Witches! and roosters

The history of Witches has a very deep history back to pagan days in Kievan Rus that lasted and developed even more through centuries to this days.

Witches are the oldest characters in Slavic demonology. The word witch in russian is Ведьма [ve-d-ma], which from Old Rus language means “ wise” or “ведать”(Selivanova). They keep a great knowledge about the nature and how everything is controlled. At first witches were not associated with the evil, they were the local medicine women or those who knew how to deal with medicinal plants. People would visit them if they needed help with health, personal troubles. But with the spread of Christianity, the view on witches has changed and different associations has began to appear. But no matter to that, people still went to see local witch if they had to. As we saw in the Master and Margarita, witches possessed supernatural powers and could be invisible when they needed as well they now were young beautiful women, instead of the classic ugly grandma as they were portrayed in earlier centuries in folklore in the image of Baba Yaga.

The one interesting factor is that the witche’s fear of roosters. They feel the pain of hearing the rooster sing in the early morning. This characteristic also was created and passed on within the Russian or Slavic folklore. Through the legends, it said that witches leave their homes around 10 in the evening. From this time, witches go to shabash on Lysaya Gora where they have approximately 5 hours because the first singing of roosters start from 3 in the morning. After the roosters, witches has to go back home. Sometimes they will turn themselves into the animal or another human being to travel home.

In old times, People in the villages tend to keep roosters as the guardian or talisman to keep witches away from their homes, so they won’t do any damage to the family, animals, and crops. The mention of a rooster and witches recorded through folk songs, fairy tales, and legends. For example:
“Тот петух, что малюсенький поет, и в его три пера больших и ведьмы те перья вырывают, чтобы не рано пел” - That little rooster that sings, and it has three large feathers, and the witch ripped those out so he won’t sing quite early (Voytovich).

However, roosters can be not only the protection from witches, but they can also be their servants. Some legends maintain that witches own black roosters as their counter partner just like we know the common tale that witches own black cats.In the past, if the witch died, she would be buried with her cat or a rooster (Afanas’ev). This was done to made sure that a girl won’t come back to life through them.