#zagovory

I’ve been really into Whump lately so here’s young!destiel concept where Dean just loves getting beaten up by Russian zagovory practitioner Castiel…

19yo. Dean Winchester ending up in an underground fighting ring run by Zagovory practitioners. With its roots in Slavic folk magic, Charms and books rest in the hands of the masses as prayers are chanted in Russian.

Dean wants info on how to harness charms, but nothing comes for free— it comes at the price of entertainment. He’s forced into the ring with 26yo. Undefeated moneymaker, Castiel Novak, known to his viewers as the Angel of Thursday. Castiel is rumored to be a servant of God, and most in touch with his magic practices. In short, Dean’s fucked. Really fucked. And Novak knows it. He can tell Dean is unprepared and far too confident to bounce around . Before the round starts, he has to ask: “Are you a model? Pretty boy.”

It makes Dean stir with anger, not understanding the genuine curiosity of his opponent. He beats pretty boy Dean to a pulp, being careful not to cause too much damage before charming him back to health in secret. Dean doesn’t question his sudden regeneration. He doesn’t listen either, and insists on jumping back in the ring so he can get a chance to gather info, only to get beaten again and again by Cas. He tells Dean how he’s been staying uninsured and refuses to heal Dean unless he agrees to stay out of the ring, which he does.

He listens because Cas is kind of hot, and Dean feels it in the…lower of his gut. Cas gives Dean all the info he could possibly need before telling him to get lost and never come back. But Dean does. Oh, he does all the time. He claims he never has enough information just as an excuse to be beaten up by this servant of god.

He keeps going until he gets shown why Angel is undefeated. One night, Castiel gets fed up with Dean’s appearances. Dean isn’t a fun watch to the viewers, and he’s been losing money. So Cas decides to remind Dean that there is no shortage of strong charmers in the fighting scene. He weakens Dean with a spell and beats him within an inch of his life. The crowd is chanting for Dean to be healed and beaten again, but Angel refuses to comply. He wants Dean to learn his lesson, not die. People start to get mad, and Cas has to drag Dean’s body out of the ring and to his private room.

Dean looks so pathetic that he does end up getting healed…mostly, and Dean tells Cas why he keeps returning. He likes getting beaten by hot guys. Cas is in shock and anger about the whole thing, leaving Dean alone to recover in his room alone.

But not until after he presses a long kiss to his punching bag’s bruised lips, telling him to get better at fighting (and to actually learn zagovory) before challenging him again.

🗡️General tags~ @soealt

Forgive me, O Lord; forgive me, O Holy Mother of God; forgive me, O ye Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, and all ye Heavenly Host! Forgive, O Sky; forgive, O damp-mother-earth; forgive, O Sun; forgive, O Moon; forgive, ye Stars; forgive, ye Lakes, ye Rivers and Hills; forgive, all ye Heavenly and Earthly Elements! (Ralston [1872] 1970, 365)

Afanas'ev gives another example of an incantation that combines Christian and pagan elements. Here the conjurer intones a prayer against a snake bite:

Zaklynaiu vas, hadiuky, imenem Hospoda nasheho Isusa Khrysta і sv. Heorhiia i vsimy nebesnymy sylamy.* (Afanas'ev [1865—9]1970, 40)

*I conjure you, snakes, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and St. George and all the heavenly forces.

Kemp (1935, 110) notes that South Slavic peasants seldom have separate words for church prayers and exorcisms or healing formulas. It is evident, therefore, that the people have ingeniously evolved a symbiotic medical system that not only allows for but respects an intricate balance of magical and scientific worldviews.

More beautiful than the beautiful sun, more radiant than the radiant moon, more dear than father and mother, sweeter than sugar, honey and the comb (1774).

… let them gaze at Andrei and not look away, let him be more beautiful than the beautiful sun, more radiant than the radiant moon, whiter than the whitest snow, sweeter than father and mother, family and clan, friend and enemy… (1702).

I, God’s servant X will stand up, and asking blessings and crossing myself I will go into the open field under the fair sun, under the bright young moon, under the numerous stars, passing the grave-mound of [the giant] Volot’s bones. Just as Volot’s bones do not soften, do not bend, do not break, may my, God’s servant X’s [member] not bend, not break against the woman’s flesh and lust and against her [lit.] memory bone. 

And I, God’s servant X, will take my red bough [lit. elm wood] and go into the open field; suddenly a three-year old bull in the open field comes towards me, throws back its head, looks into the heavenly heights, at the moon and at the Wagon [Big Dipper]. And I, God’s servant X, will walk up to him with my red [elm] bough, and with my red [elm] bough I will hit the three-year old bull on its horn, and just as that horn does not bend, does not break from my [elm] bough, may my, God’s servant X’s [member] not bend, not break against the woman’s flesh and lust and against her [lit.] memory bone, now and for eternity.

From the records collected during last two decades, it is possible to identify several types of rules related to the use of spells by non-professionals.

Among those, the most widespread are calendar-based prohibitions to use certain (or any) spells at certain days or seasons. For example, it is prescribed not to use charms against splinters during Yuletide; the Holy Week is consid- ered unlucky for using charms against bleeding. The use of children-related charms (which any woman who had children was expected to know) was also restricted according to the calendar. Thus, it was strictly forbidden to perform the rite of ‘cutting the hobbles’ and, therefore, the corresponding charm on the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (in Russia, September 11), because at this day it was believed necessary to avoid hand-contacts with any sharp or cutting things, in order to prevent either personal or communal misfortune.

Performing ‘face-washing off coals’ wasn’t recommended on the Summer Day of the Theotokos of Kazan (July 21) and on the Neopalimaya Kupina (Theotokos of the Burning Bush) day, in order to prevent a fire. As for the kinds of magic related to housekeeping and economic activities, the prohibition to perform any magic actions or recite incantations connected with opening the cattle grazing season before the beginning of May was especially widespread. Bringing to one’s home a new cow, and, hence, saying corresponding charms was prohibited on the Spring St. George’s Day (May 6). On the contrary, the Spring St. Nicolas’ Day (May 22) was seen as the best day for those charms. The Intercession of Our Lady (Russian Pokrov) and some holidays of the Christmas Fast (especially St. Andrew’s day, December 13) were regarded to be the best time for love magic, the former’s name being interpreted as a pun on the Russian word for ‘veil’ (since married women in pre-modern or rural Russia were expected to wear headscarves, ‘veil’ became a metaphor for marriage).

The recommendations concerned with the best (or worst) time for charming do not specify calendar dates and cycles only, but also the time of the day. Thus, the majority of charms are not to be pronounced in the day-time. While professional sorcerers recognized several periods of day when charming could be performed, there was a single period regarded as safe and suitable for non-professional charmers – the dawn (household charms are never to pronounced at dusk). Infrequent as they are, there are some prescriptions that limit charm use according to various atmospheric phenomena. Thus, one should not pronounce the charm against stye if a rainbow is seen (otherwise the person will suffer from coloured dazzle). It is not appropriate to use charms in stormy weather since the magic power of the words ‘will go off with the wind’. Prohibitions concerning the day of the week are not of much variety. The most unlucky day for using charms by non-professionals is Tuesday, otherwise, on the contrary, most commonly considered to be lucky.

Another cluster of restrictions widespread among non-professional charmers represents those related to one’s social status and standards of behaviour de- fined by age, gender, etc. Limitations of that kind are rather strict. Thus, a woman can charm only if she is married (with the exception of love magic). Moreover, some of our informants laid stress upon the belief that even a married woman could only use charms after having become the actual householder. For a man, charming is considered proper (as our rather scanty data on this subject shows) after he has had been in military service.

Another category of prescriptions concerns the physiological condition of the charmer. The most frequent case is menstruation. The popular belief is that during this period a woman should not use charms against bleeding and most charms related to housekeeping or economic activities. Pregnancy also imposes certain restrictions on performing charms: a pregnant woman should not charm to stop bleeding, and some informants state that she must not pro- nounce magic texts at all because they presumably can harm her future child. Notably, many our informants specified that a woman, while in her reproduc- tive age, would mainly use those spells which did not demand any special magic ‘training’ from her. But her getting older would lead to a shift of the whole strategy of charm use and corresponding regulations. If a woman of post-reproductive age did not move into the category of professional sorceresses (i.e. of those who exorcise human illnesses, treat cattle or operate as midwives on a regular basis), she was discouraged from any charming in her everyday life at all (otherwise she or her family or all her rural community risked suffering some misfortune). It is the transition into the ‘old’ age group that coincides for many women with the beginning of their ‘professional’ specialization in magic, particularly in midwifery which can be only practiced by a woman of post-reproductive age who has given birth to at least three children. Our informants stated that many female healers have begun to practice either healing or removing binding spells/the evil eye only after having passed into the ‘old’ age group.

Traditional limits of charm use are partly connected with the charmer’s gender. Among economic-related charms, a clear division between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ charms is observable: the charms connected with the first grazing, purchasing and/or keeping livestock, as well as those whose purpose is to ensure family’s well-being or to protect the house, are ‘feminine’, while the magic related to agricultural activities (especially to their beginning) and tool use are ‘masculine’. The belief is that if the given order of things is broken, the person responsible for this breach will face great troubles. Though in love magic gender distinctions are generally barely identifiable, our informants hold that love magic is ‘women’s business and males shouldn’t say these words’. This evidence suggests that within the tradition in question the love charms that still survive today are (exclusively or mainly) ‘feminine’ texts aimed at ‘marriage or family strengthening, rather than sexual submission of a person of the opposite sex’ (Топорков 2005:132). In the regions under scrutiny, despite their rich manuscript tradition, men’s love charms have not been recorded at all, so any regulations concerning their performance are unavailable.

A relatively low number of specifications is based on religious concepts. Usually it deals with the opposition between ‘baptized’ and ‘non-baptized’. The most frequent specification is that a non-baptized person should not perform charms for livestock, otherwise the charm will not work. (Interestingly, in the modern children’s magic which largely involves conjuring various characters like the Queen of Spades, such prohibitions re-emerge.) Into the same category some quite rare rules can be fitted that prohibit performing household-related charms by ‘strangers’. ‘Strangers’ is an umbrella term for any people of non-Russian ethnicity (rather than non-Christians). It is presumed that a charm pronounced by any of them would do harm instead of helping, since it either loses its power or works the wrong way.

Finally, there is one more group of restrictions concerning particular situations in the charmer’s life of basically individual nature. Thus, informants tend to point out that it is non-appropriate to charm (1) within a year after any relative’s death; (2) if there is a baby, a pregnant woman, or a sick person in the house; (3) if any relative is in military service or in prison, etc.

От сглазу Стану я, раба божья [Лена], слова говорить. Если от ветра пришло, так поди на ветер, если от людей пришло, поди нá люди, а от лиха человека — поди на лиха человека. А если от темного лесу пришло — на темный лес поди, моего раба божьего [Сергея] от болезни освободи. И будет милость божье нас рабом божьим [Сергеем]. Аминь. Замок крепкий словам моим.