Boggy

This is a piece I did from a series on Slavic folklore! This is an image reflecting on the way that deaths of women were once celebrated in Belarus.

According to legend, as a symbol of death, the image of a sickle was sometimes engraved on graveyard markers and memorial structures. In Belarus, there was a custom of installing a crosses on the graves of deceased men; for women an entirely different monument was made.

Instead of a cross, a bridge was thrown over a wet, boggy place, a ditch, or a stream. On the wood cut for this bridge, the woman’s date of death was carved along with an image of a sickle. After installing the bridge, people would sit on a log, drink and eat, and remember the deceased woman. It was said that anyone who crossed the bridge would be made to remember her.