The origin of ritual divination refers to itselfa deep antiquity so deep that it is even approximately difficult to say about the time of its appearance. The reason for his birth was obviously the desire to explain the mysterious in nature and in human life and look into another unknown world, at least slightly open the dense curtain hiding the future. In the Ancient World, priests and philosophers engaged in fortune-telling. It was they, who were endowed with certain knowledge about being and the surrounding world, were subject to the methods of interpreting certain events, as well as the meanings of certain signs and phenomena. The kinds and forms of divination that have come down to us from a comparatively recent past as popular fortune-telling are, of course, echoes of the oldest forms that have been passed on from generation to generation, simplifying, changing their symbolic meaning, but remaining the only possible way of recognizing and interpreting future destiny .
Народные гадания давали ответы на значимые questions, using improvised means, household trivia, grain or pets. Attributes and symbolism of fortune-telling are closely connected with peasant simple life. There are some very common types of fortunetelling, which is still popular on holy days, at Christmas and Epiphany.
Russian folk fortune telling
Divination by beans is very popular.It answers the questions "will it come to pass?" Or "will not come to pass?", And answers can only be received in one-syllable, that is, "yes" or "no." Therefore, to conceive of divination, you need to get these simple answers. 37 beans are taken when guessing at a man, and 31 beans are for a woman. For fortune telling only white beans are suitable, without stains. Thinking a question, the beans are laid out for 3 heaps. A woman has 10 beans, and a man has 12. One extra bean is stolen in the middle. Then separately consider the number of letters in the name, patronymic and surname and from each pile to the bean lying in the middle, postpone as many beans as there are letters. Then consider the number of vowels in the question, which was conceived for divination. A corresponding number of beans is deposited from the formed middle cluster. If it turns out that the beans do not harp, what is planned will never come true. But if there are enough beans, and there will be a pair or even number in the pile, everything that has been conceived will come to pass, and if it is odd, it will not come to pass.
It is very common to divination by the shadows formed by burning paper, melted and poured into cold water wax, or an egg.
A sheet of paper is crumpled, put to the bottom of an invertedsaucers, set on fire and brought to the wall. The bizarre outlines that appear on the wall are explained in accordance with the images they create. The shape of the frozen wax in water is treated as well.
Для гадания на яйце берут прозрачную бутылку, fill it with water on the shoulders and release a raw chicken egg. The bottle is put overnight in a cold place, leaving it open. In the morning they interpret the bizarre forms and images formed in the water.
There are folk guesses on a nutshell.On the table put a basin of water, take a few well-peeled shells from walnuts, put in them tickets with the inscriptions: "will come true, will not come, soon or not soon, good or bad", etc. The shells are launched into the pelvis, which is covered with a napkin on top, and several times the pelvis is slowly turned in place. Fortune-tellers get close to the closed pelvis, ask a question and get a shell in the hand. The answer to the question will be in the ticket.
Perhaps the most popular were the popular fortune-tellingof the condemned. The most famous of them is a fortune-telling with a rooster, guessing a shoe, fortune-telling by name. And these fortune-telling are especially girlish, even for widows they did not fit.
Folk divination with a rooster consisted inthe following. In the center of the room draw a circle with a chalk and pile the grain around the circle, put saucers with water, put rings from the fortune-telling hands and a mirror. The girls stand near their ring and grain, and in the middle of the circle a cock is placed, which ate nothing all day. The cock is recovered, makes some choice. The rooster went to the grain and began to peck, the girl will certainly soon be married, went to the mirror, her husband will be a dandy. If you pecked two or three times and left, there will be no soon wedding, but if you go straight to the water, your husband will be a drunk. If the rooster cuts all the grains in one heap, this would presage a quick death.
Russian folk guessing is very much.All of them for the most part timed to winter religious holidays, the symbolism of which is connected with the renewal, the beginning of a new countdown of time, a new life, on the threshold of which everyone wanted to know at least a little about his future destiny.
