from Tscheremissische Märchen, Sagen und Erzählungen, compiled by Ödön Beke (1938)

These two short legends sit side by side in Beke's collection, both told by the same informant — Daniel Lebedjev of Petrusin village, a Mari prisoner of war in Hungarian camps during the First World War. Both deal with the encounter between ordinary people and supernatural malice, but the outcomes could not be more different.

In the first, a fisherman reads the signs correctly. He notices the fish lying wrong — head toward shore instead of tail — and knows it for what it is. He prepares a decoy, hides under his boat, and survives the night. The water spirit drives the harpoon so deep into the stump that it takes an axe to free it. The fisherman never fishes again, but he lives.

In the second, a wife's loneliness calls the devil. He comes wearing her husband's shape, and when the real husband returns, the confrontation is swift and brutal — the devil transforms into a dog, wrestles the man, and in the chaos strangles the wife and tears out her tongue. She haunts the house for a year.

Both legends belong to the genre Beke calls Sage — not fairy tales but true accounts, believed literally by the teller. The water spirit (ßüt ija, "water devil") and the devil (ija) are not metaphors. They are neighbours — dangerous ones.

Recorded by Ödön Beke from Daniel Lebedjev, Petrusin village, Birsk district. Published in Helsinki by the Finno-Ugric Society, 1938. Tales no. 5b and 6 in the collection.

I. The Water Spirit in Fish Form

(Tale 5b — Der Wassergeist in Fischgestalt)

In a village there lived a man who fished for his living. One day he went to the river to fish.

He sees: in the water lies a large fish. An ordinary fish swims to the shore at night to sleep there. It lies with its tail toward the shore, its head toward the water. But this fish swam over and lay with its head toward the shore.

The fisherman thinks: "This is no ordinary fish — it is an evil fish."

The fisherman caught the fish with a harpoon. He went and thrust the harpoon into the great fish. Then he placed his clothes on a tree stump and set his cap on the stump as well. He himself lay down under the boat.

This fish was the devil — a water spirit. The devil leapt out, seized the harpoon, and drove it into the tree stump. The harpoon sank deep — all the way — into the stump.

The man lay there until morning. At dawn he went to look: the harpoon had driven deep into the tree stump. He had to cut it out with an axe.

From that day on, he never went fishing again.

End.

II. The Devil and the Bark-Worker's Wife

(Tale 6 — Der Teufel und die Frau des Barkarbeiters)

Once a man worked continually as a bark-cutter. He floated downstream on a raft. He floats downstream; his wife worked at home.

She began to grieve, to weep. Then the devil began to come to the wife in the form of her husband.

The husband came back from downstream. At night the devil came to the wife. The devil entered the house — but the husband was inside. The devil and the husband began to wrestle. The devil transformed himself into a dog. They wrestled with each other. The husband struck the dog, and it ran away.

At that same moment, the devil strangled the wife. The wife died — he tore out her tongue.

The wife haunted the house. She went about there for a year after her death.

Colophon

These two legends are part of Tale 5 (Der Wassergeist in Fischgestalt) and Tale 6 (Der Teufel und die Frau des Barkarbeiters) from Ödön Beke, Tscheremissische Märchen, Sagen und Erzählungen, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 76, Helsinki, 1938.

Source language: Mari (Cheremiss), Eastern dialect, Birsk district. Translation chain: Mari → German (Beke, 1938) → English (NTAC, 2026). The English is translated independently from the German text. Beke's German is a close philological rendering of the Mari; the English follows the German faithfully, preserving the paratactic structure, the abrupt tense shifts, and the formulaic endings characteristic of Mari oral narrative.

Informant: Daniel Lebedjev, Petrusin village, Birsk district. Recorded by Ödön Beke from a Mari prisoner of war in Hungarian camps, 1916–1918.

Note on the water spirit: The ßüt ija (literally "water devil") is a shape-shifting spirit that inhabits rivers and lakes in Mari belief. It can take the form of fish, humans, or animals. In this legend, the fisherman recognizes the supernatural by reading the fish's posture — an ordinary fish sleeps with its tail toward shore, its head toward deep water. The reversed position is the tell.

Note on the bark-worker's wife: The ija (devil) appears in the husband's form — a motif found across Uralic traditions (cf. the Khanty water spirit tales, Estonian vanapagan legends). The detail that the devil tears out the wife's tongue, causing her to haunt as a speechless revenant, is distinctive to this telling.

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Source Text

Tale 5b — Der Wassergeist in Fischgestalt (German)

Märchen. In einem Dorf lebte ein Mann vom Fischen (eig. er fing viel oder wenig Fische). Einmal ging er zum Fluss fischen.

Er sieht, im Wasser liegt ein grosser Fisch. Der gewöhnliche (eig. gute) Fisch schwimmt nachts ans Ufer, um dort zu schlafen. Er liegt mit seinem Schwänze dem Ufer zu, mit dem Kopfe dem Wasser zu. Dieser Fisch [aber] schwamm hin und legte sich mit dem Kopfe dem Ufer zu. Der Fischer denkt: »Dieser Fisch ist kein gewöhnlicher Fisch, er ist ein böser Fisch.» Der Fischer fing den Fisch mit einer Harpune. Er stellt sich dazu, stösst die Harpune in den grossen Fisch. Dann gibt er seine Kleider auf einen Baumstumpf, [auch] seine Mütze legt er auf den Baumstumpf. Er selbst legt sich unter das Boot. Dieser Fisch war der Teufel (Wassergeist). Der Teufel springt heraus, nimmt die Harpune, stösst sie in den Baumstumpf. Die Harpune dringt tief (eig. ganz) in den Baumstumpf ein. Der Mann liegt [dort] bis zum Morgen. In der Früh schaut er nach, die Harpune drang tief in den Baumstumpf. Er [muss mit der Axt] die Harpune aus dem Baumstumpf hinausschneiden. Seitdem ging er nicht mehr fischen. Ende.

Tale 6 — Der Teufel und die Frau des Barkarbeiters (German)

Einmal fuhr ein Mann fortwährend als Barkarbeiter. Er fuhr mit einem Flosse [den Strom] abwärts. Er fährt abwärts, sein Weib arbeitete zu Hause. Sie begann zu trauern, zu weinen. Da begann der Teufel zu dem Weibe in Gestalt ihres Gatten zu kommen. Da kam der Mann von unten. Nachts kam der Teufel zum Weibe. Der Teufel ging ins Haus, der Mann [war] im Hause. Der Teufel und der Mann begannen zu ringen. Der Teufel verwandelte sich in einen Hund. Sie rangen [mit einander]. Der Mann schlug den Hund, der lief davon. Der Teufel erwürgte zur selben Zeit das Weib. Das Weib starb, er riss ihr die Zunge aus. Das Weib schreckte im Hause [die Leute], sie ging [dort] nach ihrem Tode ein Jahr lang herum.

Source Colophon

Ödön Beke, Tscheremissische Märchen, Sagen und Erzählungen, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 76, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, 1938, pp. 18–20.

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