The image of a hazel grouse in Karelian mythology

The legends of etiological character are an essential part of mythological ideas of different peoples. Folktales are devoted to the origin of properties and qualities of the world surrounding the person, the structure of public institutes, including the bans and regulations related to a traditional calendar. A part of them appeal to religious authorities, thus, Gods and Saints act as their characters. This occurs, for example, in apocryphal legends of the so-called “Folk Bible” in which Jesus Christ or the Virgin (as well as Saints) accomplish some “primordial deeds”, thus, consecrating the established order of things. However, along with such stories, there are earlier, pre-Christian legends too, which may be known in different continents. The Karelian legend about a bird a hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia) belongs to the latter ones. In Karelia it was represented by two main plots: in the first one the main character is the Virgin (it describes a hazel grouse resuscitated and flying off from a boiler, resembling the Resurrection of Christ on Easter; the legend is the basis of the ban to roll dough for pies and to cook meat on Easter day. The second motif is more ancient existing within the territory of the most part of Northern Eurasia. The legend tells about an enormous hazel grouse as a mythical primordial bird, whose meat was shared between other animals or spread out in nature by gods or spirits at the beginning of times, that was connected with creation of other living beings. The second plot is likely to have Ural-Siberian origins. It is confirmed not only by the fact that it exists among a lot of Siberian ethnic groups, but also by an archaic character and the variety of details in the narration, by the tendency to complication of a plot by means of a motif of the creation of the world.