Ivanovo herbs

Herbs possessing magical properties include: spiny grass, fern, or kochemozhydnik , tirlych-lyhmannika , plakun grass , datura , adam’s head , swamp cabbage, rhubarb, one-grass ( cyanosis ?), Wild strawberry , carry-over, sleep rupture-grass , flight-grass , ivan da marya , budyag, thistle , plantain , burdock , kupalenka , bear’s ear , rich girl , chernobilnik , buttercup , archiline ( calamus ?), formic oil, copperfish, or chicken blindness and peter cross ^[2] .

Ukrainians said that healing herbs are cultivated by mermaids and mawks , who know all their medicinal properties ^[3] .

According to the Belarussian belief, Kupala herbs are as curative as possible if they are collected by “old and small”, that is, old people and children — as the cleanest (not living sexually, without monthly cleansing, etc.) ^[4] .

Ukrainian girls were required to tear wormwood , because they believed that witches and mermaids were afraid of her. Wormwood was worn on a belt, woven into wreaths, stuck into the walls of houses and gates in order to block the way of witches ^[5] .

Greens were used as a universal amulet: it was believed that it protects against diseases and epidemics, the evil eye and spoilage; from sorcerers and witches, evil spirits, "walking" dead; from natural lightning, hurricane, fire; from snakes and predatory animals, pests, worms. Along with this, contact with fresh herbs was also interpreted as a magical tool providing fertility and successful breeding of livestock, poultry, and the yield of cereal and garden crops ^[6] .

They tried to collect herbs early in the morning on Midsummer Day before sunrise, since, according to popular beliefs, only those plants that the sun did not have time to preserve the healing properties (Bulgarian, white, Ukrainian). It was at this time that "every herb asks to break it and reveals its healing power." They collected not only medicinal herbs, but also amulets (nettle, wormwood, branches of thorny bushes), as well as herbs and flowers intended for fortune telling, for ceremonial wreaths and bouquets, plants for making brooms, brooms, baskets ^[3] .

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, grass gatherers were prosecuted along with inveterate criminals. “The great holiday comes, the Forerunner’s Christmas day,” the chronicler wrote, “the charmer’s husbands and wives come out through meadows and marshes and in deserts and oak groves, looking for mortal grass and grass, from grassy greenery to man-made cattle and cattle; the same and the rooting division are digging for indulgence by her husband. This is all done with the action of the devil, with satanic sentences. " In the "Bit Books" are records of a number of ancient judicial red tape about such herbalists. It was enough to find someone unknown root or a bunch of unknown grass, to this was given the meaning of malice. The “sorcerers” caught on the eve of Ivan’s day were tortured, beaten with bats, so that “it would be common to carry and collect herbs and roots” ^[7] .

Fern was especially distinguished from other plants, it was considered a devilish and at the same time wonderful potion. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, collecting "Ivanovo" plants, the fern did not dare to take, calling it "witching" grass. In other places, on the contrary, it was the main one in the series of plants: large bundles of fern were hung in a stable against witches (Rechitsky Polesye); in the Grodno region, one of the names of the day is Paparazzi Zen . All Slavs have known beliefs about the witching properties of its flower blooming at night ^{[8] [9]} .

One of the main symbols of St. John's Day was the flower of Ivan da Marya , which symbolized the magical union of fire and water. Folk legends connect the origin of this flower with the twins - brother and sister - who entered into a forbidden love relationship and because of this turned into a flower. This legend goes back to the archaic myth of twin incest and finds numerous parallels in Indo-European mythologies . Ivan da Maria often appear in Kupala songs, for example:

Ivan Maryu
Call to the bathhouse.
Where did Ivan swim -
The shore swayed.
Where Mary was swimming -
The grass spread.
Ivan bathed,
Yes, it fell into the water ^[10] .

For the prolificacy of domestic animals, they added Ivan-da-Marya grass collected before Ivan Kupala to sunrise ^[11] .

Bitter wormwood , Chernobyl (common wormwood) , God's tree (medicinal wormwood) - plants with a bitter taste and smell, used to neutralize evil spirits, as well as for healing and magical purposes; symbol of longing, grief, anger, cf. Russian proverbs: “It’s not me who planted wormwood, the cursed mother itself was born”; “Another's wife is a swan, and her own is wormwood” ^[12] .

According to popular beliefs, garlic, horseradish and wormwood serve as protection against mavok and mermaids. Fearing the dead on Trinity week, they were hung on the cross for a week with wormwood and tatarnik (Ukrainian-pol.). To protect themselves from evil spirits, on Thursday in the Rusal week, girls wove wormwood in the braid (Ukrainian). To protect "their" space from evil spirits, on the eve of Ivan's Day, burdock leaves, wormwood, alder branches (half) were laid on the roof. Universal amulets from fever were considered willow, wormwood, and cancer ^[13] .

East Slavs on the eve of Ivanov or the Spirit of the Day as a talisman from mermaids, sorcerers and other evil spirits laid out nettles on the windows, on the thresholds of houses. In Pinsk Polesie on Kupala they hung K. on the door of the canopy, at the crib - from the mermaids. On Ivanov’s day before swimming in the river, nettles were thrown into the water to protect them from mermaids (Poltava); K- was thrown into the windows of the houses with the sentence: “Nettle into the house, and the bug out” (archangel.). In the Czech Republic, it was believed that water would not cause harm to a person who has nettles in his hands ^[14] .

• Ivan Kupala
• Kupala wreath
• Kupalsky tree
• Fern flower

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