Skipper Snake Day (Snake Day) (22/06)

After the birth of Perun, the Skipper Serpent came to Russian Earth. He buried the infant Perun in a deep cellar and carried his sisters to Nav:

I live, Marena and Lelu — goddesses of life, death and love. It's not dust that is sprayed into the field, It's not fog that rises from the sea, Then from the eastern land, from the high mountains An animal herd ran out, That the animal herd — is snake. The fierce Skipper Beast ran ahead! «Veda Peruna»

Then Perun will be freed by Velez, Horse and Stribog, and he will defeat the Beast Skipper. These days, when the Skipper Beast with his army is coming to Russian land, people saw wandering ghosts, signs of death and troubles. Suddenly, mouse packs and wolfpacks appeared in the fields, and clouds of crows swooped in. And if you bow your ear to the ground, you can hear the Mother of Cheese Earth groaning. And others saw that fire was running through the winter field.

Nav is especially strong, and therefore enemy invasions were expected in Rus' these days. History has confirmation of this: the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Great Patriotic War began near the day of Skipper the Snake.

Tales about Perun and Skiper were sung on this day by the Magi in Vedic temples and called on believers to rivers and lakes to perform sacred ablutions in order to cleanse themselves of sins.

According to the folk calendar, this day fell during snake weddings. It was believed that at this time the reptiles slide down and go by train to a snake wedding. In many localities there are still «damned places», the so-called « snake slides».

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