Fern Flower
Published on November 6, 2018

Letavets

  • Letavitz
  • The Flyer
  • Lyatavets
  • Overgrowth
  • The Fire Serpent
  • The snake-lover
  • Maniac
  • A fire raid
  • Explain

Regions of expansion

Russia 1 Belarus 1 Ukraine 1 Poland 1
Russian Federation
Poland
Ukraine
Belarus

Description

In Slavic mythology, a creature in the form of a shooting star or a bright fireball (sometimes sparkling), upon landing, takes on a human image and engages in sexual intercourse with its victims. It appears from the clouds, flies through the air, and, scattering sparks over the roof, enters the house through the chimney. It is considered the hypostasis of the walking dead or the devil.

Here is the definition of a "flyer", which was given in the XIX century in the Pokrovsky and Yuryevsky counties of the Vladimir province:

"The flyer is a devil who unexpectedly appears to widows in the form of a man who looks exactly like their late husband. He flies in the form of a fiery mass and crumbles over the house where he needs to be."

The fire serpent, although it takes human form, has physical disadvantages characteristic of demons: the absence of a spine (rus.). Like all evil spirits, he is unable to pronounce sacred Christian names correctly: instead of "Jesus Christ" he says "Jesus Christ", instead of "Theotokos" — "The Wonderworker" (Rus). His gifts are short-lived: the gifts he brings to a woman turn into horse manure or stones at sunrise (Rus, Z.-UKR), and money and jewelry turn into shards. 

Letavets in popular culture