Also called Shchur, Tsur.
Their story
Russian keeps a curious old exclamation, "Chur menya", roughly "Chur protect me" or "keep off", used to ward off harm or to claim a thing in children's games. Afanasyev and other nineteenth-century writers thought Chur or Shchur was an ancestral spirit who guarded the boundaries of fields and homes, and the word pra-shchur still means a distant forefather. Beyond the phrase and the word, little is certain.
Best times to give to them
- Radonitsa
- Dziady
- when marking out a garden or new home
What they like being given
- bread placed at a boundary stone
- a word of greeting to the ancestors
- kutia on memorial days
How to honour them
- Walk the edge of your garden or home and name it as protected.
- Say "chur me" playfully, as Russian children did, when you want something to keep its distance.
How they can help you
- setting boundaries
- protection
- honouring ancestors
Symbols
- a boundary stone or post
- a line on the ground
- the phrase "chur menya"
Chur as a deity is a nineteenth-century reconstruction from a folk phrase and a kinship word.
Sources
- Alexander Afanasyev, Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature
- Linda J. Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief