A little boy vanishes from a Slavic village at noon. By nightfall, his sister has crossed paths with eight creatures from Slavic folklore, and any one of them could have taken him. Only one did.
Alyona and Vanya are invented. Every creature, every rule and every way to survive in this story comes from real Slavic folk belief.
0:00 A Voice From the Trees
1:18 Domovoi, Spirit of the House
2:43 Kikimora, the Night Spinner
3:48 Poludnitsa, Lady Midday
5:40 Bannik, Master of the Bathhouse
6:53 Rusalka, the Drowned Maidens
8:25 Vodyanoy, Lord of the Deep
9:27 Leshy, Lord of the Forest
11:04 Baba Yaga
12:47 The Rules
Sources:
– Linda J. Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief (M.E. Sharpe, 1989)
– W. F. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia (Penn State University Press, 1999)
– Sergei Maksimov, Unclean, Unknown and Godly Power (Nechistaya, nevedomaya i krestnaya sila, 1903)
– Alexander Afanasyev, Russian Fairy Tales, including “Vasilisa the Beautiful”
– Sorbian (Wendish) legends of the Pripolnica, the midday spirit
Folklore varies by region and village; where the old tellings disagree, this video follows the most widely recorded version.
Next: Ireland, and the scream that means someone in your house is about to die.
#slavicmythology #folklore #babayaga #mythology #thornlore
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