The custom prevalent among many Slavic
nations, of females burning themselves with the corpses of their
husbands, seems also to have been brought from India to Europe.
There are, however, other features of their mythology which belong to
them exclusively, and which remind us rather of the sprightly and
poetical imagination of the Greeks. We allude to their mode of
attributing life to the inanimate objects of nature, rocks, brooks and
trees; of peopling with supernatural beings the woods which surrounded
them, the mountains between which they lived. The _Rusalki_ of the
Russians, the _Vila_ of the southern Slavic nations, the _Leshie_ of
several other tribes, nymphs, naiads, and satyrs, are still to be
found in many popular tales and songs. If, however, we have compared
them to the poetical gods of the Greeks, we must not forget to add,
that their character has less resemblance to these gods, (who indeed
appear only as ordinary men with higher powers, more violent passions,
and less limited lives.) than it has to the northern Elf; and the
German Nix and mountain Spirit--without heart and soul themselves, but
always intermeddling with intrusive curiosity in human affairs,
however void of real interest in them; revengeful towards the most
trifling offence or the least neglect; and beneficent only to
favourites arbitrarily chosen.
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