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Chuhaister
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Chuhaister
Chuhaister (Ukrainian: Чугайстер) is a Ukrainian tutelary deity of the forests. He is specific to the Carpathians.
According to the legend, Chuhaister was once an ordinary person.
He did something very bad to his neighbor and he cursed him to live in the forest for the rest of his life and not be able to die. Under the power of the curse, Chuhaister left his native home and wandered away. Since then, he wanders alone through the dark dense forests and wild mountain peaks in summer and winter, and no one can harm him – neither man nor beast. Over the years, his clothes have worn out, and Chuhaister now walks around naked. He has long hair and a white beard, his body is covered with white or black fur, so it is very difficult to recognize a person in him. Usually Chuhaister was presented as a giant: healthy, as tall as a spruce – from two to seven meters tall. There are indications that he has blue or frog-like eyes, that he is toothless and lisping, that he has claws on his feet or even hooves. Sometimes Chuhaister was described as dressed in white clothes. There are legends according to which there is only one forest man, or that seven brothers became Chuhaisters, or that there are only three or four Chuhaisters.
He could also be represented as a small spirit that floats in the form of a strong wind or whirlwind and tears down the forest. Wind, rain, thunder, hail and the abnormal movement of the moon in the sky could serve as signs of the presence of the Chuhaister.
Known by the following names: chugayster, chugaystyr, chugaistryn, ochugayster, chugay, forest man, forest grandfather and simply grandfather (Boykivshchyna), night owl (Transcarpathia), grove (Rakhivshchyna), grandfather. The use of such names as grandfather is probably connected with the taboo against saying the names of demons out loud. Some authors capitalize the name of the character, considering him as an individual.
The most known names for Chuhaister include the following:
There is no reliable etymology of the name, although some modern researchers[who?] have connected the first element of the word with the Proto-Slavic root *čuga ("ambush, sentinel"), chuga[what language is this?] ("Cossack watchtowers"), Ukrainian chuga (Carpathian national outerwear), chugilo[what language is this?] ("flow in the stone"), and a Ukrainian dialect word from the area of Negostina, chuga ("scarecrow"). Maxim Anatolyevich Yuyukin, philologist and author of historical novels, considers that the first part of the word is related to the Proto-Slavic root *čugati meaning "to appear, to stick out, to stand out". The origin of the second part (a)ister remains largely unexplained, although a number of researchers have assumed that it comes from Ukrainian dialect га́йстр, transliterated as haister, meaning stork. There is also the possibility of a completely foreign origin of the word.
The word Chuhaister does not appear in historical monuments. B. V. Kobylansky assumed that the mythological character and his name arose directly in the southwestern dialects of the Ukrainian language in connection with the appearance of forest hermits from Moldavian-Bukovinian monasteries in the 17th–18th centuries.
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Chuhaister
Chuhaister (Ukrainian: Чугайстер) is a Ukrainian tutelary deity of the forests. He is specific to the Carpathians.
According to the legend, Chuhaister was once an ordinary person.
He did something very bad to his neighbor and he cursed him to live in the forest for the rest of his life and not be able to die. Under the power of the curse, Chuhaister left his native home and wandered away. Since then, he wanders alone through the dark dense forests and wild mountain peaks in summer and winter, and no one can harm him – neither man nor beast. Over the years, his clothes have worn out, and Chuhaister now walks around naked. He has long hair and a white beard, his body is covered with white or black fur, so it is very difficult to recognize a person in him. Usually Chuhaister was presented as a giant: healthy, as tall as a spruce – from two to seven meters tall. There are indications that he has blue or frog-like eyes, that he is toothless and lisping, that he has claws on his feet or even hooves. Sometimes Chuhaister was described as dressed in white clothes. There are legends according to which there is only one forest man, or that seven brothers became Chuhaisters, or that there are only three or four Chuhaisters.
He could also be represented as a small spirit that floats in the form of a strong wind or whirlwind and tears down the forest. Wind, rain, thunder, hail and the abnormal movement of the moon in the sky could serve as signs of the presence of the Chuhaister.
Known by the following names: chugayster, chugaystyr, chugaistryn, ochugayster, chugay, forest man, forest grandfather and simply grandfather (Boykivshchyna), night owl (Transcarpathia), grove (Rakhivshchyna), grandfather. The use of such names as grandfather is probably connected with the taboo against saying the names of demons out loud. Some authors capitalize the name of the character, considering him as an individual.
The most known names for Chuhaister include the following:
There is no reliable etymology of the name, although some modern researchers[who?] have connected the first element of the word with the Proto-Slavic root *čuga ("ambush, sentinel"), chuga[what language is this?] ("Cossack watchtowers"), Ukrainian chuga (Carpathian national outerwear), chugilo[what language is this?] ("flow in the stone"), and a Ukrainian dialect word from the area of Negostina, chuga ("scarecrow"). Maxim Anatolyevich Yuyukin, philologist and author of historical novels, considers that the first part of the word is related to the Proto-Slavic root *čugati meaning "to appear, to stick out, to stand out". The origin of the second part (a)ister remains largely unexplained, although a number of researchers have assumed that it comes from Ukrainian dialect га́йстр, transliterated as haister, meaning stork. There is also the possibility of a completely foreign origin of the word.
The word Chuhaister does not appear in historical monuments. B. V. Kobylansky assumed that the mythological character and his name arose directly in the southwestern dialects of the Ukrainian language in connection with the appearance of forest hermits from Moldavian-Bukovinian monasteries in the 17th–18th centuries.
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