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Macedonian Slavic Mythology is the collection of beliefs belonging to the culture of North Macedonia. It originates from the historical Slavic religious beliefs of the early Slavs that settled in Byzantine Macedonia. The works of these myths are influenced by Greco-Roman mythology.
Narechnici - (Macedonian: Наречници) are demonic creatures thought to have the power to predict the destiny of a new-born baby. Usually presented as three women, Narechnici arrive on the third night following the birth of a child. Narechnici are sometimes presented as three sisters; two evil ones and one good one. The youngest sister undoes the evil curses of the two older evil sisters.
Samovili - (Macedonian: Самовили ; English: Fairies ) are presented as pretty girls with golden hair and wings who live in the mountains near the water. Samovili were said to have been born from the dew of flowers; either at times when it rained while the sun was shining or under a rainbow. They serve those who steal their clothes. If their wings are removed, they transform into real women.
Zmey - (Macedonian: Змеј) are creatures with human features that have the tail of a snake, golden wings and tremendous physical strength. Zmey live either in caves or mountain tops, and are extremely intelligent. Zmey are attracted to female beauty and capture young women and take them to their remote lairs.
Lamia - (Macedonian: Ламја) is a large creature born from a snake's head stored in the horn of a buffalo. "The big Lamia has a god's head with big sharp teeth, four legs with big sharp nails and a tail, and the body is covered with fish scales." Lamia usually live in caves and guard secret treasures.
Stia - (Macedonian: Стија) are female creatures with long hair and fish-like tails, much like a mermaid. Stia live in the depths of lakes.
Vampiri - (Macedonian: Вампири ; English: Vampires ) Macedonia hosted several types of vampires: the vampire-husband or sexual partner comes back to life to impregnate his wife if she had not conceived while he was alive. The vampire-housekeeper returns to help his family through additional cattle or money. There is an evil vampire that damages land and cattle. Vampires-butchers frequently work in a local butchery; vampire-animals transform from a dead man/vampire into an animal, often a dog or similar creature.
Other mythological creatures are Talasami - (Macedonian: Таласами), Giants - (Macedonian: Џинови), Dwarves - (Macedonian: Џуџиња), Chuma - (Macedonian: Чума), Ala - (Macedonian: Ала) and Vrag - (Macedonian: Враг).
Numerous toponyms relate to Slavic gods or mythological creatures.
Veles - (Macedonian: Велес) is a city in Macedonia that has the name of the Slavic god Veles. He is the god of wine, music and cattle.
Mokosh - toponyms that relate to the goddess of fertility, women's work and women's happiness, Mokosh or Mokoshka/Makoshka are
Makoshka - (Macedonian: Макошка), Gjurgjeva Makoshka - (Macedonian: Ѓурѓева Макошка), Middle Makoshka - (Macedonian: Средна Макошка), Far Makoshka - (Macedonian: Далечна Макошка)
Goddess Morana - Morani village - (Macedonian: с.Морани), Morana's creek - (Macedonian: Морански поток), Morana's river - (Macedonian: Моранска река), Marena village - (Macedonian: с.Марена)
The European dragon is a legendary creature in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.
Bulgarians are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighbouring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, while in North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Albania and Greece they exist as historical communities.
Veles, also known as Volos, is a major god of earth, waters, livestock, and the underworld in Slavic paganism. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Odin, Loki and Hermes.
Jarylo, alternatively Yaryla, Iarilo, Juraj, Jurij, or Gerovit, is alleged East and South Slavic god of vegetation, fertility and springtime.
Mokosh is a Slavic goddess mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, protector of women's work and women's destiny. She watches over spinning and weaving, shearing of sheep, and protects women in childbirth. Mokosh is the Mother Goddess.
Other than the many gods and goddesses of the Slavs, the ancient Slavs believed in and revered many supernatural beings that existed in nature. These supernatural beings in Slavic religion come in various forms, and the same name of any single being can be spelled or transliterated differently according to language and transliteration system.
A Slavic dragon is any dragon in Slavic mythology, including the Russian zmei, Ukrainian zmiy, and its counterparts in other Slavic cultures: the Bulgarian zmey, the Slovak drak and šarkan, Czech drak, Polish żmij, the Serbo-Croatian zmaj, the Macedonian zmej (змеј) and the Slovene zmaj. The Romanian zmeu could also be deemed a "Slavic" dragon, but a non-cognate etymology has been proposed.
A krsnik or kresnik is a type of vampire hunter, a shaman whose spirit wanders from the body in the form of an animal. The krsnik turns into an animal at night to fight off the kudlak, his evil vampire antithesis, with the krsnik appearing as a white animal and the kudlak as a black one. The krsnik's soul leaves the body, either voluntarily or due to a higher power, to fight evil agents and ensure good harvest, health, and happiness.
Mythic humanoids are legendary, folkloric, or mythological creatures that are part human, or that resemble humans through appearance or character. Each culture has different mythical creatures that come from many different origins, and many of these creatures are humanoids. They are often able to talk and in many stories they guide the hero on their journey.
The Vainakh peoples of the North Caucasus were Islamised comparatively late, during the early modern period, and Amjad Jaimoukha (2005) proposes to reconstruct some of the elements of their pre-Islamic religion and mythology, including traces of ancestor worship and funerary cults. The Nakh peoples, like many other peoples of the North Caucasus such as Circassians, practised tree worship, and believed that trees were the abodes of spirits. Vainakh peoples developed many rituals to serve particular kinds of trees. The pear tree held a special place in the faith of Vainakhs.
Legends of vampires have existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demonic entities and blood-drinking spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century Central Europe, particularly Transylvania as verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or a living person being bitten by a vampire themselves. Belief in such legends became so rife that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.
Vesna was a mythological female character associated with youth and springtime in early Slavic mythology, particularly within Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Slovenia. Along with her male companion Vesnik, she was associated with rituals conducted in rural areas during springtime. In the nineteenth century, Russian peasants celebrated the return of spring on March 1 by going out to the fields, carrying a clay figure of a lark on a pivot which had been decorated with flowers. They sang songs naming the spring season Vesna. The word "vesna" is still the poetic word for "spring" in Slovene, as well as Czech and Slovak. In Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, vesna/wiosna is the actual word for 'spring'. The month February is sometimes named vesnar in Slovene. In Serbian, the word vesnik is used to denote someone who heralds or brings about springtime. It is likely that Vesna was originally a goddess representing the earth during the spring, making her an alternate form of Mokosh.
Kresnik is a Slavic god associated with fire, the summer solstice, and storms. His mythical home, a sacred mountain at the top of the world, represents the axis mundi.
Nav is a phrase used to denote the souls of the dead in Slavic mythology. The singular form is also used as a name for an underworld, over which Veles exercises custody—it is often interpreted as another name for the underground variant of the Vyraj.
Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) has a theology that is generally monistic, consisting in the vision of a transcendental, supreme God which begets the universe and lives immanentised as the universe itself, present in decentralised and autonomous way in all its phenomena, generated by a multiplicity of deities which are independent hypostases, facets, particles or energies of the consciousness and will of the supreme God itself.
Interpretatio slavica is the practice by the Slavic peoples to identify the gods of neighboring peoples and the names of Christian saints with the names of Slavic deities.
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