Who is the leszy?
The leszy (Russian leshy, Polish leszy) is the guardian and shepherd of the forest. He can change his form: sometimes he is as tall as the trees, sometimes as small as a blade of grass. He often appears as an old man or a peasant whose clothes are buttoned the wrong way. He is neither a devil nor a friend. Those who respect the forest have little to fear. Those who are greedy, hunt too much or curse are punished.
Lost in the woods
His best-known trick is leading people astray: the leszy makes travelers walk in circles until they are exhausted. The remedy was to put your clothes on inside out or swap your shoes. That people without landmarks really do walk in circles was demonstrated in a 2009 study by Jan Souman and colleagues in Current Biology.
Pacts with the lord of the forest
According to tradition, herders and hunters made agreements with the leszy. He protected the livestock from wolves or sent game their way if they gave him something in return. With Christianization, he came to be associated with the devil and in some depictions grew horns.
The monster from the game
The “leshen” of The Witcher 3, with its deer skull and antlers, has little to do with the old sources. In 2025, Tomasz Majkowski, Magdalena Kozyra and Aleksandra Prokopek showed that this image is largely a modern invention.
Episode on this topic
Further reading
- Alexander Afanasjew: Poetische Anschauungen der Slawen über die Natur, 1865–1869.
- Sergei Maksimow: Nečistaja, nevedomaja i krestnaja sila, 1903.
- Dmitri Zelenin: Očerki russkoj mifologii, 1916.
- Linda J. Ivanits: Russian Folk Belief, 1989.
- Tomasz Z. Majkowski, Magdalena Kozyra, Aleksandra Prokopek: “The Invention of Leshy,” Games and Culture, 2025.
- Jan L. Souman et al.: “Walking Straight into Circles,” Current Biology 19 (2009).