If you ever happen to meet a walking corpse—or, worse still, if one has taken to visiting you—and conversation with the deceased is not part of your plans, there are many ways to get rid of it. Here and now, we shall tell you about a few of them.

Let us begin with the main thing: of all the traditional folk methods, the most splendid apotropaic power belongs to the mighty Russian obscenity. It is said that foul language helps where prayer and other strong remedies fail. According to folk belief, all you need to do is send the dangerous dead man away with a choice barrage of swear words, and he will lose any desire to communicate with you.

It is best to use phrases involving your opponent’s mother, or, for example, to suggest that he “kiss my arse”:

“A merchant once drowned here. He was not buried in the Christian way. Ever since then he has walked beyond the river and whistled. Two women went into the forest—he began to whistle. They turned their clothes inside out—he still whistled. Then they started swearing at him. And he said: ‘Aha, you’ve guessed it.’ And stopped whistling.”

Such mystical danger can also be repelled by an act of ritual exhibitionism: the exposure of the genitals is a universal method against all evil spirits, symbolising the generative force of living nature. If you are naturally very shy—or if, for some reason, you have nothing to display—you may demonstrate a gesture representing coitus or the sexual organs: a fig sign, the middle finger, or striking your bent right arm with your left hand. This was how the South Slavs drove away a drowned man or a hanged man dwelling inside a thundercloud: an old woman, no longer sharing a bed with her husband, would strip naked and send the cloud off into the forest and mountains, where no human foot had ever stepped.

If you meet a drowned man at night on a riverbank, and he asks you, “Is it your night or mine?”, you must answer, “Yours,” and calmly continue on your way.

The magic circle is a simple, archetypal means of protection. To eliminate the dangerous properties of a dead man, walk around his grave holding in your hand the stone on which his head lay after death. This should help. If such a stone cannot be found, take some grains or seeds—poppy seeds will do—or, at worst, ordinary sand. Pouring it in a circle, create a magical wall and lock him inside his own dwelling. At the very least, this will delay the restless dead while he deals with the obstacle.

A magic circle can also be used when waiting for the corpse to visit your home. Without wasting time, walk around the house with a sickle in your hand, or trace a circle around it three times with the sharp end of a scythe—the Volga-region method! Folkloric demons fear sharp metal objects. Surround the house with bogorodskaya trava, or ask a twelve-year-old neighbour girl to spin some thread, then wrap your private space with it in a circle.

If a rusalka attacks you, draw a circle and mark it with a cross. Remember: the larger the circle you manage to draw, the greater the chance that the stone thrown by the rusalka’s accurate hand will not hit its target—namely, you.

In a critical situation, do not neglect such a powerful magical technique as pouring urine over yourself:

“A woman here had a son who flew to her, and they taught her what to do: pour urine into a pot and pour it over yourself; they don’t like urine. She did just that, and he stopped flying to her.”

So there you have it: the dead are squeamish creatures.

You can also rid yourself of an unwanted guest by stunning him with sheer absurdity—an outrageous violation of the natural order, obvious even to the deceased:

“A woman’s husband died and started coming to her. One night she sat down on the threshold, began combing her hair and eating hempseed. He appeared and asked: ‘What are you doing? Why are you combing your head?’ She said nothing, just kept combing her hair, placing seeds on the comb and cracking them with her teeth. Again he asked: ‘What are you eating?’ And she said: ‘Lice.’
‘Can a baptized person really eat lice?’
‘And can the dead really visit the living?’
As soon as she said this, he vanished, and the whole house began to rumble.”

A rooster may also help in this apotropaic action. In folklore, it is a holy bird, whose cry marks the victory of day over night:

“One woman had a son who hanged himself. He began to visit her. People told her: ‘Go to the bridge and take a rooster with you.’ She hid there. Then a sleigh drawn by three horses came rushing by; and fire came out of Satan, and her son was with him. They drew level with the mother. He was just about to seize her when the rooster crowed. And they vanished.”

There are good reports, too, of a western Russian method: lie in wait for your mystical opponent on a dark night and shoot him with a gun loaded with mercury. They say it helps a great deal.

In addition to all of the above, when fighting a dangerous dead man, you can complain to a cat or a dog, or simply tell as many people as possible about the apparitions. You may fumigate the house with wax or incense, drive an aspen or alder stake into the foot of the grave, slap the dead man across the face with your left hand when you meet him, or advance on him “with your arms spread wide.”

And here our small survey comes to an end. As the saying goes: forewarned is forearmed.

By way of visual illustration, we are showing photographs from the forest Vepsian village of Matveeva Selga in winter.