Leshy, Slavic forest spirit
The Leshy is a Slavic forest spirit and guardian of the wilderness who watches over the animals and trees of his territory and can lead wanderers astray.
The Leshy (Russian Леший, Ukrainian Лісовик, Polish Leszy, South Slavic Lešnik) is, in East Slavic folk belief, the master of the forest, a nature spirit of ambivalent character who rules over trees, wild animals and the thicket.
Unlike the official gods of the Vladimirian set of six, the Leshy does not belong to the theological world of gods of Kievan Rus, but to the deeper stratum of the “lower mythology“, that spirit world of forests, fields, rivers and houses which survived the Christian period largely unbroken.
Sergei Tokarev and Vladimir Propp described the Leshy as the best example of an East Slavic nature demon, whose image can be reconstructed from hundreds of folk tales and peasant accounts.
Table of contents
Name and etymology
The name “Leshy” (Леший) is a derivation from the Old Russian “les” (forest) and means literally “the one belonging to the forest”. Synonyms are “Lesovik”, “Lesnik”, “Lesnoy ded” (forest grandfather), “Lesovoy”, “Borovoy” (from “bor”, pine forest) and “Vodyanoy ded” in combined forms.
The South Slavic equivalents “Lešy”, “Lešnik” and the Polish “Leszy” show the pan-Slavic distribution of the concept, while the most pronounced mythology is preserved in the East Slavic area.
Appearance and ability to transform
The Leshy is a classic shape-shifter. The most common description shows him as an old man with a long grey or green beard, in fur-like clothing, often with his shoes worn back to front, with the left garment thrown over the right shoulder and without a shadow.
In the accounts his eyes sometimes appear greenish and glowing, sometimes as burning lights between the trees. These distinguishing details (the “Wendish scheme of inversion”) are a widespread mark in East Slavic folkloristics for identifying beings from the beyond.
The Leshy can change his size at will: at one moment he is as tall as the highest fir, at another as small as a blade of grass. He can transform into any animal of the forest, most often into a wolf, bear, hare or owl, and occasionally into a fallen tree trunk.
This capacity for transformation links him to the shamanistic substrate of Eastern European religiosity, which Mircea Eliade described in “Le chamanisme” (1951) as the universal background of many nature spirits.
Functions and behaviour
As master of the forest, the Leshy regulates everything that happens in the woods. He gathers the wild animals together, directs their migrations and protects them from immoderate hunters. He guards the mushrooms, berries and honey stores of the wild bees.
At the same time he is the strategist of misdirection: wanderers who have offended him or who behave disrespectfully in the forest are led astray by the Leshy and, despite knowing the paths, can no longer find their way home.
This motif of the one “led in circles by the Leshy” is the most common Leshy motif in Russian peasant tales.
Protection against being led astray is offered by ritual inversion: taking off shoes and items of clothing and putting them back on inside out, or speaking words backwards. This practice also confirms the kinship of the Leshy with other “reversed” beings, whose world lies mirror-inverted to that of humans.
The Leshy is not malicious by nature. He respects courteous hunters, herdsmen and woodcutters, provided they observe the etiquette of the forest: do not shout loudly, light no fire without permission, do not destroy trees or animals senselessly.
In the case of violations he reacts with the whole repertoire of misdirection, illnesses and sudden changes of weather, up to making cattle or children disappear.
Changeling, exchange and pacts
A darker thread of Leshy folklore concerns the theme of exchange. A child carelessly cursed (“may the Leshy take you!”) can, according to folk tradition, be carried off by the Leshy; in its place a changeling (Lesnoy) remains.
These children are said later, as adults, to be shy and impaired in speech and to flee into the forest at night.
Herdsmen and beekeepers conclude pacts with the Leshy: they promise annual offerings (a first milk, a first honey, a cow for a feast), and in return the Leshy guarantees the safety of the herd and the beehives. These pacts are well attested in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian sources of the 19th century.
The Leshy family and its social world
In the East Slavic tales the Leshy does not live as a solitary being but has a family: the Leshachikha (his wife, sometimes identified as a Kikimora) and the Leshenata (his children). When different forest Leshys fight one another, there are storms, falling trees and a howling that becomes audible in the gales.
The annual “Leshy migration” from late September to early October (around Erevoda according to the Orthodox calendar) is also an established topos: the Leshy moves from his summer forest into the winter forest, and as he does so storms rage, trees fall, and the forest is raging and dangerous.
During this time one should, as far as possible, not go into the forest.
Classification in the history of religion
The Leshy belongs to the East Slavic “lower mythology“, which Sergei Tokarev and Linda Ivanits (“Russian Folk Belief”, 1989) identified as the truly living religious substrate of the Russian peasantry. This stratum survived the official Christianisation largely intact and shaped the everyday life of the rural population well into the 20th century.
While Perun, Veles and the other state gods vanished with the fall of the pagan pantheon, the Leshy lived on in the peasant communities, because his functions were not taken over by the Church: whoever enters the forest needs the master of the forest.
Structurally the Leshy has parallels with the Baltic Vele/Velinas, with the Celtic “Cernunnos” (antlered master of the animals), with the Germanic “Wild Man”, with the Greek Pan/Faunus and with countless forest spirits in circumpolar mythology.
Mircea Eliade and Carlo Ginzburg (“I Benandanti”, 1966) have illuminated the pan-European depth of the complex of the master of the forest and the hunt.
Within the Slavic pantheon the Leshy stands in functional connection to Veles, the god of herds and of the underworld; some scholars (Boris Uspensky, “Filologicheskie razyskanija v oblasti slavjanskih drevnostej”, 1982) see in the Leshy a popular reflection of an older aspect of Veles.
Sources, research and collections
The main sources for the Leshy are the ethnographic collections of the 19th century: Aleksandr Afanasyev’s “Russkie narodnye skazki” (1855 to 1863) contains numerous Leshy tales; Dmitry Zelenin’s “Russische (ostslawische) Volkskunde” (German edition 1927) systematises the beliefs about the nature demons.
Sergei Maksimov’s “Nechistaya, nevedomaya i krestnaya sila” (1903) gives a panorama of Russian folk belief in which the Leshy stands central. Pavel Chubinsky collected the Ukrainian evidence in parallel (“Trudy etnografichesko-statisticheskoi ekspeditsii”, 1872 to 1877).
Afterlife in literature and popular culture
The Leshy is one of the most present figures of Russian literature. Alexander Pushkin invokes him in his “Russkie skazki”, Alexander Ostrovsky wrote the play “Leshy” (1857), Anton Chekhov gave one of his early dramas the title “Leshy” (1889, later reworked into “Uncle Vanya”).
In the 20th century Leshy figures appear in Aleksey Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak and Nikolai Gogol (in his Ukrainian tales). In the fantasy literature of the 21st century the Leshy is taken up in Andrzej Sapkowski’s “Witcher” series as a central nature-spirit figure, and likewise in the computer game series of the same name.
Protection and warding practices
Whoever encounters the Leshy is, according to folk tradition, helped by various means: turning shoes and shirt inside out, walking words and paths backwards, leaving out a piece of bread with salt for him, reciting the Lord’s Prayer or an Orthodox prayer, addressing him politely as “Dyadushka” (“little grandfather”) instead of “Leshy” (which he perceives as offensive).
Beekeepers placed small dishes of honey at the edges of the forest, herdsmen brought him their first milk in spring, and hunters the first animal killed or a part of it, before cutting it up.
Sources
Aleksandr Afanasyev, “Russkie narodnye skazki”, 3 volumes, Moscow 1855 to 1863. Aleksandr Afanasyev, “Poeticheskiye vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu”, 3 volumes, Moscow 1865 to 1869. Sergei Maksimov, “Nechistaya, nevedomaya i krestnaya sila”, Saint Petersburg 1903. Dmitry Zelenin, “Russische (ostslawische) Volkskunde“, Berlin 1927. Pavel Chubinsky, “Trudy etnografichesko-statisticheskoi ekspeditsii”, 7 volumes, Saint Petersburg 1872 to 1877.
Sergei Tokarev, “Religioznye verovaniya vostochnoslavyanskikh narodov”, Moscow 1957. Vladimir Propp, “Russkie agrarnye prazdniki”, Leningrad 1963. Linda Ivanits, “Russian Folk Belief”, Armonk 1989. Boris Uspensky, “Filologicheskie razyskanija v oblasti slavjanskih drevnostej”, Moscow 1982. Aleksander Gieysztor, “Mitologia Słowian”, Warsaw 1982. Henryk Łowmiański, “Religia Słowian i jej upadek”, Warsaw 1979. Jiří Dynda, “Slovanské pohanství ve středověkých latinských pramenech”, Prague 2017. Mircea Eliade, “Le chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase”, Paris 1951.
The Leshy in the Russian peasant calendar
In Russian folk tradition the Leshy has a fixed place in the annual calendar of peasant religiosity. Four important dates are connected with particular changes in his behaviour.
On 30 April (Russian old style), at the end of winter, the Leshy returns from his winter hiding place into the forest; from this date the forest should again be entered with particular caution.
At Pentecost (Trinity) his power is especially great; on these days no forest work was carried out in many villages.
On 4 October (old style) the Leshy moves into his winter forest; in doing so he vents himself in storms, makes trees fall and can be dangerous. During this period of migration herdsmen should take their herds out of the forest, and hunters should avoid the woods.
Dmitry Zelenin documented the regional variety of these calendar provisions in his “Russische (ostslawische) Volkskunde” (Berlin 1927) and pointed to their significance for the practical life of the peasantry.
In the heavily forested regions of northern and central Russia the belief in the Leshy structured the everyday life of woodcutters, hunters, herdsmen and beekeepers in a fundamental way.
Herdsmen's pacts and the cattle of the Leshy
The pacts between herdsmen and the Leshy are among the best documented aspects of East Slavic folk religion.
In the Russian north, in Karelia and in the Onega region, herdsmen had their own formulas of alliance by which they bound themselves to bring the Leshy certain offerings: the first milk of the season, a lamb at the spring drive, and in special cases an animal from their own property as “tuition money”.
In return the Leshy promised not to scatter the herd and to protect it from wolves.
The contract was usually concluded not in writing but orally and ritually: the herdsman went into the forest, knelt before an old tree (often an old fir or oak), laid down the offering and spoke a formula that he had learned either from his father or from the village elder.
Some such formulas are preserved in ethnographic collections and are among the most valuable sources of East Slavic folk religion. Linda Ivanits analysed this pact tradition from the perspective of the sociology of religion in “Russian Folk Belief” (Armonk 1989) and pointed to its significance for the stability of the peasant economy.
Path inversion and magical protective practices
The ritual inversion for protection against the Leshy is a classic example of the magical-religious logic of folk tradition.
Various practices are documented: turning the shirt inside out (“rubaha naiznanku”), putting on shoes back to front or wearing the left shoe on the right foot, speaking words backwards, taking three steps backwards, stepping over a tree trunk with the left leg.
These practices are reflected linguistically and symbolically: the world of the Leshy is conceived as a mirror-inverted world to that of humans; through one’s own inversion one aligns oneself with his world and deprives him of the advantage.
Sergei Maksimov and Boris Uspensky (“Filologicheskie razyskanija v oblasti slavjanskih drevnostej”, 1982) have shown that these inversion practices are not confined to the Leshy but represent a general logic of Slavic folk belief: in dealing with any form of power from the beyond (the dead, witches, the evil eye) inversion is employed.
The Leshy is thus a typical, not a unique, case among the mirror-inverted beings.
The Leshy family and the social organisation of the forest
In East Slavic folk tradition the Leshy does not live as a solitary being. His wife, the Leshachikha (sometimes identified with a Kikimora), lives in the same forest, frequently in a hollow tree trunk or in an old hut.
The Leshenata, the children, roam the forest and play pranks on wanderers who have lost their way. At gatherings of witches, on stormy nights or during forest battles between rival Leshys, the howling and crashing can be heard over several kilometres.
This social structuring of the forest is interesting from the point of view of the anthropology of religion: the forest is not conceived as a homogeneous “wilderness” but as an inhabited territory with its own masters, families and conflicts.
Linda Ivanits and Sergei Tokarev have shown that this perception fundamentally shaped the practice of the peasant who dwelt by the forest: entering the forest was always a crossing into another social world that demanded its own rules and forms of courtesy.
Depth in the history of religion and the connection to Veles
Boris Uspensky argued in “Filologicheskie razyskanija” that the Leshy in his East Slavic form represents a popular reflection of an older aspect of Veles. Veles, the god of herds and of the underworld in the official pantheon of Kievan Rus, has close connections to the forest, to animals and to the world beyond.
With the disappearance of the official cult of Veles after 988, the Leshy would have remained as his popular manifestation, living on in the peasant tradition. This hypothesis is plausible but, in detail, difficult to prove.
The two main chains of evidence for the Leshy tradition are folkloric (East Slavic tales and peasant practice of the 18th to 20th centuries) and linguistic (etymology and linguistic affinities).
Both chains of evidence point to an old, pre-Christian root of the Leshy conception, which, however, is not directly attested in the main medieval sources (the Nestor Chronicle, the Song of Igor).
This situation is not unusual in the history of religion: lower spirit beings are rarely mentioned in the main chronicles, yet are more stably anchored in folk religion than the official chief gods.
Indo-European and circumpolar parallels
On the Indo-European comparative level the Leshy corresponds structurally to several figures of the master of the forest. The Greek Pan and the Roman Faunus are his ancient parallels; both are protective gods of herdsmen and forest beings, both have an ambivalent and tricky character, both can lead wanderers astray (“panic terror”).
The Celtic Cernunnos, the horned “master of the animals”, forms a further parallel. In the Germanic pantheon the closest equivalent is the “Wild Man” of the folklore tradition, less a single figure than a whole complex of forest beings.
Carlo Ginzburg illuminated the pan-European depth of this complex of the master of the forest in “I Benandanti” (1966) and in later works, and pointed to its connections with the shamanistic substance of Eastern European religiosity.
Mircea Eliade drew similar lines in “Le chamanisme” (1951). The circumpolar comparative mythology knows a whole series of masters of the forest among Siberian, Samoyedic and Old Siberian-American peoples.
The Leshy in modern popular culture
In contemporary fantasy literature the Leshy is a prominent figure. Andrzej Sapkowski introduced the “Leshen” as a central nature spirit in the “Witcher” series (since 1986) and in the computer game series of the same name (since 2007), thereby making a Slavic folklore tradition accessible to an international audience.
Maria Semyonova in her “Volkhv” series, Olga Gromyko and other Russian-language fantasy authors have taken up the Leshy in a similar way.
In the visual art of the 19th and 20th centuries (Viktor Vasnetsov, Ivan Bilibin, Mikhail Vrubel) the Leshy is a recurring figure. Vasnetsov’s paintings of the Russian fairy-tale world have shaped the visual image of the Leshy to this day.
In Orthodox Christianity the Leshy is formally regarded as an unclean being (“nechistaya sila”); this theological condemnation, however, did not extinguish folk-religious practice but transferred it into a mixture of Christian faith and pre-Christian custom.
