Goddess of Spinning and the Moist Earth
Mokosh is the only goddess named in Prince Vladimir's pantheon of 980; the Primary Chronicle lists her idol on the Kyiv hill beside Perun, Khors, Dazhbog and the rest. No source describes her appearance. Working from the root mok-, "moist," scholars connect her with the folk epithet of the earth, "Moist Mother Earth," and her province was spinning, wool and the work of women.
For centuries after Christianization her name lingered in church documents: medieval Rus penitentials instructed priests to ask women whether they had "gone to Mokosh." In the Russian North, folk belief spoke of Mokusha, who spins at night: a spindle left on the wheel overnight would be found spun on, so housewives put their work away before sleep.
Much of her role passed into the cult of Saint Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa, "Saint Friday," protector of spinning, wells and market days. Believers avoided spinning and washing clothes on Fridays, saying the flax dust and dirty water would hurt the saint's eyes. Northern Russian embroidery often shows a female figure with raised arms flanked by two riders, and many researchers have read her as a survival of Mokosh, though the identification remains disputed.
