Many different spirits live in old houses. Some are the souls of their former owners, others are simply stray spirits, usually harmless. In the barn there lives a barn-keeper, on the threshing floor there is a barn-keeper, in the barn there is a shed, in the bathhouse there is a bannik, in the chicken coop there is a chicken god, in the cage there is a cage-keeper, in the nook there is a zakutnik, behind the stove there is a bakery kikimora, shishigi and shilikuns, korgorushi, next to the food lives a wen-lizun, and in the house is the owner of all the house spirits - brownie.
The brownie is a kind spirit, he is a zealous owner who helps a friendly family. Sometimes he gets mischievous and plays pranks if he doesn’t like something. He braids the manes of the horses he loves, and torments those he doesn’t like. All the house spirits serve him, and if you don’t get along with the house spirit, there will be no life. At night, the shishigi and shilikuns will make noise and roam, and the korgorush, having turned into black cats, will crawl under one’s feet, and the wen-licker will eat all the food in the hut.
And it’s especially bad if there are navias in the house - the spirits of hostile dead people, or even ghouls crawling from the cemetery. But the enemies leave alone the houses where the “dziads” live, the brownies, the good spirits of ancestors who patronize their descendants.
That’s why they leave porridge for the brownie in a secluded corner, on a pen, in the chicken coop they hang a “ugly” stone with a hole (for the chicken god) and say: “Master-father, accept our porridge! And eat pies, take care of our house!”
The brownie is also called “Dobrozhil”, “Dobrohot” and even (in the Vologda region) “Breadwinner”. In the Russian North he is called “Sousedkom”, “Batanushkom”. If he does not get along with the owner, then he is called “uncatchy.”
The following legend is told about the origin of the brownies: “When the Lord, at the Creation of the World, dropped all the rebellious and evil heavenly power on Earth... unclean spirits also fell on human habitations. Did those who were kinder than the others then get selected here, or did it just happen that, having settled closer to people, they settled down and became limp, but these spirits did not become evil enemies, like the water spirits, goblins and other devils, but seemed to be reborn: they turned into well-wishers and at the same time found themselves with the habits of people of a cheerful and playful disposition. Most of the peasants are so used to them that they do not agree to recognize the brownies as devils” and consider them to be a special, separate good thing. (S.V. Maksimov. “The Unclean, Unknown and the Power of the Cross”).
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru