One of Satan's main tasks is to make mankind believe in his ... unreality! And, I must admit, he almost succeeded: well, what kind of “educated” person in the age of “technology” and “scientific progress” can believe in “tales” about some kind of demons and demons! However, understanding that these forces are very real can only explain so many of the "strange" phenomena of our time. It is no coincidence that the Holy Fathers and the righteous, who by all their deeds confirmed their “special” status and were incapable of ordinary everyday lies, spoke directly about the existence of demonic forces as about the same (if not greater!) Reality as the walls of their cells, the earth, according to which we walk, or the air we breathe.
Another vivid confirmation of the above is the story of hegumen N (Fr. Ephraim), set forth in another of his books, which is called « ABOUT ONE ANCIENT FEAR (Whom and how "corrupt" sorcerers)". Here is the “strange” and very instructive story that happened to him, the priest told: “Once I happened to receive reliable first-hand information about the forces that sorcerers influence both the surrounding nature and man. It was one of the winter nights of 1992. I received a phone call from the gatekeeper asking me to take in a woman who was shaking with fear and sobbing at the monastery gates. No persuasion to come tomorrow morning had any effect on her. This is what she told me that night:
“In Lukyantsevo lives a grandmother-sorceress named Maria Ivanovna. The whole city knows about it. Many turned to her for help, and, as I heard, she helped many. As a professional general practitioner, I am well aware of cases when no tests, x-rays, ultrasound and other diagnostic methods help to make a diagnosis. The analyzes are normal, the pictures show no pathology either. It is not known: from what to treat and how to treat the patient. But at the same time, a person really suffers from pain, loses sleep, appetite, dries before his eyes, some begin to have muscle atrophy. And what is the reason - it is not clear. So I decided that, probably, there are some folk methods of treatment that traditional medicine does not know, but which are preserved by healers. I love my profession and try to constantly improve my knowledge in order to help my patients as effectively as possible. For this purpose, having finished the reception at the clinic, I went to the folk healer Maria Ivanovna. Came to her when it was getting dark. Grandmother listened to me very attentively and smiled. She really liked my desire to learn new methods of traditional medicine for me. Her old eyes just shone with happiness.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Grandma whispered.
- What?
- So that a person comes to me, to whom I will transfer everything! I don't have any relatives left to whom I could pass it on. I liked you, baby. I will teach you everything.
At these words, I, stupid, almost jumped for joy: what luck!
“It’s time for me to die,” Grandma continued, “but I still live and live. I can't die until I deliver...
At that moment, I felt a jolt in my chest. My heart suddenly became anxious. Somehow not on my own.
- Maria Ivanovna, can I treat people with your methods?
- Certainly! And you can heal, and take revenge on any enemy. As you swat a fly, - and she laughed merrily. - Did you hear that in Dubrovo the other day half the village burned out?
And just yesterday I came across an article in the newspaper about a fire in Dubrovo, where several people died. I got scared and I said:
- Maria Ivanovna, but people died there!
- Nothing, you can do even more, you are young! And if a peasant likes you, you can make it so that he, like a dog, will run after you and, like a footman, fulfill all your desires.
- Wishing to stop the conversation that was unpleasant for me and to transfer it to another direction, I asked:
- Can you tell me how you diagnose patients, what methods and medicines you use to treat them? Maybe I should write it all down?
- Yes, you do not need to write down, daughter. All this is not done in the way that people think. They just don't know anything... And they shouldn't know! Listen, you shouldn't! - and she hit the table with a dry little hand. Her eyes flashed with some kind of violent flame. And I got even more scared. The old woman brought her face closer to me and whispered:
- Now I will reveal to you a secret that you must keep all your life, and if you blurt out, you and your whole family will perish: both husband and children! She paused a little. - I will give you four demons ...
From these words I shuddered so much with fear that the old woman noticed it too. But she understood in her own way, and began to calm me down.
- Don't be afraid of them! Although they are scary in appearance, they will not touch you. I will tell them that now you will be their new mistress.
I started to have a big tremor.
- But if you are so afraid, I can order them to appear so that they are not even visible, but only you will hear their voices, and then you will get used to it. Nothing, it's only
It's scary at first, but it'll all go away. You'll get used to it, you'll get used to it, she repeated. - So they will help you: both heal and induce damage, if necessary; and bewitch anyone you want, and how to make a medicine, and what when you need to read the plot. Everyone will advise and help.
From fear, I already thought badly. There was only one thought - to quickly get out of here. But how? If she realizes that I don't need her terrible "helpers", she will destroy me and my loved ones so that I don't spill the beans. After all, she revealed her secret to me. And then I can't live! I was in a panic, my thoughts were confused, I did not know what to do, how to get out of this terrible story. Suddenly, a revelation came. As if from outside, as if from somewhere outside. A salutary thought struck me. Now I knew what need to say. Taking myself in hand, I seemed to say quite calmly:
- Maria Ivanovna, today I came to you after an appointment at the clinic and I was very tired. Now a hungry husband will return home, but I have nothing prepared ... And my son still needs help to do his homework, but there is no strength anymore. Let's do this: the day after tomorrow I have a free day. I will come to you
and we will do whatever is necessary without any haste. Good?
- All right, daughter, come on. I will wait for you. Come, - and the old woman affectionately put her arm around my shoulders, - be sure to come.
I don't know how I got out of her apartment, how I got to the bus stop. Fear permeated me to the bone. Something had to be done. Somehow to get out of this situation, and even save the life and health of people close to me. I am a person far from the Church, although I was baptized by my grandmother as a child. Sometimes, on major holidays, of course, she went to the temple and lit candles. Well, in general, - as many. I don’t even know why, but at this terrible moment in my life, I felt that help could only be expected from the Church. But it was already dark, and all city temples were closed. I was not familiar with any priest, there is no one to ask for help. I was seized with a terrible, inhuman fear. Paralyzed will, thoughts. I was in a panic, I didn't know what to do. But here - again, some kind of insight. Suddenly the thought came: not far from the city there is a monastery. The monks live there permanently, which means that I will definitely find one of the priests, and although it is already by nightfall, they will probably not refuse help and advice. That's how I got to you."
Two years ago, my wife and I visited her grandmother's farm. The village is small, everyone knows everyone about each other, and during evening home gatherings, my wife's grandmother told us about her neighbor witch, who lived two houses away towards the forest - they say, this witch harms both people and pets, and keeps the majority in fear the inhabitants of the farm. I just laughed at this story, and even wanted to see this alleged witch, but somehow I didn’t remember it in the morning, and on the same day we left back to the city, and I completely forgot about this story, told as a horror story for the night .
And then, after half a year, I had a chance to come to the farm again to visit my wife’s sick grandmother - to bring her food, medicine, and even to cheer up the old woman. I just got to the village, and some pale middle-aged farmer runs towards the meeting, grabs my hand and asks for help - they say, help a person badly, badly. I did not force myself to beg for a long time and dutifully followed her. I was quite amazed when she led me to the house in which, according to my grandmother, a witch lived. And I saw this witch! In an untidy house, three men crowded around the bed. Behind their backs, I did not see what was happening on the bed, but the fuss was serious, accompanied by scolding and swearing at my mother - it seemed that they were fighting with someone, and this was not far from the truth.
My guide rather brazenly pushed me over the threshold, but she did not go further herself, and even closed the door. I was scared, after all, no one explained anything, and I recognized this house from the stories of my grandmother. In general, goosebumps ran as it should ...
One of the men unceremoniously, and seemed even abusive, called me over, and leaving my things near the stove, I came close to the bed. The spectacle was not a pleasant one - on a greasy mattress reclined a heavy gray-haired old woman with such black and evil eyes that not only I, but everyone present tried not to catch her gaze on herself, she kicked and, with silent, barely moving lips, uttered some words from herself -sighs, obviously related to the peasants, and they, in turn, seemed to nail her to the bed - two held their hands, and the third legs, but he could hardly cope with his task, and obviously I was called to help him.
I was so shocked by what I saw that I was simply dumbfounded, but I was not allowed to fall into a stupor for a long time. I had to hold one leg of this old woman, pressing her to the bed, and this turned out to be not easy, and in two minutes I was sweating profusely. Finally, one of these uncles told me in a whisper that this grandmother was a witch, that she was dying, she was dying for the second day, and her attacks of impotence were replaced by black malice, in the impulses of which she jumped up from her deathbed and ran around the village, cursing everyone she met, and then falls helplessly to the ground. It turned out that she had another surge of dark energy and she again wants to act evil and go crazy. In short, we held her for another half an hour, and then she calmed down and somehow went limp, her eyes began to slowly glaze over and we all decided that she had departed to another world. One of those present, with a professional look of a rural paramedic, said: “I was exhausted ...”, - and there was no doubt about it. Naturally, I did not stay in this house for a minute, but immediately ran to the woman's grandmother. I was shaking all over, and almost without explaining to the old woman, I collapsed onto the bed and tried to fall asleep. Oddly enough, but I fell asleep pretty quickly, only at night I dreamed of some creeping reptiles and an endless swamp.
I woke up from screams in the street, my grandmother was not at home ... Going out into the yard, I saw something that almost made my heart stop. Past our gate, limping and swaying, the deceased witch of yesterday walked with a quick step ... Terrible and sticky fear spread throughout my body, my arms and legs became completely tin - I was barely alive. I wanted to try to convince myself that this was a hallucination, as our grandmother brought me out of my stupor. She baptized me and read the Our Father, and I stuttered and asked if she had seen the dead woman. The old woman firmly but sadly confirmed my fears with a nod of her head and crossed herself. Frightened beyond belief, I started calling my employee to come pick me up in a car. Obviously, my frightened voice made an impression on him, because on the same evening he took me from this accursed farm ... did not go.
Is it true that black witches die hard and long? What does the death of a black witch look like? What happens to a witch's soul after death?
Probably, many of my readers have heard stories that black witches die long and painfully. Is it so? Yes, usually a person who has done damage to people and other witchcraft filth, before his death, experiences severe long-term torment. And even greater torment undergoes his soul after death. Such is the inevitable retribution for black sorcery deeds.
How should relatives of a dying black witch (or black sorcerer) behave, who, most often, are also victims of the magical aggression of a witch? By the way, do not be surprised that black witches do damage even to their own children, brothers and sisters, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law ... For black witches, this is a common thing. So, contacts with a dying black witch should be limited as much as possible. In order to avoid the risk of adopting black witchcraft power, do not give the hand to the witch in any case (although she will certainly ask someone to hold her hand). Before entering the witch's room, you need to read protective conspiracies and prayers. And in order to speed up the departure of the sorceress from the physical world, a knife is placed under her mattress. But the surest remedy is to make a hole in the ceiling of the house in the room where the dying black witch is.
Below is an excerpt from a letter from one of my clients, which describes the death of a black witch. The narrative is instructive primarily for those who have an interest in black magic. If someone is close to the idea of learning how to do damage and love spells, it is useful to find out what awaits him. If you do not belong to the category of those stupid individuals who dream of becoming black witches and sorcerers, but have ever suffered from the acts of such nonhumans, and want to understand what the retribution for black magic is, then a classic example of this retribution is described. The letter is given in an abbreviated form, since I considered it necessary to remove details that are especially unpleasant for impressionable readers.
"... My husband asked me to take care of his mother, and I could not refuse him. But he told me to throw away and burn everything "strange" that I find. It turns out that he knew all the time that his mother was engaged in black witchcraft but he didn't tell me, but his father told him everything...
The mother-in-law then did not get out of bed, her lips turned blue, her eyes went out. Somehow, while doing the cleaning, I found a skein of black woolen twisted threads. Pieces of just such a thread she threw me. I burned the whole skein. Then she came to feed her mother-in-law, but she was not breathing. There is no pulse, the nose is pointed, the lips are blue. But after a while, she suddenly came to life. And so it was repeated several times. When I came in the morning, the neighbors complained that my grandmother screamed so much from midnight to three in the morning that they couldn't sleep. She asked her mother-in-law: "Why are you screaming? Does something hurt?" - "Nothing hurts". "Maybe something's stopping you?" - "Nothing interferes!" "Can someone interfere?" Then she looked at me with such anger and muttered: "No one bothers!"
All this went on for about a month. I was very tired, lost weight, just fell off my feet. Once a mother-in-law's neighbor told me: "She is fueled by your energy. Before you go to her, read protective prayers:" May God rise again "and the 90th psalm." I did so. On that day, the mother-in-law ate almost nothing, although she had not previously suffered from a lack of appetite. She suddenly became so heavy that I couldn't turn her around to change the bed. My husband put a mattress on the floor, and the two of us moved her from the sofa to the floor. And they couldn’t put it back on the sofa, no matter how hard they tried. She was pulled to the floor like a strong magnet. The next day, a neighbor greeted us with the words: "Your grandmother did not let us sleep until four in the morning. She screamed, she screamed so much! And what a roar there was. Probably all the furniture was broken."
The furniture was all intact. The mother-in-law is dead, all soiled from head to toe. The women from the monastery washed and dressed her, I closed all the mirrors and put out all the lights. My husband and I left. The next morning, our whole family gathered for the funeral. The deceased was lying on the sofa, her head turned towards the mirror hanging on the wall. The mirror has been opened! There was no coverlet on him, and a light was on in the kitchen. No one could enter the apartment, since only my husband and I had the keys.
On Easter, on the memorial day, I ordered a prayer service for all our deceased relatives, including my mother-in-law. That same night I dreamed of her - in a black robe, dirty, all in fuel oil. Everything around is wooden: floor, walls, trestle beds. The mother-in-law pulls her arms to me to hug, but I pushed her away with disgust. And she sadly said: "Well, now, I have my own housing, but I have nowhere to lay my head. I wander around the world." In the morning I told about it in church. I was told that the Lord does not accept her ... "
For more information on this topic, see my article:
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My mother is an ethnic German, she was born in Kazakhstan in 1949, she was brought up at home before school, so she only learned Russian at school. Accordingly, he speaks German almost perfectly. My father was born and raised in Ukraine in one of the villages of the Vinnitsa region. In the sixty-sixth, when he was 22, he volunteered to go to Kazakhstan to raise virgin soil, where he met my mother. In September 1968, they got married and immediately left for Ukraine. They wanted to live there.
In the early days, they wanted to get married again according to the church rite, since there was no such opportunity in Kazakhstan. The village is small, everyone knows everything about each other, and during evening home gatherings, my father’s grandmother told my mother about their witch neighbor, who lived two houses away towards the forest - they say, this witch harms both people and pets, and keeps fear most of the inhabitants of the farm. My mother is impressionable, she was frightened, and my father only laughed, saying that all this was nonsense.
No one knew how old the old woman was (her parents said that she looked 90-100 years old, all wrinkled, untidy, but still moved quite cheerfully), where, when exactly and how she appeared in the village, and whether she had relatives (maybe that's why there were rumors that a witch). What she lived on was also incomprehensible: she did not have a garden, as such, and neither did she have cattle. In general, sheer speculation. There were rumors that she could cause damage by order, etched unborn children. No one, of course, confessed, but they did not perform abortions in hospitals (then, in principle, it is clear where the funds for food come from).
In those days when my parents arrived, it was known that the old woman had been seriously ill for a couple of months and very rarely went out into the street. At such moments, she stood at her fence and either silently, intently, angrily looked at those passing by, or cursed everyone on which the light stood and tried to throw something (most often small pebbles or earth). People over time cut through this and, when they saw her at the fence, they went to another street. The most interesting thing is that everyone who ever met her and could more or less see her said that her teeth were extremely well preserved, almost like those of young people, despite her age.
On the day of the wedding (it was the second week after they moved in), my mother went out early in the morning to pray in the garden. She read prayers in German, but she said that she was very quiet, almost to herself. No one standing further than half a meter would be able to make out anything. And now he says: “I open my eyes, and this old woman is standing behind the fence in front of me and looks at me with such anger, and when she saw that I noticed her, how can I yell at me and curse. Among other things, she shouted: “Why did you come here, non-Russian rubbish?” And how did you know? I stand, at first I couldn’t think of anything, and she put her hand in her pocket, took out something, threw a handful of earth at me and hobbled away. I have tears in my eyes from resentment, the earth is stuck in my hair. I ran to the hut, and there my grandmother (my father's grandmother) just got up and wanted to put the dough, so I told her everything.
And then granny (according to her parents, a very quiet, cozy and calm person) started such a stormy activity! She woke up everyone who was still sleeping, ordered her mother to close herself in the hallway, undress, put her clothes in a bag, put on a nightgown to the toes and let her hair down. She ordered my father to flood the bathhouse and drowned in the church. She quickly returned with three candles, removed the old cross from the iconostasis, grabbed her mother and a bag of clothes - and went to the bathhouse. She soared for about two hours, washed her head until three candles burned out, and burned a bag of clothes in a bathhouse in a stove. The wedding was at noon, everything went well, in the evening we took a walk at home and went to bed. And at night, my mother became ill, the temperature rose, a strange rash appeared, as if she had been whipped with nettles, only much brighter. She began to rave, trembling all over her body. Her father said she looked so bad, they thought she was going to die. The nearest hospital is 30 kilometers away, there are no cars. They immediately called my great-grandmother, she brewed some tea from her stocks, poured several mugs into it and read prayers over her all night. One and a half to two hours after the onset of the symptoms, everything passed as suddenly as it began, and she fell asleep fairly quickly. In the morning she felt fine and remembered almost nothing.
On the same day, he and his father quarreled strongly, almost for life, but for death, and now both do not know why. It got to the point that my mother packed her suitcase and went on foot to the station (also about 30 kilometers) to return to Kazakhstan. And then, again, great-grandmother intervened: she caught up with her on a cart, persuaded her to go with her at least for a while, to her house. She said that it was a corruption and she would try to take it off. For four days my mother lived with her. Granny did not let her out of the house, every day she ran to church for candles, almost continuously read prayers, either over her mother or in front of the iconostasis. The most interesting thing: my mother says that every day she sifted the flour several times over her head and then put the dough out of it and baked bread. The first loaf did not rise at all, it was more like a flatbread. Grandma did not touch her with her hands, she took it through a towel, carried it out of the house and buried it behind the garden. The second and third turned out much better, but still not as good as usual. Their great-grandmother fed them to pigs. The fourth came out well, airy, ruddy. She crumbled it to the pigeons and said that now everything is in order. Mom was no longer angry with her father and ran away to him that evening. Parents say that during their family life they quarreled more than once, not without it, but they never quarreled like that day.
And my great-grandmother fell very ill two days later, she lay in bed for almost two weeks, they already thought they wouldn’t go out, but then she moved away. Moreover, there were no specific symptoms, as such, just bad, weakness. The paramedic shrugged his shoulders, saying that, most likely, a hypertensive crisis and it was necessary to go to the hospital, but the granny did not agree.
Everything seems to have settled down on this. But a few weeks later it became known that the old woman was dying. We found out quite by accident: people, passing by, heard loud moans and inhuman howls from the house. By evening a crowd had gathered, the chairman banged on the door for a long time, and the old woman laughed in the house and did not open it. The door was broken, but no one wanted to enter the house. The paramedic had to go himself. After a couple of minutes, he came out and said that the old woman was terribly dehydrated, emaciated and delirious. He does not have the opportunity to do something on the spot, and she will not survive the road to the hospital. Therefore, they decided to let her die in peace at home, they thought that she would not survive the night, but they were drastically mistaken. The next day, the moans and curses in delirium did not stop, there was always someone near the door, but they did not go inside, so the stove was not heated. Although winter had not yet begun, the weather was quite cold and damp, it was constantly drizzling. Surely the house was no more than 12-13 degrees. Someone said that a witch won't die until she passes on her gift. They decided that if he didn’t die by morning, they would call a priest to pray. The chairman began to get indignant (he was a rather young party atheist from somewhere in the district), they looked at him so gloomily (moreover, half of the village at once) that he immediately fell silent. The next morning the old woman moaned further.
They called the priest. We stood in the passage almost opposite the bed, did not dare to go into the room. In addition to the priest, there were several old women who sang along with him and 4-5 peasants from the village who regularly changed, among them was my father. Batya said that the sight was not a pleasant one - on a greasy mattress lay an emaciated, skin and bones, gray-haired old woman with such black and angry eyes that everyone present tried not to catch her eyes on themselves. She lay restlessly, with barely moving lips, expelled from herself some words, sighs, curses, obviously referring to those present. Her attacks of impotence gave way to aggression, black malice, in the impulses of which she tried to jump up from her deathbed, but then again, in impotence, fell onto the bed.
By the end of the third day, the priest said that the roof over the bed needed to be taken apart so that her soul could finally depart. The chairman began to be indignant again, shouting that he would not allow damage to property and would report everything to the district committee. The chairman was punched in the face and locked up in the stable. They said that anyway no one would believe that the whole village rebelled (and there were also party people, very respected in the district committee). Three men climbed onto the roof and began to dismantle the roof and ceiling above the bed, by 11 pm everything was ready. Father said that when the rustling began on the roof, the old woman became quiet, no longer made almost a sound and did not take her eyes off the ceiling, and then from the hole. About an hour and a half later, after the roof was taken down, the old woman died with a long sigh.
Here, in my opinion, the mysticism begins. My father helped put the old woman in the coffin, and when he bent over her, he was shocked: in the mouth, almost all the teeth were in place (as I already mentioned, people said that her teeth were in very good condition). But these were almost completely rotten, black and yellow stumps, especially the front ones: they were broken off and worn off by more than half. My father said that this picture remained in front of his eyes for the rest of his life. When he told his mother at home, she did not believe it, she said it was either a fantasy or an invention, but her great-grandmother confirmed it (she also buried her there). If the teeth really were good, then they could not come to such a state in a few weeks. For the last 5-7 years, the old woman definitely did not leave the village, there was not even a trace of a dentist there. Dentures require the natural teeth to be extracted. And then there were no such prostheses. Did everyone dream.
The house was set on fire as soon as the coffin with the body was taken out, at least until 1987 (in 1987 we were last in Ukraine, when my grandmother died), there was a wasteland overgrown with weeds.
But that's not all. The grave was dug behind the cemetery wall. The cemetery is located on a hill, and dug, it turns out, on a slope. When they removed about 1 meter of earth, it turned out that the hole was dug exactly above two granite blocks, converging deep into each other with a narrow crevice. Nobody wanted to dig a new grave - they just took out the clay between them, as much as they could, and left it like that. That is, it turns out that there was a normal grave on top, and then its stone walls converged downwards like a funnel. The coffin could only be lowered as deep as the width of the grave allowed, there was still a void under the box. When the ropes were pulled out, what happened was what was to be expected: the coffin fell off, collapsed and fell sideways to the bottom of the crevice, while a long crack, about 3 cm wide, formed in the upper side wall. The priest said that this was a bad sign, but no one else wanted to do anything. So they covered it with earth, and put a wooden cross for repose. In the spring, the cemetery watchman walked around the territory, looked at the witch's grave: the cross rotted, almost fell apart, and this was in a few months. They put in a new...
The following summer, my parents returned to Kazakhstan, but, unfortunately, it did not work out in Ukraine. They learned the end of the story from letters: in the spring of the following year, as in the spring of the third, the situation with the cross was repeated one to one. The crosses rotted and fell apart, as if they had stood there for at least 10 years. Atheists said that this side of the hill was just too damp, and believers that the witch could not calm down. Then, on the advice of the priest, they forged an iron cross with a very long lower end (about 2-3 meters), which was sharpened. They consecrated him in the church and drove him into the grave all the way into the ground so that the sharp end passed through the body, overlaid with stones and poured concrete.
Since then, nothing much has happened. My father said that when my grandmother was buried in 1987, he went down with me behind the cemetery wall to look at the witch's grave: the cross was still sticking out of the bushes. But I don't remember, I was too small.
Legends say that witches and sorcerers and after death, they often do not find peace for themselves and can return to the world of the living.
Perhaps such stories took place in reality, as they were reflected in the fairy tales of different peoples, surprisingly similar to each other.
Gogol created his "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" not only with the help of his own imagination, but also on the basis of old Ukrainian folklore, filled with superstitious fear of otherworldly forces that can sometimes take on human form.
One of the most famous stories of the writer is "Viy". Few of us in childhood did not shake with horror, reading about how the dead witch rises from the coffin to destroy the unfortunate bursak Khoma Brutus!
I remember we had such a game in childhood, obviously, based on the same “Viya”. Several children gathered, some (usually girls) lay down motionless on the bed, and the rest, standing in a circle, began to read in sepulchral voices over the “deceased” conspiracy: “Lady has died ... Who will bury?” "Let the devils bury!" someone shouted. And then the “deceased woman came to life”, jumping up from the bed and frightening the players. Although it was all make-believe, the very atmosphere of the game seemed somehow irrational, not conducive to fun.
Meanwhile, the Russian folklorist A.N. Afanasiev tells a folk tale about a priest's son who accidentally spied how the royal daughter-sorceress took off her head and then put it back. The boy told everyone about what he had seen, and the princess soon died of an unknown illness, before her death punishing that priest read a psalter over her coffin.
Further, the plot unfolds exactly as in Gogol: the reader outlines himself in a circle, the corpse rises from the coffin at midnight, and so on. True, everything ends happily thanks to a certain old woman who taught the boy how to behave in this situation. The princess is found turned over in her grave and an aspen stake is driven into her chest (as should be done with black sorcerers).
A similar episode can be found in the Golden Book of Fairy Tales by the Czech writer Bozena Nemcova.
The king and queen had no children. In desperation, they turned to the devil for help. Daughter Lyudmila was born. At the age of 17, she died unexpectedly, becoming black as coal before that. A guard of soldiers was placed at the coffin, but every night the guard was found torn to pieces.
Only the son of the shepherd Bogumil managed to cope with the witch princess, who, on the advice of an unknown elder, performed the ritual with a magic circle. Like Gogol, candles go out here, all kinds of evil spirits rush around the coffin, the deceased comes to life, and all this continues for exactly three nights. But the end is good: Bogumil marries Lyudmila, who, it turns out, is not dead, just an evil spirit has moved into her.
And why not assume that there is some truth in this tradition, transmitted with various variations? Somewhere, sometime, a young man or teenager (possibly studying in a spiritual institution) accidentally found out the secret of the daughter of a high-ranking person (lady, princess), who was engaged in witchcraft, and somehow caused her physical death.
The extinguished candles and the appearance of monsters can be explained with the help of the laws of bioenergetics - the witch uses the radiations of the lower astral and dark astral entities for her own purposes. Thus, the story is by no means devoid of logic. But what kind of end the protagonist actually expected is unknown.
But fiction is fiction, and there are, after all, quite real examples of "return" from the other world. So, in 1898, a strange story happened to a teacher from the village of Zaroshchi, Tula province. The teacher fell ill and the doctors could not help him.
Despite the fact that he considered himself a fairly enlightened person, our hero nevertheless decided to turn to a healer who lived in the neighboring village of Protasovo. He, having listened to the patient's complaints, handed him two bags of dried herbs and a bottle of some kind of drug, and at the same time did not even take payment.
On the way back, the teacher met a neighbor and told him about his visit to the healer. The man looked at him in surprise and crossed himself: “Did you go to the cemetery to visit him, perhaps, to remember?” "How? - the interlocutor was taken aback. “I was at his house!” “Why, he died a week ago! I myself saw how they carried him to the graveyard ... ".
Not believing the peasant, the teacher decided, just in case, to return and find out everything. However, the hut where he visited just a couple of hours ago turned out to be boarded up. It looks like no one lived here. The healer's neighbors confirmed that he had died. But if the teacher was visited by a hallucination, then where did the bags and bottle with "medicine" come from?
The Slavic peoples had a belief that if, after the death of a sorcerer or vampire, one of the relatives mentions his name, he can return to his home. This belief formed the basis of Alexei Tolstoy's story "The Family of the Ghoul", based on which a feature film was made in 1990 with modern realities.
But one thing is fiction, and the other is reality. Here is a terrible incident that allegedly took place in reality, describes the well-known researcher of paranormal phenomena Alexei Priyma.
It happened several decades ago in the village of Sadyganovo, Kirov region. There lived a family whose head was known as a sorcerer. When he died, he was, as expected, buried and commemorated. A few days later, exactly at midnight, all the locks in the house opened of their own accord, and the dead man entered with a yellow-wax face and eyes sparkling like hot coals. He looked like a very real person.
Women and children squealed, and the dead man stood still, staring straight ahead, and headed for the exit. The locks and bolts behind him closed themselves again.
The next night the sorcerer reappeared and walked about the house, and has returned every night since then.
There were five people in the house: two women, one man and two children. And they behaved in such a situation more than strange. Shaking with fear, the whole family, instead of leaving the house or even calling for help, climbed onto the stove and there, in cramped conditions, waited for the visits of a native from the other world.
This went on for many nights in a row. Everything stopped only when the collective farm management provided the family with new housing, and the old hut was boarded up.
Irina Shlionskaya
