Marzanna
Morana, Mara
_b_177.jpg)
Slavic goddess of winter and death, sent away each spring.
In a custom still practiced in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and beyond, people make a straw effigy of Marzanna around the spring equinox, carry it out of the village, and burn it or drown it in a river to drive winter away and welcome spring.
Symbols
In the ancient sources
Late medieval Polish records
- Jan Długosz, Annals (15th century) The chronicler lists the old Polish gods and names Marzyana as the Polish counterpart of the Roman grain goddess Ceres.
- Polish church statutes (15th century) Synods forbid the custom of carrying an effigy called 'Death' out of the village and throwing it into water during Lent.
The drowning of the effigy was traditionally done on a Sunday in Lent ('Death Sunday'), and is now often held on the first day of spring. Glosses naming Morana as a goddess in the Czech 'Mater Verborum' turned out to be 19th-century forgeries, so most of what we know comes from the folk custom itself.
Cross-checked against these texts and records, in public-domain or freely available versions where they exist. Line, section and chapter numbers follow the standard editions, so a particular translation may differ slightly.
Correspondences Explore all
- Festival
- Spring equinox
- Element
- Water
- Colors
- White
These mix ancient attributes with modern associations from contemporary pagan and magical practice; the modern ones weren't part of her original worship.