Introduction

Abstract

Russian folk narratives about the supernatural offer an inside view of the religious beliefs of the Russian peasant in the pre-Revolutionary era. In these little stories we enter a realm in which the intrusion of supernatural beings into daily life was accepted as fact. Collectively, these narratives serve as an excellent illustration of the peasant's duality of faith (dvoeverie), for the supernatural beings mentioned are representative of two different belief systems—Christianity and paganism. Most of the personages of the first system will be familiar, but some of the more important personages of the second one should be noted. These can be divided into two general groups, domestic spirits and nature spirits. The domovoi, or spirit of the house, is the most important and frequently encountered domestic spirit, and, indeed, the others—the dvorovoi (spirit of the yard), bannik (spirit of the bathhouse), and ovinnik (spirit of the threshing barn)— seem to represent subdivisions of the domovoi.2 The narratives about domestic spirits presented here are concerned almost exclusively with the domovoi, though one story concerning the more evil-natured dvorovoi is included.