The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Ever since I heard her name, Marzanna has appealed to me. Or called to me, I suppose. She is a Slavic goddess of death and winter. Veles, the god of "earth, waters and the underworld," is calling to me as well. I feel very connected to the Slavic pantheon, not in the least because it reflects my heritage.

Does anyone have any reliable sources, online or books, that they could point me to on Slavic mythology or Slavic paganism? I've googled quite a bit, and haven't found a lot.

Also, anybody practice Slavic neopaganism? I would love to talk to you.

 
I practice miscellaneous Baltic/Slavic/Germanic paganism, does that count? We are not many, but we are devoted! And academic! Because there's not much else to go on!

I have some personal experience working with Veles and I believe Marzanna can by syncretised with a Baltic goddess that I work with quite a bit.

What have you looked at, to start with? Unfortunately there's not a good Beginner's Guide To Slavic Paganism that I know of, at least in English.

Ever since I heard her name, Marzanna has appealed to me. Or called to me, I suppose. She is a Slavic goddess of death and winter. Veles, the god of "earth, waters and the underworld," is calling to me as well. I feel very connected to the Slavic pantheon, not in the least because it reflects my heritage.

Does anyone have any reliable sources, online or books, that they could point me to on Slavic mythology or Slavic paganism? I've googled quite a bit, and haven't found a lot.

Also, anybody practice Slavic neopaganism? I would love to talk to you.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Marzanna, though I need to poke at some things there.
My closest connections currently are Veles and Perun.
I have a link that has a fair bit of information, though I don't know how reliable it is.
There's also now a Baltic/Slavic group on the forum as well.

I believe I've seen Morana and Marzanna mentioned as the same goddess, different spelling before. I'm on my phone right now but I should be able to dig something up at home if you want.

Yay for resources! You might also want to check out the Baltic/Slavic group, we'd love to start compiling a list of online resources.

 
I've been eyeing the group for a couple of days, I just have so many things going on right now I'm afraid I'd be nothing but a ghost >.< and I hate being useless!

I know Slovenes call her Mora, but she's not necessarily a deity. It's also the word for "nightmare" and the term for night-dwelling malevolent spirits that bring nightmares and attack infants/children. I've seen Mora and Morana/Morena used interchangeably as well, it's something I've read a fair bit about but haven't had a chance to synchronize my info into something really coherent just yet (not so versed in Polish/Russian/Serbian as I would like to be yet).

Here's some raw, perhaps not-so-accurate, sources. Unfortunately there isn't a lot in English. There's a lot more info in the folklore than there are on most deity-specific blogs and websites, but I'll list a couple sites with lore too. I'll try to get the list up on my blog soonish too so there's a more stable location for information.

Remember, good starting point. But if you really want to understand it, you need to dig into the lore and do a lot of cross-referencing. A lot of what's floating around there isn't really region-specific, and a lot of it is blended. But it helps that you already know what you're looking for.

/end lecture, /list sources

http://slavicmythology.blogspot.com/

http://books.google.com/books?id=i7TqYiG9PIgC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=veselin+%C4%8Dajkanovi%C4%87+buy&source=bl&ots=CYrN4m-1tJ&sig=ivAZGx6hgtJj_kTsyqjH7eeSbtE&hl=en#v=onepage&q=veselin%20%C4%8Dajkanovi%C4%87%20buy&f=false

http://www.irminsul.org/arc/010sz.html

http://www.carantha.net/slovenian_mythology__slovensko_bajeslovje_.htm

http://epika.org/house-of-mythology/4-svarog

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/sfs/index.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31996325/Encyclopedia-of-Russian-and-Slavic-Myth-and-Legend

http://www.zeluna.net/russian-fairy-tale-bozalosc.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20040923043708/http://www.sunbirds.com/readings/index.shtml

http://magie.xchat.sweb.cz/SlavicPaganism.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/C008326/Slavonic/Welcome_SlavicMythology.htm

http://www.dumka.us/Brownie.html

http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/SlavPan.html

http://sms.zrc-sazu.si/En/kazalo.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8432268/Curtain-Myths-and-Folktales-of-the-RussiansWestern-SlavsAnd-Magyars-1903-Complete

http://pagan-soul.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kresnik_%28deity%29


Whew... and now for the books:

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Fairy-Tales-Illustrated-ebook/dp/B006MN5IKQ/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I1EF7YAYZ66CSQ

http://www.amazon.com/Long-time-ago-Russia-ebook/dp/B008HSGWZY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I1KGNQMU8SD35J

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Pantheon-Folklore-Library-ebook/dp/B00ALBR218/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I37IICJRVZL5GA

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Magic-Traditions-Enchanted-Landscape/dp/0835608743/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I1WCBEAMQ1IVC5

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Myths-Legendary-Elizabeth-Warner/dp/0292791585/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I3T1U335N1EMQH

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Folk-Belief-Linda-Ivanits/dp/0873328892/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I34IMD041IX7TL

http://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Tales-Russians-Other-ebook/dp/B0042RV8CQ/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=IUP4X9INID4UA

http://www.amazon.com/Natashas-Dance-Cultural-History-Russia/dp/0312421958/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I1855ZF1V4O2YA

http://www.amazon.com/Slavic-Folklore-Handbook-Greenwood-Handbooks/dp/0313336105/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I2L2UGHPMBJBY3

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Slavic-Myths-Ivan-Hudec/dp/0865164517/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I8I5V21JWKHTV

http://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Tales-Russians-Other-Slavs/dp/1935333003/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I1KSCEMQ1FFKA0

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Russian-Mythology-Stories-Changed/dp/1855384752/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I2Z47FI1S2AV3Q

http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Tales-Russians-Western-Magyars/dp/0486409058/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I20AEML8LRW76

http://www.amazon.com/Balkan-Traditional-Witchcraft-Radomir-Ristic/dp/0979616859/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366163718&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=balkan+witchchraft

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bathhouse-Midnight-Historical-Divination/dp/0271019670/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1ER604X7D6M5G&coliid=I3FS50YU2TAE2T

I know, wall of text.

Be sure that if you look into the actual books, you keep lists of the books' sources and reference lists as well, those are the parts you want...

There are also some free kindle/cloudreader books on amazon regarding Russian/Slavic/Balkan folklore and faery tales, I'll try to dig those out another time. I hope you're ready for some reading. :p

Oh, and I would strongly recommend looking into Slavic culture a bit so you can kind of put it into context. Just a suggestion, I'm not sure how far you want to take it. But I have references for that too... :

 
http://www.amazon.com/Polish-Fairy-Tales-ebook/dp/B005CDX5J8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1366167693&sr=1-1&keywords=free+ebooks+fairy+tales+polish

Link to free e-reader/kindle folklore download. If you peruse the site a bit, you can find similar free downloads for Slavic, Russian, Celtic, Irish, Gaelic, Nordic, English, American, Australian, yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda.

Enjoy!

Thanks so much for all those links! I've seen some of them before, but not all. Lots of great reading material.

 
Feel free to copy/paste it into the Slavic Group thinger.