Witches in Slavic Belief. Part 2: The Polessian Witch

THE POLESIAN WITCH

Names and Titles. There is an absolute dominance of the term witch (*vedma*). Alongside it, names of the following type are used: healer, sorceress, enchantress, fortune-teller, and whisperer. Sometimes taboo or abusive expressions are used, such as "the one who knows," "she-devil," "snake," or "viper." In Belarusian Midsummer (*Kupala*) songs, synonyms or substitutes for the word "witch" include "enchantress," "crop-twisting hag," "water nymph" (*rusalka*), "grass snake," and "flying serpent."

Appearance. The witch is predominantly anthropomorphic, appearing as a woman, though ideas about her physical appearance are somewhat vague. Most often, loose hair, untidiness, gray locks, and old age are mentioned. Occasionally, a peculiar gaze is noted, such as a gloomy or downcast look, or an inability to look people in the eye. Distinguishing physical features of a witch include a woman having a mustache, a unibrow, two rows of teeth, or a small, hidden tail. Often, attention is drawn to her wearing white clothes or being entirely naked.

Genesis. There is almost no information about the origin of the witch. It is implied that she is in league with the devil—these are "trained" witches—but there are also "born" witches, who are born to a witch mother. A rare account from the Brest region states: "If a girl gives birth to a girl, and she in turn gives birth to a girl, then the third will be a witch" (that is, the third consecutive generation of female-only births). Magical abilities could also be acquired by a woman to whom a dying witch managed to pass on her "knowledge" or her "spirit."

Shapeshifting. This is one of the most prominent traits of the Polesian witch. Most often she takes the form of a toad, cat, dog, or pig. She can also turn into a bird (crow, goose, wild duck, stork, swallow), an animal (horse, calf, cow, bull, she-wolf, mouse, grass snake, turtle, viper), or quite often, inanimate objects (a wheel, sieve, haystack, ball of yarn, branch, stick, bush, hoop, basket).

Time of Activation. A striking feature that aligns the witch with other demonic entities that appear at specific times is the dependence of her behavior on certain periods of the calendar. Typically, a real woman acts as a witch—changing her form, actively harming people, or flying to the Sabbath—on specific days. In Polesie, this is primarily Midsummer Night; alongside Midsummer, other dates include St. George's Day, the Green Holidays, the Annunciation, Easter, and several others. Sometimes the time of her activation is linked to the full moon or dark, stormy nights.

Malevolent Actions. Without a doubt, stealing milk from cows occupies the first place. For this purpose, the witch collects dew from field boundaries and pastures by dragging a linen cloth, apron, or shirt across the grass, then wrings out the fabric to feed her own cow, or simply hangs the item used to collect the dew inside her house, and milk flows from it. Among other, rarer ways of stealing "abundance" (that is, prosperity or profit), the witch might steal fat from pigs, causing pigs in neighboring yards to waste away while their fat is mysteriously transferred to the witch's pigs. She might also twist knots in rye or flax to steal the harvest or otherwise harm the owners of the field, or pluck feathers from chickens to steal their egg-laying capacity.

The second most common malevolent action is the ability to cast evil spells on people, livestock, poultry, crops, food, yarn, and the like, causing people and animals to sicken and die, newborns to cry, family members to quarrel, weddings to fall apart, food to spoil, threads to break, and work to fail. Additional, secondary roles include the ability to control the elements (bringing or withholding rain, causing hailstorms and tempests); transforming a person into an animal or placing them under a spell; scaring or pursuing people in the form of an animal or a moving object; and riding on a person’s back. Relatively rare accounts suggest that after her death, a witch drinks human blood (Volhynia); lures people and drowns them in water (Brest); if she watches flying birds, they drop dead to the ground (Brest); and in the presence of a witch, women cannot spin much yarn because all the thread goes to the witch’s spindle (Rivne).

This set of primary functions of the Polesian witch is closely matched by the list of villainous deeds recorded in Belarusian Midsummer songs, which say that the witch is burned at the stake or driven away so that she:

would not walk at night,

would not open the barns,

would not milk the cows,

would not harm the goats,

would not skim the cheese and butter,

would not fly over the fields,

would not twist cursed knots and shapes in the crops,

would not break the rye,

would not steal the abundance,

would not gather the dew,

would not spoil the spinning,

would not cause harm to people,

would not bewitch beautiful girls,

would not breed more witches,

would not dry them in the oven,

would not grind them in the millstones,

would not cast an evil eye on little children.

Habitual Occupations, Inclinations, and Behaviors. The primary and most prominent characteristic in this category is the motif of nightly gatherings, assemblies of witches, and their collective revelries at crossroads, on field boundaries, in trees, and on mountaintops, where they dance, leap, feast, and fight. A variation of the typical Western European motif of witches flying to a Sabbath to engage in orgies with devils is also known in Polesie, but it is weakly expressed here and gives the impression of being borrowed. Another common occupation of witches is gathering herbs and roots on specific feast days, and standing naked with loose hair in grain fields.

It is frequently noted that during holiday church services, witches try to acquire magical power by touching liturgical objects or the priest's vestments. Among the less common beliefs are the following: she can enter a house through a tiny hole, crack, or keyhole (Gomel region); on Midsummer Night, she guards the blooming fern flower to prevent humans from picking it (Rivne region); she plucks the fern flower herself for her own sorcery (Brest region); she rules over snakes on the Day of the Exaltation of the Cross, when they all gather in the forest (Chernihiv region); and she commands devils (Gomel region).

Methods of Recognition. This is one of the most characteristic themes in beliefs about the witch and double-souled beings (*dvoedushnik*) in general. Since a witch is a real woman living among people, the main goal of the rituals and customs associated with her days of activation is the need to identify, track, expose, and neutralize her. Most Polesian Midsummer customs serve this purpose: boiling a milk-strainer, aspen pegs, needles, or ants; stretching a hemp thread across the road to identify the witch by the behavior of her cow; maiming any animal found near cows on Midsummer Night; and various measures taken during church services.

Ritual practices for expelling or destroying the witch add significant details to the Polesian lore surrounding her. Since a separate study is dedicated to this central motif of all Polesian Midsummer rituals, we will only note here that it is reflected in all areas, elements, and forms of the Midsummer ritual complex, ranging from the mental (prohibitions, beliefs, and explanations) and the verbal (terminology, phraseology, and folklore texts) to the physical actions (burning an effigy of the "witch" and her tools).

Motifs. Since many beliefs and ideas about mythological characters take shape and function as memorates (*bylichka*), a further way to characterize the witch is through the set of typical motifs found in the local tradition. In the Polesian territory, absolute dominance in this genre belongs to the motif of "maiming a shapeshifting animal" with the goal of identifying which of the neighbors turns out to be the injured witch. Countless variants of these tales are told in every Polesian village.

Also popular are legends about the ways witches steal milk from cows; about a person who copied her magical actions while collecting dew, only to have milk flow endlessly in his own house; about the difficult death of a witch; about her flights riding on a broomstick, fire poker, birch stick, or in a mortar or sieve to the Sabbath or other gatherings; about a person who followed her to the Sabbath; about shapeshifting, various forms of crop-spoiling, and several others.

— L. N. Vinogradova, “The General and the Specific in Slavic Beliefs about the Witch,” 1992.