Ep. 890 - The Léshy - A Russian Folktale

A certain priest’s daughter went strolling in the forest one day, without having obtained leave from her father or her mother—and she disappeared utterly. Three years went by. Now in the village in which her parents dwelt there lived a bold hunter, who went daily roaming through the thick woods with his dog and his gun. One day he was going through the forest; all of a sudden his dog began to bark, and the hair of its back bristled up. The sportsman looked, and saw lying in the woodland path before him a log, and on the log there sat a moujik plaiting a bast shoe. And as he plaited the shoe, he kept looking up at the moon, and saying with a menacing gesture:—

“Shine, shine, O bright moon!”

The sportsman was astounded. “How comes it,” thinks he, “that the moujik looks like that?—he is still young; but his hair is grey as a badger’s.”