THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Love potion No. 9

Ya zhyta ne siyala - samo zhyto rodyt, / Ya kozaka ta ne charuvala, sam do mene khodyt, / Oy, ya yoho ta ne charuvala, khiba moya maty, / Brala pisok izpid bilykh nizhok - kozachenka charuvaty.

(I did not sow the rye - it sprouted by itself, / I did not charm the Kozak, he comes to me by himself. / Oh, I did not charm him, but maybe my mother [performed some spells], / She took some sand from under my pale feet, to cast a love spell on the young Kozak.)

- from a Ukrainian folk song.

We will get to the foot thing later, but the main topic during this Valentine week is love and how to find it, keep it, make it happen.

In North America, Valentine's Day on February 14 is the day dedicated to love, as well as to investors in chocolates, greeting cards and the rose industry.

In Ukrainian tradition, this holy day of an Italian martyr has no relevance to the theme of love. Our romantic theme flows through the rituals and traditions of the whole year, with koliadky and schedrivky (carols and New Year's songs) and hahilky (ritual spring songs) full of thoughts of romance and marriage.

The major Ukrainian festival of love is Kupalo, Midsummer's Night, not in cold February, but on the longest day of the year, when Nature is at her peak.

Ever since the first couple embraced - and liked it - people have always been interested in the myriad aspects of finding love. But what if love is unrequited? You need to do something to change this.

Millennia ago, when people were just figuring out life and the world around them (and are still trying to), they thought they could affect the forces of nature with their special actions. This is how rituals and traditions started. If it works - or seems to - in nature, maybe special actions will also help to cause the desired effect in personal relations. If I recite a spell, or give him a potion to drink, or do some other rituals - this will make him love me, and that will make him forget her.

Considering what people at the beginning of the year 2000 do for love, these ancient rituals aren't that strange after all.

How do we know that people believed in spells and charms and potions for love? The folk songs, kolomyiky (ditties), proverbs and literature tell us. The songs are full of references to "chary," "charuvannia," "liuboschi" and "zillia."

Translating these words into English is not that simple. Chary can be magic, a cast spell, or enchantment; liuboschi are obviously all the methods used to bring love, and zillia is any plant (singular or plural) that has a purpose (medicinal or as a potion). Zillia can be an herb, a medicinal plant, a weed, a wild plant (often the same plant is all of these).

In songs we sometimes hear the name of a specific plant, or just a reference to zillia. I am still trying to figure out just what zillia was used to poison poor-old-two-timing Hryts of "Oy, Ne Khody Hrytsiu, Tai na Vechornytsi" fame. In that love-gone-wrong song, we know that the betrayed young woman dug up some sort of zillia on Sunday, washed it on Monday, cooked it on Tuesday, gave Hryts the zillia potion to drink on Wednesday, he died on Thursday, and was buried on Friday. But there is no indication of which specific plant was used for the poison.

Because the lyrics say she dug up the zillia, not cut it down, maybe she used the roots of a plant.

In other songs, and in proverbs, specific plants are mentioned, and these have a reputation of having the power of love. We must remember that in the songs and proverbs, the names and sounds of these plants rhyme in Ukrainian and are melodic, while the English literal translations fall flat.

Dai - no, Bozhe, dochekaty nedili sviatoyi, / Mayu ya vzhe take zillia, zhe vsi khloptsi moyi. / Oy mayu ya take zillia, scho zovesia toya, / Yak ti ho dam napytysia, zaraz budu tvoya.

(Let me live to holy Sunday, Lord, / I have this zillia that will make all the boys mine. / Oh I have this zillia, called toya, / When I give it to you to drink, / I will be yours right away.)

- from a kolomyika.

Toya is one of the folk names for monk's hood, Aconitum, a very poisonous flower, also used medicinally. It was believed that it kept away the "nechysta syla" (unclean spirit, i.e., evil, the devil). And from a talisman, a protector, a good thing, it was not that far a stretch to having this powerful plant also be a talisman to draw someone towards you.

U horodi zillia, zillia, za horodom toya / Prosy liubko, schyro Boha, schoby s bula moya.

(In the garden is the zillia, beyond the garden the toya. / Sweetheart, ask God sincerely that you would be mine.)

Often two or three powerful plants are mentioned together.

Koly b ne tyrlych ta toya, bula b ty, divko, moya.

(If if weren't for the tyrlych and toya, you, girl, would be mine.)

In this case, the two plants protect her from the unclean spirit, i.e., the devil stays away from a young woman wearing a wreath of the two plants. Tyrlych is Gentiana, the medicinal gentian, which comes with yellow, blue, or red blooms. On Kupalo, girls would look for the tyrlych plant in the woods and, finding it, would pull it out with the roots, reciting:

Tyrlych, tyrlych, desiatiokh pryklych, a z desiatiokh - deviatokh, a z deviatiokh - vismokh... a z dvokh odnoho, ta dobroho!

(Tyrlych, tyrlych, call me ten [men], from ten - nine, from nine - eight... from two, one, but a good one!)

Then the girl would take the plant home, and keep it until the next day. Before sunrise, she would go for water to the well, reciting:

Yak voda borzo ide, tak aby do mene shparko svaty ishly; yak sontsem usi liudy raduyutsia, tak aby mnoyu usi raduvalysia; yak liubyt matsitska dytyna svoyu mamu i hyne za neyu, tak aby legini hynuly i za mnoyu.

(Just as the water flows quickly, may the matchmakers come to me quickly; just as everyone is so pleased/happy with the sun, so many everyone be happy with me; just as the tiny baby loves its mother and can't be without her, so may the young men pine after me.)

This the young woman repeated three times, scooped up the water three times, took it home, and cooked the tyrlych in the water. She then washed her face in the liquid, and was sure that she would marry within the year. How soon depended whether and how the wind was blowing that day, how she drew the water, and how she recited her spell.

Yevhen Onatskyi mentions that this same verse was recited both in the Hutsul Carpathian region, and along the Dnipro River.

One variety of tyrlych, the blue-flowered khreschatyi, is also known as rozmaizillia.

Chy v liubystku ty kupavsia, shcho tak meni spodobavsia?

(Did you bathe in liubystok, which made me attracted to you?)

Liubystok or liubets, Levisticum officinale, very obviously has to be a plant for love. On the surface, it looks like liubystok derives from the similar-sounding Latin levisticum. The etymology of which came first is for the linguists to trace. But what other zillia could be more appropriate to bring love than something with love as its root?

This is a medicinal plant with many internal and external uses. As a love potion plant, it was used throughout Ukraine. Babies were bathed in water with liubystok so that they would be lucky in love when they grew up. A potion of this zillia in water or milk was given to a young man to drink, to make sure he fell in love with the girl who served it to him.

Sometimes the young woman or man needed help in love. Then she or he would turn to the mother, or to the vorozhka (the fortuneteller, the medicine woman). Often the "vorozhka" was a gypsy. She could bring back lost love, or do whatever it took to reunite couples, if that was in their fate.

Oy pidu ya do vorozhky, budu sia pytala, / Chy pomozhe chorna rozha, by sia my kokhaly.

(I will go to the vorozhka, I will ask her / If the black rose [hollyhock, malva] will help, so that we will love.)

Sometimes love did not work out for one of the two involved, and then there was zillia to make him or her forget.

He: Yak ne khochesh, divchynonko, druzhynoyu buty, / To dai meni take zillia, schob tebe zabuty.

(Girl, if you don't want to be my wife, / Give me such zillia that will make me forget you.)

She: Yes u mene take zillia, roste billia toku, / Yak dam tobi napytysia, zabudesh do roku. / Yes u mene take zillia bilia perelazu, / Yak dam tobi napytysia, zabudesh odrazu. / Yes u mene take zillia, roste bilia khaty, / Yak dam tobi napytysia, i zabudesh yak zvaty.

(I have zillia which grows by the pond / That when I give it to you to drink, / You will forget me within the year. / I have zillia that grows at the opening in the fence, / That when I give it to you to drink, / You will forget me immediately. / I have zillia that grows near the house, / That when I give it to you to drink, / You will forget my name.)

He: Budu pyty, budu pyty, i krapli ne vpuschu, / Khiba todi ya zabudu, yak ochi zapliuschu.

(I will drink, I will drink it to the last drop, / And I will forget you only when my eyes close / For the last time.)

The hauntingly beautiful novel "V Nediliu Rano Zillia Kopala" (On Sunday Morning She Dug up the Zillia) by Olha Kobylianska (1909) retells the story of Hryts (of "Oy ne Khody Hrytsiu") as the author imagined it. She set it in the Carpathians, among the Hutsuls.

In the song itself, attributed to Marusia Churai of Poltava (late 1600s, early 1700s), there is only the unnamed young woman, her mother and Hryts. In the novel, the young women are Tetiana and Nastka, and Mavra the Gypsy.

Chary and zillia are an integral part of their life and the story, as are fortune-telling and Kupalo rituals.

Poor Hryts is in love with two young women at the same time, and cannot choose one. He finally decides to marry one, and not the other. Mavra is beseeched to help in bringing love, killing love, placating emotions. When she first meets Hryts, she asks, "I know my zillia. You need some? For good or bad?"

Later she needs to save Tetiana. At first, she will make Tetiana sleep, then will recite incantations over her, then over seven Sundays with prayers under the new moon she will try, until Tetiana improves. In time, Tetiana will forget Hryts and will find another.

Thinking about young Tetiana. Mavra would give Hryts some liubystok, some matryguna (nightshade, Belladonna, a very poisonous plant, but used for effect in minute doses), so that he would return his love to the girl. In the end, one of the characters in the novel does use zillia, with disastrous results.

* * *

But what about the feet? This was another way of ensuring that the one you love would love you, too. Just brush or cover up his footstep with a branch or twig of zillia, so that no one else will step on it. Or, take some of the sand or dirt from the impression of his step, or from the sole of his shoe. Embed a bit into some beeswax, and throw it on the fire.

You could do the same with a thread from his clothing, or a hair (two hairs, one yours, one his, would be better).

As the wax melts and burns, recite:

"Schob tebe za mnoyu tak peklo, yak peche vohon toi visk. Schob tvoye sertse za mnoyu tak topylosia, yak topytsia toi visk, i schob ty mene todi pokynuv, yak znaidesh toi visk.

(May you feel such a burning desire for me, as the burning of the wax in the fire. May you heart melt for me just as the wax is melting, and may you leave me then, when you find that wax.)

Locks of his and her hair could be burned together, so that the smoke rises near the couple.

Then there are some other charms and magic that stand on their own.

He: Divchynonko charivnychenko, prycharuvala moye lychenko...

(Oh, girl enchantress, you have charmed me...)

She: ... ya znayu na chary zillia. V mene charonky - chorniyi brivonky... moyi charonky napohotovi - bile lychenko, chorniyi brovy.

(I know the zillia for enchanting - my dark eyebrows... my charms are ready, my fair face, my dark eyebrows)

So, her beauty was all that was needed. If only love were really so easy.

Disclaimer: The author cautions that she does not recommend trying any of the potions or spells mentioned.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 13, 2000, No. 7, Vol. LXVIII

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