Mokosh bears Perun two children — Jarilo, god of spring fertility, and Marzanna, goddess of winter and death. The infant Jarilo is stolen by Veles and raised in the underworld, returning each spring to unknowingly court his own sister in the eternal cycle of the seasons.
⚠ This family structure derives from the Ivanov-Toporov reconstruction of the Proto-Slavic 'basic myth' (1974), widely influential but debated by scholars such as Łuczyński and Gieysztor who question the extent of the reconstruction.
Jarilo and Marzanna are siblings who marry at midsummer in a doomed union. Their wedding brings peak fertility, but Marzanna kills Jarilo at summer's end, beginning winter's reign.
⚠ The Jarilo-Marzanna sibling marriage is a scholarly reconstruction by Katičić and Belaj, synthesized from South and West Slavic ritual songs, Kupala customs, and Marzanna effigy drowning traditions. No single primary source narrates it directly.
Marzanna kills Jarilo at the end of summer when the truth of their sibling bond is revealed. His death triggers the onset of winter as Marzanna descends in grief and rage.
⚠ Part of the Katičić-Belaj reconstructed seasonal cycle, synthesized from South Slavic Jurjevo traditions and Kupala customs.
Kupala night celebrates the midsummer wedding of Jarilo and Marzanna, the peak of the seasonal cycle. The festival's bonfires and fertility rites mark the doomed union before Jarilo's death at summer's end.
In the reconstructed seasonal myth, Veles raises the abducted Jarilo in Nav. When Jarilo dies at summer's end, he returns to Veles's realm, and Marzanna's grief at losing her husband brings winter — the season of Veles's ascendancy.
⚠ Part of the Katičić-Belaj reconstructed seasonal cycle. The Veles-Marzanna-Jarilo triad is synthesized from South Slavic folk songs and ritual patterns.
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