Bannik

Uncommon card · No. 94026

The Bannik (Cyrillic: Банник) is a bathhouse (banya) spirit in Slavic mythology. He is usually described as a small, naked old man with a long beard, his body covered in the birch leaves left over from well used bath brooms. Many accounts also claim that he is a shapeshifter and can appear as a local person to someone who stumbles across him, or even as a stone or coal in the oven heating the bathhouse. Slavic bathhouses resemble saunas, with an inner steaming room and an outer changing room. A place where women gave birth and practiced divinations, the bathhouse was strongly endowed with vital forces. The third firing (or fourth, depending on tradition) was reserved for the bannik, and, given his inclination to invite demons and forest spirits to share his bath, no Christian images were allowed lest they offend the occupants. If disturbed by an intruder while washing, the bannik might pour boiling water over him, or even strangle him. There were several rituals performed in order to keep...

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