Late autumn feels like the right season for speaking of dark and ambivalent creatures. During the summer months, we studied various sources on Russian household spirits, and we are currently trying to assemble them into a series of several episodes, for they can’t fit into a single one.
But before we let you sink your teeth into the stories themselves, it seems prudent to clarify some details.
If you Google ‘Russian folklore’, or, heavens forbid, ‘Russian mythology’, you might come across some genuinely colourful things, like old Russian gods, supposed Aryan origins of Russian people, or even old Slavic runes. If you come across any ‘true hierarchy of Russian gods’, RUN: there are no credible sources that could provide that kind of information. There are no Slavic runes that we know of. The ones you could come across are most likely neo-nazi symbols at best. Most sources that claim to know of higher mythology of ye Olde Russia are about as anthropologically credible as Anne Rice writing about Kievan Rus’.
It’s important to know that there’s practically no higher mythos to speak of: a thousand years of Christianity decimated the gods we could have had. The oral tradition that we have recordings of, though, appears mutated enough to be fascinating.
In Russian, there are three similar-sounding terms: bylina (былина), byvalschina (бывальщина), and bylitchka (быличка). Bylina is usually a long epic about a heroic deed that happened in the days of yore. Byvalschina (or simply byl’) is a legend that is supposed to be a retelling of a true story, but the one telling it wasn’t present for what happened. Bylitchka, though, is what we live and breathe: it’s basically a classic creepypasta. There are common characters, a code of conduct one must follow, and the honest-to-God-no-shit-there-I-was quality.
Bylitchkas vary depending on the region and the historical period of their recording. Some of them have to be practically translated from dialects or older variants of Russian into contemporary Russian. Some of them are quite peculiar in regards to their relation to Christianity. To give you a taste of what we mean (excuse our Bible verse) — the second of the Ten Commandments says,
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.
Meanwhile, it’s quite common for Russians to believe that certain icons have their own power and even range. The image of the Holy Mary painted in Kazan’ has very different properties to the same icon painted in Vladimir, and all the copies of said icons are believed to inherit their specific powers. And yes, it applies to digital copies as well.
Here’s an example of an actual bylitchka, and we suggest that you try to guess the year it was recorded in.
Once upon a time an elder got fed up with living all by himself. He went in his yard and said, “O father of the yard, o mother of the house, show yourself, it’s pretty boring here!”
He got back to the house and lay down on the bed. Right when he did lay down and had a smoke, the door suddenly opened. There stood a woman, long hair without braids, long shirt without a belt. She came up to him and said, “Move over, I am wet and cold.” He moved over. She said, “Come, put out the light.” But as he tried to do that, she was gone and never returned.
This story was recorded in Novgorod region in 1986. Let this sink in.
Whatever went bump in the night in the olden years apparently never went away.