cat Baiyun

Image

Etymology

What does the creature's name mean?

Cat Bayun - The word Bayun means “talker, storyteller, talker”, from the verb bayat - “tell, talk” (cf. also the verbs lull, lull in the meaning of “put to sleep”

Appearance

Cat Bayun - Russian Character fairy tales. The image of the cat Bayun combines the features of a fairy-tale monster and a bird with a magical voice. This strange animal looks like a cat, whose body is folded like an accordion. When walking, it first moves forward with its front paws, while the furs stretch and the hind paws remain in place. And then, making sure that the place where he came is safe for him and his family, he begins to slowly pull up his hind legs and tail, while making the sounds of an accordion (accordion). Different cats will hear different melodies. Mostly Russian folk. But there were rumors about a cat whose walking produced the sounds of Tuvan throat singing. But the one who spread such rumors has already been caught and punished.

Origin

Kot-Bayun, contrary to popular belief erroneous opinion, in fact, is Kot-Bayan and is a product of a random mutation or targeted genetic experiments (this has not yet been reliably clarified). It occurred by crossing a button accordion with an ordinary tabby cat.

Habitat

Fairy tales say that Bayun sits on a high, usually iron, pole. The cat lives far away in the thirtieth kingdom or in a lifeless dead forest, where there are no birds or animals. In one of the fairy tales about Vasilisa the Beautiful cat Bayun lived with Baba Yaga.

Relatives

Cat Scientist (A.S. Pushkin "Ruslan and Lyudmila")

Like the fantastic bird Sirin, the cat Bayun has a truly magical voice.

A close relative of Bayun is the ominous cat Matvey, whose image was created with a great deal of irony by Mikhail Boyarsky in musical fairy tale"New Year's adventures of Masha and Viti."

Character traits and habits

A huge cannibal cat with a magical, enchanting voice. He speaks and lulls approaching travelers to sleep with his tales and those of them who are not strong enough to resist his magic and who are not prepared for battle with him, the sorcerer cat mercilessly kills. But whoever can get a cat will find salvation from all illnesses and ailments - Bayun’s fairy tales are healing.

Interests

For anyone who manages to catch a magical animal, the cat will serve faithfully and tell tales, healing from various ailments.

Friends

Man-eating cat

Baba Yaga, in one of the fairy tales about Vasilisa, the Beautiful Cat lived with her

Enemies

Ivan Tsarevich and all travelers who are not strong enough to resist his magic and who are not prepared for battle with him

To capture the magic cat, Ivan Tsarevich puts on an iron cap and iron gloves. Having caught the animal, Ivan Tsarevich takes it to the palace to his father.

Characteristic phrases, quotes

... Andrei the shooter came to the thirtieth kingdom. Three miles away, sleep began to overcome him. Andrei puts three iron caps on his head, throws his arm over his arm, drags his leg over his leg - he walks, and then rolls around like a roller. Somehow I managed to doze off and found myself at a high pillar. The cat Bayun saw Andrei, grumbled, purred, and jumped from the post on his head - he broke one cap and broke the other, and was about to grab the third. Then Andrei the shooter grabbed the cat with pincers, dragged him to the ground and began stroking him with the rods. First, he whipped him with an iron rod; He broke the iron one, began to treat him with the copper one - and he broke this one and began to beat him with the tin one.

The tin rod bends, does not break, and wraps around the ridge. Andrei beats, and the cat Bayun began to tell fairy tales: about priests, about clerks, about priests’ daughters. Andrey doesn’t listen to him, but he’s harassing him with a rod. The cat became unbearable, he saw that it was impossible to speak, and he begged: “Leave me, good man!” Whatever you need, I will do everything for you. -Will you come with me? - I’ll go wherever you want. Andrey went back and took the cat with him.

Image in art

Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov met the cat Bayun in a strange place: “Kikimora lives and grows with a magician in the stone mountains. From morning to evening, Kikimora is entertained by the cat-bayun - he tells tales from overseas. From evening until broad light they rock Kikimora in a crystal cradle” and wrote down his impressions in symphonic poem"Kikimora". Here the cat Bayun is the kindest creature, a caring nanny. Bayun protects the kikimora from all adversity (“Tales of the Russian People” as retold by Academician I.P. Sakharov), rocks her cradle “bye-bye, bye-bye.” The last time the learned cat was seen was in NIICHAVO. In the museum of the institute, IZNAKURNOZH, on Lukomorye Street. Lives under the name Vasily (Veles’ trace again?), as evidenced by the Strugatsky brothers.

Nowadays the “scientist cat” and the cat Bayun are very popular characters. Many such “cats” have “settled” in the Internet space: from literary pseudonyms and the name of a web magazine, to the name of the medicinal product for cats “Cat Bayun” and captions to photographs.

Works in which the creature appears

“Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what”

"Matyusha Ash"

"Feather of Finist Yasna Falcon"

"Baba Yaga and the cat Bayun"

"Ivan the Fool and Baba Yaga"

“In the distant kingdom, in the thirtieth state” Fairy tales / Retelling by A. I. Lyubarskaya; Rice. B. Vlasov and T. Shishmareva; Designed L. Yatsenko.-2nd ed. - L.: Det., lit., 1991-336 p. ill.

“Vasilisa the Beautiful”, “Seeds of Good: Russian Folk Tales and Proverbs” / Comp., author, foreword. and note. L. P. Shuvalova; Hood. A. Sorokin. - M.: Det. lit., 1988. - 175 pp.: ill.

“Vasilisa the Beautiful”, “Russian children's fairy tales collected by A. N. Afanasyev”, M., Detgiz, 1961 (AF. D.)

Filmography

"Ivashka from the Palace of Pioneers" m/f

Fairy tale education. Cat Bayun and Ivan Tsarevich

Similar creatures in the myths of other peoples, fairy tales, and fantastic works

Cat Bayun is not just a Russian character folk tales, he is the cat of the god Veles himself, the patron saint of cattle breeding, agriculture, and wealth, whom he faithfully serves. Or maybe it’s Veles himself, turning into a cat when he has to hide from the formidable Perun? The cat Bayun sits on a high iron pole, he can see seven miles away, his magical voice can be heard seven miles away. With his purring, the cat Bayun lets sleep, indistinguishable from death. This is what later fairy tales say: “...go to the distant kingdom behind the Cat Bayun. You won't reach three miles before you become strong dream to overcome - Kot-Bayun will let you in. Look, don’t sleep, throw your hand behind your hand, drag your foot after your foot, and roll wherever you want; and if you fall asleep, Kot-Bayun will kill you!” God Veles is not only the god of cattle, but also the god of the underworld (the kingdom of death), and the patron god of singers and poets. No wonder they said about the cat Bayun: “Dead sleep overcomes everyone who hears it.” Is it not from the Golden, Silver and Copper Kingdom of Veles that instructions in fairy tales are given on how to defeat the cat Bayun? The singing of the cat Bayun is deadly, and his tales are healing, but getting a cat is difficult. And in fairy tales the hero is instructed to follow the cat with three iron caps, keep iron pliers and three rods ready: one iron, another copper, the third tin. If a cat breaks two caps, but cannot overcome the third one, grab him with pincers and beat him with rods. You will break two rods before defeating Bayun. If the cat tells fairy tales at this time, don’t listen, but on the third tin rod the cat will pray and serve you faithfully.

Newly baptized O.I. “Cat Bayun”

The fairy tale seems to describe all the main details of this character: he sits on a pole, is capable of breaking an iron cap, otherwise you can’t take him with pliers (also iron), and, most importantly, he reasonable, at least at the level of Asimov’s robots, otherwise it would be impossible to conduct a constructive dialogue with him.

Tikhonov Igor Vsevolodovich “Cat-Bayun”

Stop. We forgot something else - dimensions Kota. At some point, it was generally accepted that Kot-Bayun was not only a cannibal, but also of enormous size, probably the size of a horse.

Hm. Cat... Ogre... Huge size... What kind of animal is this?!
Yes, we know what: tiger, lion, other large cat predators. All cats, from small to large, both domestic and wild, are alike: they are all predators, attacking their prey from ambush, obtaining it not only with their teeth, but also with their claws...

Bayun the cat looks like Jack Nicholson

Let's get back to the sizes. Is Kot-Bayun huge? Older drawings - by K. Kuznetsov - for example - do not give us the opportunity to judge this, but newer drawings - O.I. Novokreshennykh or I.V. Tikhonov - they think that yes, it is huge.

Chizhikov, who illustrated Uspensky’s fairy tale “Down the Magic River,” simply depicted Bayun as a huge black cat (and really, it’s not a white Persian or a black-and-white Siamese to depict him?), no longer only a horse, but also a horse with a rider .

Victor Chizhikov. Illustration for the book by E. Uspensky "Down the Magic River."

In a word, Kot-Bayun is not “just” a domestic cat “the size of an elephant”, or just a super-large and magical black panther or a melanistic tiger. But it's not that simple.

In the above tale, for example, Bayun’s size is not mentioned, but the fact that he jumped on the main character’s head still indicates that he is smaller than a tiger, and even a leopard, puma and lynx.

Victor Chizhikov. Illustration for the book by E. Uspensky "Down the Magic River."

A large relative of the domestic cat, attacking its prey from behind (a lynx on a hare, a tiger on a deer, a lion on a zebra), knocks it to the ground without any problems. The fact that Kot-Bayun did not do this in the battle with his adversary (Andrei, Fedot, Ivan) suggests that he is still small in size, say - no more than a domestic cat, since main character(let's say Andrei the shooter) was able to bring it home in a cage. (That’s right, because a cat on a leash is nonsense and a mortal insult to the animal, too.)

At the same time, however, he has sufficient strength to break two iron caps, as well as steel-iron claws, with which he wanted to gut the king when they were presented to each other.
Yes, but with all this, he also possessed not only reason and speech, but also reason, decency, or something: Andrei the shooter ordered him to calm down and not touch the king, the Cat did not touch the king.
Cat Bayun is a cat squared, and Andrei's victory over him is people's dreams of the final victory over cats - a cat that retains its natural cat qualities and listens to a person like a dog. (Can't wait!)

Cat Bayun, no matter how you twist it, he is a cannibal. (Like any other large wild cat, whether fabulous or real.)
And now we are back to the original question? Why is Kot-Bayun so not popular? E. Prokofieva, who wrote a certain reference book about evil spirits, was able to mention it in only two instances: in “Ruslan and Lyudmila” by Pushkin and “Down the Magic River” by Uspensky.

As for Pushkin's "Scientist Cat", he is not very similar to Bayun: he does not destroy people, does not send them sleep, although, like Bayun, he tells fairy tales and also sings songs. But unlike Bayun - “I sat under him, and the learned cat told me his fairy tales. I remember one: this fairy tale, now I will tell the world...” That is. This cat not only did not touch Pushkin, but also told him his fairy tales without such arguments as those rods with which Andrei courted Bayun.

The cat Bayun in Slavic mythology is a cat-guide. According to legend, the cat Bayun sits on an iron pillar near a golden mill far away. This pillar (for Pushkin it is a centuries-old mighty oak) is border axis between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
When going down, the cat sings, when going up, he tells fairy tales. The bayun has such a strong and loud voice that it can be heard very far away.

Now let's look at the miracle cat with modern points of view. More precisely, his voice.

The voice is essentially sound. Sound, like color, has a spectrum of different frequencies. And we hear only a small part of them. There are such concepts as ultrasound and infrasound. They are beyond the range of the human ear, but some animals can hear them. This is where we will dig...

Maybe some people know such a thing as “the voice of the sea.” It is this phenomenon that explains the sudden disappearance or death of ship crews. The voice of the sea is destructive for humans, just like Bayun’s songs. The same explains the death of animals in anomalous zones called “devil’s glades.”

The fact is that some frequencies can have a harmful effect not on the hearing organs, but on the entire body as a whole. The worst thing is that a person does not hear these frequencies and cannot move away from the source to a safe distance in time. First there is a headache, then the state of health worsens, the person loses consciousness... and then death occurs... But animals can hear at these frequencies, and disappear from a dangerous place. Everything fits!

And from a fantastic point of view, the image of the Cat - Bayun can even be considered as an ancient weapon of mass destruction using sound waves!

And yet Bayun was forgotten. Why? He left too fragile an image in fairy tales; in Pushkin it is only in the prologue, and Uspensky is now also half-forgotten, and cannot “help” Bayun.
It's a pity!
In books of the Slavic fantasy genre, he would not have taken the last place, no worse than some Serpent Gorynych... But it’s clear that this is not fate.

But domestic cats are thriving to this day, and it doesn’t hurt to be kind to them - what if they tell their grievance to such a Bayun? It will be bad then! Incl. treat them humanely - and you will be rewarded a hundredfold.
End

No matter how you look at Rus', it’s always at random,
In the fields instead of rye there is quinoa and loach,
On the icons there is a ghoul, and with a club - the law,
On an iron pole is the cat Bayun.

Sergey Yesenin

Cat Bayun is a very remarkable figure in a Russian fairy tale, but this character, surprisingly, is known only from one Russian fairy tale “Go there without knowing where, bring it back without knowing what,” and in the very unsightly form of a huge cannibal cat. It is this factor that is noted in the free Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.
“The cat Bayun is a character from Russian fairy tales, a huge cannibal cat with a magical voice. He speaks and lulls approaching travelers to sleep with his tales and those of them who are not strong enough to resist his magic and who are not prepared for battle with him, the sorcerer cat mercilessly kills. But whoever can get a cat will find salvation from all illnesses and ailments - Bayun’s fairy tales are healing.
The word bayun means “talker, storyteller, talker”, from the verb bayat - “tell, talk” (cf. also the verbs lull, lull in the meaning “to put to sleep”). Fairy tales say that Bayun sits on a high, usually iron, pole. The cat lives far away in the thirtieth kingdom or in a lifeless dead forest, where there are no birds or animals. In one of the fairy tales about Vasilisa, the Beautiful cat Bayun lived with Baba Yaga.
There are a large number of fairy tales where the main acting character give the task to catch the cat; As a rule, such tasks were given with the goal of ruining a good fellow. A meeting with this fabulous monster threatens inevitable death. To capture the magic cat, Ivan Tsarevich puts on an iron cap and iron gloves. Having extorted and caught the animal, Ivan Tsarevich takes it to the palace to his father. There, the defeated cat begins to serve the king - telling fairy tales and healing the king with soothing words.” [VP]
It's interesting to imagine the references from which this patchwork quilt was sewn.
link 1 – unavailable since 06/14/2016
link 2 - Fairy tales “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what” and “The Tale of Fedot the Sagittarius”
link 3 - Fairy tales “Baba Yaga and the cat Bayun” and “Ivan the Fool and Baba Yaga”
link 4 - “Russian folk tales” / Comp., intro. Art. and approx. V. P. Anikina, M., “Pravda” 1985., 576 p.
The reference is completely out of context, and this is the main characteristic of the word Bayun.
A reference to the only Russian fairy tale “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what,” where Bayun is presented as a negative character. “The Tale of Fedot the Sagittarius” by L. Filatov does not contain information about the cat Bayun.
Link about Baba Yaga and the cat Bayun. In truly folk tales (retellings by female storytellers), the cat Bayun is absent, and there is a reason for that. This is truly folk art, and not the Judeo-Christian ideology that permeates many Russian, so-called folk tales.
A link to a collection of Russian folk tales, which probably contains the fairy tale “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what.”
Thus, there is only one Russian folk tale where the cannibal cat Bayun is presented. Below is a paragraph from this tale presented in Wiki.
“... Andrei the shooter came to the thirtieth kingdom. Three miles away, sleep began to overcome him. Andrei puts three iron caps on his head, throws his arm over his arm, drags his leg over his leg - he walks, and then rolls around like a roller. Somehow I managed to doze off and found myself at a high pillar.
The cat Bayun saw Andrei, grumbled, purred, and jumped from the post on his head - he broke one cap and broke the other, and was about to grab the third. Then Andrei the shooter grabbed the cat with pincers, dragged him to the ground and began stroking him with the rods. First, he whipped him with an iron rod; He broke the iron one, began to treat him with the copper one - and he broke this one and began to beat him with the tin one.
The tin rod bends, does not break, and wraps around the ridge. Andrei beats, and the cat Bayun began to tell fairy tales: about priests, about clerks, about priests’ daughters. Andrey doesn’t listen to him, but he’s harassing him with a rod. The cat became unbearable, he saw that it was impossible to speak, and he prayed:
- Leave me, good man! Whatever you need, I will do everything for you.
-Will you come with me?
- I’ll go wherever you want.
Andrey went back and took the cat with him.
- “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what,” Russian fairy tale.”
The following can be noted in this paragraph:
“Andrey beats, and the cat Bayun began to tell fairy tales: about priests, about clerks, about priests’ daughters. Andrey doesn’t listen to him, you know he’s harassing him with a rod.”
The role of the cannibal cat, it would seem, is contained in the words of Princess Marya:
“Early in the morning, Princess Marya woke up Andrei:
- Here are three caps and pincers and three rods for you, go to distant lands, to the thirtieth state. You won’t reach three miles, a strong sleep will begin to overcome you - the cat Bayun will let you fall asleep. Don’t sleep, throw your arm over your arm, drag your leg over your leg, and roll wherever you want. And if you fall asleep, the cat Bayun will kill you.”
In the article “Forgotten Evil Spirits” the author writes:
“Of all the characters in Russian folk tales and folklore, Kot-Bayun is quite close to its tail. From what? Because it is changed so little in fairy tales. Why? That’s what we’ll talk about.”
“And now we’re back to the original question? Why is Kot-Bayun so not popular? E. Prokofieva, who wrote a certain reference book about evil spirits, was able to mention it in only two instances: in “Ruslan and Lyudmila” by Pushkin and “Down the Magic River” by Uspensky.
As for Pushkin's "Scientist Cat", he is not very similar to Bayun: he does not destroy people, does not send them sleep, although, like Bayun, he tells fairy tales and also sings songs. But unlike Bayun - “I sat under him, and the learned cat told me his fairy tales. I remember one: this fairy tale, now I will tell the world...” That is. This cat not only did not touch Pushkin, but also told him his fairy tales without such arguments as those rods with which Andrei courted Bayun.”
The image of a cannibal cat from the fairy tale “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what” migrated into modern satirical and children’s literature without any reason, so to speak, according to a well-worn image, for example, in the modern fairy tale “Down the Magic river L. Uspensky
.

Rice. 1. Cat Bayun in the company of Barabas, Chumichka, Koshchei and Likha

“- If you don’t want to, don’t! - said Koschey. - Come on, Bayun, put them to sleep! Let them sleep until our victory.
Bayun came forward and looked first at one boyar, then at the other. And everyone he looked at immediately fell to the floor and fell asleep right on the spot. A minute later all the boyars were asleep. Only snoring could be heard.”
“Cat Bayun jumped out onto the bridge and looked at Ivan the Cow’s Son with his witch’s eyes. No matter how hard Ivan strengthened himself, no matter how he fought sleep, he could not resist. He fell and, defenseless, fell asleep right on the bridge. The cat jumped onto his chest and began to tear the chain mail with its steel claws.
Several horsemen from the left bank rushed to the aid of the hero. But Bayun directed his lantern eyes at them, and they fell from their horses as if they had been knocked down. But even this was foreseen by Vasilisa the Wise. She stepped forward, and in her hands was something wrapped in a rag. A magic club jumped out of the rag and flew towards Bayun. It was in vain that he rolled his eyes. In vain he growled and showed his claws. The club flew up to him and started hitting him on the sides.
The cat left the hero and rushed under the protection of Koshchei the Immortal.”
The club of Vasilisa the Wise and the rod in the hands of Andrei Sagittarius are similar objects as influencing factors.
It is interesting that in Western European fairy tales both cats and troubadours have very positive characters, for example, in the fairy tales “Puss in Boots” and “ The Bremen Town Musicians" Why didn’t the world take up arms against the black cat in the Russian fairy tale?
Cat Bayun, in fact, in his tales opposes the official Judeo-Christian religion accepted in Rus', which is why he is objectionable, so the archer hits him with a rod. This tale is ideological, like many other Russian folk tales, which mention Koschey the Immortal and Baba Yaga, the Nightingale the Robber. I have already written about the etymology of these characters earlier. Koschey is a koschey, a folk storyteller. Baba Yaga - sorceress, healer, Nightingale the Robber - guslar Slavisha. These are representatives of a pagan religion that was persecuted by Judeo-Christianity. If the Koshchy turned into Koshchei in the fairy tale, the guslar Slavish into the Nightingale the Robber, then the boyan-storyteller turned into the cat Bayun, fortunately the boyan and the button accordion are consonant words. Thus, the poor animal fell into the very unworthy role of a scapegoat for the sins of others.
A certain apologist for Judeo-Christianity, S. Kolibaba, even tried to distort the meaning of the word “bait”, reducing its origin to the Hebrew root BAA - “to ask, to ask a question.”
“From the above examples, it is clear that the Russian term “bayat” was originally understood as raising a question (a problem that has arisen) before the mystical forces - the sorcerer, the sorceress, as well as before the Divine forces (the god of Hosts, in particular, who beats over the sick) - a request for a solution to the problem.”
Sorcerers, sorcerers, blasphemers, boyans, turning to nature, higher powers, and the people, as a rule, sang songs, i.e. they babbled.
“Boyan, the prophetic one, if anyone wants to create a song, his mind will spread across the tree, like a crazy eagle into the clouds, gray wolf on the ground..." [SPI]
Where is the question to solve the problem?
“BAYU or bau, bai, bayushki, chorus for putting a child to sleep, rocking to sleep; it's time for you to go, bye-bye, go bye-bye, go to bed. I beat you and give you beaters. To lull someone, to nurture, to lull, to lull, to rock, to rock, to lull; cradle someone, fuss, babysit, put to sleep. Okay, you lull him to sleep, but he won’t sleep. The nanny cradled her handkerchief. I finally got to sleep. Lull him to sleep. I rocked myself until I was tired. After you've calmed down, go have dinner. Lull him some more, and you lull him, lull him, hum him. I rocked it all night, lulled my hand, pumped it out. The whole house was lulled to sleep and began to sing. Cradling Wed. motion sickness, putting a child to sleep with a refrain. Cradled about. baukalka m. baukalka, baukalka f. nurturer, nanny, chorus. Bayukalka w. shaky, cradle, rocking chair, cradle, pram. Bike lullaby song, chorus for putting a child to sleep; | Vologda cradle, cradle. | In the meaning of dialect, bass and pipe, see bai; fabric, see flannel." [SD]
“BAY to the south from Moscow, bayat and bayat, bayat (bayati and bati; sow and nets, deeds and children; both from a song and from a father’s fables) sowing. and east also in zap. lips talk, chat, converse, tell, talk, interpret; babble, babble, babble, scribble, be rude, etc. He’s a bastard, I’m a bastard, I won’t go bastard. Everyone knows the truth, but not everyone tells the truth. It’s better not to babble, blink your eyes as if you understand. It’s been a long time it was said that the wife is not a lady. Sip cabbage soup, but buy less. Know a lot, but buy little. It’s not appropriate to tell a lot. The boy hasn’t bashed for three years, but his mother is a fool. We won’t be rich from shata and bata (chatter). "Bai for your share, and I say for my side. You buy for your share, and I will spread it over my half. Buy, buy, and say. The people are baiting - but they don’t know. Our grandfathers were telling the truth, but we are just assenting We know how. We were scared about this too. With the pretext it’s the same as saying: You’ve beaten yourself out of the line, talked it out in an agreement; you’ve been scared, you won’t stop. You’re going to get something. You’ve been talking about it again. He’s talking about everyone. He’s been worrying about it, it’s time to go home. They’re telling you on whom; to play to the heart's content: has he stopped you, or what? You can't get rid of him. Give him a little more time," [SD]
baj-baj – bye, goodbye (English), i.e. retire.
By the way, bai and peace are perhaps the same root words.
baj > pokoj – peace (glorified) (reduction p/b, omission k)/pax- peace (Latin)/peac – peace (English)
Slavic interpretation foreign words produced by search method Slavic roots in foreign words (http://www.tezan.ru/metod.htm).
Nowhere is there a meaning to BAY as “to ask”, “to ask”.
Kolibaba writes:
“BA+IT, BA+YAT = Hebrew. BAA to ask, find out, to find out, ask + ET time, deadline, period, opportune moment; those. find out the moment, the time of occurrence of events.
BAYA+T, BAIA = Hebrew. BAIA problem, question (to ask).”
Why does the ending of the verb -ATE, -ITE as a particle of the word BAYAT turn into a word in Hebrew?!
If you write a verb in Hebrew, it will most likely be LE-BAA, where -LE- is the ending that comes at the beginning of the word. Why is that? Yes, because words in Hebrew are written from right to left, so the ending –LE became a prefix.
In Latin and Romance languages, the endings –ere, -ire, are are transformed in Hebrew into –le (reduction l/r). In German, the ending is -en (replacing r/n). In English, the ending to is at the beginning of the word, as in Hebrew (to bi), that is, bi-ti > biti – to be (glorified) (cont. to/bi).
BAI (glorified) and BAA (ancient Hebrew) are the same root meaning to speak, calm, sing. Where did the meaning of “ask” come from? Modification BAA – vedati – vedati (glorified) (omission d, reduction v/b).
The most interesting thing is that Kolibaba writes a review in Russian, which is derived from Slavic languages, and at the same time declares that he does not know what the Slavic language is, considering it an artificial language originating from the Church Slavonic language, which in turn is basically concepts church service comprises Jewish roots. I wish I knew about this Orthodox Church, which conducts a service based on the Greek language.
Kolibaba further writes:
“Regarding your “criticism,” I inform you that I do not know Slavic languages, and by the way, neither does science.
The ethnonym “Slavs” is rather vague, known since the 5th century, but who was meant by “Slavs”? At this time in Europe, incl. and Eastern, an extraordinary mixture of tribes and languages. Maybe they were the Huns, the remnants of Attila’s troops defeated by Rome, or the Avars (Avar Khaganate (modern Hungary), or a little later the Turkic-Bulgarians.
Archeology finds only primitive buildings (dugout pits), crafts at a low level, religious views primitive (shamanism), low culture, most cultural universals are absent: libraries, writing, literature, schools, teachers, etc.
The Church Slavonic (conditional name) language appeared around 861, when the Byzantine enlightener Cyril was in business trip among the Khazars and in the Jewish communities of Crimea. Khazars are Jews, Jews are the ruling elite of the Khazar Kaganate.
Thus, the Church Slavonic language was created in a Judeo-Christian environment and had the task of introducing the multi-speaking population of the Black Sea region to Judeo-Christianity.
This task was completed in an extremely short time and brilliantly; most of the languages ​​of Eastern Europe emerged from Church Slavonic.
You must understand (although it is difficult for you) that the Church Slavonic language is not Slavic in the literal sense of the word, but an ARTIFICIAL, CHURCH language, and most of its words and concepts (lexicon) are associated with the sacred language of the Church. The Church (in all countries) had access to every person (from peasants to monarchs) and a scientific apparatus of monks and priests who studied, formed and introduced into “national circulation” words and concepts made up of Hebrew roots (from the language of God, God is with us Jew, or do you deny it?). History does not find any other similar organizations.”
The story that the ethnonym “Slavs” has been known in historical sources only since the 5th century does not stand up to criticism. One can guess that in the struggle of Christianity against paganism in Western Europe and in Rus', little has survived from Slavic books, writings and general references to the Slavs, with the exception of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (and even then there are many skeptics about the authenticity of the work). And the Slavic tribes were called completely differently in historical sources, either by Herodotus, or the Scythians by Ptolemy, or the Sarmatians by Tacitus. Fortunately, the language of the ancient Slavs (Proto-Slavic language), which belongs to Vulgar Latin, has been preserved.

The history of the origin of the Slavic alphabet

The history of the origin of the Slavic alphabet is similar to a well-twisted one detective story. The establishment of a unity of views among historians on this issue is hampered by the almost complete absence of primary sources. The only source that has reached us is “The Legend of the Letters” by the monk Khrabra, who says in his work that the Slavs, being pagans, used the Greek and Latin alphabet (“letters”). There we also find a message about the creation of the Slavic alphabet by Constantine in 863.
Many questions arise:
1. Two alphabet. Why did Constantine (Killill) and Methodius create two alphabets - the Cyrillic alphabet and the Glagolitic alphabet, and the latter, according to the general opinion of researchers, was created before the Cyrillic alphabet? Maybe the Cyrillic alphabet was created by Cyril, and Methodius created the Glagolitic alphabet. ? But it is stated quite clearly that the brothers created two alphabets, which are completely different in the design of the letters. Why were two Slavic alphabets created with completely different letters? It is argued that Constantine created the Glagolitic alphabet, and not the Cyrillic alphabet, then it should be explained why the second, and not the first, is called the Cyrillic alphabet. In this regard, it was suggested that the name “Cyrillic” previously belonged to the Slavic alphabet, which later began to be called Glagolitic.
2. Confusion with names. The names of Constantine and Methodius are mentioned in the research literature. So, for example, the preaching of Constantine in Moravia, in Rus', the life of Constantine, and not Cyril, is described. Some texts mention the name of Constantine as an ecclesiastical one, and Cyril as a secular one, while others mention Constantine-Kirill. Thirdly, the name is Cyril (before taking monasticism - Constantine). Methodius generally has only one name - Methodius. “It is known that Methodius, like Constantine, before his death took the monastic name - Methodius, while the name given to him at birth is not known”! If Constantine is a monastic name, then why is the Slavic alphabet named after the secular name Kirill? Why does Methodius have only one name?
Of the whole range of questions, it can be assumed that Constantine and Methodius created only one Slavic alphabet- the Glagolitic alphabet, and another Slavic alphabet - the Cyrillic alphabet - has existed for a long time. Further, I assume that the name Kirill is a fictitious or distorted word of some other meaning.
This whole tangle of questions can be unraveled if we trace the mission of the Slavic educator through the “Life” of Constantine.
“From the surviving “Life” of Constantine, it is known that before the Moravian mission he visited Chozaria (in the Azov region), on the way there he stopped in the Crimea, in the city of Korsun (Chersonese), a Greek colony on East Slavic territory. Here he found the “Korsun Books”, a gospel and a psalter, written “Rossky letters”, possibly in Russian letters. Konstantin allegedly even met a person who read these books, and he immediately learned to read them.” .
Returning to the debate about what was the original Glagolitic or Cyrillic alphabet, we read:
“In the Cyrillic copy of the Book of Prophets, rewritten in 1499 in Novgorod, there is an afterword, which is in the original, written in 1047. In the afterword, priest Upyr Likhoy indicates that the manuscript was written “is kourilovice,” i.e. original written in a different alphabet. There are individual Glagolitic letters in the manuscript. This makes it possible to believe that the original manuscript was written in the Glagolitic alphabet, which was then called the Cyrillic alphabet (“Kurilovitsa”).”
The confusion is extraordinary.
From all of the above, I dare to assume that both “Cyrillic” and “Kurilovitsa” (a distorted word “Korsunitsa”) and “Russian letters” refer to the “Korsun books”. “Korsun Books” is Coptic writing!
In fact, then everything falls into place. Constantine and Methodius really created the only Slavic alphabet - the Glagolitic alphabet and this does not contradict anything, and the Cyrillic alphabet (distorted “Korsunitsa”) was and is still the Coptic alphabet of the Greek model. Glagolitic, in Slavic writing lost its meaning over time and currently exists only in Croatian church books.
Kolibaba: “Regarding your “criticism,” I inform you that I do not know Slavic languages, and by the way, neither does science.”
What science? Is it the former director of the Institute of Linguistics M. Krongauz, who once said that if all foreign words are extracted from the Russian language, then we will become numb, or A. Zaliznyak, who launched an open war on “non-professional linguistics”? I don’t understand such scientific authorities.

About the origin of Hebrew

Historical reference:
“Hebrew is a modern modification of the Hebrew language, formed on the basis of the language of the Mishnaic period. Refers to the Semitic languages ​​of the new stage. Officially the language of the State of Israel (along with Arabic). Number of speakers, St. 3.5 million people
K ser. 1st millennium BC Old-Hebrew the language fell into disuse as a spoken language and remained a language religious practice and spiritual and secular literature of high style. In the 2nd half. 18-19 centuries on its basis, Hebrew was formed, mainly among the Jews of Eastern Europe, as the language of the Holy Spirit. And fiction. From the second half of the 19th century. Hebrew has also become spoken language everyday communication." .
When I was there, about five years ago, on the Literaturnaya Gazeta forum, I met a Jew from Israel with a strange combination of first and last name Volodymer Betz (maybe it was a pseudonym), who fervently convinced me that the Russian language came from Hebrew. Then I did not attach serious importance to this statement. But, now, publications have begun to appear about the role of Hebrew in the Russian language and not only in the language, but also in the history of Moscow Rus'.
All this would be nothing, but if we add to this O. Suleimenov’s book “From Az to Yat” about the influence of Turkism on the Russian language, a dictionary of foreign words (7 thousand words) with Latin, Greek, French and other roots, then the impression is created that Russians do not have their own identity, historical language, but there is only a collection of prison jargon in Hebrew, strong expressions from Tatar mat, scientific terms from Latin and Greek and other everyday words from Western European languages. Or maybe it's the other way around? All words introduced into the Russian language are in fact a secondary coming of Slavic roots in a form distorted beyond recognition. Anything is possible foreign languages are based on the predecessor of the Russian language - the Proto-Slavic language, which was formed long before the Nostratic languages.
Studying the Nostratic languages, I came to the conclusion that they all belong in origin to a single proto-language, which I designated as the Proto-Slavic language, since in its modern form the Proto-Slavic language remained only in the Slavic languages ​​in almost unchanged form.
Hebrew did not escape the significant influence of the Proto-Slavic language; there are many examples of this, including the Hebrew - Proto-Slavic dictionary.

Scientist cat
Returning to Wikipedia, the one-sidedness of information about the cat Bayun seems strange.
There is also Pushkin’s:
“Near Lukomorye there is a green oak;
Golden chain on the oak tree:
Day and night the cat is a scientist
Everything goes round and round in a chain;
He goes to the right - the song starts,
To the left - he tells a fairy tale."
A.S. Pushkin treated Russian folklore very carefully and it was not for nothing that he assigned the epithet “scientist” to the cat Bayun.
He gave, in fact, a completely new interpretation of the image of the cat Bayun. And many sources talk about the creative, protective role of the cat in fairy tales. For example, in the fairy tale “Puss in Boots” by C. Perrault, the cat, which was inherited by the youngest of the brothers, provides invaluable services to its owner, thanks to its cunning and, say, wisdom. Isn't this a scientist cat?
In the Encyclopedia of Symbols we read:
“cat, cat Matou Chat m;le. F;lin Qui tient du chat, qui en a la souplesse. L;opard, le plus souvent, mais aussi le Tigre, la Panth;re, le Chat.
A domestic animal endowed with dual symbolism and various demonic functions in popular beliefs and often paired with a dog. Its domestication occurred ca. 2000 BC e. in Egypt, based on the Nubian light yellow cat (the short-tailed reed cat was known there even earlier). Later, cats from Egypt came to Greece and Rome. In a number of mythological traditions, the image of a cat appears as the embodiment of divine characters of the highest level. In myths about the hero-snake fighter of various traditions, a cat can act as: the snake fighter itself; its embodiment - for example, the hero of the Belarusian fairy tale of the same name, Ivan Popyalov, turns into a cat; assistant snake fighter; sometimes the cat-snake-fighter is inverted into the enemy of the snake-fighter as the embodiment or assistant of the snake, for example, in a number of Lithuanian mythological texts. The functions of the snake fighter and his opponent are combined in the tale of Volya Volovich. The opposition of the snake fighter and the snake in a transformed form (through the “cat and mouse” opposition) is widely represented in rituals and their degenerate forms - children's games. The motives for both the transformation of a cat into a human and the reverse transformation, as well as the combination of human and feline elements in the character, are known. The elusiveness of the boundaries between feline and human partly allows us to explain the origin of “cat” names in folklore (names such as the brother of Ivan Tsarevich, Kot Kotovich, Kot Kotofeich, Kotofey Ivanovich, Kotonailo, etc.) and onomastics. In various mythopoetic traditions, motifs of the learned cat are common.”
In the same time:
“In lower mythology, the cat acts as the embodiment or assistant (member of the retinue) of the devil, the evil spirit. In a number of traditions it is endowed with the features of vampirism. A negative assessment of a cat in many cultures is associated with an aggressive attitude towards a woman. Basic meanings: Sun, Moon, variability of the luminary (power of the Sun, phases of the Moon) - the ability to change the shape of the pupil; femininity, grace, grace independence, freedom, self-will, independence, fickleness deception, deceitfulness, cunning, slyness, duplicity resourcefulness, elusiveness, vitality (nine lives) laziness, desire, lust, cruelty night, darkness, witchcraft, witch, devilry misfortune, evil, death - black"
In Egypt and China, cats were revered and deified. The Bible says that a cat saved Noah's Ark:
"In the legend of global flood the cat saves Noah's Ark: it plugs the hole with its tail that was gnawed by the mouse created by the devil. Killing a cat is prohibited, otherwise there will be no luck in anything.”

Popular beliefs about the cat

“It is believed that if a person sleeps with a cat, his mind will become clouded. It is dangerous to carry a cat with horses, because it makes the horse dry out. Cats are not allowed into the church. Cats and dogs should not be allowed to eat food consecrated in church. However, the Poles sometimes gave them specially blessed bread and butter at Easter. This custom is explained by the popular idea that people have bread thanks to cats and dogs: according to the widespread legend about the ear of bread, because of their disrespectful attitude towards bread, people now use bread, which God left only for the share of cats and dogs. Bad sign, if a cat (any cat, not just black) crosses the road or meets you on the way. For a hunter and fisherman, a meeting with a cat promised failure in fishing. In this regard, they tried not to mention the cat during the hunt or called it something else (for example, baked). In the guise of a black cat, evil spirits are often represented. At the same time, the cat is believed to be able to see evil spirits invisible to humans. A devil may appear in the form of a cat. In cat form they represent the souls of the dead, especially those who atone for their sins after death or did not die a natural death. Death is shown to young children in the form of a cat. The black cat was also seen as the embodiment of diseases: cholera and “cow death”. Russians believe that black cats and dogs protect the house from lightning, but they also consider it dangerous to have them in the house during a thunderstorm. This is explained by the belief that during a thunderstorm, God tries to strike the devil with lightning, and the devil hides from God, turning into a cat, dog or other animal. Ukrainians know a story about how a forester, during a thunderstorm, saw a black cat that was not taken by the thunder, and shot it with a blessed tin button. After this, St. appeared to him in a dream. George said that he killed Satan, who had been teasing the saint for seven years. The cat has the characteristics of a domestic patron. Its presence in the house has a beneficial effect on the household and livestock. They believe that a stolen cat brings happiness to the house. And there are no cats in an unhappy house. When moving to new house owners often let a cat into it first, and only then move in themselves. Entering after her, the owner goes to the corner that the brownie should choose for himself. A cat brought into a new house is placed on the stove next to the chimney, that is, where, according to popular beliefs, the brownie lives. There are often stories about a brownie who turns into a cat. K. is used in folk magic and medicine. They believe, for example, that a black cat has a miraculous bone. If obtained, it can make a person invisible or give him the ability to know everything. Anyone who at midnight at a crossroads pricks his finger with such a bone and signs his name in blood will receive into his service a devil-brownie, who will bring stolen money, grain, milk from other people’s cows, etc. into the house (see Spirit-Enricher ). In some Russian provinces, in order to prevent the beginning of the death of livestock, it was considered necessary to bury the dead cattle in the barn along with a live cat. To protect themselves from cholera, they made a furrow around the village with a small plow, into which they harnessed a cat, a dog and a rooster, all of them black. A cow's swollen udder was treated by scratching it with the claws of a domestic cat. A child with consumption was bathed in a font with a black cat so that the disease would pass on to the cat. For a runny nose, you should sniff the smoke of a scorched cat's tail. White cat fur was used as a remedy for burns. According to popular belief, a cat can have a beneficial effect on sleep. Therefore, the image of a cat, like a hare, is often found in lullabies. Before placing the baby in the cradle for the first time, a cat is placed there so that the baby sleeps soundly. The idea of ​​the kinship of a cat and a hare is noted among the Serbs, who believe that the hare descended from a cat. IN folk culture the cat acts as a symbolic analogue of the bear, and the dog - the wolf. In East Slavic fairy tales, in Russian and Lusatian tales, an evil spirit, frightened by a bear (devil, kikimora, water bear, etc.), calls it “cat”. Russian peasants know a way to summon a forest spirit with the help of a cat - a “boletus”, which has a bearish appearance. Folklore and fairy tale motifs: the transformation into a cat of a snake-fighting hero or a monster conqueror - an East Slavic cycle of fairy tales about Ivan the Koshkin's son, a Belarusian fairy tale by Ivan Popyalov."

Purring

One of the features of the cat family is the purring of animals in response to a positive external stimulus. Perhaps the purring of a cat or cat is reminiscent of the muttering songs, the charm songs of the boyan singer.
“The mechanism of purring has long remained a controversial issue, since a special organ responsible for the production of such sounds has not been found in cats. According to recent studies, the mechanism of purring is as follows: electrical impulses arise in the cerebral cortex, which travel to the muscles located near the vocal cords and cause them to contract. The “purring apparatus” itself is located in cats between the base of the skull and the base of the tongue and consists of finely connected hyoid bones. Contraction of the muscles near the vocal cords causes them to vibrate. A cat makes a purring sound through its mouth and nose, and the vibration spreads throughout its body, while while purring it is impossible to listen to the animal’s lungs and heart.” [VP]
“The reasons for a cat’s purring are also not completely clear. It has been noticed that cats purr when they receive affection and feel safe, less often when they eat. Cats sometimes purr while giving birth, and kittens can purr as early as two days old. Some researchers suggest that with the help of purring, cats require their owner to feed them or simply pay attention, and the types of purring can be different: it can express pleasure, boredom, greeting the owner, concern, gratitude. Another theory is that with the help of purring, cats stimulate their brain to produce a hormone that acts as a relaxing, healing and pain reliever: indeed, there have been recorded cases of wounded cats that are in pain purring. Scientists at the University of California at Davis have suggested that purring with its vibration strengthens the cat's bones, which are negatively affected by long-term immobility: it is known that cats can sleep and doze for 16-18 hours a day. Based on this theory, they proposed using a “purr at 25 hertz” to quickly restore activity to people who have spent a long time in weightlessness” [VP]
“And frequencies from 20 to 200 Hz are, as a rule, the average range of the heart. The heart is usually said to operate at a frequency between 58 and 75 Hz. Many people mistakenly compare this to heart rate. But pulse is the number of beats per minute, and here we are dealing with frequency. Therefore, low throat singing, when the choir sings, even men say that it touches the soul, and at the same time they touch their heart with their hand. The heart begins to work normally. Classical music just in this range - 58-75 Hz"
Perhaps the low purring frequency of 25 Hz has a beneficial effect on the heart. The heart seems to calm down. Purring is similar to low throat singing.

So what, in fact, was the replacement of Boyan the Song Singer with the cat Bayun in the Russian folk tale? There are several factors involved here:
1. sound similarity of the names Boyan and Bayun
2. replacing the singer Boyan with the cat Bayun, as a way of combating dissent in Christian ideology
3. comparison of singer Boyan with evil spirits in the image of the cat Bayun to discredit the folk storyteller.
4. Boyan’s songs are compared to the physiological purring of a cat.
5. comparison of the image of Puss in Boots with the image of the cannibal in the fairy tale “Puss in Boots” by C. Perrault.

“I would like a link to where Yesenin has this verse “No matter how you look at Rus'...”. I couldn’t find it in the collected works; Google shows that the original source is this article. 213.87.137.193 07:17, July 29, 2015 (UTC)"
I would like to believe that this is a falsification.

What is close to us:

Two feelings are wonderfully close to us.
The heart finds food in them:
Love for the native ashes,
Love for fathers' coffins.

Based on them from time immemorial,
By the will of God Himself;
Human independence
The key to his greatness.

Life-giving shrine!
Without them, the soul would be empty.
Without them, our small world is a desert,
The soul is an altar without a deity.

A.S. Pushkin<октябрь 1830 г.>

Abbreviations

SPI - A Word about Igor's Campaign
PVL – Tale of Bygone Years
TSB - Great Soviet Encyclopedia
SD - Dahl's dictionary
SF - Vasmer's dictionary
SIS - dictionary of foreign words
TSE – Dictionary Efremova
TSOSH - explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov, Shvedov
CRS – dictionary of Russian synonyms
BTSU - Ushakov’s large explanatory dictionary
SSIS - combined dictionary of foreign words
MAK - small academic dictionary of the Russian language
VP - Wikipedia

1. Fairy tale “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what”, http://www.kostyor.ru/tales/tale35.html
2. Article “Forgotten evil spirits: the cat Bayun”, http://samlib.ru/k/kaminjar_d_g/kot-bajun.shtml
3. E. Uspensky, “Down the Magic River”
4. S. Kolibaba, “Bayat-etymology”,
5. S. Kolibaba, review of the article “Phraseology “Mother Earth””
6. A.S. Pushkin, poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”
7. Encyclopedia of Symbols, http://www.symbolarium.ru/index.php/
8. website “Wordwoman of the Arts”, Ivan Turkulets, “Scientist Cat”
9. website “Russian language”, Scientist Cat, http://rus.stackexchange.com/questions/11799/-
10. Purring, Wikipedia, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
11. The purr of a cat. Why cats purr, http://www.murlika.msk.ru/poleznoznat/murlikaniekoshki.php
12. Frequencies and people, http://spear.forum2x2.ru/t2052-topic
13. V.F. Krivchik, N.S. Mozheiko “Old Slavonic language”, ed. "Higher School", Minsk, 1985
14. Linguistic encyclopedic Dictionary, ed. " Soviet encyclopedia, Moscow, 1990
15. 16. http://www.machanaim.org/tanach/_pol2ism/2ism_prod_gl13.htm
17. L. Eilman “What the Hebrew words that are fixed in the Russian language tell,” article,

Russian folklore is immeasurably rich in songs, legends, dances, and fairy tales. The latter represent an invaluable layer folk wisdom. Its bearers are a variety of fairy-tale characters. Quite colorful among them is the cat Bayun. He is present in large quantities Russian folk tales. Storytellers always portrayed him as a cannibal cat of enormous size.

This cruel, scary cat loved to sit on a pole, most often an iron one. Basking in the sun, he patiently waited for travelers. When he saw the pilgrim, he began to purr contentedly, anticipating pleasure. An unsuspecting traveler approached the cat, and he, fluffing his tail, began to tell fairy tales and legends in a quiet, beautiful voice.

His voice had magical power. It lulled a person into sleep, made him pliable and defenseless. In the end, the traveler fell fast asleep, and the terrible cat jumped from his post, released huge strong claws, tore the unfortunate man into pieces with them and ate the warm flesh, purring carnivorously. These are the horrors he did, and there was no justice for him.

The word “bayun” itself has always been associated with a talker and talker. It comes from the Russian verb “bayat” - to lull, to lull. That's why the scary cat was given such a nickname. After all, what Bayun was doing was cradling and putting a person to sleep, and then committing violent acts against him and taking his life.

There lived a man-eating cat far away in the thirtieth kingdom. All around there was a dense forest, where there were no animals or birds. The forest thicket was cut through by a narrow road leading to a pillar with a monster sitting on it. It was believed that if someone defeats a cat, they will receive salvation from all diseases. Therefore, many good fellows went to distant lands, dreaming of defeating the monster, but they died, besotted by Bayun’s magical voice.

However, all Russian folk tales had a happy ending. And if so, then there was always a fellow who did not succumb to the charms of the terrible cannibal. One of these heroes was Ivan Tsarevich. He went to distant lands to fight the monster. Seeing him, the cat Bayun began to tell fairy tales in his magical voice. But the prince put an iron cap on his head, pulled iron mittens on his hands and fearlessly rushed at the cannibal.

The good fellow won in this fight. He exhausted the cat, deprived him of his strength, and he plaintively asked for mercy. He promised that he would fulfill any wish of Ivan Tsarevich. He took the cat with him, brought him to his father’s palace, and the once formidable monster began to meekly and obediently serve the king. He told him fairy tales and healed him from various illnesses.

This is how he was - this fairy tale character cat Baiyun. Creepy, scary, cruel towards the weak and defenseless. But, as they say, a good man is among the sheep, but a good man is the sheep himself. The one who defeated the man-eating cat became its sovereign owner and master. The monster turned into an obedient and helpful animal, spending its healing gift for good purposes.

Stanislav Kuzmin

Russian folklore is full of descriptions of fantastic creatures, the prototypes of which are familiar animals. Slavic mythology gave the authors of epics and fairy tales material for their works, and curious narratives attract the interest of modern children, despite the age of the works. Cat Bayun is a little-known character, as he rarely appears in literature. This image previously appeared in many fairy tales, but today it has been unfairly forgotten. However, the characterization of this hero of Russian narratives is extremely unusual.

History of creation

Cat Bayun is a fairy-tale character, a cannibal cat whose size is difficult to imagine. He has a magical voice that lulls travelers he meets to sleep. The cat kills his rivals and does not disdain easy victims who are unable to fight his charms. At the same time, the hero who is able to defeat the cat can receive salvation from any ailments, because the four-legged fairy tales are healing.

Bayun means “storyteller, talker.” The verb “bayat” is interpreted as “to talk” or “to lull.” The animal sits on a tall iron pillar in the middle of a dead forest that stretches far away, in the thirtieth kingdom. There are no living creatures in the area.

Description of this fairy tale hero rarely found in epics and folklore. Modern sources of archaic tales and epics are collections of folk tales compiled and essays. Writers, without downplaying the importance of the character, talked about him on the pages of their works, proving that the image of the hero contains the wisdom of centuries.

Image and character

Fairy tales give an accurate description of a fantastic animal. A cat sitting on a pole has remarkable strength. For example, it easily breaks a metal cap. You can pick it up using steel pliers. The beast has high intelligence and is capable of constructing long dialogues. At the same time, its dimensions are described in a specific way. The breed of the animal remains unknown, but the authors note that the cat is huge, comparing it to a horse. In addition, the animal is a cannibal.

It is easy to assume that the storytellers compared the cat Bayun with a tiger or a lion. Predators are large in size and easily deal with a person, attacking from cover, clinging to the body of the victim with their claws and teeth. Bayun's opponents in fairy tales are either Andrei the Shooter. The legends about these men mention that they carried the animal in a cage, which means that its dimensions were seriously exaggerated.

Despite the described bloodthirstiness of the beast, he is wise, decent and reasonable. The image of a cat, often used in folklore different countries, symbolic. This animal has never submitted to man. Brave warriors who are able to pacify a mysterious creature are an allusion to the desire of people to tame an independent beast and force it to carry out someone else's will.

In Slavic mythology

The legends of Russian folklore are deep and multifaceted. Based on their interpretation, the cat Bayun is a kind of conductor between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

The pillar on which the animal sits is replaced in the tale by an oak tree tied with a gold chain. The cat walks along the chain and tells stories. The tree he chose is associated with the World Tree growing at the North Pole, in Hyperborea. Bayun's voice is loud and melodic, so the soporific stories can be heard clearly and at a great distance.

It would be logical to assume that the hero is a forest dweller. Then he is the ancestor of famous predators: the lynx or the Siberian wild cat. Zoological sources confirm that such animals were not uncommon in the Urals or Siberia at the time when these lands were inhabited by our ancestors, the Aryans. It's about about the time 5-7 thousand years before the appearance of the Russians. The history of the mythical character is surprisingly long, no worse than the popular legends of Egyptian mythology.

The cat is capable of peaceful interactions with people because in some fairy tales he is invited to lull small children to sleep. Inhabitant other world responds to the call, speaking and putting to sleep. If the storyteller sees a victim in his interlocutor, he charms her with his voice and eats her. The cannibal sorcerer is able to magically heal his opponent if he resists the spells. Some fairy tales describe how the cat Bayun, conquered by brave warriors, remains in the service of the king.

The word "bayun", in addition to its direct decoding, is regarded as a mention of Bayan, a Russian storyteller, whose fame is comparable to that of the great writer. The storyteller told about legends of the past that were little known to the world. The mention of this man connects modern civilization and the disappeared civilization of Hyperborea.

At the end of this period, the cat Bayun moved to the dead forest and settled on the border of two worlds: the afterlife and the real, sitting on an iron pole. What is interesting in this case is the mention of the metal from which the warrior’s protective caps and the animal’s claws are made. After all, the legends date back to a time when such material was not known to the world.

The name Bayun is also consonant with the name Gamayun. is the name of the things of a bird that knows about the past.

The original Russian image of a cat has been cherished by history for 17 thousand years. The familiar image of an animal that plays the role of a home talisman in everyday life and a warm friend that brightens up loneliness is older than mythological characters. Ancient Egypt and Greece. Some parents even today sing a lullaby about a cat who is invited into the house for a pie or a glass of milk so that he can lull the baby who does not want to sleep.