How to become more attractive and bewitch your partner: methods of ancestors from Ancient Rus'

The publishing house "MYTH" published the book "Intimate Rus'» ethnographers Natalia Seregina and Nadezhda Adamovich. In it, the authors reveal little-known aspects of the relationships of their ancestors: how they perceived love, confessed their feelings and entered into marriages, what sexual practices they preferred, and more. The methods by which men and women of Ancient Rus' tried to attract and retain partners did not go unnoticed. More details about unusual practices can be found in the excerpt from the chapter “The Path of Fornication.”

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Since ancient times, there has been a dream among the female half of humanity: to suddenly become beautiful and attractive, “for your own joy, for the envy of your friends, for the love of a man, and for honest people admiration." Fashion changed, ideas about beauty changed. What was considered “not so” yesterday suddenly became a standard beauty... But one thing remained unchanged: girls and women sacrificed their strength, time and health in order to achieve the highest goal - to become ideal and loved.

Russian women achieved attractiveness using, first of all, natural means.

For example, in hospitals recommend: “The same seed dinyae [melons] wipe it off with egg white, mix it, and wash your face clean, then it does good to the little ones and brightens their face.” For a healthy blush, it was recommended to rub your cheeks with bodyaga and consume cherry glue: “... no matter what it is, a person’s face turns red” (“red” here means “beautiful”).

There were also recipes, which used the general approach: do this and you will love it.

There is Nukokeya grass that grows in birch trees, blue and variegated, the leaves are long, like tongues, and the root is divided into two, one is male, the other is female. And if a husband doesn’t love his wife, give him a woman’s word, and he will love her, and the woman’s [root] will be dark. […]

Dew collected on certain days was also suitable for achieving attractiveness. Moreover, the belief in its miraculous power has been preserved among the people to this day. For example, in the Oka villages of the Ryazan region early in the morning, before sunrise, girls came out to the meadows, undressed and naked “bathed” in the dew, rolling on the grass.

You fall, fall, dew,
To the dark forests,
On retski begutsie.
The swamps are shifting,
On silk grasses,
Icy Buttons…
And whirl, dew,
Glory and delights,
So that I become glorious,
White, portly.
The face is rosy.
Shchetsky alenka.
Dark eyebrows...

To become sexier and more beautiful, water was often used - especially from revered, “holy” lakes and springs; similar rituals are performed in ethnographic times. In Karelia was recorded this story:

The girl is the skinniest by nature, there is no glory, she goes [to the lake] in the morning. As this beautiful sun rises, I would be so beautiful for everyone. Well, there will be a lot of guys here. there will be a lot of guys. Just need it before dawn. The dawn is rising, before the sun. Wash your eyes on the lake, say these words.

But perhaps what bothered the girls more than their complexion was bust size. If an ugly - or, as they say in the Ryazan region, unattractive - girl could still count on a groom, then the owners of a small bust (they used to be called “punts”) could well remain old maids.

Recipes for breast enlargement that have survived to this day will seem strange to a modern person, to put it mildly.

For example, it was recommended eat raw dough, and in some regions it was believed (and in some places they still believe) that cabbage promotes breast growth. Chicken droppings were especially powerful. Fresh chicken droppings had to be applied to the chest at night for several weeks.

In the medical books of the 16th–17th centuries you can find such a recommendation: “If a wife wants great nipples, let her gnaw on the almonds for 3 mornings on a skinny heart, until the sun.” We translate: “If a woman wants big nipples (that is, breasts), let her gnaw almond 3 pieces on an empty stomach before sunrise.”

It is also worth noting that the girls and women directed their efforts not only towards themselves. Since ancient times, they did not wait for love to fall on them on its own, but tried to evoke it. The most widely known, of course, are love spells.

Some researchers consider one of the most ancient recorded love conspiracies to be a letter from the Novgorodian Moses - letter No. 521, dating back to the turn of the 14th–15th centuries. Indeed, its text is very reminiscent of the language of conspiracies recorded in later times. However, it is worth noting that of the texts known to us from the 17th–18th centuries, there are 43 male conspiracies, and only one female conspiracies. He is given in the 1638 case of Daria Lamanova's witchcraft.

...As one looks in the mirror and never sees enough, so a husband would not see enough of his wife... just as people in the world love salt, so a husband would love his wife... as soon as the soap is washed off his face, so soon a husband would love his wife.

Researchers explain this by saying that literacy was the prerogative of men, and among women the formulas were passed on by word of mouth.

In the epic about Dobrynya and Marinka also described love plot. Marinka, deciding to bewitch the hero, finds his footprint (a footprint on the ground), puts it in the oven, and it burns along with the wood, and at the same time she pronounces the following formula:

How hot does the wood burn?
From the top of the head the traces are valiant,
A brave heart would flare up
How young Dobrynyushka Nikitievich is.

By the way, Love More modern conspiracies are also compared to combustion.

Love spells relied not only on formulas: it was also possible to use a wide variety of objects and even living creatures.

To bring beauty, or to appear more beautiful, take a handkerchief, with which they go out into the street, say the words below, and then, when they come home, wipe themselves with that handkerchief:

I will be blessed, I will go out, crossing myself, from the hut by the doors, from the yard by the gates, I will go out onto a wide street, I will stand to the east with my ridge, to the west with my eyes. On the western side, the betrothed Joseph sits there, beholding and looking at the Lady Most Holy Theotokos, just as the servant of God would look and look at me all his life.

The girls also went to bewitch grooms on... anthill. Standing over him, they pronounced the following words: “Just as goosebumps are boiling on this anthill, so let all the singles, all the grooms, and the betrothed, the mummer, seethe more than anyone else for me, the girls.” There were, of course, more exotic methods, for example: frying the ovaries of a black cat over high heat and placing them in the food of the object of passion. But, probably, the reproductive organs of animals helped to attract exclusively the love of men. But the hearts of birds, for example pigeons, appear in love spells for representatives of both floors.

And another strange custom of our ancestors is the use of the genitals of a pig, dog or sheep in love magic.

Moreover, the “private lips” were cut off from living animals. In the archive of the Social Revolutionary A. A. Savelyev, a note has been preserved, probably written by one of his associates. It contains very interesting information:

“At one time, in the current year 1915. I lived for 4 months in the village. Khapdaiskaya Shelaevskaya vol. Kansky district. There I did some carpentry, some carpentry, roofing, and painting work. I once worked for a peasant for carpentry work by the day for his maintenance. In the morning I went to him for breakfast. He went up to the porch. I look - it’s lying here the dog is licking something bloody. This interested me, and besides, pity for the animal appeared, and I began to look at what she was licking.

And what do you think it was? Now I myself think that if someone had told me about these things earlier, I would not have hesitated to answer: “It’s not true,” and, of course, I would not have believed it. But here in front of me the object was obvious, and I just didn’t know why it was done. And this is what was done. It was a bitch, her private lips were cut off. As you can see, they were cut very recently, as there was still blood coming out and the dog was licking it. This had an extremely depressing effect on me, because behind this lay some kind of superstition, which I decided to find out about. Having finished my day's work, I came home and while drinking tea, which my landlady and I were having together, I decided to ask her about what I had seen.

I told her what I saw and asked what it meant and why it was done. And that's what she told me told: “This is done by women. These lips with “slanders” are fried among other meat. Then all this is given to the man who would love that woman..."

However, there was one of the most common ways to bewitch a man. It has been found in women's confessional questionnaires since at least the 14th century: “I washed myself with milk and honey and giving drink to whom, sharing mercy?” And sometimes they specify: “... she herself gave her milk, having washed away from Perseia, to whom?"

If you remember, Chapter 6 opened with the story of Solomonia, the wife of Basil III, who was accused of just such witchcraft: as if she was rubbed with honey and oil to win the love of the Grand Duke and ensure birth children.

Also in questionnaires mentioned another ingredient in the love potion - menstrual blood and other secretions: women were asked about using “the small or great uncleanness of their bed,” “their lust,” “filth,” “semen,” and sweat for a love spell. Already in the materials of the 13th century there are intelligencethat women added their menstrual blood to food or drink so that their husbands would love only them. They added menstrual blood to guys' drinks for the purpose of love spells, probably all over Rus'. Moreover, it is believed that this is a very powerful remedy: a one-time dose is enough for a guy to fell in love forever.

"Intimate Rus'" is an entertaining guide to stories that part of life that is usually hidden from prying eyes. From the book you will learn how women were treated in ancient times, what qualities an ideal man had, and how they treated polygamy.

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