Tradition / Region: Russian Mythology
Alternative names: Cattle Death, Tovaricha Death, Black Infirmity
Category: Cow
The Myth
Cow’s Death is the personification of the death and disease that strikes cattle. Among the Eastern Slavs, she was believed to appear particularly around the day of Agafya the Cow-keeper.
She could take different forms. Sometimes she appeared as a black cow, cat, or dog; in other traditions she appeared as a cow skeleton or as an old, frightening woman with hands like rakes. It was also believed that she could be brought into a village by a visitor, traveller, or witch.
When cattle began dying, villagers performed rituals to drive Cow’s Death away. One of the most important was the plowing of the village. Women gathered secretly at night, took up clubs, sickles, and other objects, and plowed a furrow around the settlement. The procession made tremendous noise with pans, scythes, sickles, and other household objects to frighten Death away.
The villagers also drove their cattle through specially prepared ditches or tunnels, kindled a fire by friction, and sometimes wove a piece of cloth in a single day as part of the protective rites.
During the procession, the women called upon the cattle god Veles, identified in Christian tradition with Saint Blaise, asking that Cow’s Death leave the village.
If a cat or dog appeared during the ritual, it could be killed because the villagers believed Cow’s Death might be hiding in the form of an animal.
Old worn bast shoes soaked in tar were also hung in barns as protection against Cow’s Death.
Sources
“Коровья смерть (Korov’ya smert’).” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Russian Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed August 21, 2026. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Коровья_смерть