The Horseman by JSKY

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 60 x 100 cm

Year: 2022

Status: sold

The Horseman enters the world of humans when blood is spilled without measure—when people wage endless wars, killing not for defense, but for greed. When the world of Yav forgets Prav—when the laws of honor, ancient rites, and reverence for ancestral spirits are neglected, and people begin to mock the sacred. When the shadow of Nav falls upon the sun—during rare celestial signs (eclipses, blood moons, or a “sun without rays” during storms), the old legends say that the Horseman spares neither warriors nor peasants. Yet, sometimes his wrath could be averted through the ancient ritual known as “Feeding the Nav Horse.” On the night marking the change of seasons—most often before Kupala Night or Grandfather’s Night—villagers would gather at the outskirts, near a swamp or an ancient burial mound. They would spread a black cloth on the ground and place on it: • three black breads baked without salt, • the bones of a rooster boiled in milk, • a cup of mead with a sprig of wormwood submerged in it. The village elder, dressed in a coat turned inside out, would walk the circle clockwise, murmuring incantations to plead with the Horseman to turn away war and plague from the village, taking only a symbolic offering instead of the people. After the ritual, the bread and bones were thrown into the swamp, the cup of mead poured onto the ground, and the black cloth left behind. According to tradition, the Horseman’s horse would descend from Nav during the night to claim the offering. If in the morning the cloth was found torn and muddied, it was considered a good omen—the Horseman had accepted the offering, and the village would survive. But if the offering remained untouched, the villagers prepared for the worst, for it was believed that the Horseman was already on his way.