Komi mythology is the traditional

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

of the

Komi peoples The Komi ( kv, комияс, ' also ', also called Komi-Zyryans or Zyryans, are an indigenous Permian ethnic group whose homeland is in the northeast of European Russia around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama rivers. They mostly ...

northern Russia Russian North (russian: Русский Север) is an ethnocultural region situated in the northwestern part of Russia. It spans the regions of Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, Komi Republic, Vologda Oblast and Nenets Autonomous ...

Gods and spirits

*En (Ен) - "Strength". The good

creator god A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatris ...

, and the enemy of Kul. He took the form of a swan. *Kul' or Omöl' (Куль or Омӧль) - "Weakness". A

god of water In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

and of the dead, and the evil creator god. He took the form of a

grebe Grebes () are aquatic diving birds in the order Podicipediformes . Grebes are widely distributed freshwater birds, with some species also found in marine habitats during migration and winter. Some flightless species exist as well, most notably ...

. * Vasa (Васа) - Another water spirit. Like Kul, he could be malicious and had to be appeased by throwing bread, a stick, cakes or tobacco into the water. He was the friend of millers. *Olys' or Olysya (Олысь or Олыся) - A hearth spirit, the equivalent of the Russian

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 ...

. Under the name Rynyshsa (Рынышса) he is a water spirit associated with baths, appearing as a little hunchbacked old man with a white beard. *Aika (Айка) - "Father" or "Parent". A spirit who protects a specific place. They became enemies of Stephen of Perm. *Peludi-Aika (Пелуди-Айка) - "Father

Cornflower ''Centaurea cyanus'', commonly known as cornflower or bachelor's button, is an annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae native to Europe. In the past, it often grew as a weed in cornfields (in the broad sense of "corn", referring to Foo ...

". A spirit who forbade peasants to leave the house on 20 July. If they disobeyed, their corn was ravaged. *Pyvsyan'sa (Пывсяньса) - Master of the

bath-house Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

, the equivalent of the Russian

bannik The Bannik () is a bathhouse ('' banya'') spirit in Slavic mythology.Alexinsky, G. ''Slavonic Mythology'' in ''New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology''. Prometheus Press, 1973, p. 287-88 He is usually described as a small, naked old man with a l ...

. He appears as a little man in a red hat with fiery eyes. *Voipel' (Войпель) - God of the cold north wind and

of the night "Of the Night" is a song by British band Bastille, released on 11 October 2013 as the lead single from ''All This Bad Blood'' (2013), a reissue of their debut studio album '' Bad Blood'' (2013). The song debuted at number two on the UK Singl ...

. His name means "North/Midnight Wind". *Vörsa (Вöрса) - Spirit of the forest, the equivalent of the Russian leshy.Aronov, Igor. ''Kandinsky's Quest: A Study in the Artist's Personal Symbolism, 1866–1907''. Peter Lang, 2006, p. 41. Each forest has its own Vörsa. Hunters offered furs, bread and salt or tobacco to him in the hope he would help them catch game.

Creation myth

A duck egg gave birth to En and Omöl, the spirits of good and evil respectively. En took the form of a

swan Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...

, Omöl that of a

. They rose from the bottom of the primordial ocean to create the world.

Soul

In Komi religious belief the human

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

(лов, "lov") had a double (орт, "ort", or орд, "ord"). The ort is born with each human being and gives a premonition of death either to the person who is to die or to one of their family.

Underworld

The land of the dead was usually thought to be far to the north of the living, beyond mountains, rivers and forests. The Komi equivalent of the Styx (the river of the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

) was "Syr Yu" (Сыр Ю), "River of Pitch". Dead souls were assigned various means of crossing the river, according to their sins in this world: an iron bridge, a shaky beam, a thin pole or a cobweb. After this the dead had to climb a huge slippery mountain. This was only possible if the person had led a good life and had strong fingernails. Traditionally, the Komis kept their fingernail clippings so they could be buried with them for use in the afterlife.

Shamans and sorcerers

The Komis had

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...

s and believed in sorcerers and witches. The most notorious witch in Komi folklore is Yoma (or Yoma-Baba).

Video games

* Black Book * The Mooseman

References

* Avril, Yves. ''Parlons komi''. Harmattan, 2006. pp. 142-147. * Coates, J. G. “Shomvukva. A Komi Folk-Tale”. In: ''Folklore'' 77, no. 4 (1966): 257–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1258668. * Konakov, Nikolay. "Rationality and mythological foundations of calendar symbols of the ancient Komi". In: ''Shamanism and Northern Ecology''. Edited by Juha Pentikäinen. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2011

996 Year 996 ( CMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * February - Chotoku Incident: Fujiwara no Korechika and Takaie shoot an arrow at Retired Em ...

pp. 135-142. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110811674.135 * Konakov, N. D. "Komi Mythology". In: ''Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies''. Akadémai Kiadó, 1999. * Kuznetsov, Nikolai. "Komi Folklore. Collected by

Paul Ariste Paul Ariste (3 February 1905 – 2 February 1990) was an Estonian linguist renowned for his studies of the Finno-Ugric languages (especially Estonian and Votic), Yiddish and Baltic Romani language. He was born as Paul Berg, in Rääbise, V� ...

". In: ''Folklore'' vol. 29 (2005): 191-196. doi:10.7592/FEJF2005.29.komi * * Misharina, Galina. "Funeral and Magical Rituals among the Komi". In: ''Folklore'' vol. 47 (2011): 155-172. doi:10.7592/FEJF2011.47.misharina * Pantiukhin, Dmitri Aleksandrovich (2012). "The Komi-Permiak Prollaver Feast Day with the Bykoboi ull-SlaughterRite". In: ''Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia'', 51:2, 8-40. DOI: 10.2753/AAE1061-1959510201 * Podyukov, Ivan A.
О НЕКОТОРЫХ ОСОБЕННОСТЯХ КОМИ-ПЕРМЯЦКОЙ ХРОНОНИМИКИ
BOUT SOME PECULIARITIES OF KOMI-PERMYAK CHRONONYMICS In: ''Philological Studies'' Vol. 15, No 2 (2017): 47-55. (In Russian) * Teryukov, Alexander. "Materials on Komi-Zyryan mythology: Notions of the soul". In: ''Shamanism and Northern Ecology''. Edited by Juha Pentikäinen. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2011

pp. 143-150. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110811674.143 * Филимонов, В. В. (2014). Фольклор и верования народа коми в «Известиях Архангельского общества изучения русского Севера» OLKLORE AND BELIEFS OF THE KOMI PEOPLE IN “PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARKHANGELSK SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH” Вестник Северного (Арктического) федерального университета. Серия: Гуманитарные и социальные науки, (1), 88-94. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/folklor-i-verovaniya-naroda-komi-v-izvestiyah-arhangelskogo-obschestva-izucheniya-russkogo-severa (дата обращения: 04.08.2022). {{List of mythological figures by region Uralic mythology