Hunting, as you know, is one of the oldest human occupations. Therefore, from ancient times, it has been associated with mysticism and superstition. In addition, when going to hunt in the forest, people risked entering the “forbidden territory”, where various otherworldly creatures such as gobies and werewolves lived …
Forest deities
The ancients made sacrifices to the spirits of the hunt for this venture to be successful. Otherwise, the spirits will get angry and will not send prey, or they will do something bad to a person …
Oddly enough, a similar custom has survived to this day, especially in the northern, taiga regions. In Siberia, for example, there are special, “sacred” places where hunters leave food for the spirits or sprinkle with vodka before going on their fishing. Visitors to these places are shown by aboriginal guides.
There are "untouchable" animals, which should never be shot at. Siberian hunters call them "princelings". You can recognize them by their unusual color or too large size.
“If you kill such a prince, you’ll see no luck,” says Boris Ditsevich, a senior researcher at the Sibokhotnauka educational center.
Once, he says, one of his acquaintances happened to meet in the forest with a white musk deer. Usually the musk deer has a brown skin, and it was a real albino - snow-white skin, pink nose, reddish eyes …
Promotional video:
The hunter could not resist, shot at the beast. After that, his hunting luck left him, and for a very long time he could not shoot any game …
Another hunter shot a white roe deer. “I wish I hadn't done this,” he later admitted to Ditsevich. Apparently, something bad happened to him too …
Werewolf hunt
Encounters with mystical creatures are also not uncommon for hunters. For example, in Siberia there are legends about werewolf bears. In ancient times, one could hear the characteristic stories of hunters there: “I am walking through the taiga, and a bear is approaching. Huge, terrible … I, of course, immediately fired. Lo and behold, the bear is gone!"
AM Bronnikov from the village of Znamenka, Chita Region, tells a story about his grandfather. He was brave, was not afraid of anyone, went alone into the taiga to see the bear. And according to some local belief, it was impossible to go hunting that day. Grandfather found a place, waited for the night, determined the time by the stars, and sat in an ambush. Exactly at midnight the bushes crackled. The hunter raised his rifle. It became audible as if the bear was breaking, but no one was visible. "Footsteps" approached him, grandfather wanted to shoot, but his hands seemed to be taken away. Then the invisible man burst into laughter, and a voice was heard: “What, can't you shoot? You cannot kill me! " Again there was wild laughter, and again the bushes crackled - the unknown creature was leaving. A man, neither alive nor dead, he hurried home …
Uninvited guests
Hunting bases and winter quarters are often located on the site of abandoned villages. These are, as a rule, places with a special energy that affects people.
Here is the story that happened to the Siberian Fyodor T. Returning from the hunt, he decided to spend the night in a forest winter hut. At night I heard someone driving by, playing an accordion … The travelers dismounted at the winter hut, the door opened - and two people about 30 centimeters tall entered the hut. Fyodor jumped up from his bunk in fright and started to run. So he ran without looking back to the house. The wife said that he "fancied" …
In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, five soldiers went hunting and disappeared without a trace. They had to halt in a forest hut, which for some reason was considered "bad". The search engines decided to go there. The door turned out to be locked from the inside, it was broken open … All five people were sitting at the table, in front of them lay the remnants of food. They were dead, their faces twisted with horror. Death came from a sudden cardiac arrest …
Boris Ditsevich talks about strange incidents in the winter hut, built on the site of a long-forgotten village in the Olkhonsky district. Everyone who stayed there was visited by "They". So the hunters called a man with a white beard and a woman with long white hair, dressed in white clothes. “They” appeared both at night and during the day, and those who saw them later described their state as semi-conscious.
Usually "They" would ask, "What are you doing here?" Hearing the answer - "We are hunting!", They said: "You cannot hunt here!"
These ghosts appeared not only in the hut, but also outside it. Once a hunter was tracking game in the forest in the winter. Suddenly he saw two people in white in front of him … The man lost consciousness and woke up only a few hours later. In a mysterious way, he did not get frostbitten - probably, the guests in white decided to just warn him, and not harm him …
After this incident, local hunters called a shaman from the nearby village of Kurtun to come into contact with the ghosts and find out what they needed. The shaman took four bottles of vodka and began sprinkling alcohol in the corners of the hut. After the ritual, which lasted more than two hours, he said that the mysterious "They" are the former inhabitants of the village, in the place of which there is a winter quarters. Once they died a violent death, and now their souls cannot leave these lands … Magic helped. The perfume did not bother anyone anymore.
In another winter hut, hunters were strangled at night by some black men with disheveled beards. In addition, everyone who spent the night here had a severe headache. According to Boris Ditsevich, the stones with copper inclusions, from which the furnace was laid, were to blame. When heated, they gave off poisonous gases, and people had hallucinations … Only it is not clear why everyone saw the same images in delirium. No, it's not that simple!
Maria Podoletskaya
