November 14 (November 1, old style) according to the folk calendar Kuzma-Damyan, or Kuzminki, is the first winter village holiday.
Day of Cosma and Damien, patrons of artisans, blacksmiths, craftsmen and family welfare. People used to say: "Kuzminki wakes up in autumn, and meets in winter. This day is considered a farewell to autumn and the first meeting of winter.
Saints Kuzma and Damian in the imagination of the Russian village were united into one inseparable image of "God's blacksmith - Kuzma-Damyan", despite the fact that during their lives they were doctors.
Popular consciousness transferred to this sight some characteristics that in the past were attributed to the god of thunder - Peron!
In one of the old Russian legends, Kuzma-Damyan, who forges plows, plows and plows for peasant needs, entered into a struggle with the "Great Serpent", like Peron.
The magnificent blacksmith was working in his forge and he heard, as the legend says, the serpent-devil fly. He locked himself up, but no locks could save him from the great serpent.
The snake flew up, sank to the ground and spoke to the blacksmith in a human voice. He asked, the evil one, to open the doors.
The blacksmith did not unlock the bolts, and then the monster began to lick the iron door with her tongue.
But as soon as the snake licked the door, Kuzma-Damien caught him with his tongue with iron pincers.
The prisoner begged the blacksmith to release him, but it was not so!
He harnessed the monster to a newly forged plow and rode across the prairie, across the wasteland - plowing the entire land from sea to sea on a snake.
The evil one was tired, he prayed to the saint - he asked to drink water from the Dnieper river.
But the deaf blacksmith does not hear the snake. Only in the Black Sea did Kuzma-Damien allow the great serpent to approach the water: Hans Yudo fell into it, drank, drank, drank half of the sea, and when he got drunk, he broke out.
And the furrows drawn by the plow of a mighty blacksmith, who plowed in evil winds, were visible in the old days and were known among the people around as "snake shafts".