Mythology of water and bodies of water. Water spirits, legends, beliefs, cosmogonic and etiological stories

In this book, for the first time, the water element, presented in the North Russian folk mythological prose, is frontally considered. As the deities of this element, both the lakes, rivers, streams, and a mythological character, which are more or less released from the water, and the host of the river /lake, as well as a character associated with water, but negatively rethought to a greater or lesser extent. Perceived by mythological consciousness as a pristine living element, water plays a dominant role in the cosmogenesis. It also gives an impulse to re -border the world, the transformation of the landscape and society. Water deities predetermine and predict the human fate. Their will determine the rhythms of the life cycle inherent in each individual. The same deities participate in the everyday life of peasant being. Studies are accompanied by a text of texts - 252 mythological stories, mainly for the first time introduced into scientific circulation. The texts are equipped with comments, signs, dictionary of dialect and obsolete words. This is the most extensive collection of bypasses, exposure, beliefs, cosmogonic and etiological stories devoted to the aquatic theme. These texts serve as a material for research undertaken in this book, and themselves are revealed through these studies.
For folklorists, ethnographers, art historians, historians, religious scholars, psychologists, as well as for all fans of folk culture