Also called Bayun the Cat, the Storyteller Cat.
Their story
In Russian fairy tales Kot Bayun is an enormous cat who sits on a tall iron pillar in a far kingdom and tells tales so enchanting that travellers fall asleep and never wake, and he then eats them. A hero protected by iron caps catches him, and once tamed his stories can heal the sick. Pushkin's learned cat who walks round an oak on a golden chain, telling tales, is his literary relative.
Best times to give to them
- winter story nights
- bedtime
What they like being given
- a well-told story
- milk for a real cat
How to honour them
- Tell a bedtime story with care; stories have power.
- Be wary of words that charm you into switching off your judgement.
How they can help you
- storytelling
- restful sleep
- resisting flattery
Symbols
- a huge cat on an iron pillar
- a golden chain
- an oak tree
Sources
- Alexander Afanasyev, Narodnye russkie skazki (Russian Folk Tales)
- Alexander Pushkin, Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820), prologue
More Slavic beings
- Div The crying omen in the tree-top
- Vodyanoy The old man of the millpond
- Polevik The spirit of the fields
- Poludnitsa Lady Midday of the harvest fields
- Mavka Hollow-backed maiden of the Ukrainian woods
- Mora The night-mare who sits on the chest
- Zmey Gorynych Many-headed dragon of the byliny
- Firebird The glowing bird of the golden apples