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Folk creatures, and where they actually come from

Slavic, Philippine, Mesoamerican and Finnish folk belief, written from the collections and the fieldwork rather than from each other. Every creature has its sources named and its pictures made from them.

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Log hut with a shingled roof and plank walls, standing on two scaled bird legs with clawed feet, on wet ground at the edge of a misty forest. Baba Yaga's hut on chicken legs.

Baba Yagaslavic

Two young women facing each other in a bamboo doorway at night, one holding a small lit bowl between them at chest height while they look into each other's eyes. The reflection test used to identify an aswang.

Aswangfilipino

Tall figure standing among pine trunks in a dim forest, its skin the texture of bark and its hair and beard made of hanging green moss and roots. The leshy of Russian forest belief.

Leshyslavic

Lower half of a woman in a long dark skirt standing motionless and barefoot on swept earth in a banana grove at dusk, the figure cut off above the waist by the frame. The lower half the manananggal leaves standing when she detaches.

Manananggalfilipino

Vast dark serpent rising out of a pale sea in wide loops, its head turned down towards the water and a single curved horn above its brow. The Bakunawa, the Visayan moon-eating serpent, in its conventional form.

Bakunawafilipino

Young woman in a plain linen shift sitting on a river bank in grey light, her long dark hair hanging loose and unbound, one bare foot in the shallow water. A rusalka at the water, with the unbound hair that is her one consistent marker.

Rusalkaslavic

Traditions