe was slow taking thousands of years, giving them plenty of time to meet and slowly adapt to new cultures and regions, even if they always seem to dominate them linguistically.
Further the Indo-European society itself was heavily stratified with three basic castes, and each of these casts had their own separate concerns. So while the Indo-European peoples might conquer a people and thus become the kings, warriors, and nobility the agriculturalists and pastoralists would continue to primarily be made up of the original peoples of Neolithic Europe. As was the case in later years this peasant cast likely had a separate set of deities which most closely resembled those of Neolithic Europe.

3-Proximity to each other
There is this strange tenency to think of Neolithic Eastern Europe and the Proto-Indo-European societies as developing in some form of isolation, as being extremely separate from each other. Europe is not isolated, however, rather it’s another part of the Eurasian landmass and its largest mountain ranges would tend to isolate only small portions of it. There is in fact a direct entrance into Europe through the Eurasian Steppes and Anatolian that offers very little barrier between peoples as attested to by the number of raids made into and out of Europe through these two points. It makes no sense then given the Indo-Europeans proximity to Europe to presume that they had a drastically different set of beliefs. Their different lifestyle of pastoralism vs agriculture fit their unique environments but it seems likely that they swapped religious ideas, myths and fairy tales for thousands of years that they were neighbors with each other before the Indo-European Migration, and it may even be that many of their ideas evolved from the same source.

According to the Kurgan Hypothesis the Yamna culture, known from the way they buried their dead and their other cultural artifacts most likely represents the Proto-Indo-European society. As you can see from the map other than two seas to the south they have few barriers surrounding them so it’s likely that they were influenced by and influenced their neighbors greatly. Indeed the Proto-Uralic people which bordered them to the North have a number of loan words in their language from the Proto-Indo-Europeans. To the East lies more people of the steppes possibly the later Altaic peoples but this is uncertain, to the south are the peoples of the Caucuses and to the West lays the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture. There is evidence not only of extensive trade between the Proto-Indo-Europeans but that for thousands of years they shared some of the same territory.

The Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture had massive cities for their time with some as large as those of the Fertile Crescent. The Yamna and the Cutcuteni-Trypillian cultures began to live side by side around 4500 BC. It’s important to remember that at this time there likely weren’t borders in the sense that we have to day so communities of peoples from different cultures would have traveled side by side. Over time the successors to the Yamna seem to have become more dominate, however while the Cutcuteni-Trypillian built walls there are no real signs of a major conflict and their culture didn’t fade away until 2,750 BC. This means that they and the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived side by side for 1,750 years. Hardly what one would expect if the Yamna were a purely warrior culture bent on conquest and the Cutcuteni-Trypillian were purely peaceful.
The extensive amount of time that the two cultures had in contact with each other is likely to have influenced the later Indo-European Cultures. Indeed similar contact such as the ones between the Romans and the Germans for example ended with the Germanic people adopting Roman Christianity. The Romans before this adopted a number of Etruscan religious and cultural ideas and for centuries after they defeated the Etruscans some Roman nobles still proudly proclaimed that they were related to Etruscans. The Greeks adopted many elements from their neighbors to the near east and the chief deity of the Norse and Germanic peoples adopted many elements from the Uralic people. Yet all of these people fought a number of wars with and occasionally eliminated the societies of the peoples they emulated all together. So while it’s impossible to say of how much of the Cutcuteni-Trypillian culture the Proto-Indo-Europeans would have adopted given that they left no written records to indicate what they believed the written history that we can surmise or read of the Indo-Europeans in Europe seems to indicate that they adopted a lot of cultural elements from their neighbors.


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Origins Of Europe's Fairies - p1

Proto-Indo-Europeans Second Society of Fairies.

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However like nature fairies are fickle. The apsara of India who lived in the forests, lakes, rivers, trees and mountains loved to sing and dance could be dangerously so. Their beauty hid a certain amount of malicious glee and they would often leave humans mentally deranged.
The Nymphs of Greece and the fairies of the Celts too would dance through the forests, playing and laughing with childlike glee as if never able to truly grow up and they too could leave those they encountered insane. But perhaps the most fickle of all are the rusalky of the Slavic peoples who are known to tickle humans to death.
The male counterparts to the nymphs and the apsara were equally as playful, equally as musical. Among the people of India the part horse or bird gandharva were said to guard Soma, the food that made the gods immortal. They aren’t all play, however, for they act as messengers between humans and the gods.
The satyrs of Greek mythology too were originally depicted as having horse tails but through encounters with the Latin peoples who’s Faunas was part goat they too became part goat. By the time fairy tales and myths were collected in Europe nearly every European society has a forest spirit with goat legs. The Leszi of the Slavic peoples were the ultimate bachelors just as the satyrs of Greece were; causing and getting into trouble from too much drink, chasing female humans and fairies around the forests and generally acting rowdy. The outlier in all this are the Glaistig of the Scottish Celts, who are beautiful females with the lower half of a goat. Still despite their gender their role appears to have been similar as nature spirits which herd cattle and love song and dance but which are dangerous for they unlike the others drink human blood.

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Origins Of Europe's Fairies - p1

Proto-Indo-Europeans Second Society of Fairies.
You see them in the distance, on the hill tops for a brief moment as dusk starts to settle in. Anxiously you watch them carefully, uncertain what the strangers might want, and then all at once they are gone. Did they disappear into a ravine? You strain your eyes but the twilight plays tricks on your eyes and you see shadows dancing among the hills so you can never be certain. Even without such experiences however its easy for people to imagine that theirs another society, another set of people living along side them - in the hills and the forests. As stories come in of other peoples from distant lands who have strange and wondrous foods, songs, technologies, or societies - perhaps the first tales of the copper being extracted from rock or a strange looking piece of jewelry – the tales from these stories would grow. Such tales and artifacts may not come often but once is all that’s needed for the tales to begin. It seems unlikely then that there are a people in the world who don’t have some tales of fairies who live much as they do but have strange powers.
Fairy societies are present among every Indo-European people I’ve been able to find folk tales on, from those of the Hindu-Kush and Persia within Asia and the Celts and Germanic peoples of Europe we see the presence of a second society of magical humans who live in a parallel world, humans who we now call fairies. These fairies have a supernatural control over nature - the wild animals are their herd animals and friends so they protect them. People always had to be very careful to respect these fairies for they would haunt buildings or people that were in their paths and at times they would curse and kill those who disrespected their claims on wild animals and plants.
The parallel world in which these fairies lived was all around the Indo-European peoples, hidden by secret doorways into mountains, rocks, cliffs and trees or at the bottom of special lakes and rivers. Tales of deities and fairy like creatures opening windows in cliff faces or doors in the sides of mountains are common, as are stories of people in Europe seeing the fairies living within hills or the craggy rocks.
It seems likely then that the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed that they traveled among fairies which lived within the rocks, mountains, trees and lakes which surrounded them as they herded their animals through the wilderness or went hunting. It’s also likely that the Proto-Indo-Europeans acted to both pacify and keep these fairies at bay while also making offerings to them for luck and healing. Among later Germanic peoples the warriors, priests and poets would worship the gods who could grant them victory and magic, but what do peasants need victory for? For peasants there are the gods, but there are also the fairies which make the plants grow, the fairies which help the animals be fertile and which give or withhold permission to hunt in the wild. These are who the farmers and herders, need bargain with. Long after Europe was Christianized the peasants would still pray to these fairies, they would still make offerings to pear trees and sacred wells, still bargain with the spirits of the hills and rocks.

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Proto-Indo-European's Continued

When daylight came they would return to their work in the fields to harvest plants and cereals or to the Steppes to herd their animals and hunt for food. Later Indo-European peoples would have clearly defined work for men and women, with the later sometimes staying at home or cultivating cereals as the men went out to hunt and herd. It is impossible to say if the Proto-Indo-Europeans had a similar system but it is likely that they did divide work into various castes as nearly all later Indo-Europeans groups would.
The men and women would continue their stories here under the sky which seemed to go on for ever, the sky which they watched carefully for signs of storms as they both passed the time and built upon their values. These stories were likely different from the tales of the night before, for while poetry is an important part of Indo-European mythology so too are folk tales, tales of the clumsy and weak, the ordinary surviving and thriving in a harsh world as well as amusing tales of animals doing strange and silly things. They needed these stories too not only for the distraction but also for the courage and humor they could take from them for like all ancient peoples they faced what seemed an infinite number of dangers After all for most people heroic deeds mean little, for most of us are altogether ordinary. We dream of heroism but relate to the Jacks of folk tales.
In order to help those of them who were ordinary with their ordinary tasks they had the fairies, the spirits of the land. For like later peoples of the steppes and their decedents they too very likely had a fairy faith of sorts, a belief in spirits and souls of the land and sky that could harm or help them. It is these people of the Steppes, the Proto-Indo-Europeans who would come to define the fairy faiths of Europe as they moved into Europe to bring with them what would become the Slavic, Greek, Roman, Germanic, and Celtic languages while replacing the original languages and many of the original ideas of the Native Europeans. So while the Proto-Indo-Europeans weren’t the first peoples of Europe these articles start with them because they became by far its most significant.
The challenges that exist in understanding the original culture of the peoples would eventually come to dominate European culture are many not only because they have fractured into many cultures but because they were likely formed from multiple tribes with multiple leaders and different shamans or priests long before they began their Journey into Europe and India. However there are a number of similarities between Indo-European cultures and a number of linguistic clues which can help us to better understand the general culture of this group of peoples.
The Proto-Indo-Europeans where a pastoral culture, one of the first if not the first to have started breeding horses and wagons (so heavy that they were likely pulled by oxen as horses were still too small to do this) which gave them a level of mobility not enjoyed by nearly any other culture of the time. Such mobility offers many advantages to a society which needs to hunt and herds animals for much of its food. However it can also offer some level of disadvantage as well as horses make it far easier for one tribe to make quick raids on another in order to loot food and women. This in turn can force these societies to become more war like and it is under this catalyst that the Proto-European society developed. This war like nature can be seen in their development of a clear warrior cast whose role was perhaps to raid for cattle from their enemies and recover cattle taken in raids. To aid them in their raids many of their deities including Dyēus ‘the sky father’ who was perhaps one of their most important deities became warlike and could be asked to aid them in their battles, He would later evolve into Zeus, Jupiter, Tyr and other deities of the European pantheons.
Their rituals to these war gods seemed to be of special importance as they would sacrifice great horses (surely one of their most valuable positions) to them in a festival that involved the drinking of *Medhu (the root word for mead and many other sweet honeyed foods and drinks from India to Ireland). They would punish those who failed at war by the sword or the fire or sacrifice humans using the sword and fire to aid in victory.
One of the most important tales of nearly all Indo-Europeans from the Hittites and Vedic to the Norse and the Greeks involved a heroic figure who would loose his cattle to a giant and often times three headed serpent and then would seek the aid of the war god to get them back.
Another important tale is that of the heroic last stand, of warriors fighting a battle that they are destined to die in for glory and to insure the survival of even a few humans. This story would eventually evolve into Ragnarok when spirits of the dead hero’s and the gods would battle a great evil in order to avoid the complete destruction of humanity, knowing full well that they would die in this battle. Such stories would have been important to the warrior cast as part of their role as guardians, for there would likely have been many times when a group of them from one clan or another would have had to face unbeatable odds while allowing the other casts to escape.


It’s important to understand however that while the Proto-Indo-Europeans had a warrior cast with a deity, rituals and tales of their own the whole society was not necessarily obsessed with war. The Proto-Indo-Europeans like other Indo-Europeans societies after them was a triple society with two castes other than the warrior; the priestly caste and the caste of herders. Thus the vast majority of spirits, elements and deities appear to have been related to fertility and the land. Indeed for the Indo-Euorpeans who entered Europe the land and the wilderness were perhaps the most important thing. Oak trees were held to be sacred and the word for temple comes from their word for wood, for sacred grove. The Proto-Indo-European too lived in an area with at least some forestation and would bring their cattle and sheep to the elms and oak to forage, they would use the ash trees to make their spears, the birch to make cloth, and the willow tree to weave baskets. They would plough their fields and use sickles to aid them in harvesting cereals. Their food came from farming and pastoralist activities so the bulk of their people were engaged in these activities. Fertility was of key importance and most of the festivals of Europe and India involve fertility not war. They would sacrifice he-goats and or occasionally people by drowning them to assure the fertility of their animals and the land.
The reason war stories were of such importance may be due in large part to the fact that they are interesting. Just as many of the movies from now are related to heroic fighters even though combat itself doesn’t necessarily define our society so to could their society have been much more peaceful then their tales would seem to indicate.
Ultimately the Proto-Indo-Europeans worshiped the elements and what to them were heroic figures. Their sacrifice to rivers and fire along with the importance of these elements to the Indo-Iranians, the Vedic, and early Europeans indicates that they believed in the importance of the spirits of these elements. Trees too as mentioned previously were likely believed to have important spirits who could aid them in their time of need as did the sun and the moon. In addition to the elements they worshipped what to them were heroic figures. Deities with very clear flaws that involved womanizing, a horrible temper, and a propensity to throw nearly childish temper tantrums. It would seem that like later Europeans they believed fairly early that immortal beings may never completely mature in the way one would expect a human too. But such ‘faults’ were likely considered to be more amusing then actual faults as we see from the dualism of many of their decedent cultures the worst flaws were weakness, guile and trickery much like what would be displayed by Loki in Norse mythology. It was okay then for their deities and the fairies to act lecherous and lusty so long as they weren’t weak or deceitful.

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