#magical spirit

[yoga-onion]

Legends and myths about trees

Legendary tree deities (20)

Leshy – ‘Forest guardian’, the lord of the forests

The Leshy is a tutelary deity of the forests in pagan Slavic mythology. He is the spirit who rules the forest and the hunt, and the master of the forest animals.

Leshy had well developed polymorphic skills. Mostly, he was appearing as an anthropoid creature, old  man with a beard, sometimes a one eyed cyclops. He could change his sizes due to the height of the forest. Moreover, he could take the form of animals such as wolf, bear, eagle-owl, or even transform into wind. Leshy’s helpers were  various small demons, ghosts and forest imps, such as auk (the ghost of echo), puszczewik, Mochowiks, (guardians of mosses) Lugowoj and Polewoj. There were also caring creatures, for example grybicz (mushrooms), jagodynicz (blueberries), pczelicz (bees), whose names clearly show what kinds of forest “inhabitants” they were taking care of.

Towards people, his behaviour was changing, from neutral to hostile. It depended mostly on how people treated the forest and its creatures. Leshy was especially unfriendly to hunters and lumberjacks, who were clearly violating his inhabited lands. Depending on his attitude, he could either misguide people, or help them to find a way out from the forest, play pranks by, such as scattering forest undergrowth from the basket, or protect them from wild animals attacks. Formerly, the place, where Leshy’s presence, or signs of his activity, were observed, was considered as a sanctuary. It was forbidden to come in to that part of the forest, but more importantly, to cause damage such as cutting down trees, hunt, or collect fruits of the undergrowth like nature reserves.

If you are walking through a deep, overgrown forest and feel someone looking at you or following you, it could be a Lshey. If you turn around to look at him, you cannot see him as he’s much quicker than you.

He may try to misorientates travellers entering the forest and lure them deeper into the forest, but if they wear their shoes backwards and their clothes backwards and forwards, the Laceys will be confused and their magic will be easily broken.

木にまつわる伝説・神話

伝説の樹木の神々 (20)

レーシー 〜「森の番人」、森の主

レーシーは、異教徒のスラブ神話の森の守護神である。彼は森と狩りを支配する精霊であり、森の動物たちの主でもある。

真っ白な頭髪と長い髭を持ち、足まで届く頭髪と髭で体が隠れている。 森の中では樹木と同じように大きくなり、森の外では木の葉に隠れられるほど小さくなるともいわれる。

レーシーはよく発達した多形能力を持っていた。最も一般的なのは、人間型生物、髭を生やした老人、時には一つ目のサイクロプス、不自然なほど白い顔の人間として現れることである。また、森の高さによって大きさを変えることができる。さらに、狼や熊、鷲のような動物の姿になったり、風に変身したりすることもある。レーシーの助っ人は、アウク (木霊)、プシュチェヴィク、モホヴィク、ルゴウォジュ（苔の守護者）、ポレウォジュなど、さまざまな小悪魔や幽霊、森の妖怪たちである。また、グリビッチ (キノコ)、ヤゴディニッチ (ブルーベリー)、プツェリッチ (ミツバチ)など、世話好きな生き物もいた。その名前は、彼がどんな森の「住人」の世話をしていたかを明確に示している。

人間に対しては、人々が森とその生き物をどのように扱うかに大きく左右された。特に、ハンターや木こりなど、明らかに自分の生態系を侵害するものに対しては、レーシーは非友好的であった。彼の出方次第で、人を迷わせたり、森からの脱出を手助けしたり、バスケットから森の下草を撒くなどのイタズラをしたり、野生動物の攻撃から守ったりすることができる。以前は、レーシーの存在や活動の痕跡が確認された場所は、聖域とされていた。自然保護区のように、その場所に立ち入ることはもちろん、木を切り倒すなどの被害を与えること、狩りをすること、下草の実を採取することも禁じられていた。

深く生い茂った森の中を歩いているとき、誰かの視線を感じたり後をつけられている感じがすれば、それがレーシーである可能性がある。 姿を見ようとして振り向いても彼の方が素早いので姿を見ることはできない。

森に入る旅人の方向感覚を狂わせ、森の奥に誘い込もうとすることもあるが、靴を逆に履いたり、服を前後逆に着たりすると、レーシーは混乱し、魔法は簡単に解けてしまう。

[yuumei-art]

Wonder🌱🦆

A super old painting I did waaaaay back in 2011 and first posted on DeviantArt. I kinda miss the old days when it was just dA and not all these different of socials. I must be getting old 😭

[trigonalidae]

vivid mental image i had

[dewardin]

[madcat-world]

Holys (2 of 4) - Kyoung Hwan Kim

[cosmicportal]

[elizabugz]

[nataliedecorsair]

If you are polite and courteous, the spirits will kindly agree to take a picture for you - and other spooky arts I drew this year >:) Most of the arts are taking place in Heather's world, including the gambling scene (don't look under the table...) INFO ABOUT THE CHARACTERS AND SETTING IS HERE The last art is another awkward monster art and you can find the backstory here Previous spooky & Heather's world art post is here (you can see some recurring characters throughout the art) More Mari Lwyd (who is a Welsh spirit and is being a "crossover" in my art) is here P.S. - bonus points to you if you can find all the hidden frogs 🐸

[saphushia]

not enough investigations done into the comedy potential of dcxdp. fixing that :D

[foryoudae]

Forest Witch

[suave1foru]

Truth

[pikala]

The forest parts and the sword glows. Do you take it or leave it be?

[detailedart]

Lighting up the night. Details: Spirit of the Night, by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893).

[perilusjax]

The JL thinks the Batfamily are either cyptids or supernatural creatures. One day after the ghost hero Phantom joins them, they decide to ask the dude what he thought.

Que Danny making a detailed description of what the Bats are and how they work. The JL then sees the ghost dude, talk to Batman without a care in the world.

Unknown to any of them, Danny and Bruce attended the same med school until Bruce dropped out. So he decides to prank them, with Bruce going along with his friend's antics.

[lailoken]

My husband gave me permission to share a picture of this special offering vessel that he made to propitiate his Kiln Spirit when working on ceramics.

I love it SO much.