Yav- Slavic LocationLocation · Realm"The Middle World"

The Trunk of the Tree

Yav sits at the trunk of the World Tree. The branches reach into Prav, where the gods dwell. The roots descend into Nav, where the dead reside. Yav is the middle: the manifest world, everything visible and tangible. Its name means what appears, what can be touched. Humans live here. They can see the sky above and feel the earth that will someday receive their bodies, but they cannot see the divine or the dead.

Certain places stood closer to the other realms. Hilltops where lightning struck often approached Prav's thunder. Springs rising from underground reached toward Nav's waters. Funeral rites sent the dead downward, and festival fires in spring and winter opened the boundaries for ancestors to return.

Rain from Above, Water from Below

Rain falling from clouds is Prav's blessing reaching Yav. Springs rising from underground are Nav's waters surfacing in the manifest world. Sunlight fills Yav during the day; Nav's darkness claims it at night.

Mat Zemlya, Moist Mother Earth, is Yav's foundation. She receives the dead into her body and nourishes the living with her produce. To swear by the earth was to invoke the ground itself as witness. To eat earth sealed an oath with one's own body and the soil it would return to. The living walked on their ancestors, and beneath their feet the dead waited.