Tag Archives: Russian folklore
Koschei the Deathless, Part II Posted by bota on Oct 26, 2021
Before you continue reading, I highly insist that you catch up on what we covered about Koschei in Part I. Otherwise, you might be a bit lost. We left off discussing Koschei and his appearance in the American TV series Grimm, episode 9 of season 3 (warning: spoilers ahead). When transformed into his Koschei state, he…
Koschei the Deathless, Part I Posted by bota on Oct 19, 2021
In honor of Halloween approaching, I was rewatching the Grimm TV series. It’s spooky, imaginative, and nostalgic for me, since it was one of the first shows I watched in English. Grimm is a police detective story that weaves in a whole universe of fantastical creatures (Wesen) from many different folktales, especially the Grimm brothers…
Protect Your Home With Domovoi Posted by Nadya on Mar 18, 2021
If you want to protect your home, you do not have to install security cameras and alarms. You can get a domovoi. What is “домовой“ Домово́й (domovoi, domovoy, or domovoj – singular, домовы́е–domovye – plural; literally, “[it] of the house”) is a house spirit in Slavic (славя́нский) folklore (фолькло́р). You can also read about other…
Russian Spooky Folk Characters Posted by Maria on Oct 31, 2019
It’s Halloween again! This holiday is not as ingrained in Russian culture as it is in some Anglophone cultures—children don’t usually go trick-or-treating, and you won’t see many eerie decorations in people’s front yards (especially since most people live in high-rises). However, children usually learn about it in their English classes, and there may be…
Defense Against the Dark Arts! Posted by Rob on Nov 6, 2012
[Note: This post was originally written for Хеллуин, but as already mentioned, the arrival of Hurricane Sandy caused some power outages and delays…] In the Harry Potter books, “Defense against the Dark Arts” is a mandatory class for Hogwarts students, and in the Russian editions, it was straightforwardly translated as “Защита от тёмных искусств.” And…
Ba-ba-ba-bird is the word… Posted by Rob on Sep 12, 2012
A couple months ago, I did a post about an imaginary game show called «Назовите эту птицу», the object of which was to guess the identities of six feathered “mystery panelists.” But in writing the post, I had considered more than a dozen different birds before eventually culling the list down to six. And while…