In Polish pagan mythology, boginki (singular: boginka) are female spirits or demons of wild nature: forest, field, mountains, water (both of land and sea), often a personification of forces of the nature. The word literally means "minor goddess" in Polish. and may be translated as "fairy" or "nymph". They were usually imagined as either ugly old hags or pretty young girls, usually naked. They are usually evil.
Some boginki are rusałka, vila, dziwożona, łaskotałka, mamuna [pl], nawka. The term "boginka" started to be applied to any of them.
Boginki (mamuny) can steal a human child and substitute them. Such substituted child is called boginiak, płonek , podrzutek, or odmieniak ("changeling"). Often children with mental disabilities were thought to be such.
There are various folk means to fend off boginki.
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"A drowned man in the arms of a dziwożona", Jacek Malczewski
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Opętany, Jacek Malczewski (a man bewitched by a boginka)
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Boginka tatrzańska, Walery Eljasz Radzikowski (1905): a highlander meets boginka of Tatry
In modern culture
- Richard Wagner's opera Die Feen ("The Fairies") is transleted as Boginki in Polish
- Czesław Białczyński [pl] wrote a parody mythology book Stworze i Zdusze czyli Starosłowiańskie boginki i demony
Notes
- also bogunka, bogienka, bogina
References
- Jan Karłowicz, Słownik języka polskiego, vol. 1, 1900, p. 183
- Kazimierz Moszyński, Kultura duchowa Słowian, 1929–1939.
- http://www.muzeumkolbuszowa.pl/etnonotatnik/905-boginka-albo-mamuna
- Kamil Gołdowski, Mamuna i jej odmieniec
- Zbiór wiadomości do antropologii krajowéj, Volume 6, 1882pp. 264, 265
- Stworze i Zdusze, czyli starosłowiańskie boginki i demony to książka o mitologii starosłowiańskiej. Jest to rodzaj encyklopedii wierzeń, stanowiący wstęp do Wielkiej Mitologii Starosłowian. Proponujemy lekturę paru fragmentów prosto z naszego archiwum., Przekroj, 11 July, 2019