Slavic fairies
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Fairies in Slavic mythology come in several forms and their names are spelled differently based on the specific language.
Wila
-->In Polish mythology, the Wila (VEE-lah) are reputed in Poland to be female fairy-like spirits who live in the wilderness and sometimes clouds. They were believed to be the spirits of women who had been frivolous in their lifetimes and now floated between here and the afterlife. They sometimes appear as the swans, snakes, horses, falcons, or wolves that they can shapeshift into but usually appear as beautiful maidens, naked or dressed in white with long flowing hair.
It is said that if even one of these hairs is plucked, the Wila will die, or be forced to change back to her true shape. A human may gain the control of a Wila by stealing feathers from her wings. Once she gets them back, however, she will disappear.
The voices of the Wila are as beautiful as they are, and one who hears them loses all thoughts of food, drink or sleep, sometimes for days. Despite their feminine charms, however, the Wila are fierce warriors. The earth is said to shake when they do battle. They have healing and prophetic powers and are sometimes willing to help mankind. Other times they lure young men to dance with them, which according to their mood can be a very good or very bad thing for the lad. They ride on horses or deer when they hunt with their bows and arrows and will kill any man who defies them or breaks his word. Fairy rings of deep thick grass are left where they have danced which should never be trod upon (bad luck).
Offerings for Wila consist of round cakes, ribbons, fresh fruits and vegetables or flowers left at sacred trees and wells and at fairy caves.
Vila
The Vila, or Willi or Veela, are the Slavic versions of nymphs, who have power over storms, which they delight in sending down on lonely travelers. They are known to live in meadows, ponds, oceans, trees, and clouds (cf. Leimakids, Limnades, Oceanids, Dryads, Nephele). They can appear as swans, horses, wolves, or, of course, beautiful women.The Vilia is the Celtic version of this woodland spirit. She enjoys captivating passing men with her beauty, but then abandoning them. In a love song titled Vilia, from "The Merry Widow" by Lehar and Ross, a hunter pines for Vilia, "the witch of the wood".
The Vila may have inspired the Veela, magically captivating women who put men into a trance when singing or dancing and turn into hideous bird-like creatures capable of throwing balls of fire when angered, in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Wili
Among the Slavic creatures of folklore, for the English-speaking world the wilis are indelibly connected with the Romantic ballet Giselle, first danced in Paris in 1840, with its spectral wilis, young girls who have died on their wedding days, who almost snatch away the hero's life-breath, but must disappear at the break of dawn.These wilis have been adapted from a poem of Heinrich Heine, who claimed to be using a Slavic legend. Meyer's Konverationslexikon defines Wiles or Wilis as female vampires, the spirits of betrothed girls who die before their wedding night. According to Heine, wilis are unable to rest in their graves because they could not satisfy their passion for dancing when they were alive. They therefore gather on the highway at midnight to lure young men and dance them to their death. In Serbia they were maidens cursed by God; in Bulgaria they were known as samovily, girls who died before they were baptized; and in Poland they are beautiful young girls floating in the air atoning for frivolous past lives.
The first opera completed by Giacomo Puccini, Le Villi, makes free use of the same thematic material. It had its debut in May 1884 at the Teatro dal Verme, Milan, and was revised for a more successful reception at the Royal Theater, Turin, that December.
Rusalka
For other uses of the word, see Rusalka (disambiguation)
In Slavic mythology, a rusalka was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a lake. She was considered a being of the unclean force or нечистая сила (nechistaya sila). The ghostly version is the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a lake (many of these rusalki had been murdered by lovers) and came to haunt that lake; this undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and will be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged. In most versions, the rusalka is an unquiet dead being. According to Zelenin, people who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide because they have been jilted by their lovers, or unmarried women who are pregnant out of wedlock, must live out their designated time on earth (срок, srok) as a spirit.
Rusalki can also come from unbaptized children, often those who were born out of wedlock and drowned by their mothers for that reason. Baby rusalki supposedly wander the forest begging to be baptized so that they can have peace. They are not necessarily innocent, however, and can attack a human foolish enough to approach them.
While her primary dwelling place was the body of water in which she died, the rusalka could come out of the water at night, climb a tree, and sit there singing songs, sit on a dock and comb her hair, or join other rusalki in circle dances (хороводы, chorovod) in the field. Though in some versions of the myth, the eyes shine like green fire, others describe them as extremely pale, with no visible pupils, such as in the famous Ivan Bilibin drawing. Her hair is sometimes depicted as green, and often perpetually wet. According to some legends, should the rusalka's hair dry out, she will die.
Rusalki like to seduce men. They can do so by enticing men with their singing and then drowning them. Men seduced by the rusalka could die in her arms, and in some versions her laugh could also cause death (compare with the Irish banshee). She corresponds to the Scandinavian and German Nix.
In Polish mythology, rusalki dwell in the waters from fall to spring; in some traditions, they reside in the waters from summer to fall. In other tales, they become Sky Women when they return from the waters. They are called "Queen of Fairies", and it is said that only witches dare to swim with rusalki. Rusalki brought moisture to field and forest.
Another Polish tradition considers rusalki tree spirits which could be found on nights when there was a new moon, dancing in open places in the forests of Poland.
In Ukraine rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw beautiful men, they would fascinate them with songs & dancing, mesmirise them, then lead the person away to the river floor, to live with them.
The rusalka was the main character in Antonín Dvořák's eponymous opera. The name has also been given to a lake in Poland and a Bulgarian resort on the Black Sea.
Sky Women
In Polish mythology, sky women were the warm-weather incarnations of the rusalki. Slavic women would go out in the first snowfall and build snow women to honor them, as snow is believed to be brought by the sky women. One belief has it that the thunder and lightning of springtime are brought on by Sky Women mating with the thunder gods; hence spring festivals included a celebration of the return of the rusalki from the waters with the placing of wreaths on the waters, and with circle dances and fire festivals.See also
References
Linda Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief. Armonk, N.Y. and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1989.М. Власов. Новая абевега русских суеверий. Санкт Петербург: Северо-запад. 1995
Wilkinson, Philip Illustarted Dictionary of Mythology (1998)
Д.К. Зеленин. Очерки русской мифологии: Умершие неестественною смертью и руссалки. Москва: Индрик. 1995.
External Links
http://thosethatwalk.tripod.com/Rusalkas.htmlhttp://farshores.org/p04elv.htm
http://www.admin.debryansk.ru/~press/Parkmus3.html
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