Plant coltsfoot: a description of the herb and its medicinal properties. Medicinal properties and contraindications of herbs coltsfoot. The use of coltsfoot in folk medicine

The healing properties and contraindications of coltsfoot were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. This plant was mentioned by Hippocrates, Pliny and Dioscorides. The grass was famous for its expectorant, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic effect. Most often it was used in two cases - when coughing inside and purulent abscesses externally. Today it is one of the first medicinal plants for coughs. Grass is often included in pharmacy expectorant fees.

Features of the medicinal plant coltsfoot

What does coltsfoot look like and where can it be collected? What kind useful material does it contain? How the herb is used in traditional and traditional medicine? Are there any side effects and contraindications?

area

coltsfoot - widespread medicinal plant Eurasian continent. It can be found in Europe, the Urals, Siberia, Central and Asia Minor, the Caucasus and even the Arctic zone. In addition to Eurasia, the grass grows in North America and North Africa, but it is much less common here and is considered an introduced species. Loves clay soils, but also takes root well on sandy soils, river shallows. Grass can be found near rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, along cliffs, railway and construction embankments, quarries, wet ravines and slopes.

Botanical characteristic

What is biological description coltsfoot plants? This is a perennial herb. blooms in early spring, from here and vernacular name- "Rannik". The flowers are bright yellow, with the smell of honey. The creeping rhizome first throws out flowering shoots with reddish scales. Petiolate leaves appear later heart-shaped. From above they are smooth, cool due to evaporation, dark green (“stepmother”), and below they are whitish, pubescent, soft, warm (“mother”).

Collection and preparation

Healing properties found in the leaves, flowers, roots of coltsfoot. They are prepared at different times.

Most often, the leaves of the plant are harvested.

Healing effect of the herb

Medicinal properties of coltsfoot:

• emollient;
• secretory;
• wound healing;
• anti-inflammatory;
• diuretic;
• diaphoretic;
• antispasmodic;
• expectorant;
• antiseptic;
• soothing.

What is in the chemical composition?

• Leaves coltsfoot: polysaccharides (inulin, dextrin), a lot of mucus, vitamin C and A, astringent tannin, essential oil, tannins, saponins, glycosides, plant sterols, organic acids, pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
• Flowers coltsfoot: flavonoids, phytosterols, organic compounds(faradiol, arnidiol), glycosides, tannins, vegetable slime and bitterness, yellow pigment.

List of indications

What symptoms and diagnoses would benefit from coltsfoot treatment?

• Respiratory system . Coltsfoot when coughing is one of the most popular and effective folk medicines. Helps with bronchitis, obsessive whooping cough, tracheitis, laryngitis, inflammation, abscess, pulmonary tuberculosis, bronchial asthma. The herb has the ability to thin sputum and remove excess mucus from the bronchi, softens dry cough well, makes it productive. It is recommended to take decoctions and infusions of herbs for ARVI and influenza to lower the temperature.
• Digestive system. Useful properties of coltsfoot for digestion - choleretic, astringent, stimulating appetite, anti-inflammatory. The herb is used for diarrhea, gastritis and colitis. Medicinal enemas are made from decoctions for inflammation of the intestines.
• urinary system. Grass is taken for swelling, inflammation of the kidneys and bladder.
• Nervous system . It relieves tension and nervous excitement, helps with insomnia. Some herbalists indicate that the herb can stop epileptic seizures.
• The cardiovascular system. Glycosides have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the heart and blood vessels. It is useful to drink coltsfoot in atherosclerosis, it prevents the formation of atheromatous plaques, stimulates lipid metabolism. This medicinal plant normalizes blood pressure, helps relieve headaches.
• Outdoor use. Outwardly, you can use decoctions, dry herb powder, fresh leaves and juice. They are used for gargling and oral cavity. Grass well heals ulcers with stomatitis, relieves inflammation of the gums. She is being processed festering wounds, abscesses, skin ulcers, burns, inflamed veins with varicose veins, tumors, frostbite.
• Cosmetology. Decoctions, infusions, Fresh Juice used as tonics, lotions, face and hair masks. The herb has a tonic, refreshing, antiseptic effect. It is used for all skin types, it disinfects acne well and acne. Useful for strengthening hair, restores its structure, eliminates dandruff. For hair care, it is used together with burdock root and nettle.
• For weight loss. Normalizes metabolism due to the glycosides and phytosterols contained in it. These substances are involved in the biosynthesis of hormones, enzymes, cholesterol, bile acids, vitamins.

The herb has few contraindications. Do not take it orally during pregnancy, failure menstrual cycle, during the period breastfeeding, children up to 6 years. You can not drink coltsfoot with liver diseases, individual intolerance. A high content of alkaloids can cause poisoning of the body, adversely affect the functioning of the liver, and lead to a carcinogenic effect. Therefore, medicines from this plant can be taken no more than 6 weeks throughout the year.

Application at home

What is the use of coltsfoot herb at home? Teas, decoctions, infusions, fresh juice, powder are prepared from it. Raw materials can be prepared independently or purchased at a pharmacy. The instructions for use indicate the main pharmachologic effect raw materials - expectorant, anti-inflammatory, enveloping. Recommended for coughs with sputum difficult to separate.

Decoction

How to brew coltsfoot to preserve it as much as possible beneficial features?

Cooking

1. Pour in a glass of boiling water.
2. Boil 1 minute.
3. Insist 30 minutes.
4. Strain.

Most often, leaves are taken for decoction, but you can also mix them with flower baskets. Take 3 times a day for ½ cup before meals. When coughing in such a decoction, it is recommended to add honey or raspberry jam. In case of digestive disorders, it is advised to drink unsweetened broth.

Infusion

The method of preparing the infusion differs from the decoction - it is not boiled, but only steamed. Cooler infusions (2 tablespoons of raw materials are taken per glass of water) are used externally or internally in a smaller dosage - 2 tablespoons each. spoons 3 times a day.

Cooking

1. Take 1 tbsp. l. raw materials.
2. Pour in a glass of boiling water.
3. Insist 1-2 hours.
4. Strain.

It is taken orally in the same dosage as decoctions. Infusions are often used for rinsing in otolaryngology and dentistry. Also, lotions, compresses, baths and baths for skin diseases are made from these medicines. There are positive reviews that decoctions and infusions remove erysipelas, itching, suppuration with thrombophlebitis.

milk infusion recipe

1. Take 1 tbsp. l. dry grass.
2. Pour in a glass of boiled milk.
3. Leave for 1 hour.
4. Strain.

A popular cough remedy. Take ¼ cup warm, you can add honey.

Fresh juice and leaves

How can the juice and leaves of the plant be used?

It's important to know:

• juice can be treated for no more than 7 days;
• do not violate the dosage - adults do not take more than 3 tbsp. l. in a day;
• before use in children, a mandatory consultation with a doctor is necessary;
• with the appearance of side effects in the form of digestive disorders and allergies, immediately stop taking;
• the juice contains many alkaloids that can cause poisoning and adversely affect the liver;
• Before taking juice, you should consult your doctor if you have any chronic diseases.

Powder

The use of dry herb powder in folk medicine is effective in the following cases:

• the powder is mixed with honey and washed down with water for tuberculosis;
• with sinusitis and severe runny nose it can be sniffed to cause sneezing;
• when coughing during SARS, influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, whooping cough, take ½ teaspoon of the powder with water or warm milk;
• useful in diarrhea as an astringent;
• sprinkle wounds, ulcers, burns, skin inflammations.

Features of use in women

How can grass be useful for women?

• Most often it is used in home cosmetology- for hair and skin care.
• In gynecology, the grass is used externally - for douching with inflammation of the urogenital area.
• Pregnancy - strict contraindication for internal reception due to the abortive properties of the herb.
• Pregnant women can use decoctions and infusions externally - for gargling, oral cavity, skin treatment.
• During lactation, you also can’t drink grass, but compresses from its juice and decoctions help well with mastopathy.

Features of use in children

Some sources indicate that grass should not be given to children under 2 years old, in others - up to 6 years. The question of age restrictions safe application should be discussed with the pediatrician. Coltsfoot from coughing for children is a frequent appointment of doctors. Often grass is included in chest fees. It is important to observe the dosage, do not exceed the course of treatment, remember that allergies to medicinal herbs it is much more common in children than in adults.

How safe is grass for babies? AT rare cases pediatricians prescribe her weak decoctions to babies up to a year old when coughing. Some mothers refuse to give medicine even as prescribed by a doctor because of the official instructions age limit. What can be dangerous mother-and-stepmother for crumbs?

• Bitterness and mucus can affect the digestive system and cause either constipation or diarrhea.
• Alkaloids can adversely affect the liver.
• Biologically active substances may cause allergic reaction in the form of urticaria and itching.

The coltsfoot plant is a valuable medicinal raw material. Its main use is coughing for colds, SARS, influenza, bronchitis, tracheitis, pneumonia, pleurisy, tuberculosis, whooping cough. The herb also has strong anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties. It is used externally in dentistry, otolaryngology, dermatology, and cosmetology.

Mother and stepmother has been known since ancient times as a plant with many healing properties.

It was used both in folk and in official medicine for the treatment of external and internal diseases.

Many recipes were compiled by ancient Roman healers. It is no less popular in our time.

On the shelves of pharmacies are collections and preparations, which include coltsfoot. What medicines can be prepared at home from it, we will describe below.

Biological description of the plant

Coltsfoot (Asteraceae family) - perennial herbaceous plant.

It has a creeping rhizome, fluffy stems covered with pink scales depart from it.

They are decorated with baskets of bright yellow flowers.

The Latin name is Tussilago farfara L., which translates as "eliminating cough".

The Russian name is explained by the special structure of the leaves of the plant - down side soft (“mother”), and the upper one is smooth and cold (“stepmother”).

They are rounded, with jagged edges, dark green, up to 20 cm in diameter.

It grows everywhere - along ravines, embankments, river banks; prefers lighted places. The flowers appear first, in March - April, then the leaves break through.

Chemical composition

Leaves and flowers are somewhat different in the set of elements:

Such a rich composition explains the beneficial properties and wide application coltsfoot.

Medicinal properties and indications for use

This herb, as part of preparations and home remedies, has a complex therapeutic effect:

• emollient (action is similar to or castor oil, instructions for use of which) and expectorant;
• enveloping;
• disinfectant and anti-inflammatory;
• astringent;
• diaphoretic.

Slime covers Airways, which prevents their irritation; saponins and organic acids thin the dry discharge and facilitate expectoration.

Tannins inhibit the development pathogenic bacteria and contribute rapid healing fabrics. Essential oils tone up, glycosides normalize the work of the heart.

Coltsfoot is prescribed for a number of diseases for external and internal use as aid. Main indications:

Harm and contraindications

It is necessary to use only high-quality raw materials for the preparation of home remedies, and when buying ready-made ones, check the expiration date.

There is also evidence of the carcinogenic effect of alkaloids, so in some countries coltsfoot is not available for sale. It cannot be accepted:

• For pregnant and lactating women, grass can disrupt the development of the fetus or provoke a miscarriage.
• Women suffering from delayed menstruation.
• People with liver diseases (cirrhosis, hepatitis). The alkaloids contained in the plant destroy its cells.
• Children under 2 years of age.
• At simultaneous reception antipyretics, some biologically active additives and vitamins.
• In case of individual intolerance to the plant.

Check with your doctor before adding coltsfoot to your regimen medicines, because you may not know about the presence of these contraindications.

Side effects

They may appear as:

• nausea and vomiting;
• diarrhea;
• abdominal pain and intestinal disorders;
• temperature increase.

In these cases, immediately stop using coltsfoot!

Ways to use coltsfoot

All aerial parts of this herb have medicinal properties. Previously, roots were also used for treatment, but now this is not practiced.

Yellow baskets of inflorescences are harvested in early spring, leaves - in the first months of summer. It is necessary to collect strong intact parts of the plant and only in clear weather.

Dry the raw material outdoors or in a special oven at a temperature of 50 - 60 ° C, so all useful substances are preserved.

Then they are separated, since the flowers are stored for 2 years, and the leaves - 3.

Store in a closed container or linen bags.

Based herbal collection prepared: infusions, tinctures, decoctions, teas, fresh gruel and juice, medicinal "cigarettes", powder, tablets, potions and syrups.

Folk recipes

leaf decoction

• collection of coltsfoot leaves - 1 teaspoon;
• boiling water - 1 cup.

Brew the raw materials in an enamel bowl, close the lid. Place on water bath or low heat, heat for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

Take 1/3 cup, 3 times a day before meals. Duration - 2 days. A decoction is useful for inflammation of the throat and lungs, bronchitis.

This is an effective expectorant, helps to soften and expel sputum.

It is also prescribed for inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract and heart disease, dosage - 1 tbsp. spoon 6 times a day, before meals.

Outwardly - to strengthen the hair (rinsing) and the treatment of wounds (washing and compresses).

water infusion

Fill the baskets and leave to infuse for 1 hour.

Strained infusion take 100 ml 3 times a day for stomach diseases.

It normalizes the acidity of the stomach (about the treatment of gastritis folk remedies written), soothes the irritated mucous membrane and promotes its healing.

It is used externally for gargling. Widely used with folk remedies.

Therapeutic "cigarettes"

• powder from the leaves of the plant - 2 teaspoons;
• cigarette paper.

They make a straw and fill it with grass, then smoke it like a cigarette. You can sprinkle the powder on a hot pan and inhale the rising smoke.

The remedy helps with choking cough.

Fresh plant juice

To obtain it, young leaves are used, which are poured over with boiling water and scrolled in a meat grinder.

The gruel is squeezed out and an equal amount of water is added, heated, boiled for 2 minutes. Take 1 tbsp. spoon, three times a day (after meals).

Juice is useful for beriberi. To get rid of a cold, 2-3 drops are instilled into the nose.

Vodka tincture

Take the components in equal volume, mix in glass bottle. Put in a dark place for a week.

The dosage is 30 - 40 drops, once a day. Tincture stimulates metabolism, strengthens the immune system.

In spite of healing composition, coltsfoot applies only as additional remedy treatment.

Being a potent plant, it requires careful use, so you can not use it uncontrollably, considering it a harmless herb.

In order not to make a mistake with the dosage and not harm yourself, consult your doctor.,

How and when to collect, what diseases will help folk recipes from coltsfoot - look at the proposed video.

Among the enduring myths of Russian culture special place occupies the idea of ​​the personified cult of the "mother earth" allegedly existing among the "ancient Slavs" (and later among the Russian peasants). As a rule, Eastern Slavic rituals and beliefs associated with the earth are erected by scientists and publicists to those times when the earth, in the words of the ethnographer S.V. Maksimov, "was raised to the level of a deity by the pagan people's consciousness." Even the recent parliamentary debate over private ownership of land has often been commented on in this light: Russians don't want to allow free trade in land, because for them it's like selling their own mothers. However, in fact, the problem of "Russian myths about the land" seems to be more complex: it is obvious that the fear of private ownership of land in Russia really exists, but it is apparently caused not by ancient mythological archetypes, but by the specifics of the social identity and internal organization of the Russian peasant community. As for the image of the "mother earth", it largely owes its appearance to the literary and scientific tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Formulas like "mother earth", "mother earth" or "mother earth" are indeed quite widely represented in various genres of Russian folklore. This, however, does not yet indicate their connection with any archaic cults. There is a fairly commonplace metaphor for fertility associated with motherhood in many agricultural cultures. However, it was this metaphor that served Starting point for the idle fantasies of many Russian scientists and writers - starting with A. N. Afanasyev, whose work, full of errors and arbitrary conjectures, "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" (1865-1869), due to a strange misunderstanding, is still considered a classic study of folklore and ethnography Eastern Slavs. Afanasiev belonged to the so-called " mythological school in folklore" - a scientific direction that arose under the influence of German romanticism and sought to explain peasant folklore and ritualistics as fragments of ancient myths, in poetic form describing various natural phenomena(primarily of a meteorological nature). Proceeding from this premise, Afanasyev tried to reduce all the beliefs about the earth known to him to supposedly once existing pagan legends about the marriage of earth and sky and about the earth as the great mother of all living things. “Recognizing Heaven and Earth as a married couple,” he wrote, “the primitive tribes in the rain falling from the air heights on the fields and fields should have seen the male seed poured out by the heavenly god on their girlfriend; perceiving this seed, being fertilized by it, the Earth is pregnant, gives rise to abundant, luxurious fruits from its bowels and nourishes everything that exists on it ...<...>With such a view of rain ... it is clear that in the lightning that smashes the clouds and through this brings down earthly waters, the fantasy of primitive peoples recognized the male genital member ...<...>In the spring, when the earth enters into a marriage union with the sky, the villagers celebrate the Day of Spirits in her honor; then they don’t do any earthworks, they don’t plow, they don’t harrow, they don’t dig the earth, and they don’t even stick stakes, due to the belief that on this day the earth is a birthday girl and therefore it is necessary to give her rest ... "

Similar quotations from the writings of Afanasiev and his followers could be multiplied. But even without this, it is clear that the Slavic "cult of mother earth" was built by mythologists on completely speculative grounds, to which they tried to pull up fragmentary and, apparently, having no historical connection, folklore materials and ethnographic evidence. And these materials themselves can hardly be called authentic, because, before getting into scientific works, they had to pass through the filter of romantic ideology with its tendency towards, so to speak, "internal colonialism" - the search for a "significant Other" within the national "tradition" that archaized and mystified peasant culture.

Another attempt to give special mystical meanings to "the people" and " folk tradition" falls in Russia on the so-called " silver Age"- the era of literary and philosophical modernism. It is symptomatic that it was at this time that the myth of the "mother earth" is experiencing a revival. However, here this topic begins to sound somewhat different: special meaning is attached to the folklore parallelism of the "mother earth" and the Mother of God, in which they see evidence of the special "sophianic" nature of Russian religiosity. This idea, substantiated in detail by D. Samarin and G. P. Fedotov and associated primarily with the cosmology and theosophy of V. S. Solovyov, S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev and P. A. Florensky, suggests a special popular veneration of the maternal principle, which inextricably unites the natural and divine worlds and preserves the absolute moral (“ancestral”) law: “In her goodness, as well as in her beauty, mother earth does not let a person out of her sacred power,” writes G.P. Fedotov - In the circle of heavenly forces - the Mother of God, in the circle of the natural world - the earth, in the ancestral social life- mother are, at different levels of the cosmic divine hierarchy, carriers of one maternal principle.<...>The singer does not reach the identification of the Mother of God with mother earth and with the natural mother of man. But he unambiguously points to their affinity..." D. Samarin approached the problem more radically, developing Berdyaev's opinion about Russian religiosity as the religion of the Mother of God. mankind and overcoming the New Testament indifference towards the animal and flora: "... The deviation from the religion of the Son to the religion of the Mother of God means overcoming Christian anthropocentrism and dualism of the flesh and spirit, means the renewal of the Old Testament monism, the Old Testament carnality of God and the recognition of all creation as a participant in Divine Revelation<...>The Russian Mother of God is much more similar to the "damp mother of the country" who loves, waters and feeds us all (the Mother of God as the World Soul, Sophia) than to the historical Virgin Mary. She was "Our Most Compassionate Mother" and was the reason for the rejection of the one-sided Christian denial of paganism, the culprit of the reconciliation of ancient paganism and Christianity.

Why these and similar authors insisted so much on the "femininity" of Russian (and therefore their own) religiosity is a topic for a separate discussion. For us in this case it is important that these constructions, at least in relation to the peasant religious culture also do not stand up to scrutiny. The fact is that all Russian folklore texts, where direct parallels are drawn between the Theotokos and Mother Earth, go back to the same source - the ancient Russian teaching against swearing, which is contained in the "Tale of the Holy Fathers about the benefits of the soul to all Orthodox Christian", as well as in the ancient Russian apocryphal legend about Basil the Great. Here the following words are attributed to the Mother of God: "If someone chooses, and from that swear word the sky will shake, and the earth will crack, and the lips of that person will be baked with blood. And it is not befitting for that person to eat or drink on that day, because the mother of them all. If someone had not chosen obscenely from his birth, then I would have begged and asked the Lord God for that many-sinful person with the sin of his forgiveness. swear words is explained by the fact that they offend the Mother of God, mother earth and the mother of the scolding. All this, however, does not yet imply any special mythological contexts. Although the origin of this teaching remains little explored, it can be assumed that its anonymous compiler was guided by quite ordinary logic, proceeding from general Christian, and not specifically Russian ideas. Swearing, by definition, is directed against the mother/mothers, and, therefore, the scolding offends not only the mother of the addressee of the invective, but also his own. In addition, he offends the Mother of God, since she is the mother of Christ, the Savior of mankind and, thus, the mother of all people. As for the earth, it is also the mother of mankind, but on somewhat different - Old Testament - grounds: after all, according to the book of Genesis (2, 7), God creates the first man from "the dust of the earth." Therefore, the corresponding invective is also related to the earth as the foremother of all living things. To construct such a syllogism, neither "paganism" nor special "sophianism" is required.

Later folklore variations on the theme of this teaching often include eschatological motifs: it turns out that swearing can even lead to Last Judgment. In the spiritual verse "On the swear word", recorded by V. F. Rzhiga in 1906, it is sung:

You, the Orthodox people of God,

We're for it a swear word all gone

Mother Holy Mother of God angered

Mother we have desecrated the cheese-earth;

And mother earth will shake,

The veils of the church are being destroyed,

A fiery river will pass to us,

A righteous judge will come to us.

However, these motifs cannot be considered specifically Russian or East Slavic. The fact is that the themes of weeping, shocks, and the death of the earth came to Russian religious folklore along with the Greek apocrypha about the end of the world, created in the first millennium of our era. Thus, the scene of the earth crying for human sins, depicted in a spiritual verse and usually cited as an example of a specifically Russian attitude towards "mother earth", actually goes back to the "Vision of the Apostle Paul" - an eschatological apocrypha that appeared as early as the 3rd century.

I will not dwell on other folklore-ethnographic examples (the oath by the earth, the so-called "confession to the earth", etc.), which are usually cited as evidence of the Russian cult of the "mother earth" and which are just as vulnerable to unbiased analysis. I think that what has been said is quite enough to deconstruct the literary myth about "mother earth". However, what then are the reasons for the past and present "land psychoses" characteristic of the Russian history of modern and contemporary times? Probably, the roots of the Russian attitude to the land are really connected with peasant culture, however, with its completely different features.

Everyone knows what a negative role played in Russian history serfdom- "fortress to the earth", canceled under Alexander II. Less well known is another norm of the peasant attitude to the land, which survived until the 1910s and had, I think, an equally detrimental effect on the development of social and civil institutions in Russia. It's about about the so-called "land community", implying that land use is controlled by the peasant "peace" and individual person cannot claim ownership of any piece of land. The principle of the land community not only prevented the development of private ownership of land, but also blocked the social mobility of any member of the peasant "society". Although communal land tenure was destroyed agrarian reform P. A. Stolypin, less than twenty years later, the landed community returned to the Russian village again - along with a new, "collective farm" enslavement of the peasants in the era of collectivization.

Without touching upon the purely economic consequences of the principle of communal land tenure, let us turn to its symbolic meaning. Obviously, the absence of private ownership of land hindered the development of individual initiative not only on a practical but also on a symbolic level. In fact, the common and constantly redistributed land symbolized " common body"a peasant collective that tightly controlled its individual members and did not allow them to escape from this social captivity. It is significant that in modern peasant stories about the "last times" - this peculiar form of eschatological narrative - the motif of "measured land". He implies that in the "last times" "the whole earth will be measured by inches" or "spans". To understand this motif, it is important to keep in mind the ritual practice of measurements common in peasant culture human body. This practice could be aimed both at constructing a "ritual double" of a person, and at acquiring magical power over his body. Thus, notions of a "measured land" may imply not only the "alienation" of the land, its subjugation to external and hostile forces, but also the acquisition of symbolic control over the landowning community itself.

Finally, in the situation of the division of communal land ownership into privately owned plots (as was the case in the era of Stolypin's reform), the "measurement of the land" may also imply the disintegration of the peasant collective, the loss of social control over its individual members.

So, from a socio-historical point of view, "mother cheese earth" turns out to be not only a breadwinner for the peasant, but also a symbol of social captivity and total subordination to the collective. I think that it is the fear of losing collective identity and social control over human individuality that is the hidden basis of Russian fear of private land ownership.

Maksimov S.V. Unclean, unknown and cross power. SPb., 1994. S. 209.

Afanasiev A.N. The Tree of Life: Selected Articles. M., 1983. S. 59.

Fedotov G.P. Mother Earth (On the Religious Cosmology of the Russian People) // Fedotov G.P. The Fate and Sins of Russia: Selected Articles on the Philosophy of Russian History and Culture. T. II. SPb., 1992. S. 81.

Samarin D. The Mother of God in Russian folk Orthodoxy // Russian Thought. 1918. Book. III-VI. pp. 24-25.

Oddly enough, most of the reasoning of Russian modernists about the Mother of God and the "mother earth" has starting point one single literary episode, namely, the well-known passage from "Demons", the story of Marya Lebyadkina about the words of a certain wanderer: "In the meantime, whisper to me, leaving the church, one of our old women, in repentance, we lived for the prophecy:" Mother of God what do you think there is?" "Great mother, I answer, the hope of the human race." "So, says the Mother of God - great mother the earth is damp, and great joy lies in this for a person. And every earthly longing and every earthly tear - we have joy; and as soon as you water the earth under you with your tears to a depth of half an arshin, then you will immediately rejoice about everything. And no, no, he says, your sorrow will no longer be, such, he says, is the prophecy. "Then this word sunk into me. Since then, in prayer, making a prostration, every time I kiss the earth, I kiss it myself and cry." One can, however, assume that Dostoevsky borrowed the cited formula from literary sources, which, in turn, were influenced by Afanasiev's constructions. However, this is a subject for a separate article.

Markov A. V. Determination of the chronology of Russian spiritual verses in connection with the question of their origin // Theological Bulletin. 1910. N 10. S. 321.

Rzhiga V. Four spiritual verses written down from the kaliks of the Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma provinces // EO. 1907. N 1-2 (Book LXXII-LXXIII). S. 66 (N V).

For more details on these stories, see my work "Christianity and Egregy: Folklore and Traditional Culture of Russian Mystical Sects" (Moscow: OGI, 2002, pp. 353-365).

There are difficult situations when due to bad character parents, or one of them, in the family there is no basis for harmony and peace.

Tangled relationships become more difficult, irreparable, and often take on a dramatic hue. Probably, such cases gave rise to a rumor about the evil stepmother. Perhaps this statement is erroneous, but it seems that the legends about this cruel fairy tale character reflect real events.

The stepmother is a symbol of quick-tempered parents, characterized by a sharp change of mood, mistreatment of children, or, even worse, with one of them and favor to others, pets. Everyone has heard of parents being too harsh and unfair. We will not deny that we ourselves happened to show a temper, that we plucked a bad mood on our defenseless, astounded child, although he was completely innocent of anything.

It can be objected that we have nothing to do with the anomalous parents who appear in the newspapers, who torture their children until the police called by the neighbors step in. We do not even resemble those parents who constantly scold their children, humiliate their dignity with insults, raise them into frightened, broken creatures, and no one can intervene, because it is difficult to expose such a subtle psychological lynching.

And, nevertheless, we do not ask ourselves the question of how children react to a temper, to a shout, to a slap or a slap. We too often forget that our child is a creature that lives with unshakable love, adoration of parents, trust in them. We forget that he recently came into this world, does not know and cannot imagine any other environment than home, that he is lost and nervous if he is transported, say, to another apartment.

Habitual surroundings form his idea of ​​the world, and what will this idea be if in the first years of his life he is surrounded by hostility and inconstancy? He will become afraid of events, afraid of people who can suddenly turn into enemies. It is impossible, of course, to foresee everything. Parents, especially mothers, in addition to the educational tasks that they share with their husbands, are overloaded with material concerns about the child and sometimes they are not their own masters, they have no time to differentiate the degree of encouragement and punishment, their necessity and inappropriateness each time.

Nobody is claiming this. You just need to hold your own nerves, in truth, very shabby and strained. With our inadequate behavior, we not only morally injure the child, we lead him into bewilderment, we simply frighten him. But after all, we don’t turn into a scarecrow for crows and don’t resemble a mole and rat repeller in the presence of strangers?

It could be said that the child's bewilderment, his inability to understand the cause of the explosion, his fragile defenselessness open the green light to our irritation. If the child knew how to respond correctly, we would have to constantly make excuses that we are not perfect, that we are preoccupied and in a bad mood, that we need patience and sometimes we exaggerate too much. Then we would inevitably learn to control ourselves.

The child looks bewildered and defenseless at the angry mother, and she attacks him no less frantically than the fabulous stepmother. She also abuses strength and power, humiliating the weak creature under her protection. Then she will wipe the child's tears and caress him, but the child knows that he can be deprived of this consolation at the moment when he needs it, and instead of an affectionate mother, a heart-rendingly screaming person will appear in front of him.

- (Tussilago), a genus of perennial herbs of the family. Compositae with unity, type M. and M. ordinary, or Kamchuzhnaya grass (T. farfara). Found in Eurasia to East. Siberia and the Himalayas, in the North. Africa and Sev. America (alien), on wet soils and on ... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary

Coltsfoot- Coltsfoot. Mother and Stepmother, a type of perennial herbs (Asteraceae family). It is found in the temperate zone of Eurasia, in North Africa, North America. Grows in open, unshaded places. Yellow flowers appear before leaves, upper ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

COLTSFOOT Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

COLTSFOOT- MOTHER AND STEPMOM, mother and stepmother, and MOTHER STEPMOM, mother of stepmother, pl. no, female (bot.). Perennial grass with bright yellow flowers and large leaves, one side of which is fluffy, seeming warm when touched by the hand, to the face (mother!), the other ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

coltsfoot- and; and. 1. Herbaceous plant of this family. Compositae, with yellow flowers and large leaves, pubescent below, and smooth and cold to the touch above (used in medicine). Leaves mother and stepmother. 2. A decoction of the leaves or roots of this plant ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Coltsfoot- Mother and Stepmother: Mother and Stepmother (feature film of the Lenfilm studio, 1964). Mother and stepmother monotypic genus of herbaceous plants of the Asteraceae family ... Wikipedia

coltsfoot- noun, number of synonyms: 14 butterbur (5) water burdock (2) double leaf (7) ... Synonym dictionary

Coltsfoot- perennial herbaceous plant. Collection period May June. The juice from the leaves is used in the preparation of drinks. Dictionary of culinary terms. 2012 ... Culinary Dictionary

COLTSFOOT- MOTHER AND STEPMOTH, mother and stepmothers, wives. Perennial herbaceous plant. Compositae with leaves, smooth and cold above, and soft, pubescent below. Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

coltsfoot mother and stepmother, mother and stepmother... Spelling Dictionary

Books

• Mother and stepmother, chamomile from all diseases,. healing power plants known to people since ancient times. Recently, interest in natural medicines has increased significantly. Chamomile pharmacy and coltsfoot also ... Buy for 200 rubles
• Coltsfoot. From a hundred diseases, Yuri Konstantinov. In folk medicine, coltsfoot is used as an expectorant, diaphoretic, emollient, antipyretic, enveloping agent. A decoction or infusion of leaves and flowers is drunk for coughs, bronchitis, ...