Ukrainian mythology has spread its ancient roots into nearly all spheres of people's lives, and its characters are far from forgotten in Ukraine. As a phenomena of folk psychology, they live on daily in Ukrainian sayings, songs, and ceremonies, still influencing the country's culture today.
Many of Ukraine's mythical creatures have well-known counterparts in global folklore. Ukrainian vovkulaka is known abroad as a werewolf, an upyr is a vampire, a vid'ma is a witch, and a rusalka is a mermaid. In this text, however, we will focus on uniquely Ukrainian (and sometimes Slavic) creatures.
Mavka, sometimes also called Nyavka, is an incredibly beautiful playful girl trapped between physical and paranormal worlds by her untimely death. Legend holds that she lives in the mountains and forests, which is where people saw her in the days of old. She has green hair and an exposed back where her internal organs are fully visible.
Lesya Ukrainka, who put the legend of Mavka to the page with her classic play The Forest Song, described her thusly:
"Like a girl... no, more like a lady, because your hands are white, and you're so slender, and you're dressed in a way that's not quite like ours... But why aren't your eyes green? No, now they are green... but they were blue, like the sky... Oh! Now they're gray, like that cloud... no, it seems they're black, or maybe brown... you are truly strange!"
The Ukrainian literary tradition usually portrays Mavka in a positive light, particularly her oneness with nature. "Where Mavka dances, the grass grows taller and thicker," wrote scholar and prominent Ukrainian writer Ivan Nechuy-Levytskyi. However, we should not forget that common folk used to fear that Mavka's ethereal beauty could lead to danger
for wayward travelers, mostly men.
In Ukrainian mythology, an ancient pre-Christian, semi-corporeal creature that appears like a bad dream to confuse minds is called Mara. It is closely related to mare in English.
Mara has solidly established itself in Ukrainian folklore with local sayings, like 'May Mara devour you!' and an unease expression 'It is as if Mara is wandering here.' Those were collected from different people by Fedir Potushniak, a Ukrainian ethnographer, who described Mara as an incorporeal witch.
Other scholars say that the character of Mara had at least some sort of physical manifestation, which people would encounter when on the edge of sleep and unsleeping.
Scholar Marta Beletich explains that in Ukrainian folk superstition, the boundary between sleep, death, and fate was blurred, with sleep seen as an intermediate state where the dead live in the dreams of the living.
Thus, this is the domain where Mara would appear.
Ukrainians share Mara, known under many different names, with Polish, Czech, and Bulgar folks. However, its features vary worldwide as well as an attitude towards the creature. For example, in Sloboda Ukraine (in the country's northeast), there was a tradition of burning her in effigy.
A gloomy old man whose eyelids sag to the ground preventing him from seeing is Viy. Be aware of him when his eyelids are raised as it is when no one can hide from his cursed view.
Viy is now been forever tied to the mysterious personality of 19th-century writer Mykola Hohol, who wrote an eponymous novel:
"Viy is a colossal creation of folk imagination. Among Ukrainians, this name is given to the chief of the gnomes, whose eyelids reach down to the ground. The entire story is a folk legend. I didn't want to change anything and am recounting it with almost the same simplicity in which I heard it," Hohol explained.
However, scholars struggled to find Viy elsewhere in Ukrainian mythology. As Hohol was deeply immersed in Ukrainian folklore, he may have found Viy in a rare local oral tradition. However, his novel would end up creating a definitive understanding of the character.
The name stems from the Ukrainian word 'viyi,' which means eyelashes. This is indeed how Viy exercises his power -- he can bring destruction and ruin with the mere glare of his eyes. According to the ethnographic guide Ukrainian Bygone Times, all sayings about evil eye and jinx (by an unkind look) are connected particularly to Viy, although they do not mention his appearance.
Some Ukrainians still pay attention to the lore of the 'evil eye' in everyday life, wearing a red thread amulet on their wrist.
If you swear, let your house get messy, or otherwise make an unpleasant atmosphere in your home, Ukrainian folklore warns that you risk the wrath of Domovyk. As a Slavic household spirit, it can either be your protector or your curse, depending on how you treat it.
Domovyk is a corporeal creature, visible only to his house's owners. He is usually described as a small man, sometimes hairy, living either in the attic or beside the threshold. These two contrasting places, up and down, symbolize that Domovyk fell from a respected house patron to a demon in the Ukrainians' perception.
Ethnographer Volodymyr Halaichuk found that the first documented mention of a household spirit among Eastern Slavs dates back to the end of the 14th century. However, it is well known that Ukrainian demonology dates back to pre-Christian times.
As the knowledge of these spirits was usually passed down orally (until the 19th century at least), it is impossible to tell for sure when exactly Domovyk or other such characters first came about.
The reason Ukrainians revered Domovyk lies in their ancestors' nomadic way of life. As proto-Ukrainians entered the territories or buildings previously inhabited by others, they paid respect to the spirits that came before them. Some scholars suggest this contributed to the development of the modern image of Domovyk.
Two rival sisters who govern human lives at different times, always invisibly accompanying people, are spirits known in Ukraine as Dolia and Nedolia.
In Ukrainian mythology, corporeal and incorporeal mythical creatures coexist, and Dolia and Nedolia are the second ones. To put it simply, Dolya, the good sister, brings people luck, success, and protection from misfortune, while Nedolya brings bad luck, evil, and ruin.
The ancient Slavs personified both sisters and revered them as patronesses. They would appeal to Dolya for their own good fortune, and to Nedolya for misfortune upon their enemies. As goddesses, both were believed to have physical traits and to be associated with the craft: weaving of cloth.
However, all features of Dolia and Nedolia were lost in time which made them abstract powers still relevant today: the word dolya is neutral and means simply fate in Ukrainian, while nedolya is used to mean only a bad fate or lack of luck.
A forest god, unknown to other mythologies except for the Ukrainian Carpathians, who protects the folk from soul-takers like Mavka is known to us as Chuhayster.
Chuhayster is a male spirit, usually described as an anthropomorphic huge hairy creature with bright blue eyes.
Although most folklore evidence testifies to Chuhayster's general kindness, Olena Romanova notes the creature's hidden dark side:
The playful and cheerful nature of the Chuhayster often led people into mortal danger. The fascination with dance, and ultimately, whirling like a vortex, are actions tinged with fatality. This makes Chuhayster similar to Mavka --- the impossibility of stopping, ecstasy, excessive play.
Chuhayster was believed to have transformed into a sort of tornado, which earned him the nickname "windy grandpa." This name also reflects the people's sympathetic attitude toward him and their sense of kinship, as grandpa literally means ancestor. These and other facts have led scholars to conclude that Chuhayster was once considered a god in ancient times but, over time, fell in status to a demon.
Given their unbelievable appearances and superpowers, the beings of Ukrainian mythology may seem as fantastic as fairytale characters. However, they are not, at least not always as they represent the thinking of our pre-Christian ancestors. Thus, their meaning is still felt within the literary and cultural traditions of contemporary Ukrainians who get inspiration from them.
This article was produced in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute, Ukraine's major cultural and public diplomacy institution.
