Historical sources about veles night in Slavic paganism. Is it mystification from book of Veles?

• Festival of Veles and Veles’s Day in honor of the Slavic god Veles is celebrated in February by rodnovers
• Observed by Slavic people
• Type: Ethnic
• Significance: celebration of midwinter
• Festival of Veles is based on folklore
• Corresponds to the Day of Saint Blaise in Christian folk rituals
• Saint Blaise is believed to win over Winter-Morana
• In the Orthodox tradition, St. Blaise is the protector of cattle, and his feast falls on 11/24 February
• In the Catholic tradition, Saint Blaise is the patron of throat diseases, and his feast day is February 3rd
• During the festival, prayers are offered to Veles for protection of the livestock and health by sacrificing milk
• An important part of the festival is the feast held near the place of worship during which veal is strictly forbidden; the main dish eaten during the Veles festival is groats richly seasoned with fat
• Celebrations are often accompanied by ritual fights
• The holiday is celebrated around 11 February or 24 February
• Since 2017, the Palace of Culture Świt in Warsaw has hosted the National Veles Festival organized by the Association of Pomeranian Rodnovers “Jantar” and the Drzewo Przodków in cooperation with the Wioska Żywej Archeologii (Village of Living Archaeology), whose regular elements include lectures and panel discussions.
• Wikipedia article includes a Notes section with 8 citations and a Bibliography section with 6 sources:
  • Aitamurto, Kaarina (2016). Paganism, Traditionalism, Nationalism: Narratives of Russian Rodnoverie. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-317-08443-8.
  • Gayvoronskaya, Anastasiya Viktorovna (2017). “Традиционные славянские праздники солярного цикла”. Всероссийский фестиваль науки NAUKA 0+. XXI Международная конференция студентов, аспирантов и молодых ученых «Наука и образование» (PDF) (in Russian). Tomsk: ФГБОУ ВО «ТГПУ

• The webpage is on Reddit and is a post in the r/AskAnthropology subreddit.
• The post is titled “Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’ features a secret pagan festivity down by a river. To what extent did paganism survive the Christianization of Rus’? Did it actually survive long enough to permeate Russia or is just artistic romanticization because it provides a link to an ideal version of Russia?” and was posted two years ago.
• The post has 150 points and 2 years of history.
• A Reddit user comments that Ivan Kupala is a complex festival that is a mix of older pagan-folk traditions with Christian traditions, and has been celebrated since at least the 11th or 12th century. They mention that sometimes active priests can be beaten by peasants (and sometimes even by local officials) because it is very popular. They also note that some researchers say it is more a folk version of Christian tradition than a pagan tradition.
• Another Reddit user comments that some pagan traditions and beliefs endured through being mixed with Christian beliefs, or in some cases, Christian saints simply took the place of spirits of place or gods. They mention how their Russian friend was uncomfortable denouncing the existence of the domovoi (the slavic house spirit) altogether, even if many slavic people don’t necessarily hold the same beliefs of rural slavic villagers before the Christianization of Rus. They also gave an example of how pagan traditions associated with holy days or saints’ feast days are still practiced, but just have become associated with the orthodox church.
• The comments mention other folk festivals like Maslenitsa with burning of “Winter” and Christmas Eve that have some Halloween vibes (costumed young people with song and dance go from house to house and ask for food) and how many different “low level” beings keep their place as “evil” (or not very evil, but nearly always dangerous and not very friendly) spirits like vodyanoy (spirit of water body), leshiy (spirit of forest), and more. They mention that in some situations, the Church even allowed some previous pagan practices with new ideas. For example, Orthodox Church is not very fond of statues of saints, but some groups in North Ural keep statues of “guardian spirit,” but now in the form of a statue of Christ.
• The discussions reflect that many pagan gods of the Slavic pantheon have been forgotten and/or merged with different saints. For example, Saint George has an interesting “

Notes:

• The article challenges the common assumption that ancient European pagans believed in literal gods and goddesses with literal magical powers who created the world
• The author argues that the Slavic deities were not personal gods, but rather they symbolized something
• The article delves into the symbolism of various Slavic gods and goddesses, particularly Perun, Veles, Rod, and Rozhanitse
• Perun is the most important and greatest Slavic god and is associated with the sky and celestial activity
• Perun is believed to represent the progenitor and the ancestral sum
• Veles is a god who rules over the realm of the dead and is associated with wolves, which are totemic animals representing ancestors
• Veles is a depiction of the sum of the ancestors and the mythical progenitor
• Rod and Rozhanitse are deities which are givers of fate and are linked to the ancestral cult
• Mokosh represents the earth and is called Mat Zemlja, mother earth
• All things considered, the author argues that the gods and goddesses in Slavic paganism are representations of the ancestors, the mythical progenitors, and natural forces
• The article does not mention the “Veles Night” specifically
• The article does not discuss the Book of Veles
• The article was posted on Reddit, on the Rodnovery subreddit 1 year, 2 months ago
• It has 24 points on Reddit at the time of posting, indicating some level of community approval

-The Book of Veles is a literary forgery purporting to be a text of ancient Slavic religion and history supposedly written on wooden planks. -The book contains what purport to be historical accounts interspersed with religious passages - some of a didactic, moralising character. -The earliest events mentioned in the book are datable to around the 7th century BC, while the latest would have occurred around the 9th century AD. -Slavic neopagans use it as a sacred text. -The book is widely believed by scholars to be a forgery made in the 1940s–1950s, or less likely, in the early 19th century. -The book is written in a language using for the most part Slavic roots and different affixes found also in old East Slavic. -There are question marks over many features of its language - vocabulary, spelling, phonetics, grammar, etc. -The book is written in a language that cannot be adequately translated because of the lack of any consistent grammar system. -The book is entirely fake created either in the 1940s or 1950s by editors of a Russian newspaper or the 19th century by Alexander Sulakadzev, a Russian collector and forger. -The book has been included in Ukraine’s high school program as a genuine literary and historical piece since 1999, despite being labeled as a hoax by academics. -Plank 2/B mentions how people were forced to retreat to woods and live as hunters and fishermen. -After the second darkness, there was great frost. -In plank 7/A, enemies are not as numerous as the Rus. -Plank 11/A mentions that they pray and bow to the first Triglav. -The Slavs supposedly migrated through Syria and eventually into the Carpathian mountains, during the course of which they were briefly enslaved by the king Nabsur. -The book describes the Slavs fighting a number of wars with the Goths, Huns, Greeks, and Romans in the 4th century. -The book mentions Ermanaric and his relatives. -The period of the 5th to 9th centuries is described briefly. -The book mentions Khazars and Bulgars. -The book ends with the Slavic lands descending into disarray and falling under Norman rule.

• URL: https://i.redd.it/dtwhf7uxol361.jpg
• A user asked for book recommendations for Slavic mythology/paganism in a discussion thread on r/pagan.
• Some users express difficulty in finding reliable information on Slavic, Germanic, or druidistic belief systems.
• One user recommends against reading books by Natasha Helvin, Patricia Woodruff, Radomir Ristic, or Dmitry Kushir. These authors mostly write about Wicca with Slavic aesthetics or are neo-Nazis and charlatans.
• Two recommended books are: “Russian Fairy Tales” by Afanasyev and “Russian Folk Belief” by Linda J. Ivanits.
• Other users further recommend the Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend, “Balkan Traditional Witchcraft” by Radomir Ristic, and “Slavic Witchcraft: Old World Conjuring Spells and Folklore”.
• A user stresses that there are no good books on modern Slavic paganism.
• Other online resources are available, such as the YouTube channel Lug Velesa, the blog Witia, and the blog Solntsa Roshcha.
• A user recommends against reading “Woodruff’s Guide to Slavic Deities” as the author mixes up Slavic and Baltic languages and linguistics.
• Other users recommend joining r/Rodnovery and r/Slavic_Mythology for further information and resources.

• The webpage is a Reddit post titled “Anyone read book of Veleš?”
• The post was submitted one year and one month ago on the r/pagan subreddit, and has 13 points.
• A few comments have been left under the post that discuss the reliability of the Book of Veles as a source for Slavic pagan belief.
• One user, with 15 karma, states that the Book of Veles is a literary forgery and an inauthentic source for Slavic pagan belief.
• The user further explains that there are no first-hand accounts of pre-Christian Slavic beliefs, and most of what we have are either recorded by Christian outsiders or post-Christianization myths.
• The user recommends checking out the /r/Rodnovery subreddit instead.
• Another user, with 4 karma, confirms that the Book of Veles is a wholesale forgery.
• A third user, with 2 karma, admits to not knowing much about the Book of Veles but recommends avoiding it based on it being mentioned by neo-Nazis they’ve had to ban from their Discord.

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Arguments for and against the authenticity of the Veles Night festival

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Overview of Veles Night festival and its significance