MOKOSH is the life-giving goddess in ancient Slavic mythology, inherited from the pre-Indo-European pantheon and debased during the early Christian era. She is the only female deity mentioned in the Kievan pantheon established by Vladimir I in 980 CE. In northern Russia, she has survived as a house spirit, Mokysha or Mokusha; a tall woman with a large head and long arms, she shears sheep at night and spins flax and wool. Her name is connected with spinning and plaiting (Lithuanian meksti, makstyti, "to plait," and mākas, "shirt"; Russian meshok, "sack, bag," moshna, "pouch") and with moisture (*mok- or *mokr-, "wet, moist"). These associations suggest her ties with the life-giving and life-taking goddess of Old Europe—that is, with Fate, the spinner of the thread of life and the dispenser of the water of life. Menhirs (kamennye baby), venerated in some Slavic areas into the twentieth...