Piran town under the looming Mt Triglav, the highest peak of Slovenia, named after the supreme Slavic god Triglav (Three headed), the Sky Father...
You can read more about Triglav and his link to Trimurti in my post "Triglav, Trinity, Trimurti"...
In this article I want to talk about a Serbian ritual song recorded in the 19th c. by Miloš S. Milojević and published in his seminal work "Pesme i običai ukupnog naroda Srbskog, book 2". It is called "Похођанска, кад умре убрзо невеста" (Visiting song, when a bride dies soon after the wedding).
The song starts with a description of a Vila (Mountain fairy, but actually personification of lightning), sitting on a high mountain peak and crying...
When other Vilas come to ask her what happened, she tells them that her daughter got married few days ago, on Saturday, but that two days later, on Monday, she got sick and died..."I went to see her body on Tuesday, the evil day..." She continues...
Then the mournful Vila describes the scene in which her daughter is lying on the catafalque, while the groom's family comes to keen (lament, wail in grief for a dead person) over her body, as was the custom among Serbs...
First come Vilas, groom's sisters. They cry over the body of the dead Vila, their sister in law, and ask her why she had left them, what had angered her so much to leave their brother alone in grief..."Wasn't our brother nice? Wasn't our castle nice?" they ask...
Second come Vilas, groom's brother's wives. They cry over the body of the bride and also ask her why she had left them..."Wasn't our brother in law, mighty warrior, Davor Bor nice? Wasn't his castle nice?" they ask...
Third comes groom's mother "Old Mother, Old Vila". She bends over her dead daughter in law and cries: "Why did you leave us? You, one of us, of our kind. Didn't you like your mother in law? Didn't you like her son, Mighty Davor Bor? Didn't you like our castle in in the sky?"
Fourth comes groom's father, Old Mighty Triglav. He stands over the dead daughter in law and cries: "Why did you get angry and leave us, you, so lovely and loved? Why did you leave us, you, one of our kind, one of our tribe? Didn't you like your father in law, Triglav Bor, the creator, preserver and destroyer of the world? Didn't you like our castle in the sky, made from white stone and lit by Svetovid (Sun god, sun, the all seeing)? Wasn't my son, mighty warrior, Davor Bor, dear to you?" he asks...
Finally, the groom arrives. "Davor Bor and Đurašin". Bor is just a euphemism for "bog" (god). And Davor (Davor->Davog->Dabog) is just euphemism for Dabog, Giving God, Supreme god of the Serbs, Rain and Sun god, another name of the Sky god Triglav...Davor Bor is here also identified as Đura, Đurašin, a nickname for St George, who is just Christianised Jarilo, young sun god and god of war...
Davor Bor, described as having long red hair, long blond moustache and long ginger beard, kneels next to the body of his dead wife and cries out, causing the air to vibrate, lightnings to flash and thunders to crackle..."What happened to you my love, my love and my kind?" he exclaims...
He then kisses his dead wife and she comes back to life and says: "I didn't love my husband, the mighty warrior Davor and Đura"...When her husband asks her why, she replies: "My husband is of bad stock, bad sinful stock. His mother is a mortal woman, mortal woman of the earth"...
Davor Bor says nothing. Instead, his father Triglav stands up and cries out: "Oh Vila, my daughter in law, today I curse you!"...
The bride's mother finishes her description of the lament scene by saying that this curse came to be and that her daughter died again, this time for ever.
And then she praises Triglav Bor and "his love Black Earth...may she live for ever"...
This is an amazing song. Not only because it talks about Triglav, Dabog, Jarilo, Vilas, but also because it identifies the wife of Triglav (Father Sky) as Black Earth (Mother Earth)...And because it explicitly states the importance of both Sky and Earth in Serbian world view...
Triglav is not angry with his daughter in law because she is not in love with his son. He is angry with her because she doesn't respect part of her own nature. Remember, lightning is the product of both sky (sun and rain) and earth...You can read more about it in my post "Sun thunder fire"...
The original short discussion (in Serbian) about this song can be found in the great article entitled "Triglav u starim Srpskim narodnim pesmama i molitvama"by Aleksandra Marinković Obrovski
This ritual song contains the oldest layers of our mythology: the veneration of Father Sky and Mother Earth, the producers of life...But it is not the only place where we find this old belief embedded into Serbian folklore. This riddle "Tall father, wide mother" = Sky and earth contains it too...
Triglav, Dajbog, The Sky Father is also hidden in Serbian folklore under the guise of Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer)...
Troglava, Dajbaba, his wife, The Earth Mother is also hidden in the Serbian folklore under the guise of Ognjena Marija (Fiery Mary)...
Davor Bor, Jarilo, their son, is hidden in the Serbian folklore under the guise of St George...
