boginka

{{Short description|Slavic fairies/demons of wilderness}}

File:Malczewski Jacek Rusalki.jpg by Jacek Malczewski (1888) ]]

In Polish pagan mythology, boginki (singular: boginka){{efn|also bogunka, bogienka, boginaJan Karłowicz, Słownik języka polskiego, vol. 1, 1900, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zrIYAAAAIAAJ&dq=boginki&pg=PA183 p. 183]}} are female spirits or demons of wild nature: forest, field, mountains, water (both of land and sea), often a personification of forces of the nature. The word literally means "minor goddess" in Polish. and may be translated as "fairy" or "nymph". They were usually imagined as either ugly old hags or pretty young girls, usually naked. They are usually evil.Kazimierz Moszyński, Kultura duchowa Słowian, 1929–1939.

Some boginki are rusałka, vila, dziwożona, łaskotałka, {{ill|mamuna (demon)|lt=mamuna|pl|Mamuna}}, nawka. The term "boginka" started to be applied to any of them.

Boginki (mamuny) can steal a human child and substitute them. Such substituted child is called boginiak, płonek , podrzutek, or odmieniak ("changeling"). [http://www.muzeumkolbuszowa.pl/etnonotatnik/905-boginka-albo-mamuna http://www.muzeumkolbuszowa.pl/etnonotatnik/905-boginka-albo-mamuna] Often children with mental disabilities were thought to be such.Kamil Gołdowski, [https://www.slawoslaw.pl/mamuna-dziwozona/ Mamuna i jej odmieniec]

There are various folk means to fend off boginki.Zbiór wiadomości do antropologii krajowéj, Volume 6, 1882[https://books.google.com/books?id=JR0xqo9zER4C&dq=boginki&pg=RA2-PA264 pp. 264, 265]

File:Jacek Malczewski - Topielec w uściskach dziwożony.jpg|"A drowned man in the arms of a dziwożona", Jacek Malczewski

File:Яцек Мальчевський. Одержимий.jpg|Opętany, Jacek Malczewski (a man bewitched by a boginka)

File:Boginka_tatrza%C5%84ska.png|Boginka tatrzańska, Walery Eljasz Radzikowski (1905): a highlander meets boginka of Tatry