Ibronka and the Demon

In a remote village lived a girl called Pretty Maid Ibronka. Though she was the most beautiful girl in the valley, she had no sweetheart. While her sisters sewed, surrounded by admirers, Ibronka sat alone. One night, in a fit of loneliness, she cried out, "If only I had a lover! I wouldn't care if he were the devil himself." After midnight, the door swung open. A handsome stranger entered, smiling at the company before sitting beside Ibronka. He was charming, yet when Ibronka dropped her bobbin and reached to retrieve it, her fingers brushed something hard and cleft. Startled, she pulled back, but the man calmly scooped up the tool and returned it with a smile. Dismissing her fear as a mistake, she allowed him to embrace her when he left.

Troubled the next morning, Ibronka sought the village wise woman. "To find the truth," the woman advised, "attach a spool of thread to his cloak as he leaves. Follow it." That night, Ibronka followed the silver trail through the town and to the church. Finding the doors locked, she peered through the keyhole. There, her lover stood behind the altar, over the body of a dead man. He split the corpse’s head in two and sucked it dry. As he finished, his eyes met hers through the keyhole. Ibronka fled, snapping the thread as she ran.

Safe in her room, a voice boomed from the front door: "Pretty Maid Ibronka, what did you see through the keyhole that has no key?" "Nothing!" she shouted. "Pretty Maid Ibronka, if you lie, your mother, father, and sister will die!" Ibronka remained silent. By morning, her family would not wake. Grief-stricken, she returned to the wise woman. "They are dead," the woman sighed. "Bury them in the cellar, not the churchyard. And listen, when your time comes—for it surely will—you must not be carried through the door or window, but through a hole in the wall. You must be taken across fields, not roads, and buried in the ditch outside the churchyard wall." That night, the voice returned. "Pretty Maid Ibronka, what did you see?" Ibronka again denied it, and by dawn, she too was dead. Because she had followed the wise woman’s instructions, when the demon questioned the doors, the windows, the roads, and the churchyard, none had seen her pass. She was gone. 

In time, an exquisite rose grew from the ditch. A passing nobleman, captivated by its beauty, plucked it and placed it in a vase in his palace. That night, he found he had no appetite and left his meal untouched. In the morning, the food was gone. After three nights of this, the nobleman hid behind a curtain. At midnight, the rose shimmered and transformed into Ibronka. Stunned by her beauty, the nobleman proposed. Ibronka agreed on one condition: he must never ask her to enter a church. Years passed. They had four children, but the town began to gossip about the wife who never prayed or went to church. To quiet the rumors, the nobleman begged her to attend Sunday service. Reluctantly, she agreed.

As the host was raised above the altar, the wind shrieked. The doors burst open, and a man with an iron staff and iron shoes strode inside. "Pretty Maid Ibronka," he bellowed, "what did you see through the keyhole that has no key?" Ibronka stood tall. "I saw you behind the altar with a dead man. I saw you split his head like a melon and drink as if it were wine! But my words are wasted, for I speak to a dead man!"

At her words, a gale swirled around the demon, piercing his hollow heart. He crumbled into ash and dry leaves, leaving nothing behind but his iron staff and heavy shoes upon the stones.