Forest man "Leshi" ("Леший").
Long time ago, when my mother was a little girl, one time she went to our forest with her grandmother and got lost.
My mother says it was a very beautiful day, she was just running and jumping, hiding behind the trees and soon realized she was alone in the forest. My mom was scared and cried at first, but then she noticed a figure not very far who was waiving to her.
My mom thought it was her grandma and run closer, but the figure was moving further from her and still hiding behind the trees like he or she or he wanted to almost be unnoticed.
Only once my mom had a good look at the stranger.
It was a man whose face looked like a tree, who was tall and thin, dressed in a brown shirt, green pants and brown boots like Russian men used to dress hundred years ago. And he had only one tooth.
When the man smiled to my mother, she screamed. And in the second she heard her grandmother calling her.
My mother was fast running after, and soon found her grandmother calling her.
Her grandmother was scared too, and of course very mad, but when she heard about the strange man she started to nod her head where my mother told her the man was and was repeating "thank you".
The grandmother said: "It was Leshii who help you".
And when I was very young I heard stories from old Russian women who said that before going to the forest people used to leave cheap beads necklaces and bracelets on the tops of cut trees for forest spirits to save and help in the forest.
