Sacrifice to spirits is not a legend. They were practiced before among different peoples, in some places they still happen.
Rivers often had divine significance, as they originated at the hero's grave or were somehow connected with him. There were many deities on the banks of the Pra River in West Africa, all of whom bore the name Pra and were considered the spirits of this river.
In every city or large village on the banks of this river, sacrifices were made on the same day, around mid-October. Usually the victim was two adults - a man and a woman. The locals believed that in addition to common gods, there is also a special spirit Pra, living in a part of the river near their village.
Many rivers take sacrifices to themselves every year. Every accident was understood in the sense that the river itself chose a victim, and therefore it was considered very dangerous to save a drowning person - this is a violation of divine will, for which one could suffer. So, in the Solomon Islands, if someone accidentally fell into the sea and a shark grabbed him, the natives forbade him to save him. If he himself managed to escape, he should have been thrown back into the water, since he had already been elected and must serve as a sacrifice to God.
In England, in Lancashire, the Ribl River had its own waterman named Peg O'Nel, who was portrayed by a headless stone idol that stood at the source of this river. (A local girl, Peg O'Nel, was once killed by witchcraft.) The idol Peg O'Nel was believed to have demanded that every seven years a living creature drown in the waters of Ribl. When "Peg's Night" came, everyone expected misfortune - someone must drown. But sometimes the spirit was satisfied with a cat, dog, or bird. The word "Peg" is Celtic, meaning "nymph" or "spirit of water". (The same as in Russia water.)
Children were not allowed to play on the banks of the river so that they would not be lured by the merman. (In "Undine" by V. A. Zhukovsky, the fisherman and his wife lost their daughter when she was playing on the bank of the stream. The stream suddenly rose and washed away the child.) Stories about nymphs, undines, mermaids and mermaids were very widespread among different peoples. In Bohemia, it was customary to pray at the place where a man drowned, and to bring here bread and two wax candles, apparently as a gift to the soul of the drowned man.
Frequent sacrifices were required to maintain the sacred rites, in order to "breathe a fresh soul into them." Therefore, sacrifices were made to the rivers every year. In 1463, when the Nogat dam (Nogat is the easternmost branch of the Vistula) burst and it needed to be restored, the peasants drowned the beggar, since they advised throwing a living person into the abyss as a construction sacrifice.
In Europe, stories about construction sacrifices to the spirits of cities, city and fortress walls, houses have been preserved. The sacrifice provides the strength of the building by the fact that a spirit arises from it - the patron saint of this building (or an older explanation: the sacrifice at the foundation of the house saves the residents and builders of the future house from imminent death). The Germans were known to have such beliefs: if, when laying a house, someone goes around it, then many people will die in the new house.
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In the villages along the Rhine, it was said that after 50 years it was impossible to start building a house - otherwise, according to the proverb: “when the cage is ready, the bird will fly away” - whoever builds in old age will soon die. Whoever is the first to pass by the newly laid mortgage log (wooden foundation) will die within the next year. Whoever enters a new home first will die earlier than everyone else in this family. Therefore, for a housewarming, a cat or a dog, a rooster or a hen, or some other animal is allowed into a new house before anyone else, and now they carry it around all rooms so that the upcoming evil - the revenge of the spirit of a stone or a tree - falls on them, and not on a person. …
And nowadays, having forgotten about the spirits of building materials, people, moving into a new house, do the same. Once upon a time in Russia, even for a whole year, they did not make a roof over the entrance, so that all sorts of troubles and evil spirits would fly out into this hole.
In almost every collection of folklore from different peoples of Western Europe, you can find stories about people walled up, buried alive.
If a dead person is immured, he will become an embittered and harmful spirit for people. From a living person, especially from an innocent child, a kind spirit is obtained - the protector of the building. The immured living person serves as a sacrifice to the spirits of the earth, as a rent for the territory taken from these spirits, and at the same time the soul of the immured person becomes the guardian spirit of this building.
“… In Bavaria, not far from the city of Ansbach, in the village of Festenberg, the ruins of an old castle that belonged to the noble Festenberg family at the very beginning of the Middle Ages were preserved. In 1855, a local 80-year old woman told about this knight's castle: “When it was being built, they made a special seat in the wall, where they put the child and walled it up. The child was crying, and to calm him down, they gave him a beautiful red apple. The mother sold this child for a lot of money. Having buried the child, the builder gave his mother a slap in the face, saying: "It would be better if you with this child of yours went to the courtyards to collect alms!"
An amazing story was published in the book "Sagas and Legends of the City of Magdeburg", published in 1847.
Long ago, in Magdeburg, by order of King Otgon, fortress walls were built. The gates of the fortress collapsed three times, despite all efforts to make them stronger. Then they turned to an astrologer for help, and he replied: in order for the fortress gates to stand, it is necessary to walled up a boy in them, who was voluntarily given to this by his mother.
One of the maids of honor of Otto's wife, Queen Edita, by the name of Margaret, at that time was guilty of something and had to leave the royal palace. At the same time, Margarita's groom was killed in battles, and thieves stole her treasures. In order not to remain a homeless woman, Margarita offered for big money to immure her little son.
When building a new gate, a special niche was made in such a way that the child sitting in it would not be crushed by stones and so that he could not suffocate.
The little son of Margarita was put in this niche. A loaf was reinforced in front of his mouth.
When Margarita's new fiancé found out about this, he left her, and Margarita was forced to leave for foreign lands. After 50 years, she returned as a decrepit old woman and began to ask for a Christian burial for her ruined son. The young mason climbed the high stairs to the top of the fortress, pushed aside several stones in the vault and saw a niche, and in the niche - a human figure, which looked at him with sparkling eyes.
It was a little gray-haired old man. His long, white beard went down and was deeply embedded in the stones. Overhead there was a hole between two stone slabs, where the birds made their nests. They allegedly brought food to the walled up.
Another ladder was added, and a respected architect ascended it. Together they were able to extract the gray-haired man from the niche, and both then swore that at the moment of extraction he was moaning. But when they pulled him out into the light, they were surprised to see that it was the petrified corpse of Margarita's child …
In Thuringia, there used to be a city of Liebenstein, the walls of which were considered impregnable, since during their construction a living girl was walled up. It was bought for this purpose from a vagrant mother. When the girl was walled up, they gave her a loaf of bread. At first she saw others and shouted: "Mom, mom, I can still see you!" Then she asked the master to leave her at least a small hole so that she could watch. The touched master refused to continue his terrible work, and his young apprentice finished it. They said that later they saw how the restless shadow of the mother wanders to this day through the ruins of the city and in the neighboring forest on the mountain.
According to another version of the legend, the girl, when she was walled up, resisted in every possible way, kicked, shouted, asked for help, but nothing helped. Then, for seven whole years at night, the cries of a walled-up child were heard, and jackdaws flew from all sides, screaming even more plaintively. In these jackdaws, the surrounding residents saw the souls of inhuman builders, who supposedly would have to fly around the castle as long as there was at least one stone on a stone.