Licho

Licho ( Russian , Ukrainian лихо , Byelorussian ліха , Polish licho ) is a spirit of misfortune and evil fate in Slavic mythology and is most often depicted as a one-eyed, very thin woman in black clothes. Licho does not belong to the Slavic pantheon , but appears in fairy tales and horror stories. Some of these fairy tales have parallels to the Cyclops from Greek mythology .

According to the stories and fairy tales, Licho pursues a person and brings him bad luck and misfortune, sometimes for a lifetime. It shows up for a variety of reasons, such as: B. when a person becomes weak to temptation and addicted. Getting rid of licho is difficult and requires special skill and cunning. In the fairy tales, various encounters and their outcome with Licho are mentioned:

a person outwits Licho like Odysseus the Cyclops
Licho outwits a human and rides on his back. Man jumps into the river to drown licho, but drowns himself, and licho swims away looking for new victims
Licho is wrapped as a gift and given to someone else
Licho eats a human. However, it is mostly used to scare young children.

The word Licho is not a proper name and means “bad luck” or “bad luck” when translated. Licho comes from Old Russian and means something like "excess", "too much". The Russian word "lischniy" (лишний), which contains licho in the root, means "one too many". There are also many idioms related to licho, such as: B .:

"Do not wake Licho while it is sleeping", "Do not remember with Licho" (remembering someone with bad thoughts), "Swallow lots of Licho" (experience a lot of suffering), "Learn how expensive pounds of licho is" (very experienced a lot of suffering), "Licho knows" (nobody knows), "Quiet, Licho does not sleep!"

and designations of human characteristics:

"Lichoi" (лихой) (person who is cocky), "lichoimez" ( usurer ), "lichodej" (лиходей) (a villain)