Zorya

Zorya (lit. "Dawn")is a figure in Eastern Slavic folklore, a feminine personification of dawn, possibly goddess. Depending on the tradition, she may appear as a singular entity, often called "The Red Maiden", or two or three sisters at once. Although Zorya is etymologically unrelated to the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn *H₂éwsōs, she shares most of her characteristics. She is often depicted as the sister of the Sun, the Moon, and Zvezda, the Morning Star with which she is sometimes identified. She lives in the Palace of the Sun, opens the gate for him in the morning so that he can set off on a journey through the sky, guards his white horses, she is also described as a virgin. In the Eastern Slavic tradition of zagovory she represents the supreme power that a practitioner applies to.

Zorya is the personification of the dawn. She is the Slavic continuation of the Proto-Indo-European goddess of dawn *H₂éwsōs and has many of her characteristics: she lives overseas on the island of Bujan, opens the door for the Sun to go on its daily journey across the sky, also has a golden boat. Zora can be a single figure, two figures, or three. She appears in Christianized prayers and orders.

The all-Slavic word zora "dawn, aurora" (from Proto-Slavic *zoŗà), and its variants, comes from the same root as the all-Slavic word zrěti ("to see, observe", from PS *zьrěti), which originally may have meant "shine". The word zara may have originated under the influence of the word žar "heat" (PS *žarь). PS *zoŗà comes from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *źoriˀ (cf. Lithuanian žarà, žarijà), the etymology of the root is unclear.

Chludov's Novgorod Psalter of the late 13th century contains a miniature depicting two women. One of them, fiery red, signed as "morning zora", holds a red sun in her right hand in the form of a ring, and in her left hand she holds a torch resting on her shoulder, ending in a box from which emerges a light green stripe passing into dark green. This stripe ends in another woman's right hand, in green, signed as "evening zora", with a bird emerging from her left sleeve. This should be interpreted as the Morning Zorya releasing the Sun on its daily journey, and at sunset the Evening Zorya awaits to meet the Sun. A very similar motif was found in a cave temple from the 2nd or 3rd century AD in Nashik, India. The bas-relief depicts two women: one using a torch to light the circle of the Sun, and the other expecting it at sunset. Some other bas-reliefs depict two goddesses of the dawn, Ushas and Pratyusha, and the Sun, accompanied by Dawns, appears in several hymns. The Sun in the form of a wheel appears in the Indo-Aryan Rigveda, or the Norse Edda, as well as in folklore: during the annual festivals of the Germanic peoples and Slavs, they lit a wheel which, according to medieval authors, was supposed to symbolize the sun.

Although the Zorya cult is only attested in folklore, its roots go back to Indo-European antiquity, and the Zorya herself manifests most of *H₂éwsōs characteristics. Zorya shares the following characteristics with most goddesses of the dawn:

She appears in the company of divine twins
She wears red, gold, yellow, and rose colours
She lives overseas, on the island of Buyan
She opens/closes the door to the Sun
She owns a golden boat and a silver oar

In Russian tradition, she often appears as two virgin sisters: Zorya Utrennyaya (Morning Zorya, from útro "morning") as the goddess of dawn, and Zorya Vechernyaya (Evening Aurora, from véčer "evening") as the goddess of dusk. Each was to stand on a different side of the golden throne of the Sun. The Morning Zorya opened the gate of the heavenly palace when the Sun set out in the morning, and the Evening Zorya closed the gate when the Sun returned to his abode for the night. The headquarters of Zorya was to be located on Buyan Island.

The Morning Star is Zorya Utrennyaya (from Russian utro, meaning "morning"), who opens the gates of Dažbog's palace each morning so that the Sun may begin his journey. She is a patroness of horses, protection, exorcism, and the planet Venus, and Slavs would pray to her each morning as the sun rose.

Conflicting accounts exist of her marital situation. In some myths, she is described as the wife of Perun and would accompany her husband into battle. In this role she was known to protect those warriors she favoured against death by letting down her veil. In other accounts, both she and Zorya Vechernyaya were the wives of the male Myesyats, the moon god, and by him bore all of the stars. However, some have both Zorya as virgin goddesses, while describing Myesyats as an unrelated female moon goddess.

In other accounts Zorya is the goddess of beauty, virgin goddess of war and companion of Perun. Her name literally means "Light" or "Aurora", and she manifests as three goddesses, described as daughters of Dazhbog and sisters of Zvezda, with whom they are often conflated: Zorya Utrennyaya ("Morning Light"), Zorya Vechernyaya ("Evening Light") and Zorya Polunochnaya ("Midnight Light").

A myth from a later period speaks of three Zoryas and their special task:


Zorya also patronized marriages, as manifested by her frequent appearance in wedding songs, and arranged marriages between the gods. In one of the Malo-Russian songs, where the Moon meets Aurora while wandering in the sky, she is directly attributed this function:


In Belarusian folklore she appears as Zaranitsa (Зараніца) or as Zara-zaranitsa (Зара-Зараніца). In one of the passages, Zaranitsa is met by St. George and St. Nicholas, who, according to comparative mythology, function as divine twins, who in Indo-European mythologies are usually brothers of the goddess of the dawn: "Saint George was walking with Saint Nicholas and met Aurora".

In folklore she also appears in the form of a riddle:


This is about the dew, which the moon does not react to and which disappears under the influence of the sun. Zara is probably simply the goddess of the dawn, and can be translated literally as "Dawn", and Zaranitsa is a diminutive and may indicate respect towards her. Dew is also referenced in an orphan's lament, where the mourner says he will take the "keys of the dawn".

In a saying collected in "Харківщині" (Kharkiv Oblast), it is said that "there are many stars (Зірок) in the sky, but there are only two Zori: the morning one (світова) and the evening one (вечірня)".

In Polish folklore, there are three sister Zoras (Trzy Zorze): Morning Zorza (Polish: Zorza porankowa or Utrenica), Midday Zora (Zorza południowa or Południca) and Evening Zora (Zorza wieczorowa or Wieczornica), which appear in Polish folk charms and, according to Andrzej Szyjewski, represent a threefold division of the day.

In a magical love charm from Poland, the girl asks for the dawn (or morning-star) to go to the girl's beloved and force him to love no other but her:


In a Ukrainian magical love charm, the girl invokes "three star-sisters" (or the "dawn-sisters"):


The Ukrainian language also has words deriving from "Zorya": зі́рка (dialectal зі́ра "zira" and зі́ри "ziry") zírka, a diminutive meaning 'little star', 'starlet', 'asterisk'; зі́рнйця "zirnitsa" (or зі́рнйці "zirnytsi"), a poetic term meaning 'little star', 'aurora, dawn'.