Also called Nav, Navie, Navyi, Nawie.
Their story
The Primary Chronicle records that in 1092 the people of Polotsk were struck by an unseen host of riders at night, and people said that "the navie are killing the people of Polotsk". In Ukrainian and Belarusian tradition the navi are the dead, remembered at spring festivals. In modern Rodnovery, Nav is also a name for the underworld, contrasted with Yav, the visible world, and Prav, the divine order, a scheme that comes from the forged Book of Veles.
Best times to give to them
- Dziady
- Radonitsa
- Navsky Thursday before Easter (Ukraine)
What they like being given
- kutia
- bread and eggs left at graves
- a warm bath or towel left for the ancestors
How to honour them
- Visit graves at Radonitsa or Dziady and share a meal in remembrance.
- Set a place or a spoonful aside for your ancestors on memorial days.
How they can help you
- honouring ancestors
- grief
- marking memorial days
Symbols
- invisible horsemen
- graves
- the bathhouse left warm for the dead
The Yav, Prav and Nav cosmology is modern and comes from the Book of Veles, which is widely considered a forgery.
Sources
- Primary Chronicle (Povest vremennykh let), entry for 1092
- Linda J. Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief