In lore across the Slavic world, from the northern Slavs of Poland and Russia to their southern kin in Croatia and Slovenia, there are the so-called ‘unclean’ spirits of forest and field, home and bathhouse. And the more domestic of these unclean spirits - those of the home and bathhouse - is our focus in this episode. Now, we will meet these mysterious beings, in whom mingles the earthly and angelic, in whom dwell the deep powers of ancestral longing, order and homeliness.

For a little boy in an undisclosed Russian village, while playing, has spotted a dilapidated bathhouse on the edge of the great Taiga, that vast wooded realm of northern climes - and when he sees the water-rotted wood and the sagging brooding structure he shudders, runs home to his grandfather and asks about its history. This is the grandfather’s story…..

All music by Co-Ag Music (available on Youtube)