Kikimora ( rus, кикимора, p=kʲɪˈkʲimərə) is a
legendary creature, a female
house spirit
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
in
Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology or Slavic religion is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Balk ...
. Her role in the house is usually juxtaposed with that of the
domovoy
In the Slavic religious tradition, Domovoy (Russian: Домово́й, literally "he oneof the household"; also spelled ''Domovoi'', ''Domovoj'', and known as pl, Domowik or Serbian and ua, Домовик, translit=domovyk) is the household ...
. The kikimora can either be a "bad" or a "good" spirit, which will depend on the behavior of the homeowner.
When the kikimora inhabits a house, she lives behind the stove or in the cellar, and usually produces noises similar to those made by mice in order to obtain food. Kikimory (in plural) were the first traditional explanation for
sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episod ...
in
Russian folklore
Folklore of Russia is folklore of Russians and other ethnic groups of Russia.
Russian folklore takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are also an important ...
.
Etymology
Most sources link the suffix -''mora'' with the
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
*''morà'' ('nightly spirit, bad dream') and the
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...
*''marōn'' (''id.''), as in the modern English
nightmare.
In
Polish folklore
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
,
mora are the souls of living people that leave the body during the night, and are seen as wisps of straw or hair or as moths. Accordingly,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
''mora'',
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
''můra'' denote both a kind of elf or spirit as well as a "
sphinx moth
The Sphingidae are a family of moths (Lepidoptera) called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as “hornworms”; it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, but ...
" or "night butterfly". Other
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
with cognates that have the double meaning of
moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
are:
Kashubian ''mòra'', and
Slovak ''mora''.
In Slovene, Croatian and Serbian, ''mora'' refers to a "nightmare". ''Mora'' or ''Mara'' is one of the spirits from ancient Slav mythology. Mara was a dark spirit that takes a form of a beautiful woman and then visits men in their dreams, torturing them with desire, and dragging life out of them. In Serbia, a mare is called ''mora'', or ''noćnik/noćnica'' ("night creature", masculine and feminine respectively). In Romania they were known as ''
Moroi
A moroi (sometimes moroii in modern fiction; pl. ''moroi'') is a type of vampire or ghost in Romanian folklore. A female moroi is called a moroaică (pl. ''moroaice''). In some versions, a moroi is a phantom of a dead person which leaves the grav ...
''.
The word ''kikimora'' may have derived from the
Udmurt (
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
) word ''kikka-murt'', meaning ''scarecrow'' (literally ''bag-made person'').
History
The origin of the kikimora comes from the 8th to 13th century when
Slavic paganism was slowly subsumed by
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
. However, even after Christianity took hold in the Slavic regions, the belief of the kikimora was still strong. Belief in the entity still continues today where it is imbued with old Slavic folk religion and Christianity's concept of demonic forces.
Features and behaviours
![Kikimora by Hippius 04](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Kikimora_by_Hippius_04.png)
The kikimora might have the snout of a dog, a chicken beak or can even resemble a goat-like entity with glowing eyes and horns. In fact, it can take any part of an animal's face or body. It is always feminine and can appear as an old woman or a beautiful girl. She might even appear as a deceased family member.
The swamp kikimora is usually described as a small, ugly, hunchbacked, thin, and scruffy old woman with a pointed nose and disheveled hair. She was said to use moss and grass as clothes. It was believed that she frightens people, knocks travelers off the road or even drowns them. She also kidnaps children.
It is a common belief that ''mora'' enters the room through the keyhole, sits on the chest of the sleepers and tries to strangle them (hence ''moriti'', "to torture", "to bother", "to strangle"). To repel ''moras'', children are advised to look at the window or to turn the pillow and make a sign of cross on it (''prekrstiti jastuk''); in the early 19th century,
Vuk Karadžić
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...
mentions that people would repel ''moras'' by leaving a broom upside down behind the door, or putting their belt on top of their sheets, or saying an elaborate prayer poem before they go to sleep.
There are two different kinds of kikimoras. The one that comes from the forest is married to the
Domovoi
In the Slavic religious tradition, Domovoy ( Russian: Домово́й, literally "he oneof the household"; also spelled ''Domovoi'', ''Domovoj'', and known as pl, Domowik or Serbian and ua, Домовик, translit=domovyk) is the household ...
. The other one comes from the swamp (russian: кикимора болотная) and is married to
Leshy. It is said that she can be identified by her wet footprints. When home builders wanted to cause harm to someone buying a house, they would bring in kikimora. Once she is inside, it is difficult to get her to leave.
There is a Russian
bylichka about one swamp kikimora, who loved to brew beer. Her name was Baba Bolotnitsa (russian: Баба-болотница). When she was brewing beer, fog rose over the river (or swamp).
When the house is in order, kikimora looks after the chickens and housework. If not, she whistles, breaks dishes, and makes noises at night. She also comes out at night to
spin thread.
Legacy
![Kikimora im Sumpf by V](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Kikimora_im_Sumpf_by_V.I._Denisov_%28priv.coll%29.jpg)
The legend is the basis of ''Kikimora'' (op. 63), a
tone poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...
for
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
by
Anatoly Lyadov
Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov (russian: Анато́лий Константи́нович Ля́дов; ) was a Russian composer, teacher, and conductor (music), conductor.
Biography
Lyadov was born in 1855 in Saint Petersburg, St. Petersbur ...
. Lyadov wrote that she "grows up with a magician in the mountains. From dawn to sunset the magician’s cat regales kikimora with fantastic tales of ancient times and faraway places, as kikimora rocks in a cradle made of crystal. It takes her seven years to reach maturity, by which time her head is no larger than a thimble and her body no wider than a strand of straw. Kikimora spins flax from dusk and to dawn, with evil intentions for the world."
The kikimora is mentioned by
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n "
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...
" writer
Vladimir Megre
Vladimir Megre ( rus, Влади́мир Никола́евич Мегре́; né Puzakov; rus, Пузако́в; born 23 July 1950) is a Russian entrepreneur and writer best known as the author of the ''Ringing Cedars of Russia'' (also known a ...
in ''The Space of Love'', Book 3 of his "Ringing Cedars" series. Megre likens a man who marries unwisely based on looks and fashion to one who marries a kikimora. A footnote in the English version describes the kikimora as a malevolent female ghost said to attach itself to a particular house and disturb the inhabitants, males in particular. By extension, the term may also suggest an ugly woman in shabby clothing, ill-tempered and grumbling, striving to make the life of her husband (and men in general) unbearable.
In 1988,
Kirill Eskov
Kirill Yuryevich Eskov (russian: Кири́лл Ю́рьевич Есько́в; born 16 September 1956) is a Russian writer, biologist and paleontologist.
As an author he is known for '' The Gospel of Afranius'' in which he presents an atheistic ...
discovered and described a new genus and species of
sheetweaver spider, ''
kikimora palustris
''Kikimora'' is a monotypic genus of dwarf spiders containing the single species, ''Kikimora palustris''. It was first described by K. Y. Eskov in 1988, and has only been found in Finland, Norway, and Russia.
Derivation of name
When Eskov disc ...
'' after this spirit.
The 2015 video game ''
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt'' and 2019 television series ''
The Witcher
''The Witcher'' ( pl, Wiedźmin ) is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher", Geralt of Rivia. In Sapkowski's works, "witchers" are be ...
'' both include depictions of kikimora.
Cultural analysis
The concept of the kikimora is thought to serve basic functions and duties of the household. A kikimora would haunt a household if a woman did not keep a clean house; if a husband was lazy or abusive; or if children were poorly disciplined. Reversing one's behaviour is believed to remove her presence from the house. Besides that, the kikimora entity is thought to console or explain tragic events like the death of a family member or the loss of household items.
References
{{Authority control
Russian folklore characters
Tutelary deities
Female legendary creatures
Nav'
Slavic household deities
Slavic folklore characters