From the Vault: The Leshii

to listen to. Here at the end of October, it was near sunset when the old man looked up from his labors and saw the stranger approaching from the west, And though his eyes were weaker than they once were, he soon saw that the stranger carried himself like a soldier, that he bore no weapon that could be seen, and so the old man continued scraping his hides till the stranger approached close enough to greet him. Hello, grandfather, Oh, please don't let me disturb your labor. I just wanted

to ask, is this the way to the Greenwood Path? Hey? It is, but what business have you in the woods? Not the woods, Grandfather, the lands on the other side, you see I'm returned from the war and I seek my family's farm. It's been five long years, and I'm eager to aid them with the harvest. There's no path through the green forest, at least none blazed by the likes of you and me game trails. Then, well, so happens. I'm a gifted tracker and can make my own way,

your own way. Uh, if there are any landmarks, you might a lurt me to, well, I'd be most gracious. But the old man didn't answer right away. He looked out to the woods and instead motioned back towards his hut, where the old woman would have supper ready soon enough. Tell you what stay with us tonight, and I'll tell you of the forest. What the young soldier lacked in caution, he made up for in politeness. When he had finished his bowl of rabbit stew, he thanked the old man

and in woman a half dozen times. He cleaned the bowls and scrubbed the pot. He split more wood for the fire, and even produced a bottle of spirits, which he shared with the old man. So tell me of the forest, grandfather, You'll not find your own way through the green forest, not by moonlight and not by day. What little of either filters down through the tree tops. The animal paths won't help you either. That only winds you down into greater depths. There is neither your way

nor my way in the green forest. There is only the law of the woods. And there is a leshy. I don't think I'll be troubled by some forest dwarf tis no dwarf. The less she has always been in the old forest. He was there before human tribes roamed in. He was there when strange animals still range these parts. And he is no man nor dwarf, but a shaggy figure that casts no shadow, that stares straight through the

forest depths with eyes that burn like green fire. He passes gigantic behind the great trees and sneaks meekly behind the nearest blade of grass. Like that, he is on you. And he who breaks the forest law is broken. Well, then tell me the forest law so that I might avoid him. The forest law is not like man's lot, can't be told or written down. A very nature breaks it as much as our acts. But you're a trapper,

how do you avoid the less She's wrath? I do not trap in the woods, but at its border, and for that the less she spares me, and asked, but one more thing that I worn wanderers such as yourself. The young soldier nodded and smiled, but the old man could tell he was only being mannerly. He did not believe his tale of the leshy, and would not be

swayed from his short cut through the woods. And so the next morning he thanked the old man and woman yet again and departed into the green forest, no doubt, thinking he'd found the makings of a path, or discovered some logic, and the dead leaves beneath his feet, the old man went back to his traps and snares near the forest edge. He flinched when he heard the first startled scream from the forest depths, then the howl of the leshy as it bore the young soldier limb from limb.

As he walked back home, his spirits sapped by the sounds, he caught once more the sense of something vast and shaggy, walking just behind the great tree trunks, yet tiptoeing impossibly behind the smallest shrub or mushroom, not like a thing that moved through the woods, but like something reflected in its substance. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

And hey it's still October. We are still going strong with the monster stuff. And boy, I'm I'm excited about today's episode. So, Rob, if it's okay with you, I want to begin by reading reading a quote. You you cool starting this way, Yes, let's do it, okay. So this quote is recorded in a nineteen nine book called Russian Folk Belief by a Penn State professor of Russian

and comparative literature named Linda j Ivantas. And this quote is attributed to an old woman from the Kaluga Province of Russia describing what she believed to have witnessed during the height of a forest fire. So she says, I looked and bears and with them wolves, foxes, hairs, squirrels, elk, goats, in a word, every sort of forest life, and each

in his own group, not mixing with the others. Thronged out of the forest and passed me and the horses, not even looking at us, And behind the beasts with his knout over his shoulder and horn and hands was he himself, and he was the size of a bell tower. He himself tall as a bell tower, dragging the horn and the nowt and a now it means a whip or a scourge. Who is he? Who she talking about? She's talking about the Leshy, an awesome monster of Slavic mythology,

the demon of the woods, sort of a malevolent trickster. NT. Yeah, I was, I was reading about the Leshy. I was not not really familiar with it prior to our research here. But according to Carol Rose in her excellent Spirits, Fairies, lepre cons and goblins and Encyclopedia, uh, they're they're numerous different versions of the spelling and and or pronunciation of the name. You see it kind of like leshy, but also lessovic or less shak or less nor. Uh So

there are several different variations on it. But just as just as the name is kind of a morphous uh, the you know, the actual substance of the creature is also a fair bit of morphous, to which one might expect with folklore traditions and any kind of entity that it arises out of, out of out of old beliefs and old legends, old mythologies, right, Yeah, so the Lusty is not something that comes originally from one canonical source.

It it is a folk belief and thus you're going to get lots of different versions of it, and I think it's gonna be really fun to explore where a lot of these different stories overlap and then what the differences are. Yeah. So Rose points out that the Leshy is essentially a Russian nature spirit and forrest guardian. He's often described as a pale humanoid figure with green eyes, green beard, and long, straggly hair. He wears a pair of of of boots, often made from bark, which any

wears them on the wrong feet. It's often said that he cast no shadow, and he's also a shape shifter. And as we tried to reflect in our opening, a bit of narration, a little or dramatic opening, uh, it said that he can be as tall as a great tree or as small as a blade of grass. Likewise, he can mimic any sound in the forest, which is a tool he might use to lead humans astray sometimes. Yes, and this is one of the main threats that the

less he represents. That there again, a number of stories, But the most common ways that he represents a threat to human existence are in making sounds or in laying sort of traps and tricks that lead travelers off the path and get them lost in the woods to wander hopelessly until they die in the woods or die in a swamp. Or The other thing is that he's often said to kidnap babies at the edge of the forest,

or to kidnap children, especially unbaptized babies and children. Uh And a lot of sources mentioned this, this idea of him luring wanderers off the forest path by making noises.

One of the sources I was reading for this episode is a book by Elizabeth Warner called Russian Myths from the University of Texas Press in two thousand two, and Warner says, the less she would quote hoot, roar, and howl, and the voices of birds and beasts, emit wild bursts of laughter, blood curdling shrieks, and clap his hands loudly.

Uh So, so, it seems like there are a couple of different ways that you might catch the less she making sounds in the forest, sometimes maybe mimicking the voice of an animal or human in order to lure somebody off the path, or sometimes just making a lot of noise, maybe to mess with your head, kind of scare you or make you laugh. Now picking up in the lessies appearance, there are several sources that summarize the folklore. Again this

is from Warner and Russian myths. Uh. The less She may and often does look and dress like an ordinary human being. Like there are some stories where the less She leaves the forest and interacts with humans as if he, you know, looked like any other human. But in fact, again, he is a shape shifter, so he can mimic the appearance of not just all the animals of the forest. Those are common forms he takes, especially the form of a wolf or a bear, but he can also mimic

the appearance of any particular person. So a child might be lured into the forest by a vision of their own grandfather offering them fruits and sweets, or a person might be you know, antagonized or lured off the path in the woods by the shape of their own father or mother or husband or wife, or even their child. But much like the succubus who appears as a seductive,

beautiful woman, but with say a duck's foot. The leshy in disguise will usually have a detail out of place, and that detail will be noticeable to the observant hero. You mentioned the idea that the less she might cast no shadow, or have their shoes on the wrong feet or backwards. Warner gives the examples that the less she might be wearing a calf tan like a like a Russian traveler might wear, but the calf tan would be buttoned back words, or his eyes might be extremely pale,

or he might have no eyebrows. I like that one. Or again, he might cast no shadow. And and then finally, this one seems particularly relevant in his role in confusing travelers in a forest. He might leave no footprints. I love how common this detail is across so much different folklore, that the monster or the trickster demon will have some

kind of detail wrong that allows you to spot it. Yeah, And it's the kind of myth, that kind of legend that that appeals well to our our our nature, you know, because when when we're just encountering people for the first time, situations for the first time, the suspicious mind is always looking for for some sort of a tell, right, like what's weird about this person, what's weird about this place? Yeah?

And and it also it makes the myth more fair, I mean, unlike just the less She being a a power that cannot possibly be overcome, and it just takes whoever it wants and does whatever it wants. The fact that there's some detail often wrong with it allows the observant hero, the virtuous protagonist of the story to to catch them, to be like, hey, wait a minute, there's something wrong with you. It makes you It makes you think that maybe if you are clever enough, if you're

observant enough, then you could best the leshy. Now, Warner agrees with what we already talked about about the less She being able to dramatically change size, and it's often reported in these stories that he can become taller than the tallest tree tops. Remember the story at the beginning of the woman who says the less She was like a bell tower. Or he can be small, small enough

to hide behind grass or behind a mushroom. Now, in his true form, Warner says that the lessies appearance betrays his affinity for the vegetation of the forest, so his skin might very much resemble the bark of a tree. It will be rough and gnarly, and sometimes he's said to be completely covered in hair, but sometimes he's just got hair on his head and a beard, and in those cases his hair and beard might be as green

as the vines and the grass. But some imagery of the leshy is more classically devilish in the Christian sense, or at least in the syncratistic Christian sense that that combines sort of Satan with the god pan Uh. Warner says that many descriptions include shaggy hair almost like moss, but also cloven hoofs and horns on his head and a tail like the devil's tail. And then finally she mentions that the horns are golden in the case of

one particular leshie known as the leshy Czar. But anyway, I think this devilish appearances is interesting because it uh it makes sense based on something that Warner talks about in her book, which is called the Dual Faith, that this idea that after Christianity took over the Kievan Ruth stayed in the tenth century, Christianity and old pagan practices kind of mesh together. They coexisted for hundreds of years. Yeah, and We've discussed examples of this before with other other

legends and folklore and and even mythologies. Um where yeah, the new, a new faith comes along and it doesn't just wipe out the old. It adds new wrinkles to the old or and or exist alongside the old, uh in ways that that may might not make sense if you were to say, write them out or discuss them.

You know. It's it's always fascinating how even as modern humans, the various conflicting world views and ideas of the natural and the supernatural that can simultaneously exist in our minds, it can be hard to enforce the borders of one supernatural picture of the world. Like it can be hard to sort of like beat into people like no, no, no, like this part these supernatural beliefs are acceptable. But these other ones that your grandparents believed and their grandparents before them,

you can't believe those anymore. Yeah, Like, I remember, when I was younger, there was a time when I was at least a bit afraid of the prospect of both aliens and ghosts, which rationally, it seems like you know now I'm looking back and like, well, surely I should have just picked one or the other, like one would seem more likely than the other, and that should be the one to be afraid of. I can't be, you know, I can't just be afraid of everything that's on Unsolved Mysteries.

I have to pick, you know, like obviously be afraid of your criminals, but then choose aliens or ghosts like I shouldn't have to, I shouldn't take both on. But no. Unsolved Mysteries presents a perfect synchrotistic view of the world where all paranormal phenomena exists simultaneously. Now Additionally, as Rose points out, each forest is said to have its own leshy, unless it's a very large forest, and then then you

can have more than one lessy. I guess it just comes down to It's kind of like having park rangers, right, depends just how big the park is, right. They gotta like a range of territory. Right. Furthermore, the less she may have a wife in some traditions, which is a lessovica, and then there are sometimes lessy children or less shunky, and there's all to a variety of leshy sometimes described as a as a zoi abot schnick that takes on the guys and sound of a baby gurgling in the treetops.

So in that in that case, a quality that is sometimes ascribed to the leshy in general is sometimes pulled out and made its own particular thing. Yeah, and I think it's interesting the idea of giving a leshi a family allows you to to sort of add in more dynamics that would explain natural phenomenon potentially, Like, for example, one of our sources was saying that if you saw a whirlwind, I think mean, you know, a whirlwind or even a tornado, that was the leshy dancing with his wife.

So adding the wife in, you know, they're twirling through the forest. But this dovetails with another interesting belief, which is that sometimes fallen trees found in the forest were said to have been knocked over by fights between leshies.

But you know, you put those two things together kind of dovetails into the center sting idea that I wonder if people at some point maybe came across the path that a tornado or whirlwind had cut through a forest, and you know, it looks like something is just like come through and mode this this shaved line out through

the middle of the woods. And what happened here? What was less she's fighting or it was less she's dancing, Yeah, because there are no tracks there, you know, there's no there's no sign that animals did this, and yet something large has has trampled the woods now like the forest itself, you know, at least from a folkloric standpoint, the less she is said to die with the advent of winter and then emerge from his winter death in the spring.

And it's during this time and once the Lessies have come back that has said that the that the leshies of the forest rage over the their autumn deaths. They realized that they had died previously. Now they're mad about it, and this raging produces storms and floods in the process. But then all that settles down again. So here we see an idea of the leshy is a way to explain not only specific storm damage, but also just the

general pattern of like spring storms. On top of that, the the leshy is a bit of a bit of a trickster again, sometimes calling out to human travelers with the sounds of the forest to lead them astray, even taking the form of a fellow traveler to give them bad advice or guidance, disappearing and laughing once they managed

to get them lost in a bog or worse. Um and uh, you'll have other individuals though that are wise to the ways of the leshy, that they'll know how to outsmart them or and we'll get into an example of how I'll smart them in a bit, but also making offerings to them such as salt and bread. Yeah, Elizabeth Warner points out how there was some kind of division.

Like she starts by saying that, of course, you know, for many Russian people living at the edge of the forest, the forest was itself an image of of great bounty but also great chaos and great danger. And that is of course, like you know, becoming lost in the forest, you can quite easily die. This is something I think

a lot of people don't really remember these days. Maybe they go out and experience the forest in say nature trails that have forged paths that you can follow, but like, it's really easy to get lost and die in the woods. And I want to talk more about the science of

that later on. But but then there are these professions where people would have to go into the woods in order to make a living, for example, and there would be herdsman and hunters like you mentioned, and herdsman very often in medieval Russia would not graze their cattle in

open pastures, but would graze them through the woods. They would have to find, you know, like little patches and openings throughout the trees, and so it would require them to go into the domain of the leshy and and risk risk all these dangers, and so Warner writes, quote, protective measures could be taken against the leshy, making the sign of the cross, uttering a prayer or spell, and more interestingly, reversing one's clothing or retracing one steps backwards

out of the forest, reversal of the normal back to frontness, upside downness left as opposed to right. We're all signs of the supernatural and Russian tradition. Yes, I I absolutely love this. Uh this example, the idea of wearing your clothes backwards or walking backwards as a way to to outsmart the leshy. Um and we see we see versions

of this pop up in other traditions as well. For instance, uh, I read that you see this in Irish folklore, sometimes concerning encounters or potential encounters with dangerous varieties of fairy um uh. And the idea here, it seems and this is going to vary. There's not like, you know, anybody wrote wrote this down and came up with necessarily a

straightforward reason that this works. But one one interpretation is that it's just about confusing the spirit, like the spirits like, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna get this woodsman now, and then he realizes, oh that what's going on here? His clothes are on backwards. I don't know what to do. I guess I'll just watch him for a bit. Or it tricks the spirit or fairy or leshy in this case

into thinking you're leaving rather than arriving. And I love the twisted logic of this, where it's like the the lest she shows up, it's like, all right, it's time to time to to to unleash some havoc. We'll look at this guy coming into my far Wait. Oh the way their clothes are or or or basic cane, it looks like he's walking away. All right, He's good, he's leaving. Carry on. You know, it's just fabulous. This is really funny because it kind of connects to the idea of

wearing eye spots on your back. To deter predators in the forest. Yeah, yeah, which is which is something that has been been done. We've discussed this in the show before too, with varying degrees of success with both humans and also putting eye spots on the back of cattle to deter lion attacks and uh in parts of Africa. Now, as Rose points out that the less, she can be very generally classified as a guardian spirit, which we see

in various and far flung cultures. Many versions of this revolve around the project of individuals, UH, and the should be pretty familiar with a lot to a lot of people. You have like the guardian angels of Latin, Greek and Russian, Orthodox and Anglican churches. These are assigned from the hour of an individual's birth. Uh. Interestingly, one that Rose describes in her book is the grind, a gin of in the folklore of Morocco. That's described as kind of inhabiting

a parallel world. So it's not that they're assigned to an individual, but they're they're born at the same moment in this other world, and so there's this bond between the two. Likewise, you also have just Damon's and lend Lars, you know, getting into ancient Greek and Roman tradition, and one also sees this concept in the traditions of say Uh in Native American tribes, native Australian cultures as well. There there are a lot of these to list, and she has a lot a lot of them in the book,

ranging from the ab Gal to the Zoa. But then as an extension of this, there's the idea of a protector spirit that looks after particular sular places such as standing stones or mounds, or certain natural places and or animals.

And so clearly this is going to be the kind of guardian or protector that the lestia is not of a person, but of a place, which is the woods, right, Yeah, the protector of the forest, very very much in keeping with such woodland or vegetation spirits as the Gandharva's of India, which are described as being like shaggy half animal beings, and some tellings, or the green Man of ancient European traditions, a quote pagan image of a grotesque severed head with

emergent foliage from the mouth, beard, and hairline. We find him in Christian churches from the sixth century onward. He's a He's a wild man of the woods, a guardian spirit of the forest, and like the Leshy, is prone uh you know, to two tricks and meanness in the woods and you know, leading people astray, etcetera. He is also the genesis of both the Green Night of Authoritian

and of Robin Hood. Yeah. I think one traditional interpretation of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is of a conflict between the Christian chival ric virtues represented by the Arthurian Chord and by Sir Gawain, and then on the other hand the sort of pagan embodiment of nature and the wilderness that is the Green Knight

a k a. The Green Man. Now, of course, we have various modern versions of this tale as well, the most the most obvious, at least to me, being the character swamp Thing Uh, which is very much a guardian spirit in the tradition of the Green Man and the Leshy, though more of a noble twist as a pure protector as opposed to a trickster. And this is especially the case in the Alan Moore run of the character Uh in the comic books, but you also see it in

most cinematic and TV incarnations like that. I kept thinking back this time and time again reading about the leshy. Uh. The ninety nineties TV show version of Swamp Thing had this, uh, this ket phrase that that the swamp Thing would always say at the end of the intro to the TV episode, and it was do not bring your evil here. What was the evil? It was like a like a polluting factory or something. Oh yeah, polluting factory. Just general mad

science from Dr Anton Arcane, you know that sort of thing. Um. But but yeah, the swamp Thing is very much in line with this tradition. I think one of the interesting things if you start thinking about modern standards versus um versus these more archaic versions of the myth. And this is something I tried to just sort of get at in that dramatic opening, the idea of to what extent

humans can understand the law of the forest. And I think these these more recent versions, like Swamp Thing, they tend to imply they kind of take on I think this environmental message of like, yes, we can understand the law of the forest at least to some extent, and we can do good for the forest. And I and I and I believe I agree with that I think that is part of our responsibility to the forest as as protectors. We are kind of we have to take on the mantle of the swamp thing and the leshy

and the green man. But the r I think the more archaic version of this is again, like you said, the forest is a place of chaos. If it has a law, it is a law that we cannot really understand, and it's a law that is not written and maybe you know, it can't even be comprehended by us, and therefore there's even more danger in running a foul off it because you you can't really comprehend all the details of that law. Yeah. I think it's kind of like the law of the hidden folk. It's the law of

the other world. And these uh, these laws I think sometimes in a lot of folk traditions can be understood by but only by certain special kinds of people, people who have a often people who are in some way considered otherwise not normal. Yeah. Like another modern take that gets into this is um Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, which

of course is inspired by Japanese and Shinto traditions. But the totoro that we encounter, they're very much forest guardian spirits, and in Miyazaki's version of this, the only ones who can really who can certainly see them and to a certain extent understand them, are children. Like children have that privileged insight into the rules and laws and existence of this other world. It's almost like we're born with an understanding of the law of the forest, but the process

of socialization and maturing beats it out of us. Yes, uh yeah, So this is one of the reasons at the beginning I said that the less she is kind of like a malevolent trickster int It's like if the nt were a demon, because it makes me think of the scenes in Lord of the Rings where the Orcs are punished for hacking down the trees of Fangorn Forest. You know, the the trees get revenge and and the

nts get very angry to see their forests destroyed. This is something that that does come through in some of the folk tales. For example, warn Or talks about how there were certain things you could do in the forest or near the forest to really especially bring on the leshies wrath, and these things might involve whistling, swearing, making a noise, willful damage of flowers or trees or hunting on certain church festivals, which that last one seems kind

of incongruous with the other, isn't. Maybe it's tacked on a bit by the by the by the priests. I agree with all of those go ahead and going on a lot of nature hike hikes these days. I feel like, uh, I feel like we need a leshy enforcing all of those rules plus social distancing norms. Yeah, but that's just me. I wonder if I ever needed to get another job, could I get a job as a kind of leshy, like in a state park or something. I just wander

around the forest. If I find somebody carving their name into a tree or some you know, littering or whatever, I make them wander off the path into a bog, you know. I had My family actually had a very recent experience on a high which kind of felt akin to running a foul of the forest. We never got off of a paved path because it had just been a very rainy weekend and uh, and so we knew that, you know, we needed to get like a paved path

to walk on. But we still on this one particular road we encountered first a stretch of the road where mud had washed over everything, so suddenly we were tramping through mud. And then immediately we were set up on by by by a whole cloud of mosquitoes, despite being kind of late in the year, And I kid you not, at the very same moment, two deer showed up and a snake crossed the road in front of us, like

very close to us. So like suddenly it just felt like like the woods were opening up and speaking to us and saying that we should not proceed any further. And in fact we turned back that he's about to come out in bell tower form with the now it over his shoulder. Yeah, leave this place, Do not bring your evil here. All right, Well, I think we need to take a break, but when we come back, let's

talk about Grandfather Mushroom. Alright, we're back. So we know as usual that the listeners to our episodes, you know, are far flung, and some of you are going to have a great deal of familiarity with these various uh Russian folk tales that were discussing here. For for others of you, though, you might only be familiar with them through some of the more popular, you know, mainstream Western treatments. Like. One thing that comes to mind is once again Jim

Hinson's Storyteller series. The first season of that relied heavily on Russian folk tales. I actually haven't seen that first season. I've only watched some of the Greek episodes, so maybe I should go back check that out. It's like it's like Slavic folklore. Yeah, yeah, there, um, you know, the czar shows up in one of them. So there's several really good, good tales in there like that. That whole season is worth watching. But there are some really good ones,

like the Soldier and Death is a great one. That that one in particular is wonderful. But another place that a lot of you might be familiar with Russian folklore is from a particular nineteen sixty five film titled Moral's Goal or Jack Frost. And there's a very good chance you're familiar with this film because Mystery Science Theater three thousand famously featured it in one of their episodes. So this is how It's certainly how I discovered it. But

I've I've had conversations with people like I was. This was years and years ago. I was talking to someone from the Czech Republic, and they pointed out, oh yeah, they would show that every year for Christmas. That was our Christmas film, Like that is that is a part of our holiday culture, and uh and and and and at this point I would say Jack Frost is also part of my holiday culture. I rewatch it every year.

But you know, it's it's it's a little bit different coming at it from this lampooning direction, but it is a very beautiful film. And if you've only seen, like, you know this, this really degraded quality version of it, um as far as the video quality goes on Mr Science three Mystery Science Theater three thousand, I I challenge everyone out there to check out a pristine cut of this.

Either I think there's a version as of this recording available on Amazon Prime, or you can also sometimes find uh, you know, versions of it on YouTube that have just the full glorious quality of the film. It is a beautiful movie and even without the riffing, extremely watchable and extremely enjoyable. This is why I've never thought about the idea that this was a commonly viewed Christmas film for

lots of people. So like here in America, we've got bumbles, balance and then maybe throughout Eastern Europe they've got we will rob them. We won't rob them, we will beat them. We will be beaten. Yes, yeah, I mean really, it's it's not fair because we have like Charlie Brown Christmas, which is awful, but but they have Jack Frost, which, oh man, we're we're going to get hate mail. Now. It's it's fine, I risk it's it's it's it's perfectly okay. It's just not my thing. I mean, no, this is

a wonderful movie. It's got it's it's so imaginative. I love when Ivan gets the bear head. I love Grandfather Mushroom, I love the bandits, I love the the creepy girl. It's it's fantastic. Yeah, it's it has so many It actually has so many wonderful elements of Russian folk tales.

They're just straight out of Russian folk tales that really you could you could watch that film and you already are in a great place to begin reading more Russian tales and exploring them from yourself, because it has you know, you have the the you have. Ivan Tsarovich is the you know, the blonde guy who gets his head turned into a bear in the film. He is a staple of Russian folk tales. You have Boba Yaga, the the evil woodland witch. Again, just a staple that you see

time and time again. Now you might be wondering, Okay, well, where's where's the leshi in Jack Frost and I don't. We don't have a direct Leshie and we'll get into some of the reasons for this, but we do have an interesting character that pops up that I instantly thought about in reading all of that's this and that is uh the little grandfather Mushroom father mushroom character, the little diminutive old man with a mushroom cap that shows up and uh has a little bit of mischief in him

and teaches Ivan a lesson. Yeah, he is portrayed as sort of a wise figure, a figure of the force, but also like the less she a trickster. You know, he's playing, he's like doing, he's disappearing, playing hide and seek, sort of taunting Ivan. Um. I don't know if we said his his Russian name. I guess In Russian he's known as Starry Chalk Borova Chalk. Yes, that's what I've read as well. You know, father grandfather Mushroom. Uh, and and again. He has a very memorable um appearance in

that film. Now, one of the lingering questions that I'll get back to again is I was never able to determine if he has an existence outside of this film, like if he if he pre existed as part of Russian folklore. I did not run across in any of the stories I read, though I did not read all written accounts of Russian folklore, and I didn't find him mentioned in any of the academic papers we're looking at.

But that that doesn't mean anything either. Uh. And certainly that film was such a big part of of several cultures. In sixty five of hints that you look and you find like countless Christmas ornaments of him, So like now, he is definitely a part of of our understanding of Russian folklore to a certain extent. But I wasn't. I was never sure he was authentically something that existed before

that film. You know, there are some interesting connections I was thinking about between this this mushroomy character and the less she beyond just the fact that he is sort of a trickster guardian of the forest in a way, Uh, there are some other things like, for example, I was reading in one of our sources that the wrinkles on a mushroom are often said to be the marks of the less She's whip. Remember the less she carries the now or the whip at to show his dominion and

over the forest. You know, it's like that, I'm the boss stick. But apparently the all the little ribs and wrinkles on the mushrooms are from him flicking the lash. Yeah. I ran across that as well. Um, that that's that's interesting that that seems to be the That was the only, like, I think, one of the only true leshy mushroom connections

I came across. But I was reading Funguy folk Ways and Fairy Tales, Mushrooms and Mildews and Stories, Remedies and Rituals from Oberon to the Internet by Frank M. Duggan, which was published in North American fung Guy in two thousand eight, and Duggan writes that Eastern Europe and Russia are generally mico Phillick in nature. Again going back to

we discussed this in a previous episode. How broadly speaking, some cultures are mico philic and some are microphobic, and this is often based just in how they describe and broadly view mushrooms um uh and uh, and certainly listen to our mushroom foraging episode for more insight on that. But yes, uh, Slavic culture is Eastern Europe from you know, Poland through Russia and Finland. I think it's widely viewed as uh as a totally common and desirable thing to

go out in the forest looking for mushrooms. And yet at the same time, Dugan points out that there were there was still often a taboo against speaking about certain kinds of mushrooms due to sexual connotations associated with them. Huh. Likewise, some sorts of mushrooms were also heavily associated with Baba Yaga.

That uh that that evil m haggish um which that lives in the wood uh In in that that fabulous hut with the chicken leg, there's a story about her hunting for mushrooms and running into a hedgehog that was doing the same thing. So the Bobba Yaga and the hedgehog they reach an understanding and she later turns him into a boy hero. And then there's also this really interesting bit in light of my Cilia quote, Baba Yaga is also an associate of magic and benevolent spirit. It's

who dwell under mushrooms, under mushrooms. Well, so you mentioned the massilia. Yeah, the fibers that stretch out underneath the soil, that are in many ways the actual body of the the fungus, whereas the mushroom part is just the fruiting body is the reproductive part. Yeah. So I can't help but wonder if that little nugget of folkloric wisdom is is touching on this understanding that there's a you know, this is vast network beneath the visible mushroom. I don't

know now, speaking of of Baba Yaga. According to Andreas John's in Baba Yaga The Ambiguous Mother and Which of the Russian folk tale in various Slavic languages and dialects, Baba derived words serve as names for the butterfly, cake, types of cake, pears, and certain kinds of mushrooms, as well as the pelican, and she is sometimes associated with the leshi. The author points out that in the Mezen region, the leshies life is often said to be the yaga Baba,

Wait did you mean to say? Or well, it was written as Jaga Baba. So I'm not entirely sure if we were. I mean, it's it seems very close. We either they're dealing directly with Bobba Yaga or some regional twist on it. I'm imagining the inverted Baba Yaga. Yeah, John's rights. Uh. Melantinski referring to an author and his colleagues feel that Bobba Yaga became associated with a forest hut later than figures such as the forest spirit or

the bear. Presumably Baba Yaga is a later kind of forest demon because of her anthropomorphic and therefore less archaic form. Whether or not she is the original owner, Babba Yaga is probably the most frequent and popular inhabitant of the forest hut in Eastern Slavic fairy tales. So in that you know, the author is talking about like forest huts

and how they factor into these various folk tales. But it also points to this idea that that that you have Bobby Yaga coming along after pre existing ideas of forest spirits, because she's very much a forest spirit. She's very much an encounter you have when you go into

the magical Russian forest. But there seems to be this idea that the leshy is in essence something more archaic, and perhaps I see this reflecting in other sources, perhaps less story shape less, less fitting for a proper narrative, and therefore you actually see less leshy than you might think in in at least known and recorded Russian tales. Maybe the less she is more often a figure than a character. Yeah, yeah, you do see see him pop up, but less as like a key antagonist. But we will

touch on some examples here in a debt. Now. I also looked around for tales concerning Ivan Tsarevich, the hero in Jack Frost and a traditional Russian character, and I did find a tale concerning concerning Ivan and the leshy. Yeah yeah, and this is collected in a fabulous collect

entitled and Anthology of Russian Folk Tales by Jack V. Hainey. Okay, let's hear it all right, So the story mainly concerns Ivan and the immortal antagonist uh cosh Jay the deathless who's this this like evils are like being that is encountered in a lot of these tales, like he's he's kind of the big bad. For instance, Boba Yaga is sometimes sometimes like you know, more of the primary villain, but she's often just this weird character you encounter on

the way. But but the Deathless is just all evil and and and terror and uh and and it's just you know, the ultimate bad is he's sort of sort of a low pan sort of yeah, just you know, he can't die. But there's some sort of secret to his immortality that the hero has to figure out, and in this case, that's what Ivan is doing, trying to figure out how he can deal with this deathless enemy.

But in one part of the story, Ivan and basically Ivan goes into the forest and his typical in Russian tales hasn't counters in the forest that help and hinder it. So in the forest, Ivan encounters three leshy in the woods who are searching for their grandfather's buried treasure. And these three treasures are an animate fighting club. So it's like a club and you say, hey, go hit that guy over the head, and the club goes and does it.

Um there's a hat of invisibility, which I don't have to describe because we have versions of this in every folk laura tradition I believe. And then you have the fabulous self laying table cloth that seems not as good as the other two, and yet it's it's amazing, especially I guess if your dungeon master is very particular about making sure you're you're you're eating properly, because the self laying table cloth is a table cloth that you whip out and spread on the ground and it is instantly

set with food and beverage. Oh so it's it's kind of like a Loaves and Fishes multiplayer. Absolutely. So the leshy are fighting over the rights to these treasures, which Ivan has already found, by the way, and and Ivan tricks them into running a foot race instead of fighting. He says, hey, don't fight each other over this. Why don't you run from here to that? See that far tree that you can barely see over there mid the horizon,

go run at that. Whoever gets to that first wins and the less you're like, that's great, let's do it. And they go off to run the race, and so Ivan slips away while they're far away from him. From there, he encounters the Baba Yaga at her hut, who he who's seeking for answers on how to achieve cash the deathless, how to achieve his death, and of course the the answer ends up that there's an egg in a box hidden under a mountain that he has to gain access too.

So anyway, this is a fun encounter in and of itself, but it also makes me think back to the Jack Frost film and remember the sort of dwarf like bandits that the Ivan encounters and I can't help but wonder if they are sort of serving as a version of Leshi in that regard. Yeah, like a danger risk, chaotic force in the forest that that Ivan has to interact with. And Trick I can't remember in the movie, doesn't he aren't their clubs in their scenes as well, like they

have to. They end up throwing clubs up in the air and then later the clubs come back down and hit them. Yes, they do. That seems to connect to like the automatic fighting club that the unless she was arguing over. Yeah, I was, I was wondering the same thing. Um now now again this this. I read this in the Anthology of Russian Folk Tales by Jack V. Haney, who I believe that this particular volume has ninety nine different folk tales, some very small, someome a little bit longer,

and also commentary on them. And it's it's a wonderful read I recommend it. But he also had like several volumes on top of this that he had compiled, and these were just like the best or most you know,

helpful to share with readers. But he he adds later in in this particular volumes, his stories featuring the FOURT speech spirit the leshy are uncommon, and perhaps this again speaks to the more archaic take on this being a more archaic take on spirits of the forest, which are less narrative compared to other embodiments of the forest and wildness, such as Baba Yaga or even you know Father Frost Morosco himself, you know, who's very much an embodiment of

of the winds of winter. So it seems that maybe the less she and these stories are less going to be like the main villain of the story and more kind of an environmental threat. I mean, the less She might be something kind of like a like a particular monster encountered along the way, or almost like a like a pit of quicksand like just something that you've got to worry about in the in the wild environment. Yeah, yeah,

I think so. Now I want to share some other points that that Haney makes about Russian folk tales in general, because I think these can help us understand Russian folklore a bit more and also understand the less She's place in these tales. So Haney contends that there are there are more folk tales that may have emerged out of

the Russian people than any other. He says due in part to the fact that well into the twentieth century, Russia quote remained in illiterate and basically peasant country where folk traditions were strong and carefully maintained. Okay, so it's the idea that if the culture was more literate, the

folk tales would have been less less retold. Um. Well, I guess the idea is like, once you start writing them down, right, then you have like a totally a different energy takeover regarding the folk tales, and then you also have different influences on the shape of those tales.

But in Russia, he's arguing that they remained, um like the property of of the common Russian people, and they were speaking of this sort of Russian existence that had not changed a whole lot, you know, throughout their history. But then he points out that the twentieth century comes along, and this is an exceedingly hard time on the Russian

people and it ends up disrupting their storytelling traditions. He also points out that Russia has the second largest number of tale types according to the International Classification System for Folk tales. Uh, and this gets you know, when you get into the the scholarly study of folk tales, you find it. Yeah, there are all these different classifications for the different types of tales you encounter in cultures around the world. He points out that there are a lot

of animal tales. Uh. The frequent villains you encounter are, of course the Bobby Yaga, which is nasty dwarves shape shifting magicians. However, Bobby Yaga is also sometimes a donor or helper. Frequent characters in general, you have Bobby Yaga and her hut. You have the firebird co j, the Deathless Prince Ivan's are of Itch, who already mentioned Princess Elena, and of course generic Czar is often involved as well. Uh,

you know, the king that is. And I believe that the exact nature of the king depends, uh, you know, sometimes a little more on the cruel side, sometimes a little more the deevolent side, kind of like just sort

of the generic keen you encounter in other folkloric traditions. Now, it does seem that a huge number of these tales do involve having to travel through the forest, right, Absolutely, that the hero frequently wanders through the woods and at some point receives help in his quest from an animal or some other sort of supernatural aid. And uh, and sometimes the charactery encounters is a devil or the devil

or the devil's offspring. Uh. This this was interesting. Um, this is a whole category of tail Ivan the fool versus the devil or the devil's offspring. And it's not really Ivan as a fool, but Ivan, I think it's more, you know, he's clever, but in kind of a a

roguish way. And in these tales, Haney writes, it's important to recognize first the satire, but then also that the devil is not really a Christian devil, but quote rather a figure derived from the various malevolent spirits that inhabited the Russian peasants universe, the forest spirit or leshy, the water spirit or Vodiana, and others too numerous to mention. So again the idea of the devil comes along, and it ends up kind of absorbing these other ideas of

evil things in the wild wood. This is just another one of the many interesting ways that the concept of Satan or the devil has evolved over the centuries. I mean, like if you go back to the earliest versions of Satan, even like in the in the Jewish tradition, Satan then is not even presented as as monstrous or evil, like in the Book of job As seems to be one of the earliest references to Satan. Satan is like one of God's angels. You know, he kind of works for him.

He he's sort of like a prosecutor or a like a detective doing you know, trying to sniff out disloyalty. But later on you you incorporate more and more into this adversary figure of the monstrous of evil, of the all that's wrong with the world. And I think this is one of the reasons that the devil figure accumulates the monstrosity of every particular location and every culture that absorbs him. Now, Hany does have some some of the

stories with Leshie of popping up. One of them that that was really good is a story called a Prince and his Uncle, which features an old trapper in the woods who serves the farest spirit or leshy. When a greedy king shows up looking to squeeze more money out of the commoners, he asked the old man how he catches his beasts, and the old man says, well, the farest spirit sets out snares and the beast is stupid and gets caught. So the king hears this and he

gets an idea. He bribes the old man with wine and money for the location of these snares that again were set by the leshy, and then the king orders the leshy caught and fettered to an iron post. Meanwhile, the prince is a decent lad and listens to the leshis please for release. He instructs the prince in how to tame the key to his irons and distracts the

others uh while he's being released. Afterwards, the king is enraged and sends the prince out on an excursion into the far corners of the world his punishment, and he sends his old uncle with him to guide him. This uncle figure it's always in quotations, so it's like not really his uncle um, But then again, it's not super

important to the story. Seemingly eventually, the prince and the uncle switched places, and at one point the less She meets the prince again and gives him some magical items, which include once more the self setting table cloth, but also a magic mirror that shows you whatever you want to see and a magical musical instrument that kind of plays on demand. And then he later provides him with a horse and magical vodka to give him strength against

a terrible monster. Now, sadly the story doesn't really involve unless she beyond this point, but we see the less She kind of serving this role uh in the later portions of the story as this magical forest creature that shows up and provide its assistance to the hero. But then he goes on to share what I think is

my favorite leshy story that I read um Hain. He shares this story titled the Forest Spirit, which hinges on this notion that you have a leshy or some or various other creatures like a like a coldn which is a type of male sorcerer if you if they are not invited to your wedding, they may show up anyway and find some way to spoil it. Wait, so you are supposed to invite them. Apparently, that's that's one tradition,

is go ahead and invite the leshy. It's it would be rude not to because if you don't invite the leshy, he will show up and he might cause chaos. But I guess if you do invite him, he won't show up there. You know, they're fickle, chaotic creatures. It's reverse psychology. So this, this the forest spirit, is a fun little tail. There's not much to it, but this is how it

goes down. Basically, So there's an old peasant who grows and threshes grain, but then he suddenly keeps coming into the drawing shed to find that the grain he is harvested is already threshed. Now, basically this means somebody is doing half his work for him for free. But you know he's he's he's an old cadger, you know, probably a bit grumpy about things. He wants to get to the bottom of this. He doesn't want unexplained threshing going

on and his his his drying shed. So he asked an old woman for help, and she says, well, I'm just an old woman. I can't help you. You're gonna have to go ask the local witch. So he goes to the local witch and she says, well, look it's a lessie that's doing this. Uh, but if you want to stop him, you want to catch the leshie, this is what you do. Stake out your shed and you sneak up on him and you loop a necklace with a cross around on it around his neck and that'll

capture him, making him your servant. And so the old man does just that. Uh. The lessie of course immediately asked for release and offers to help the old man build a new slip to haul grain on in exchange for his freedom. The old man agrees, but then keeps asking for more work in exchange for the less She's released. So he's like, well, I need some firewood. Maybe after you give me some firewood. And he's like, well, you know I need the firewood chopped up as well. I

am altering the deal. Pray I alter it no further, right, But then finally he says, you know, Lee, She says, all right, how about now can I go free? I've chopped your wood, I made you this slip. You know, what what else do you want? He's like, no, my niece is getting married. Next week and you're coming to the wedding with me. So the old man is just straight up taking the less she to a family wedding as his plus one. Does it explain why he wants the lessie to go to the wedding. Is he just

trying to like pad out the attendance. I don't know, Like he doesn't expressly say in this book, or doesn't you know, interpret it expressly in this book. So I don't know if it's a sense where like I'm supposed you're supposed to invite nless you to the wedding, so I will. I'll just straight up bring him. Like maybe he is misinterpreting the tradition being an old man who lives in the woods or um, or maybe maybe he's lonely.

I'm not sure. I kind of like the idea that he's lonely, and it's just like he's spending so much time with the less She's like, now I'm come to this wedding with me. Come hang out. I may need you to chop some wood during the ceremony. Yeah. So anyway they attend, the less she seems at first to be standing back and minding his own business in the corner of the room, standing by the doors, out of sight,

not even partaking of the food in the drink. But then the less She sees a pretty maid bringing out the soured milk in a cup, which, by the context of the story seems to be just part of the ceremony. So the less She immediately takes her, spins her around, and then she falls down, spilling the milk all over the place, And the less She begins to clap and

laugh at this loudly so everybody hears it. The guests do not find this amusing at all, and they chastise the old man for bringing such a guest with him to the event. Oh so this is the first time they've noticed there's a Lessi here at the wedding. Well, yeah, he's standing over there by the door. Nobody noticed until he started, you know, making a spectacle and spoiling the wedding. So everyone is displeased, and they they curse him in

all and can cuss at him. Uh, the old man, And unless she go home, the less She asked once more for his release, and the old man grants it to him. And I love the way that Haney winds this up. Uh. He attributes this tale the telling him this tale to a sixty two year old peasant who related it in nine and the final quote at the end of the tale is, in olden times, they believe this, but now they don't believe anything. Those darn kids no

longer believe in the leshy. Yeah, I just yeah, I love the the grumpiness of the tale, like the tale that like, I'm going to tell you this story. Kids don't believe it anymore, but it happened. This is actually similar to another tale that I was reading, at least summarized in in one of those sources as we were looking at for this episode, which is the Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend by Mike Dixon Kennedy.

And in this entry, there was a story where there's a there's an old man who lives by the forest and one day a traveler appears and asks if he can rest in his hut, and the old man says, yeah, sure, you can rest in my hut. Now. The old man is a is a cattle herdsman who has to, you know, take his herd of cattle through the forest to graze. And after giving the traveler a good night's rest in

his home. He is told it's like revealed that the traveler was a leshy, and was like, you know what, You're not gonna have to worry about your cattle anymore. You don't have to follow them around. You just let him go out in rome in the morning, and then they'll come back full of and and give plenty of

milk at the end of the day. And this happens for a while until the traveler gets curious about what's happening during the day, so he follows his cattle out and then finds that they are being shepherded in in or I guess, not shepherded. I don't know what the term for a person who herds cattle would be a cat cattle herded by some old crone, I guess the the ideas that she's a witch or a helper of

some kind of the leshy. And when he finds her and tries to speak to her in the forest, she vanishes, and then the basically the blessing is lifted and he has to keep toiling with his cattle again after that, like they're no longer self servicing cattle. Uh, And so his curiosity breaks the Leshi's goodwill. Yeah, yeah, that does seem a very similar story. The idea that lest she might just spontaneously start helping you you out, but if you get too greedy about it, uh, then it's going

to backfire on you too greedy or too curious. Yeah, well, I mean, ultimately, I guess one way you could take the moral of that story is just like, don't go in there, don't look too close at what's happening in the woods, don't inquire about the law of the woods. Just let the woods do its thing. Yeah, alright, on that note, we're going to take another break, but we'll

be right back. All right, we're back. So clearly, a lot of the folk tales about the less She come from anxieties people have about the idea of getting lost in the woods. Again, remember one of the main threats that the the Leshy and his demon or monster form uh you know, represents threats in a couple of different ways. One by like kidnapping children or unbaptized babies at the forest's edge, but also by causing people to become lost

in the woods. You're traveling through the woods, maybe you're trying to stick to the path, But then you're lured off the path by the call of the leshy or by the less she pretending to be somebody you know, or you know, or or mimicking the sound of a distressed child. And then you get lost in the woods. You you can't find your way home, and you perish

out among the trees. I wanted to talk about an article that I was reading about the real life sort of like science and history of people getting lost in the woods. Uh. This is an exert adapted from a book called From Here to There, The Art and Science of Finding and Losing Our Way by Michael Bond, published by Harvard University Press. This excerpt was published and Wired

and I thought this was really interesting. So a lot of the article focuses on the story of Geraldine Larkay, who was a sixty six year old retired nurse from Tennessee who died in the forest after becoming lost just off of the Appalachian Trail, and once her body was discovered, details from her diary and her phone clarified what happened. She had been hiking the Appalachian Trail and she moved just slightly off the path in order to go to

the bathroom. It was that she wrote that she went no more than eighty paces off the path, but then afterwards was nevertheless unable to find the trail again. She survived for nineteen days before dying of the effects of exposure and starvation, and when her campsite was discovered, it became clear that she was actually less than half a mile from the trail as the crow flies, and that search and rescue teams with dogs had passed within a hundred yards of her campsite while she was still alive.

She was also really close to some railroad tracks that could have led her out of the forest if she'd known about them. And in this case and others like it, there are there's some really kind of like cruel and unsympathetic and and and dumb ways that people react to this by saying like, oh, how could you know? How dumb? How you know she could have survived? How could you

get lost when you're that close to the trail. But Bond points out that experienced hikers don't talk like this because most of them know actually how easy it is to become hopelessly lost in a forest, and how powerful is the urge to do all of the just exactly

the wrong things in that scenario. For example, one common piece of advice is if you're lost in the woods, you should immediately stop moving, Like as soon as you realize that you don't know where you are and you don't know how to get back where you came from, immediately stop moving, stay in place, and you're more likely to survive. While you're in place, you can come up with a plan if you need to, and not exhaust yourself moving around or getting more lost in the process.

You can wait for rescue without worth, without wandering further and further away from where you were. However, the stop and wait plan, while actually very good advice, is extremely difficult to actually follow. What people with experience report is that the moment you realize you're lost in the woods, you are overcome with a powerful sense of panic that compels you to keep moving, in fact, to start running

all over the place. Bond quotes a British psychologist named Hugo Spears for from another work about his experience of becoming temporarily lost in the rainforest in Peru. So Spears writes, quote, so I didn't go far, but it's the jungle, and ten ms into the jungle is enough to be completely disoriented. I was lost in this jungle for two hours. They sent a dog out to find me. I wasn't the first person to have a dog sent out. It was terrifying. My brain just wanted me to run, just run, just

keep moving. I was very aware that that was not the right strategy. Keeping moving in the jungle is not going to save your life. So I tried to calm down and think carefully and not react at high speed and look at my environment. And I realized I was going in circles, exactly like in the movies. I was using a machete to mark big trees, laying down a thread to know if I'd come that way. Before that was starting to work, I'd mark a tree with three slashes, and if I ended up back at that tree, I

knew I'd gone in a circle. I was nearly back at the camp when they sent the dog out, but it was a huge relief. It just made me very aware that being really, really lost is quite terrifying. It

is not a normal thing. I think being lost in the woods is one of those types of scenarios where your imagination of it really does not capture what the experience would be like people imagine, they're like, Okay, you know, I've I've I've gotten turned around disoriented before, maybe you know, in a in a in a city, or in a neighborhood or something. You don't know exactly where you're going, but it's pretty easy to find your way back when

there are roads and sidewalks and landmarks. Oh yeah, there's that house. Being lost in the woods is not like that. Being lost in the woods, I think could it could be argued that it is a form of an altered state of consciousness that is terrifying and completely short circuits

your better judgment in multiple ways. Oh absolutely. And you know, I I have my friends who have been lost in the forest before, and they were not like as lost as like one can truly become lost in the forest, or certainly as lost as one could in the times of these folk tales, because they at least had not lost cell coverage for their phone and we're able to to use that. You know, they were still tethered to the into the civilized world via their their device, and

it was still a terrifying experience. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, try to imagine it without those devices, without even a compass. Again, this is there's so many ways that imagining what it would be like to be lost in the forest does not really cut it. Like, you're not likely to predict a lot of the ways that your normal powers of navigation fail. For example, of course, now, uh, if you are lost in the woods, it is generally advised that

you should just stop and wait for rescue. But if you are going to walk, you need to have a good idea where you're going and try to travel in a straight line. You might think that going straight is easy, right, I can walk a straight line. We all you know, we walk straight lines all day. But actually it is not easy without landmarks, without trails or a compass. Lost people really do, and this is proven by research. They

just walk in circles. There was research in two thousand nine by by Jan Suman who used GPS monitors to track volunteers while they tried to navigate in a straight line through a couple of natural environments without the aid of external landmarks or signs. This was the Sahara Desert and Germany's buy and Waled Forest, and it did not go well. When they couldn't see the sun, people could not travel in a straight line at all. Small initial errors in orientation would just quickly grow wider as they

piled upon themselves. And people actually truly did just walk in circles. I know, it sounds like that wouldn't happen. You're like, no, no, no, I could, I could go into straight line, but you probably couldn't you just go in circles? Uh? And to read from the article quote, Suman concluded that with no external cues to help them, people will not travel more than around a hundred meters from their starting position, regardless of how long they walk for.

That's so hard to believe, but apparently it's true. Yeah, that the path in the forest is not just a suggestion, you know it is. It is a lifeline. But another big part of this article, Bond talks about how being lost in the forest it doesn't just make it hard to navigate. It does that, but it also affects the

way we reason. He says being lost as a cognitive state, in that the woods make it extremely difficult, sometimes basically impossible, to form a mental map of your surroundings because woods just kind of look like woods if you're if you're not used to being in them. Uh. He says, quote, nothing in your spatial memory matches what you see. Your normal mental equipment for navigation becomes close to useless. But even more so, Bond argues that being lost is an

emotional state quote. It delivers a psychic double whammy. Not only are you stricken with fear, you also lose your ability to reason. You suffer what neuroscientists Joseph Lead calls a hostile takeover of consciousness by a motion of people make things a lot worse for themselves when they realize they are lost by running, for instance, because they're afraid, they can't solve problems or figure out what to do. They fail to notice landmarks or fail to remember them.

They lose track of how far they've traveled. They feel claustrophobic, as if their surroundings are closing in on them. Uh And Bond also says that there are chemical signatures of this lost in the woods panic. He quotes a search and rescue specialist named Robert Kester who argues that being lost is, in terms of neurobiology, similar to a panic attack. The body floods with catechola means, and the standard fight

or flight behavior patterns get triggered. So in a subjective sense, it often feels kind of like a break with reality. You know, you you're just kind of you feel like you're losing your mind. And this can even last after a person gets out of the state. He also quotes Ed Cornell, who's a psychologist who studies the behavior of people who get lost, and and Cornell says that it can be really difficult to get information out of a

person who's been lost. They often have trouble communicating their experience and can't remember quite what happened to them, and uh and and the type of disorientation and panic and stress that's brought on by being lost in the woods causes people sometimes to experience delusions and hallucinations. Even in otherwise healthy people or seemingly otherwise healthy people, they will

sometimes report hallucinating interactions with people in the forest. And given all this, it's not hard at all to see where stories and an otherworldly demon who lives in the forest and lures people into becoming lost where they would

come from. You know, you can easily imagine somebody becoming lost in the forest in medieval Russia and then by chance they managed to find their way back or get rescued somehow, and what is their experience might be kind of hard for them to remember what happened, that's strange.

And they may be experienced like stress based hallucinations while they were out there, hearing voices or hearing sounds, maybe even seeing people who were taunting them or luring them this way and that, Uh, it becomes quite clear how stories like this could come out of real experiences. Yeah.

And and I think it's also interesting how you know, we can compare this to the leshy and the idea of the leshy being both gigantic and small, hiding behind blades of glad grass, and also being the another size of a bell tower. There's this kind of this idea of the nature of the leshy warps physical space in a way that seems to line up well with this um that the experiences we're describing here. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, I gotta say researching this episode has has made me

think kind of differently. I Mean, I'm somebody who I love to go hiking in the woods on a on a path of course, and in the past I think I might have been i don't know, more likely to to say like, oh, there's something that looks cool over there. Maybe I'll go off the path. I think that's some think people should genuinely be cautious about, Like it is much easier to lose the path and lose your way

in the woods than you might think. Yeah, certainly to keep in mind for anybody who listened to our episode on mushroom foraging and decides to get into it, because you know, often is the case that you you spot the you know, the the tempting Chanterrell's just a little off the path, and you may go out to them and you and may that may work out just fine, uh, you know, for you, but it also might not, especially if you then see the next patch of Chanterrelle's or

what might be Chanterrelle's, but also might be just some some you know, orange ish colored leaves on the ground, and then before you know it, uh, the lesh she has led you astray. We will eat them. We won't eat them, We will saute them in butter. We will be saute in butter. I I do you know again, I have to to really recommend that that Haney book

for anyone who wants to read Russian folk tales. But I have to drive home again just how good that sixty Jack Frost film is not only terms of just what a beautiful production it is, but it seems to really capture the nature of those Russian folk tales because there's this like whimsy and danger and magic, uh that

is inherent in a lot of these beings. Like, for instance, the Babba Yaga herself is in the tales often described, you know, is being you know, having these qualities of of a woodland monster spirit, but also of just like a ridiculous, farting old woman, you know, And and all of that I think is reflected very well. And that whimsical performance in the film. Yes, Tom Petty Riff Society, it is haunted by peasant genius, it really is, you know.

Another interesting point than Haney made in his overview of Russian folk tales is that, aside from the fact that the hero very frequently goes into the forest and has an encounter, also the hero always prevails, uh. Like, Haney really underlined that, like the the hero is going to win in these stories. So again we can think back to so many of these tales dealing with like the the chaotic nature of the woods and it being they being stories about how humans can and do overcome the

chaos of the wilds. Though it's funny because the story is also uh, they don't encourage what in the modern day at least is generally the best behavior if you become lost in the woods, like the you know, Ivan Sarvag does not sit down and wait for rescue. He does not hug a tree, which is actually the smartest thing to do if you get lost. He's like, no, forge ahead. Yeah, it always works out for him eventually.

If you get lost, don't be like Ivan. I guess unless you've got a self setting table cloth, then you might be okay. Oh yeah. I mean if you've got a self setting table cloth, that's really gonna help you out in the long run. I mean that that means you don't have to worry about food and water. Do you think the food from the self setting table cloth was good or was it just like you know, kind of you know, it's bread or whatever. Is it like really nice were ma stuff? Um? I mean I'm assuming

it was probably like basic like everyday food. Uh. I guess it was pretty good. I mean there's a section where where Ivan's dining from it. Um, And I don't know, it's just not. I don't think it was mentioned in that particular retelling of the tale, but I imagine it as being like typical like typical Russian people's food, borsht and morals. Yeah, I guess so. You know, all right,

we're gonna go ahead and close this out here. Obviously there there's there's so many other things we could talk about with Russian folklore, a tremendous amount of material out there. You know, who knows if if you all enjoyed listening to this episode, perhaps we could return in the future, but we would love to hear from you in the meantime. Some of the key questions UM would regard, of course,

did you grow up watching Jack Frost? If so, tell us about that and it's impact on your you know, your your your holidays or your just a sort of appreciation of cinema in general. I understand it was quite influential on some filmmakers. By the way, I also am interested if anybody has any definite answers regarding father or grandfather Mushroom, does he have an existence in Russian Russian

folklore prior to that nineteen film. I would I would love to to have some clarity on that question, and of course if you have been lost in the woods, either just a little bit lost or like majorly lost in the woods, if you would like to share your your experience with us and tell us how it relates to both the you know, the studies that Joe mentioned and also the folklore we've discussed here, we would love

to hear from you totally. In the meantime, if you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review and subscribe. If you want to just get to us quickly, you can go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and that will take you to our I heart listing for the show.

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