Boginka

At dusk on the Dunajec, where the river runs cold out of the mountains of southern Poland, there is a sound of wood striking wet cloth. Slap, and slap again. Women kneel on the stones at the water’s edge and beat their washing with flat wooden paddles. It is an ordinary village sound, and no village woman is there. The washing is baby linen.

They are boginki. The word is built on Bóg, the Polish for god, and it means something like little goddesses. Nothing about them is divine. The name was once a loose word for female demons in general, and in the Polish countryside it settled on one kind in particular. Old dictionaries list its other forms: bogunka, bogienka, bogina. In the Tatra highlands the same sort of creature is called a dziwożona, and elsewhere a mamuna, and over time people used the three names as if they were one.

A boginka was a woman first. The Sącz highlanders said the boginki were the spirits of women who had died in childbirth, or who had been wicked while they lived. Other districts added suicides and women who had killed their own children. Whatever she had been, she came back with one want. She wanted a baby.

What she looks like depends on who is asked. In some villages she is hideous: a big head, bent legs, long teeth, and breasts that hang heavy and low. Around the Dunajec she has fair hair and goes naked, or else dressed like any farmer’s wife. The Pieniny highlanders gave her black hair, dark eyes and a swarthy skin. In other places still she is a lovely young girl with no clothes on. The accounts do not agree, and nobody tried to make them.

Her hunting ground is the birth room. The time of danger ran from the birth until the mother had been to church to be blessed and the child had been baptised. In those weeks the boginka came to the house. If the cradle was left unwatched she lifted the healthy infant out and laid her own in its place. The child she left was called an odmieniec, a changeling, and also a boginiak, a płonek or a podrzutek. It had a head too large for its body and eyes that bulged, and it was slow to grow and slow to learn.

She did not always stop at the child. A boginka might carry off the mother herself, to nurse the boginka’s own young or simply to be tormented. Midwives were at risk as well. She was a nuisance beyond the house too. She frightened cattle and tore the nets of fishermen.

The remedy for a swapped child was hard. Among the country people around Kraków, and among the Hutsuls of the eastern Carpathians, the mother carried the changeling out to a boundary, the edge of a field or the edge of the village. There she beat it until it screamed. Then she turned her back and walked away without looking. The boginka, hearing her own child cry, was said to come for it and leave the stolen one behind. Another way was to beat the changeling on the dunghill and give it water to drink out of an eggshell.

It was a cruel cure, and the children it was used on were real.

The boginka’s power comes from what she was. She died in the act of becoming a mother, or failed at it, and so she is strongest exactly where a living mother is weakest: in the days after a birth, in a dark room, with a tired woman and a child that does not yet have a name. She can pass for a village wife. She knows the river and the house.

Her limits are as plain. She cannot cross certain things. St John’s wort was the chief of them. Midwives carried sprigs of it and kept it under the pillow, and a woman seized by a boginka was let go if she had the yellow flower in her hand. Palms blessed at Easter and wreaths of flowers were hung in the windows. The room was smoked with burning chicory, a bitter, grassy smell. The mother was told not to step over her own threshold until her time was done. And baptism and the church blessing ended the danger. After that the boginka had no claim, and she went back to the river and her washing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a boginka?

A boginka is a female demon of Polish folklore who lives near water and steals newborn children. She leaves her own sickly child, a changeling, in the cradle. The name comes from the Polish word Bóg, meaning god, and means “little goddess”.

Where do boginki come from?

Boginki were believed to be the spirits of dead women. The Sącz highlanders said they were women who had died in childbirth or had been wicked in life. Other districts also counted suicides and women who had killed their own children.

What does a boginka look like?

Descriptions of the boginka differ by region. Some describe an ugly woman with a large head, bent legs, long teeth and heavy sagging breasts. Others describe a beautiful naked girl, and the Pieniny highlanders gave her black hair, dark eyes and a swarthy skin.

How did people protect a baby from a boginka?

St John’s wort was the main protection against a boginka. Midwives carried it and kept it under the pillow, and blessed Easter palms and flower wreaths were hung in the windows. The danger ended once the baby was baptised and the mother had been blessed in church.

How was a child stolen by a boginka brought back?

The mother carried the changeling to a boundary, such as the edge of a field or village, and beat it until it cried. She then turned away, and the boginka was said to take back her own child and return the stolen one. Another method was to beat the changeling on a dunghill and give it water from an eggshell.

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