There lived a woman in the village, and she had a bad reputation. People said that she was a witch, and everyone in the area was afraid to go to her. One day a gypsy woman came to her to ask, and the old woman came up, closed the door behind the gypsy, stuck a needle in the ceiling and sat the gypsy down next to her to talk. So they talked for three days, the gypsy woman wants to get up and leave, but she only gets to the threshold, but she can’t cross, as if some kind of force is holding her back. So she suffered until the old witch took pity on her, until she pulled the needle out of the lintel and let the poor gypsy go.
And this is what the witch did: like some kind of holiday, she will sneak into the gateway and immediately jump out in the form of a goat and let’s shake her horns - to disperse people. People will run away, and the whole holiday will be upside down.
They wanted to drive her out of the village, but there were people who did not believe that she was a witch. One day, all the people gathered in the church for a holiday, and they brought the witch. The priest began to read prayers, and then ordered everyone to venerate the icon. As soon as the first man approached, someone blew out all the candles in the church. And the priest shouts:
“I won’t let anyone out of the church until you venerate the icon!”
So they began to kiss the icon one by one in complete darkness. People began to slowly leave the church. People look at each other and laugh: everyone’s faces are covered in soot. It turns out that it was not an icon, but a smoked board. And only one witch’s face remained clean. The evil spirits were afraid to touch the icon. The people understood everything and drove the witch out of the village.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru