This character of Russian folklore has always frightened with cunning, anger and bloodthirstiness. Also, in addition to the above unpleasant features, Dashing One-eyed was famous for its phenomenal invulnerability, so even the most powerful and dexterous heroes of fairy tales could not deal with him to the end. However, according to some modern research, this monster is not such a fantastic creature as legends and traditions represent it.
Strange "woman"
Several years ago, a company of young people went on a funny, as it seemed to them then, journey through the abandoned Karelian villages, lost among the dense forests. The wandering through the protected areas lasted not the first day, when young researchers came across a village where, oddly enough, several old men and women were still living out their days. However, the natives greeted the travelers unfriendly, and they had to stop for the night on the outskirts of the village. Young people made a fire, at which they had fun at dinner, discussing the cold welcome of the local residents. Before the company was getting ready to go for the night, one of the young people went into the "bushes" and soon returned to the fire with his face twisted with horror.
The guy said that not far from the camp he ran into a strange, huge woman, for some reason, was walking around the village in one nightgown. "Baba" stood, sniffing the air like an animal, and, apparently, she did not like the smell of smoke from the fire at all. When the guy called to the woman, she turned around, and the young man saw that the strange stranger had only one eye above her nose, and his gaze was full of anger and hatred. After such a story, the travelers spent the whole night by the fire, fearing to extinguish the fire, and with dawn left the inhospitable places, so as not to run into a new meeting with an incomprehensible creature.
Defender of Justice
A connoisseur of Russian folklore would immediately understand that the strange creature that the young traveler encountered in the Karelian outback strongly resembles Likho Odnoglazoe - a character in fairy tales who loves to have a bite of human flesh.
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However, today few people know that not only fairy tales, but also Slavic legends tell us about this bloodthirsty monster. One of them says that Likho was a descendant of the legendary Viy, the other says that this terrible and insidious creature was created by the gods. Moreover, the creation of the monster was conceived in order to punish people for their crimes and unrighteous deeds. And therefore Dashingly had to live in the world of Revelation and send misfortunes and misfortunes to sinners.
Legend has it that initially Likho had both eyes, and one of them was donated by Belobog, the other by Chernobog. In addition, the celestials endowed the "champion of justice" with magical abilities and made him invulnerable to human weapons.
But when Likho came into the human world, it soon noticed that thanks to the eye of Belobog, terrible gifts - misfortunes, misfortunes and diseases that it endows criminals with - subsequently bring joy and happiness to unworthy people. Discouraged by this turn of events, Likho returned to the gods and asked Belobog to take the "wrong" eye back.
Since then, Dashing has coped well with its mission, but, having become one-eyed, it sometimes blindly makes mistakes with the choice of victims. So, over the centuries it has been noticed that sometimes the "gifts" of Likh, bypassing the hardened robber, fall like an avalanche on the family of an honest and hardworking person, but, alas, the gods cannot change anything.
The fact is that people themselves often attract the attention of a "champion of justice" to themselves, complaining about their fate and not appreciating what they have.
Enemies of the griffins
But if you believe some historical documents and data from modern amateur researchers, then Likho One-eyed is not such a mythological character.
Many works of writers and geographers of Ancient Greece, Rome and the early Middle Ages tell about some mysterious people - arispams (one-eyed) who once lived in the northeast of the Ancient World. The writings of that time describe the Arispams as a huge growth of skilled warriors with impressive physical strength and only one eye in their forehead. It must be said that such a people was also described by Herodotus in his studies, calling the Arispams the northern neighbors of the Scythians. However, many works of ancient researchers say that one-eyed warriors spent their lives in constant wars with certain flu (griffins), trying to steal from them the gold that they guarded.
But, apparently, this military conflict adversely affected the population of one-eyed people, and the remnants of their tribes were forced to seek refuge in the dense forests of the north. It is possible that some of the Arispams also tried to develop other lands, because it is not by chance that legends about huge one-eyed cyclops appeared in Ancient Greece, and similar monsters often act as heroes of Bulgarian and Caucasian fairy tales.
It must be said that today some historians do not deny the real existence of the Arispams, suggesting that one of the Scythian nomadic peoples who lived in southern Siberia during the Bronze Age could have such an exotic appearance.
It is hard to believe, but traces of this people were found in Karelia in the second half of the 19th century. So, the famous traveler of the century before last, Matias Castren, after a trip to the Russian North, noted in one of his works that in the Karelian outback he heard many stories about strange people with one eye in their forehead.
When to wake Likho ?
In the XX century, the stories heard in Karelia by Castren were confirmed by unique archaeological finds made by amateur archaeologists. So, in one of the caves on the island of Okhsanlahti Lake Ladoga, where people have never settled, a huge one-eyed skull was found by fishermen in the 1960s. This find (the further fate of which, alas, is unknown) became the impetus for organizing a scientific expedition to the island, but the results of its work remained classified.
It should be noted that, perhaps, the last representatives of the ancient Arispam tribe can still be found in the impenetrable forests of the north. So, half a century ago, there one hunter met during a hunt with three tall one-eyed people who communicated with each other without words (using telepathy). I must say that the mysterious "telepaths" ignored the appearance of a man in their lands and walked by without causing the poor fellow to do the slightest harm, but he could not recover from horror for a long time and then for several years he was afraid to go out into the forest alone.
But most of all, the story of one ancient old woman from a remote Karelian village, which she shared with fans of extreme tourism, who stopped for the night in her house, is interesting.
The grandmother said that during her childhood in the forest near her village there was once a village where tall one-eyed people lived. They ate exclusively on the raw meat of animals caught in the hunt, since they did not recognize fire and were afraid. Moreover, from the elk or bear caught by them, the "forest people" left only gnawed bones, since the skins and entrails of the game were also suitable for food. The one-eyed giants lived in huge houses built of logs, and they dressed - both men and women - in long shirts made of strange linen. "Forest people" have never done harm to humans.
However, in late autumn, the giants fell into hibernation until spring, and if you wake up one of them during the winter cold, then the disturbed giant could destroy the whole family of the troublemaker. It is possible that due to these circumstances, an ancient Russian proverb was born: "Do not wake Dashing while it is quiet."
However, with the development of scientific and technological progress and the intensive development of ancient forests, the one-eyed giants left their habitable places and disappeared in an unknown direction. But still, sometimes even in the forests of Karelia, you can stumble upon the bones of animals, gnawed in an unusual way - obviously not by the teeth of the usual predators. It is likely that the strange "woman" that the young travelers encountered near the half-abandoned Karelian village was also a "representative" of the ancient tribe of "forest people", but this mystery still remains unsolved.