Teffi - Skazochka - a leshii in a French forest

[nataliek at UALBERTA.CA]

Dear Robert and others,

At the risk of imposing folklore concepts on literature ...

Eye contact is a way of allowing the other to gain access to the self.  
  So - looking on something that you should not look at, or at a being  
from the other world, gives that being or that something access to  
you.  Gogol used this concept in Vii.  When Khoma Brut looks at Vii,  
and only then, does the being gain the ability to attack him.  This  
looking and not looking appears in a number of legends, including a  
story about devils called the all-seeing eye.

Laughter can be a form of attack of the supernatural upon the human.   
This is what rusalki supposedly do to people, esp. men.  That is, they  
make them laugh to the point that they drown.  Of course a human whose  
has died a premature and thus unnatural death must join the world of  
the spirits.

In the case here, it is Grisha looking at - or trying not to look at -  
the leshii.  And he is threatened with laughter.  Should he succumb,  
he would be in mortal danger.  This laughter is not hysteria.  But it  
is dangerous.

Natalie K.

Quoting "Robert Chandler" <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>:

> Dear all,
>
> This is a story from the early 1920s. Grisha, a Russian émigré boy, has got
> lost in a French forest.  He goes to sleep, then encounters what seems to be
> a leshii.
>
> ??????????? ????? - ????????? ?????.
>     ???????? ????? ? ?????????.  [...]  ?????? ???? ???? ????? ???????
> ??????, ???? ???????.  ??????? ?? ????? ? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ????
> ??????.  ?????? ??????????, ?? ???? ?????? ?????? ????????.  ? ????? ??? ?
> ????? ? ?????????? ? ???? ?????????.
>     ? ?????????, ?? ????? ? ????? ????, ????? ?????? ? ????? ?????????
> ??????? ???????.
>
> I am totally confused by this sentence: ?Videt? nevozmozhno, do togo samomu
> smeshno delaetsya.?  WHO can?t see WHAT?  Does the ?samomu? refer to Grisha
> or to the leshii?  I imagine it refers to Grisha.  If so, how should I
> understand the next sentence?  Are the tickling in Grisha?s throat and his
> twitching legs intended as indications of him getting into a hysterical
> state?
>
> Also: the leshii?s hair is sticking up from his forehead, yes?  In two
> tufts?
>
> Thanks, as always!
>
> R.
>
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Natalie Kononenko
Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography
Editor, Folklorica
University of Alberta
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
200 Arts Building
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
Phone: 780-492-6810
Web: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/uvp/

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