A colleague from my previous job told me a terrifying story that happened to him once during Christmastide. He went to his dacha for the weekend before Epiphany to heat the house and generally check on the property. He arrived on Friday evening and immediately fell asleep. He was awakened by a knock on the window and saw young guys standing on the porch—boys and girls. Their neighbor, a healthy man, was with them; they knew each other well. They'd often shared a barbecue with vodka in the summer, and the kids were friends.
The neighbor said, "Let's go caroling. Today's the last day. It'll be fun." At first, the colleague resisted; he was tired, and besides, he wasn't a kid to mess around like that. But the other guy tried to coax him back, and the guy gave in. He got dressed and went out with them.
And he didn't regret it; it really was a great time. The girls giggled, sang silly songs, the boys put on masks and fooled around. His neighbor donned a fur coat and played bear. He, too, was given some kind of zombie mask, a scary one. And it turned out there were so many people in the village, apparently everyone had come for the weekend too – lights were on everywhere, people were coming out, smiling, offering treats, handing over money. In one house, there was even a small child—well, they didn't want to scare the little one, of course; a girl from their group brought him inside and called the parents.
They misbehaved a bit – they knocked on windows, lifted a bench onto the roof of a barn near one house, and scattered a woodpile in another yard. But it was all in jest, fun. They reached the very edge of the village, where the forest began and the road to the cemetery. And the last house at the edge stood, also ablaze with lights, and a skinny old woman on the porch. He stood there, smiling toothlessly. My colleague's face broke out in a sweat: the old woman had died that summer, a heart attack. And the house had burned down in the fall. He turned back to his group, but no one was there. He stood alone on the empty road, surrounded by darkness and snow, only the moonlight providing a glimmer of light, and not a single window in the village was lit.
He ran headlong toward his house, remembering along the way what he'd seen when he arrived—the neighbor's driveway wasn't cleared, and the windows weren't lit, and the man himself hadn't arrived early. With shaking hands, he threw his things into the car and rushed out, coming to his senses only at a gas station on the highway, where he sat for a long time, drinking hot coffee.
He sold the dacha the following year through a realtor and never showed up there again. And later, from friends, he learned that the man in the fur coat had died in a car accident just that Christmas week.
Since a cycle of bylichkas had been announced, it had to end with a truly classic bylichka, both in form and content. The last day of Christmastide was celebrated lavishly; mummers circled the village for the last time, knocking on windows with bear paws.
The carrying of a bear was a very common element in the procession of carolers, an echo of ancient pagan beliefs in the gloomy master of the forest, whose name should not even be mentioned. It wasn't always a real bear, although they loved to show a real one, too. Often, it was portrayed by a man in a fur-lined sheepskin coat and a mask, led by another mummer on a rope. Scenes were performed with the bear, in which the animal performed traditional human actions, and mock fights with a goat were also staged. If the bear was real, the goat was a person in disguise.
On Epiphany Eve, kutia was again prepared, and a candle was lit for the dead ancestors. At midnight, according to legend, all evil spirits left the earth, and a bright holiday of purification began on earth – the Baptism of the Lord.
stake id: k1nom58