be sufficient to prove that there is no slight confusion of ideas in
the minds of the Russian peasants with regard to the demoniacal beings
whom they generally call _chorti_ or devils. Still more clearly is the
contrast between those ideas brought out by the other stories, many in
number, into which those powers of darkness enter. It is evident that
the traditions from which the popular conception of the ghostly enemy
has been evolved must have been of a complex and even conflicting
character.

Of very heterogeneous elements must have been composed the form under
which the popular fancy, in Russia as well as in other lands, has
embodied the abstract idea of evil. The diabolical characters in the
Russian tales and legends are constantly changing the proportions of
their figures, the nature of their attributes. In one story they seem
to belong to the great and widely subdivided family of Indian demons;
in another they appear to be akin to certain fiends of Turanian
extraction; in a third they display features which may have been
inherited from the forgotten deities of old Slavonic mythology; in all
the stories which belong to the "legendary class" they bear manifest
signs of having been subjected to Christian influences, the effect of
which has been insufficient to do more than slightly to disguise their
heathenism.

The old gods of the Slavonians have passed away and left behind but
scanty traces of their existence; but still, in the traditions and
proverbial expressions of the peasants in various Slavonic lands,
there may be recognized some relics of the older faith. Among these
are a few referring to a White and to a Black God. Thus, among the
peasants of White Russia some vague memory still exists of a white or
bright being, now called Byelun,[458] who leads belated travellers out
of forests, and bestows gold on men who do him good service. "Dark is
it in the forest without Byelun" is one phrase; and another, spoken of
a man on whom fortune has smiled, is, "He must have made friends with
Byelun." On the other hand the memory of the black or evil god is
preserved in such imprecations as the Ukraine "May the black god smite
thee!"[459] To ancient pagan traditions, also, into which a Christian
element has entered, may be assigned the popular belief that infants
which have been cursed by their mothers before their birth, or which
are suffocated during their sleep, or which die from any causes
unchristened or christene