Hutsul People (Гуцули)

Most of Talitha’s story takes place on lands that are or were Ukraine and Kyivan Rus’, on the land northwest of the Black Sea.

Hutsul Folklore

You shall not pick flowers, because this too is interference with the life of the world.
Source: Народна магія на Гуцульщині

For the world to exist, there must be good (+) and evil (-), between which there is an eternal war, which results in the energy that feeds the world.

Esoteric knowledge can not be passed from person to person, because they are given to each person from God. Whom a person shall become a person depends on the time of birth. [Time of] death is predetermined.
Mykhailo Nechai (Михайло Нечай), shaman from Verkhnij Yaseniv  (с. Верхній Ясенів. Верховинського р-ну, Івано-Франківської обл.)

In Hutsulshchyna, impurities are removed iwth water from a well, collected with nine spoons. The main force of magic is in the word, with which you turn to God, from the state of the soul, with which this is said. The number 9 is sacred.

Influencing weather phenomena by means of orders and rituals is permissible (i.e., dispersing clouds).
Paraskeva Ostafiychuk (Параскева Остафійчук), practicing healer (шептуха) from Verkhovyna (м. Верховина, г. Пушкар).

Folk Healing

The treatment was mainly reduced to an (old) woman (баба) whispering an incantation over water, and then using that water to wash and feed the patient: “[One must] whisper over the water, and then give the water to be drunk, three swallows, and then to wash [with the water].”

Many beliefs, retellings, practices, and methods of treatment that have survived to the present day practiced by the whisperers are related to “a fright” – a disease that arises as a result of a person being scared by someone or something. “Fright,” according to the whispererers, needed to be “squeezed out” and not “spit”, because from such a scare there may be the “black illness” (epilepsy). Rolling out the fear is most accomplished often with the help of an egg or bread mold.
Традиційна медицина гуцулів Рахівщини XIX–XX ст. © СПАДЩИНА ПРЕДКІВ

Molfariy – Ukrainian Shamans (Мольфарі й Мольфарки)

The last Ukrainian shamans – link to a 5 minute video about molars

Sacred Places of the Carpathians

Pysanij Kamin (Писаний Камінь)

One of the primary shrines of the pagan world of the Carpathians is the hill [called] Pysanij Kamin (Written Rock or Scripture Stone), on which are found three ancient temples. It is hypothesized that sacrifices to pagan gods were made here.