And I'll immediately clarify that you can safely forget everything you know about the folklore of the ancient Slavs (they simply do not exist anymore), as well as the Soviet film adaptations of Russian folk tales you might have seen. It has no more to do with 19th century reality than Disney adaptations of H. C. Andersen's fairy tales do with actual mythology of the Middle Ages.

As you may have heard, Russia was baptized in the 10th century. But since Christianity was introduced over an already established mythological system, it created a conflict - because Christianity considered all the old gods and spirits without exception to be infernal demons. But people who had been living soul-to-soul under the same roof with their domovoys (домовые, “household spirits”) and ambarniks (амбарники, “barn spirits”) were in no hurry to agree, as many of those spirits were once ancestors of the house owners. And the people's consciousness combined it all into a very peculiar cocktail.

Let's start with where the spirits come from in the first place.

A significant part of the (more familiar to gamers) bestiary of Europe - is either small people (fairies, elves, dwarves), giants (trolls, ogres), monstrous animals (griffins, manticores, unicorns, dragons), etc. - in other words, the spirits of chthonic origin - or man-made creatures (homunculi, salamanders, golems). Both living or dead sorcerers are not uncommon, and deals with the devil take place - but demons are, first of all, hellish spirits, i.e. fallen angels.

The Slavs have it a little differently, with the most common origin of spirits being the souls of the dead people - and this is what a large part of the game plot is about. Fact is, domovoy, polevoy (полевой, “field spirit”), bannik (банник, “bath spirit”) and other creatures are not exactly spirits themselves - but their job, which over time influences the character and appearance of the spirits. Technically, a znatkiy (знаткий, “knowing one”) could - with the help of rituals - catch any spirit and bind it as a guardian to the house, or even re-bind afterwards to, say, the stables. A local omutnik (омутник, “maelstrom / murky water spirit”), a chort (чёрт, imp / devil), or even an elf brought from a trip to Germany - any creature could be used for that. Especially valuable were local pagan deities and spirits of the ancestors of specific people. The game demonstrates this admirably with the story of Proshka - who started out as a patron deity, but became a susedko (суседко, “neighbor”), and then a bes-ikota (бес-икота, “hiccup fiend”).

Such a feature is associated with the cult of dead ancestor-patrons in pagan Russia, which gradually merged into Orthodoxy over time. Naturally, not just anyone could fully cooperate with the spirits, and since the volkhvs (волхвы, “the magi”) who used to do it were almost completely eradicated, kolduns (колдуны, warlocks or sorcerers) appeared, typical for medieval Christianity.

Sorcerers were not exactly outcasts. More precisely, they were, but somewhat conditionally. For example, blacksmiths and herbalists were automatically considered warlocks (more on which - below), and there is a whole Prologue in the game about the complicated relationship between millers and chorts, with the story about the vodyanoy (водяной, “water spirit”) on top. One way or another, in any village any peasant had a domovoy, was at least somewhat acquainted with leshiy (леший, “forest spirit”) and polevoy - without them you could get lost - and so on. And to these days people still like to wear amulets and spit over their shoulders.

Moreover, sorcerers were often baptized and religious people who took on a difficult struggle with demons at the cost of their souls, and could even appeal to Christian saints while fighting spirits. Sorcerers were called upon to help with a wide range of issues, from charming a lover or talking out a bad tooth to helping with childbirth or fortune-telling. Perhaps the most famous such sorcerer in our history was Rasputin; False Dmitry also was suspected of witchcraft, as well as False Dimitry II, who was seen openly reading cabalistic texts in front of strangers. Although, staff sorcerers at the courts of many kings and emperors were almost a universal norm up to the 20th century.

During their lifetime, many sorcerers were respected because they really helped people. But after the death a znatkiy could become a ghoul. Moreover, an evil sorcerer became one automatically, but a good one could be helped, for example, by taking apart the roof when he was dying - so that the soul could throw off the demons and try to rise to heaven.

But you'd be hard pressed to avoid evil spirits in your life, because absolutely any use of magic would be witchcraft and always come from evil - except for the miracles performed by Christian saints. It was a classical case of "this is different", in some ways people do not change, and our ancestors always seemed to be between two fires. On the one hand, without protective charms and petty sorcery a vodyanoy could drown you, or polevoy could cause bad harvests. And on the other - all of protective actions were demonic and sinful, except for prayer and repentance. Of course, such a system was very beneficial for the church, because no one could remain sinless and would go to confession regularly.

And confession was very important, for one of the key differences between the superstitious peasants of that era and modern people was their attitude toward death. Praying for death of an unwanted child was not considered something bad, and death was not the end of life, but only a change in the form of existence. But not only how one had lived their life would affect their afterlife, but also how they had died and were buried. And some things could be influenced much later than death.

An evil or improperly buried sorcerer was probably one of the most terrible things in the minds of our ancestors. They turned into ghouls and conducted all sorts of eerie things, so people fought them in very peculiar ways. If the death of a person was followed by illness or crop failure in the village - then the person was secretly a sorcerer. People would dig him up - and before burying him back, they would break his arms and legs, cut off his head and limbs and swap them, pull out his nails and teeth, stuff his mouth with garlic, drive a stake through his heart, etc. All this, by the way, did not kill the ghoul, but simply prevented it from digging itself out again. Probably the most original was to bury the ghoul face down, so that it could only dig deeper under the ground. If a person had a reputation as a sorcerer or a foul-mouthed one even while alive, and was also dying in agony (because demons tormented him), all of the described above could be done even beforehand, as a preventive measure.

I have mentioned before that blacksmiths and herbalists were regarded as sorcerers by default. This is not a peculiarity of Russian peasants, but rather an extremely common belief among people of all eras. And it is not only because the masters of these professions were involved in activities that others barely understood - but mostly because they lacked a stopwatch.

Here we need to explain origins of such thing as an incantation. Back in the day, blacksmiths, potion-makers and others often needed to measure the time of heating or cooling precisely, and there usually wasn’t a clock nearby. The easiest way to measure approximately the right amount of time was to recite a memorized rhyme of a distinct length.

Now imagine what it looks like for someone from that era: a person doing some complex thing you don't understand, whispering or mumbling in process. Since regular peasants did not have even a basic understanding of physics, and because they usually were unable to duplicate what was done due to the lack of knowledge and various subtleties - of course they thought it was all about whispers - or incantations, that is.

Another thing that must be mentioned is the amulets, because this is an interesting aspect poorly covered in the game. The concept of amulets for modern people is slightly different. These days we often refer to the jewelry, but back then it could be anything - and most amulets were carried in pockets or bags and not shown to anyone (this side is demonstrated well in the game). The most basic level of protection, however, was simply the patterns on clothing, or even its material and cut.

Very often you can trace the connection of stories about clothing features with werewolfism or wayfinding. We can find a lot of examples in various fairy tales from around the world: nettle shirts needed to make swans become boys again, the Frog Princess who threw off her frog skin, the tale about the "Mitroha's shirt" explaining how to choose a place for the house - and a ball of thread or yarn showing the way from the myths of ancient Greece.

Most of nechist (нечисть, “the unclean ones”, evil spirits), in one way or another, sought to look human - but fortunately for us, it never quite worked out. The game periodically mentions the differences between humans and human-looking spirits, and while some (hooves, horns, tails, hairiness) are more or less clear and familiar, others are quite amusing.

Improperly put on clothes (out of season, or inside out, for example). Many spirits simply do not quite understand its purpose. Consider the shisha, walking in a fur coat during summer. It was also a way for a human to pass as "one of their own" - such as swapping your right and left boots, so that the leshiy would stop leading you around in circles.

The absence of eyebrows. As I understand it, the authors took this literally, but it's kind of the opposite - it's about eyebrows so thick, that they mix with hair falling down on the forehead (the famous "lift my eyelids", which is exactly where it comes from). One could also think of the tale about a man who combed leshiy’s eyebrows with a rake.

The absence of a back. It could be hollow, rotten, wooden, copper and so on. It's a very common trait among all sorts of dead girls (and it's not uncommon among fairies either), which is why I've always been particularly amused by fairytales where the hero not only has sex with them, but even gets married and has kids and goes years without noticing such a piquant trait. In the game, this is mentioned in scenes with the Fiery Serpent, who pretended to be a dead husband.

Horse or donkey ears. Didn't you know that elves have sharp ones for that very reason? Now live with that knowledge. ((-:

Christianity had later assigned many of these traits to chorts and devils - and then Bolsheviks cemented them in children's cartoons. That's how we imagine demons to this day: shaggy, horny, with a pig's snout and a tail with a brush.

That was the bizarre world our ancestors lived in, and the characters of the game live in. I hope I helped you to better understand the mythology and superstitions system of the 19th century Russian Empire. Overall, the game does convey them with good accuracy.


P.S. Many thanks to Artalus for translating this article.