Polish forest demons
For the inhabitans of neighboring settlements and villages the forests and wildlands that once covered a huge expanse of land weren’t just a source of food, building material and firewood — they also served as refuge in the moments of particular danger to their social being. In the imagination of the people they were the dwelling of all kinds of spirits - leśny, leśnik, lasowy, dziad leśny, jeździec leśny, gajowik (names of forest spirits documented in various regions of Poland).
„In the depths of wilderness” wrote A. Fischer „all kinds of forest demons live. For example in Sandomierz Forest people believe in the existence of a forest spirit whose presence they recognize by his whistling, coming from the tallest trees. In Sieradz Land this forest spirit is called borowy. He leads people astray and he is of short stature, with a beard reaching all the way to the ground. Near Olkusz that he is called borowiec.” (trans. note: bór - a forest composed predominantly or wholly of coniferous trees)
According to O. Kolberg’s writings, in south-eastern part of the country this kind of demon was known as rusałka leśna („the forest rusałka”). „She is a maiden of the forest, a beautiful but very malicious witch. Her hair is green, by which you can quickly recognize her. He reign starts with the setting of sun and lasts until dawn, when the rooster crows. With her smiles, cajoling and sweet singing she lures young men deep into the woods and there she tickles them untill they meet their end among convulsive laughter. The best defence against her charms and her treacherous singing is the paternoster. The more passionate your prayers the weaker is rusałka’s power over you — untill finally it ceases.”
This body of tales is part of a very old tradition, that has it’s roots in ancient Slavic beliefs and was recorded many times in Polish ethnographic literature of XIX and XX century. On the basis of comparative analysis of Slavic sylvan demonology K. Moszyński demonstrated that those notions of the demonic can be found among all Slavic folk cultures, that they are associated with the souls of people who died prematurely in the woods and that their domain was controling the wildlife (in particular wolves) and leading people astray.
„The peasants say many tales” he wrote „about their voice, since those demons are believed to sing without words, create echos, scream loudly, neigh, laugh etc. Lone travellers can sometimes see them in the shape of a wolf, an eagle-owl or another animal; they can also appear in the form of a whirlwind.”
During the Counter-Reformation the functions of patrons of animals, traditionally belonging to forest demons, have been taken over by certain Christian saints such as Saint Hubert (patron of hunters and wild game) or Saint Mikołaj (who protects people from the wolves), and the idea of forest devil was introduced. This is how — according to B. Baranowski — the idea of Boruta, a devil associated with forests and swamps of Łęczyca, came to be. This entity was later, in the literature of XIX century, promoted to the position of „the devil of nobility”, the protector and guardian of the legendary treasures of Łęczyca. Those processes marked the start of social degradation of forest demons, and the beginning of their gradual disappearence from our folklore.
(Trans. note: the information below is not so much a direct translation as a short summary)
Contemporary research regarding the appearence of the forest demons demonstrated that:
in 27% of cases antropomorphic form was reported (a skinny shaggy man without clothes, a nondescript man, a man dressed in fashionable urban outfit and a hat, a man in the clothes of a forest ranger, a Jew in a kippah, a young girl with loose hair, a newborn, naked or clad in a dirty diaper),
in 17% of cases zoomorphic form was reported (an unknown animal, a black bird, an owl, a wolf, a dog, a horse, a cat, a boar or a hare),
in 5% of cases teratological form was reported (a monstrous hairy woman, a hairy man with horse legs and small horns on his head),
in 3% of cases the form of a moving flame or lights was reported,
in 30% of cases it was reported that the spirit can switch between antropomorphic and zoomorphic form,
in 17% of cases the spirit was reported as invisible.
- Translated and adapted from Polska Demonologia Ludowa by Leonard Pełka
