People love scary things: they scare each other before going to bed as children, retell scary rumors, and, eventually, watch horror movies. Why does this happen? The lecture is devoted to the concept of fear in traditional culture and traditional village scary stories. In folklore studies, they are called "bylichki" and are associated with both mythological characters and prohibitions on certain activities at a certain time. Where do the traditional images of the house spirit, the wood goblin, and the bathhouse spirit come from? Why do the dead come to grieving wives? Flying snakes, resurrected sorcerers, punished communists who burned icons in their bathhouse - Nikita Petrov will tell about the origins of these and other stories. Nikita Petrov is a candidate of philological sciences, head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Folklore Studies at SHAGI RANEPA, senior research fellow at the Center for Folklore and Anthropology Research of the city of MHSES (Shaninka), associate professor at the Center for Typology and Semiotics at the Russian State University for the Humanities, moderator of the scientific Internet project "Folklore and Post-Folklore: Structure, Typology, Semiotics". 0:00 Start 0:22 About the lecture series "The Devil Knows What: Demons in World Culture" and this lecture. What are bylichki? 01:20 Wilhelm Mannhardt and the first steps from pantheon mythology 02:28 Mannhardtian revolution in the study of mythology: the concepts of "higher" and "lower" mythology 03:15 Rules of prescription, according to Mannhardt. Behavioral prescriptions 06:16 Prescriptions related to the time of day 07:00 Prescriptions related to contact with certain subjects and objects 09:46 Russian village as a space without fences and enclosures 10:25 When and how did villagers talk about the supernatural? 12:00 Tales from evening gatherings, seasonal work, Maslenitsa and Christmastide 14:56 "Texts about the past": memorandum and plot. Categories of authenticity 17:07 The structure of folk demonology 17:22 Who is a mythological character? Its image and functions 18:47 History and meaning of the word "bylichka" 19:23 Structure of the bylichka 21:52 Origin of demons 22:40 Signs of demons 24:14 Habitats of mythological creatures 25:40 Brownie 27:45 Bean and barn 32:02 Stove and the cult of the dead 34:41 Kikimora 36:27 "The case of the kikimora" 38:36 Bannik 42:20 Obderikha 45:08 Leshy 47:08 Leshy 48:40 Poludnitsa 49:20 Mermaids 52:31 Pharaoh women 54:34 Water spirit 57:29 Walking dead 01:04:25 Devil 01:04:50 Bylichka "There is meat, but no knife" 01:05:43 The Fire Serpent 01:06:49 The Case of the Serpent 01:07:14 Minor Demons and Draftsmen 01:09:54 Shulikuns 01:11:27 Calendar Demons 01:11:38 Sorcerers 01:12:00 The Book "Experts, Sorcerers and Warlocks: Witchcraft and Everyday Magic in the Russian North" 01:18:32 Borderland 01:19:27 The Book "Folk Demonology of Polesia: Publications of Texts in Records of the 80-90s of the 20th Century" 01:23:57 Protective practices 01:25:23 Demonology: "before" VS "now" 01:25:44 Sources and useful literature The meeting will be held as part of the lecture "The devil knows what: demons in world culture". Our website: http://nekrasovka.ru/ VK: http://vk.com/nekrasovkalibrary Telegram: https://t.me/nekrasovkalibrary Subscribe to the channel: / @nekrasovkalibrary