I am sharing a direct translation of a first-person entry from my late great-great-grandmother’s old personal journal, dated back to the 1920s in Ukraine. Her experiences were kept strictly private until I recently uncovered her writings, and since the rules require a first-person account, I will write the rest of this post exactly as she documented it in her diary:
“May 14, 1924.
Life in our village has become completely unbearable. The poverty is crushing us, and everyone is desperate. Today, my closest friend came to me with a wild claim. She said she knows a hidden place deep within the forest where any wish you make will instantly come true.
I am a deeply skeptical person. I do not believe in superstitions or magic, but she looked so terrified yet hopeful that I agreed to go with her, mostly just to keep her company and make sure she stayed safe.
We walked deep into the pitch-black woods in the middle of the night until we stumbled upon a traditional old house (khata). Eerily, the place was already packed with desperate people from nearby villages. Everyone was standing around in a heavy, dead silence.
Standing right in the center of the room was a young man. He was tall, exceptionally handsome, with sharp dark hair, dark eyebrows, and intense black eyes. He slowly walked around the room, approaching each villager one by one, asking them what their deepest desire was.
But as he got closer to me, my skepticism turned into pure, ice-cold panic. I looked down at his feet, and my breath caught in my throat. Instead of human feet, he had hooves.
I was frozen in terror. When he finally stopped right in front of me, he looked dead into my eyes and said in a chillingly calm voice: 'I see you are not ready yet. Go outside, sit on the porch (pripichok), and I will come back to you later.'
My legs were shaking, but I did exactly what he said. I ran outside and sat down. Because it was the dead of night and the stress was overwhelming, I suddenly fell into a deep, unnatural sleep.
When I opened my eyes, the sun was rising. The beautiful house, the crowd, and the handsome man were completely gone. I wasn't even sitting on a porch. I was sitting on an old, rotten tree stump in the middle of an empty forest clearing.
I ran all the way back to the village. Of course, nobody believed me. They thought I fell asleep and had a nightmare"
Here, the diary entries skip forward. I flipped through the pages and found this entry written almost three years later, dated October 12, 1927
"It has been over three years since that night in the woods, and things have taken a very dark turn. My friend's wish actually came true back then—her family's farm suddenly became incredibly wealthy out of nowhere. They had everything. But last week, a tragic accident happened, and she died. She was so young. I can’t shake the feeling that she paid a terrible price for what she asked that man for.
I thank God every day that I refused to make a deal with that thing. My life has been normal, and over these years, our farm has grown and prospered naturally through honest, hard work, without any dark interference.”
In Slavic folklore, the Devil (Chort) often disguises himself as a handsome man with hooves, and his gold always turns into rotten wood or leaves in the morning. I always thought these were just fairy tales until I heard what actually happened to my own bloodline. Has anyone else heard similar stories from Eastern Europe?
