Bar stucco

According to popular belief of the Prussians , barstuks were dwarf men , which roughly correspond to the German pixies and are said to have been active in the area around the Prussian Rastenburg .

The following entry can be found in Ludwig Bechstein , Deutsches Sagenbuch, Leipzig 1853:

"In the town of Rastenburg and at the same place there are also dwarf men who have the strange name Barstukken there, also fingerlings, and they are not as bad as the others who live further north. They mainly live in a hill near the village of Heiligelinde, where in the heathen times an oversized linden tree is said to have stood, under which the gods were worshiped according to popular custom.

The barstuks appear as good and helpful house spirits who watch over the sick when the guards are slumbering, especially in the moonlight. To those who are benevolent, they drag what they take from those who do not show themselves to be kind to them. You had to set a clean little table for them and put simple food on it, bread, butter, cheese, beer, milk, they were satisfied with that and ate it. If everything remained untouched, that was not a good sign, then the bar stucco wanted nothing more to do with the house owner and did no more work for the servants. The Barstukken, also called Berstuken, had a god over them, who was called Pushkait . His and hers apartment was under elderberry bushes . "