Few people now believe in the existence of kikimor, and the word itself is sometimes used in speech only in a figurative sense, when a person is scornfully called for his ridiculous, ridiculous appearance.
"Devilry
In the old days, people believed: if a kikimora appeared in a dwelling, it was "unclean", the owners would not have a prosperous life. Wet footprints on the floor indicated that this evil spirits had settled in the house and began to dominate it. Swamp and forest kikimors, the wives of the goblin, abducted children.
Fleeing from such an evil spirits, people uttered prayers and conspiracies or, on the contrary, rudely cursed, swept all the corners in the hut and the stove, fumigating incense with sentences. Popular beliefs say that kikimors are afraid of bears. People believed that if the hair was cut off at the crown of the kikimora in the shape of a cross, then the evil spirits would turn into a person whose past would be reminded of the physical disabilities inherent in people: stuttering, dementia, stoop.
Kikimora could have been sent to the dwelling by a sorcerer, workers who built the house and for some reason harbored a grudge against the owners in their souls. "Unclean" places, where the unsung dead were once buried or children died, attracted kikimor. These creatures lived behind the stove, in attics, in the underground, in abandoned buildings, baths and courtyards.
Hiding in the daytime, with its noise and fuss, evil spirits did not give the owners of the house peace at night. People could hear someone knocking and spinning in the silence, and in the morning they could see tangled wool, and sometimes the work of a spinner brought to completion.
Kikimora was an annoying creature that caused all kinds of troubles in the house. At night, she rustled, howled, cried and did not allow people to sleep peacefully, broke dishes, threw out clothes, misbehaved in the yard, and drove the horses. People who decided to find out their fate turned to her with questions, to which the kikimora answered with a knock.
There are different descriptions of the appearance of this creature, but usually it is a very small ugly old woman, dressed in rags. Some saw the kikimora as a girl with a long braid behind her back, in a shirt or naked.
Meaning of the word
The famous linguist, collector of words, proverbs and sayings of the Russian people V. I. Dahl gives an interpretation of the word "kikimora". He attributes her to a certain genus of house spirits that sleep during the day or hide behind the stove, and at night they play pranks or spin. Also V. Dahl notes that in Siberia there is a forest kikimora, in a different way a goblin. The linguist also indicated the figurative meaning of this word: in the old days, kikimors were reproachfully called non-humans and couch potatoes who constantly sit at home at work.
Origin of the word
The two parts, "kick" and "mor", help explain the origin and meaning of the word "kikimora". The first part is one of the variants of the ancient root, the meaning of which is revealed by the words “humped”, “curved”, “crooked”. A similar meaning is found in words with the same root: for example, a woman's headdress with protruding, horn-like edges was called "kika". Among the evil spirits that surrounded our ancestors of the Slavs, there was a cook, with which they frightened children in the dark, and the same was the name of the devil living in the bath. The second part "pestilence" etymologically has a common Slavic root meaning "death".