Edited by MCK Sokół | Lesser Poland
Goddesses are demons
Country: Poland
Region: Lesser Poland
Type of inspiration: Beliefs
Inspiracja
"Goddesses often visit villages, peculiarly when women are lying in childbirth".
In the beliefs of the Sącz Highlanders, goddesses are demons of the female kind - most often the spirits of women who died in childbirth or were evil when alive, hostile to humans, perverted and malicious. They were dangerous above all to midwives who had not had a church birth and to newborns if they had not yet been baptised.
The goddesses were supposed to live near water. They were most numerous on the Dunajec River and by the streams, where they constantly washed their children's nappies. Walking beside the river, one could often hear the sound of tadpoles beating. A distinctive feature of the goddesses' appearance was their large, sagging breasts, which they used instead of tadpoles or threw on their backs to keep them out of the way when washing. They were generally described as ugly babes, with fair hair and long teeth, naked or dressed like village women. In older accounts, the goddesses were interchangeably called mamuns, as they were supposed to woo midwives and, in some variants, also pregnant women. This is related to the belief, common in popular culture, that pregnancy and the days between childbirth and the ecclesiastical cleansing (exodus), is a particularly dangerous period for a woman and her environment. At the end of the 19th century. Oskar Kolberg wrote: "The mummies approach wherever a pregnant woman goes, and most especially to the sleepover, they look her in the eye and entice her, calling out: Come! Come with us! They kidnap the lured woman and carry her off to forests and castles. There she convalesces and serves them for a few years and then, having left the child behind, returns alone, but is now a witch, a wand".
The goddesses could torment the midwife by taking the form of a child and suckling her breast until she became weak. Kidnapping unbaptised infants and tossing their own children in their place was considered the primary activity of demons. The transformed child, or changeling, could be easily recognised. It would suddenly become naughty and crying. Evidence of the changeling was also evident in the newborn's disability, sickliness and ugliness. The changeling was betrayed by its ability to speak and walk, and by its increased appetite. The way to retrieve the child was to beat the changeling so that its cries summoned the mother-goddess, who wanted to take her baby back as soon as possible by giving up the kidnapped child.
The bellflower, or St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum L.), widely regarded as a plant with apotropaic properties, provided protection from the goddesses. It was recommended that the midwife carry its sprigs with her and keep them under her pillow. The story was told that if a woman harassed by goddesses touched St. John's wort, the demons departed.
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