In Western Ukrainian carols, there is an original motif of the creation of the world by demiurge birds — when doves descend to the bottom of the sea for the sand from which the earth will emerge (for example, the carol "Oh, how it was from the offspring of the world"). An old song of the Carpathian Slavs sings:
Currently, winter in Ukraine is primarily associated with carols, which are sung on the holiday of Christmas (January 6-8 according to the new style). But carols were once pagan songs, against which the Orthodox Church initially waged an unsuccessful struggle and banned them. However, Kolyada rites proved to be very stable in Ukraine, marked in many ways by the features of pagan beliefs, reminiscent of both honoring the newborn sun and the cult of ancestors.
After that, such dramas unfolded. My father took kutyu - a symbol of honoring ancestors. And with the kutyu, he could first go to the cattle, the prognostic function - to have healthy cattle, for the future harvest. Then he would go out into the yard, in some regions he would put kutyu into his mouth, and in some - with a spoon of kutyu he would go out into the yard and call Frost. But not "grandfather Frost", that Soviet one, but Frost - as an element that has a completely negative connotation: "Frost, Frost, come to my place to eat, and if you don't go now, then don't go ever: no for rye, no for wheat, not for rich arable land." That is, a kind of countermeasure so that this Frost does not freeze anything. And the children at that time, as if they were afraid of that Frost, hid somewhere under the table, and in general, when they hid under the table, they had to "becat" and "mecat" - to imitate the cattle that should be herded next year.
.svg){kind=small}
