Talk:Leshy

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 October 2018 and 21 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GreenwoodTree7.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled comment

Sorry, but Leshy is eastern slavic mythical creature,not western slavic. Neither czech nor slovak mythology contains Leshy. Czech names "Lešij" or "Lesovij" is merely czech transcription of russian name. Leshy has virtually no tradition in czech mythology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:1028:919D:9726:BC9A:FC37:563F:367C (talk) 16:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Copied with specific permission from [1]. silsor 04:20, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

Picture

Does anyone have access to a better picture? I think the current one is inappropriate for two reasons: (i) it is a picture from a U.S. video game, and therefore doesn't particularly portray the folk mythology, and (ii) it is a proprietary image, and while the fair use policy may cover its use in illustrating the article on that particular game, I don't think it would apply to using it to illustrate other articles. If anyone has an idea as to where to find a public domain or free-license image, I think that would be the better option. Thanks, Rundquist 00:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Here's a link to what should be a better picture of the Leshy: Lechies. This drawing comes from Collin de Plancy's 1863 "Infernal Dictionary", which should be exempt from copyright laws. 67.162.14.101 02:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC) Chris G.

merger

i believe my article on lechie is more concice and tho they obviously address the same creature of russian (in this case polish) lore, they will better serve wikipedia viewers as a single article.--Tophatdan 19:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that the articles should be merged. Each has some unique insight and none of the content should be lost. --Rigel1 23:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• (gosh, this is well down the line..) - yep merge. Will do it tomorrow. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Leshii1.jpg

Image:Leshii1.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 23:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Lesidhe.

The Irish variant. http://www.bellaterreno.com/art/irish/fairy/irishlesidhe.aspx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8:B580:80B:1D10:CE94:495:F181 (talk) 05:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Bad ISBN

Because it is causing a Checkwiki error #72. ISBN-10 with wrong checksum", I removed 5-91016-014-3 from the entry:

Afanasyev, Alexander Nikolayevich. (2008) Славянская мифология [Slavic Mythology]. Eksmo, Migard. Moscow. ISBN 978-5-699-27982-1 ISBN 5-91016-014-3

I have tried unsuccessfully to locate the correct ISBN on the Internet. Tacking "978-" on the front of 5-91016-014-3 produces a valid ISBN, but I can find no references to it. The first ISBN in the entry works fine. Knife-in-the-drawer (talk) 03:11, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Fairy and Relict Hominid

I removed the grouping as Fairy / Relict Hominid. The article contains no notion of Leshy being a fairy other than a comparison (by which almost every mythological creature may be a fairy as well) and no mention of Leshy being believed to be a relict hominid. NorPhi (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Boruta and antlers/horns

 He is sometimes portrayed with horns and surrounded by packs of wolves and bears.

as the source for this was cited Theresa Bane (9 January 2012). Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions and Cultures. McFarland. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-7864-8894-0. And the referenced page is "conveniently" missing from the google sample. Now, if you actually look up the book with the page intact - you'll see that it doesn't describe leshys, but a certain Devil Boruta:

 Boruta
 Variations: Leśny, Leśny
 In ancient Slavic mythology Boruta (“pine tree”) was a god of hunting and the woods. After the introduction of Christianity, however, Boruta was demonized, given a rack of antlers, and portrayed as being surrounded by bears and a pack of wolves. Now considered to be a TERRESTRIAL DEVIL (see SPECIES OF DEVILS) who was tricked into building the church at Tum. Believing that he was building a tavern, when he realized the truth Boruta tried to tear the church down, grabbing hold of one of the towers. Unable to succeed, he left in a fury, but his clawed handmark is still visible upon the tower to this day. Modern Polish folklore says that he lives in the ruins of Lenezyca Castle.
 Sources: William Curry, Jun. and Co., Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 70, 137; Hageneder, Living Wisdom of Trees, 143; Stallings, Fodor’s Poland, 81.

The way this book treats Variations is very lazy: in some cases it means other names, in other - derivatives or the source of derivation. No discrimination or explanation. Frankly the book itself reads like some Supernatural fanfic or a wiccan reconstructional paganism, with lore holes filled on the fly to construe a plausible narrative. And the sources cited in this """source""", that I could find are even less relevant, like the Living Wisdom of Trees

 According to Slavic tradition, the goddesses of the woodlands, Dziwitza and Boruta, often inhabit firs, while the King of the Forest (equivalent to the Green Man in Western tradition) dwells in the oldest fir of the region.

So while this Boruta Devil may be a later period partial derivative of the leshy, it doesn't make everything about Boruta applicable back onto leshy. All cats are mammals, not all mammal are cats.

I think Boruta should be removed from the list of alternative names and the mention of antlers and horns should be removed. I know a thing or two about Russian/Ukrainian folklore and their variant of leshy is never depicted/described as having any bony protrusions on his head. Also about "surrounded by packs of wolves and bears" - leshy has an arbitrary power over any forest creature and is never depicted pfefferig any one over the others. 77.6.164.13 (talk) 01:41, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Other Pop Culture References

Leshy is one of the 4 antagonists in Cult of the Lamb (https://www.cultofthelamb.com/) and is also one of the boss monsters you fight in the Witcher games. 2605:A601:AFC1:500:4571:2D9E:4C1E:E279 (talk) 11:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Leshy (singular) and leshy (multiple)(diminutive)

I've done the best I could to copy-edit this article without changing much content, but I couldn't help noticing that there wasn't much to distinguish if/when certain facts were relating to Leshy as a singular god VS multiple "forest spirit" type leshy. I think it would make sense to potentially separate out sections of this article based on which "type" of Leshy/leshy is being described. I also have some Russian language knowledge, and I saw that a lot of the cited sources are older works in Russian. It's just a gut feeling, but some of this article reads like it was machine translated and popped in. I strongly suspect that the unclear distinction between the "types" of Leshy is caused in part by that type of translation, since before I tried to fix them, there were a ton of pronoun matching errors and missing articles as well. I just thought I would mention, since this conversation goes a fair bit above a copy-edit! Jwrivera (talk) 03:20, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

While you can linguistically form a plural of Leshy in Russian - "Leshiye" (Лешие) - you won't find it in any primary source, because despite the notion that any story may be referring to a different being, from a different area, in folklore tales he is always treated as a singular one. Saying "Leshiye" makes as much sense as saying "Baba Yagas". The only places where you can find a plural form would be (semi)academic texts that already talk of the subject from a position of categorization. But the primary sources (the people actively participating in those pagan traditions) did not speak of their Leshy as of an instance of a wider species - for them their Leshy in their forest was the one and only. The multiple diminutive (leshenyata, лешенята) - are Leshy's children in cases where he is described to be a part of a family unit, but this type of pluralization is a common way to denote that the children belong to a specific household, like "Попадья Балдой не нахвалится, Поповна о Балде лишь и печалится, Попенок зовет его тятей" - "And the popess heaps praise on Balda, And the daughter just pines for Balda, and is sad; And the little pope calls him paper." - here "the little pope"/"popyonok" (pl. popyata) means "the son of the pastor", not a pastor that is diminutive for some reason. And the children of a Leshy are not considered to be Leshys or to grow up to be Leshy, since in the Slavic folklore, the fairy creatures are all unalive (a literal translation of "nezhit" - нежить), hence "his children" were not really biologically born and only mimic the biological properties of a progeny. they'll never mature and replace the Leshy as the ruler of the forest. Thus they are not seen as "real Leshys". More like "Leshy's spawn" 01:43, 4 November 2024 (UTC)