This story is retold by Rudy Panko from Foma Grigorievich, the sexton of the Dikanka church.

Rudy is in the middle of reading the story to the reader when Foma interrupts and demands to tell it his way.

Basavriuk tells Petro to meet him in Bear's Ravine in order to obtain the treasure that will allow him to reunite with Pidorka.

When Petro arrives at the location, he is instructed to find and pluck a fern that blooms on Kupala Night.

Even after sprinkling the entire area with holy water the tavern remains possessed, so the village becomes abandoned.

[2] St. John's Eve further reflects Ukrainian traditions in the complicated wedding rites described in the story.

[6] In St. John's Eve, as in Gogol's other stories, the laws of nature are often broken; for instance, the devil's gifts float in water.

[11] This short story was famously the main inspiration for the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's tone poem Night on Bald Mountain, made known to the wider international audience by its use in Disney's Fantasia.

[13] The story was adapted in an eponymous movie from the Ukrainian SSR directed by Yuri Ilyenko, featuring Larisa Kadochnikova and Boris Khmelnitsky in lead roles that was released in the Soviet Union in February 1969.