Viy (story)
Three students, the kleptomaniac theologian Khalyava, the merry-making philosopher Khoma Brut, and the younger rhetorician Tiberiy Gorobets, find wheat fields suggesting a nearby village.
He sees his own reflection in it, and the grass grows deep underneath; he bears witness to a sensually naked water nymph (rusalka).
[4] Later, rumour circulates that the daughter of a Cossack chief (sotnik[5]) was found crawling home, beaten near death, her last wish being for Khoma the seminary student to come pray for her at her deathbed and for three successive nights after she dies.
The Cossack chief, Yavtukh (nicknamed Kovtun), explains that his daughter expired before she finished revealing how she knew Khoma; at any rate, he swears horrible vengeance upon her killer.
One comrade was charmed by her, ridden like a horse, and did not survive long; another had his infant child's blood sucked out at the throat and his wife killed by the blue necrotic witch, who growled like a dog.
On the third and most terrifying night, the winged "unclean powers" (нечистая сила, nechistaya sila) are all audibly darting around him, and the witch-corpse calls on these spirits to bring the Viy, the one who can see everything.
The cock crows, but this is already its second morning call, and the "gnomes" who are unable to flee get trapped forever in the church, which eventually becomes overgrown by weeds and trees.
[9] Among scholars delving into the folkloric aspects of the novella, Viktor P. Petrov tries to match individual motifs in the plot with folktales from Afanasyev's collection or elsewhere.
The Malorussian folktale translated as "The Soldier's Midnight Watch", set in Kiev, was identified as a parallel in this respect by its translator, W. R. S. Ralston (1873); it was taken from Afanasyev's collection, and the Russian original bore no special title except "Stories about Witches", variant c.[12][13] "Vid'ma ta vid'mak" (Відьма та видьмак), another tale or version from Ukraine, also features a "ride" of a similar nature according to Vladimir Ivanovich Shenrok [ru] (1893)'s study of Gogol; this tale was edited by Mykhailo Drahomanov.
[14] A listing of a number of folktales exhibiting parallels of this, as well as other motifs, was given by Viktor Petrov (penname V. Domontovych),[15] and paraphrases of it can be found in Frederik C. Driessen's study.
[21][23] The fact that the word viy itself shows little sign of existing in the region's folklore record is an additional obvious reason for the critical skepticism.
[30][31] The aforementioned Viacheslav V. Ivanov (1971) is credited, in modern times, with drawing the parallel between Gogol's Viy and the witch's husband, called the "old, old man" or "Old Oldster" (Russian: старый старик; staryĭ starik).
There also exists an old folk tradition surrounding Saint Cassian the Unmerciful (Russian: Касьян Немилостливый), who was said in some tales to have eyebrows that descend to his knees and are raised only on Leap Year.
[36] In 2009, Romanchuk undertook a supplementary understanding of this schema using Lacanian analysis, where Khoma's resistance using prayer is an enactment of his perversion, defined as "a wish for a father's Law that reveals its absence".
[48][50][j] Further proposed etymology entwines connection with the Ukrainian word vuy ("maternal uncle"), suggested by Semyon Karlinsky [ru].
