A Bride for Poloz
- 1. On June 12th or All Snakes' Day (Zmeevik) women stayed home all day not to become Poloz's bride
- 2. In Slavic mythology Poloz (Coluber) was the Tzar of all Snakes and the Ruler of the Underworld. Once a year, on that very day, Poloz was believed to be choosing himself a bride. The maiden who he had picked out went with him into his underground kingdom and was never seen again
- 3. The only way for Poloz to see the light world was through the mirror of water, so on that day girls were scared off looking into wells, rivers and lakes in fear that Poloz might see them and like.
- 4. The strongest love philtre on snake venom to arouse affection
- 5. Poloz was in charge of all the gold underground. The legend has it that he occasionally let his wives into the light world. They could be recognized by the golden colour of their eyes which had eternally reflected the huge amount of gold they saw every day
- 6. If Poloz wanted a girl for a bride he sent her a gold ring. If it was accepted she was promised to him and snakes showed her the way into Poloz's kingdom underground.
- 7. A cornerstone number in numerology one of the meanings of which is "sacrifice for love"
netokor 
venus aversa
Fri, 02/06/2017 - 19:02
Awesome!
venus aversa
Fri, 02/06/2017 - 19:03
Can you please tell us the source of these information about the Poloz and its legends? I love the slavic folklore and would be happy to read more about. Your translation is very well done!
sandring
Sat, 03/06/2017 - 08:43
Dear Venus, thank you for you kind words and your vote. Tsar Poloz is one of the main characters of the Ural Mountains folklore. And like with folklore some things come to us in songs, fairytales and films in childhood. The writer who focused his works on this regional folklore is Pavel Bazhov. He wrote short stories and fairytales which all Russian children know. He has a story about Poloz but I can't remember the title. Here are some links that may hopefully be useful and a collection of cartoons based on Bazhov's fairytales.
https://drevniebogi.ru/tsar-zmey-poloz/
http://on-the-other-side.ru/node/54 (Золотой Полоз)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Bazhov
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnHQ6EnXWdc&list=PL0ijgOLGUQi91JsiJLcQfR...
Here are another song and translation with footnotes on Slavic traditions on Ivan Kupala Day. There's a link to an alternative video where you can see the way it looks. Hope you enjoy it!
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/v-prolesye-%D0%B2-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B...
Best regards! :)
svavil 
There is an old Slavic idiom "to give up/away to Poloz" which means "to sacrifice" The girl has lost all the hope to arouse love in her man. She doesn't believe even in the snake philtre any more. As the last straw she begs her lover to keep her home on All Snakes' Day because in her desperation to find love in him she's ready to sacrifice herself, i.e. give herself up to Poloz.
Singable