Unholy: Devils, Demons, and Folk Belief in Belarus

Every thunderclap strikes a devil. The forest spirit's laughter carries forty versts. And an unholy spirit avoids any word with the letter r.

In the villages of Vitebsk Belarus, the unholy were everywhere. The house spirit cleaned and spun at night for the family he loved, as long as they called him grandfather. The water spirit rode about on a catfish. The forest spirit, with a face as white as birch bark, led travellers astray and laughed when they were lost. Nikolai Nikiforovsky (1845–1910) spent decades writing down what the people of the region told him about them.

Unholy brings three of his works together in one illustrated volume, now in English:

• The Unholy Ones (Vilna, 1907). His compendium of village tales about the unholy: Liutsypyr chained in hell; the spirits of the house, byre and bathhouse, and of the field, forest, water and bog; and the witches, sorcerers and shapeshifters who live among people. Complete.
• “The Bagpiper and the Fiddler” (1892). Village musicians, the lore of their instruments, and the devils said to dance on a fiddler's fingers. Complete.
• From Popular Omens and Beliefs (Vitebsk, 1897). The wedding, with its tales of whole wedding parties turned into wolves, and “Toward Evening—No Longer Early”: charms against sickness, a sorcerer's hard death, the funeral, and Dziady, when the dead return to the family table.

A new translation into modern English, for general readers and scholars alike. Printed in black and white, with plates from 19th- and early 20th-century engravings and drawings of Belarusian villages, forests and marshes, and of the spirits themselves.

“In general, an unholy spirit avoids words with the letter r in them.” (The Unholy Ones)

“…unholy spirits dancing around the fiddler's fingers, hooking their tails around his fingers and their claws onto the strings.” (The Bagpiper and the Fiddler)

“As a precaution, all the memorial dishes at Dziady are served cold.” (Popular Omens and Beliefs)

Translated from Russian and Belarusian by Olya Ianovskaia.

A companion to Remnants of the Ancient Worldview among Belarusians (Hrodna, 1895).

• Author: Nikolai Nikiforovsky (Мікалай Нікіфароўскі)
• Original titles: Нечистики (Vilna, 1907); “Дударь и музыка” (1892); Простонародныя примѣты и повѣрья (Vitebsk, 1897)
• Formats: Paperback, 6 × 9 in; EPUB; audiobook
• ISBN (paperback): 978-1-0658448-4-6
• ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-0658448-5-3
• Publisher: Grunwald Publishing, Canada
• Publication: 2027