Also called Shishimora, Mara.
The tale
The kikimora is a small house spirit, sometimes said to be the wife of the domovoi, who lives behind the stove or in the cellar. By night she spins, and a careless housewife may find her thread tangled and her yarn in knots by morning. She pesters hens, rattles pots and thumps about, and seeing her spinning was taken as an omen of trouble ahead. People said she could be driven off or calmed by washing the pots in fern, and by hanging a holed stone, called a chicken god, in the henhouse.
When they are met
- late at night, when the house is asleep
- when spinning, knitting or sewing
- when strange noises start in the house
Staying on their good side
- a clean, well-kept house
- finished work rather than half-done spinning left out
- washing pots with fern, as tradition advises
- peace between the people who live there
Honouring them, or keeping safe
- Tidy away your sewing, knitting or crafts at night rather than leaving them half done.
- Hang a stone with a natural hole in it by a door or window, the old charm against her mischief.
- Keep a sprig of fern or a fern image in the kitchen.
- If the house feels unsettled, clear clutter and open the windows to let fresh air through.
What their tales teach
- keeping a tidy, orderly home
- the care of hens and poultry
- noticing warnings
- finishing what you start
Symbols
- a spindle and tangled thread
- a tiny hunched woman
- a stone with a hole through it
- fern
From Russian peasant belief; she overlaps with nightmare spirits, and accounts differ on whether she is helpful or purely troublesome.
More Slavic folklore
- Baba Yaga The witch in the hut on hen's legs
- Domovoi The grandfather who lives behind the stove
- Leshy The master of the forest
- Rusalka The maiden of river and birch
- Koschei the Deathless The sorcerer whose death is hidden
- Kostroma The straw maiden of spring and summer
- Dodola The rain-bringing girl of summer
- Kolyada The spirit of midwinter carolling