“The Longing (Polish: Tęsknica) is a Slavic demon who was imagined as a pale female spectrum. Longing was sometimes also called Osmętnica. That demon is a personification of the state of morbid reverie and longing. This pale woman was bringing the human incurable sadness, called melancholy.
Longing fell from the sky with the stars from black storm cloud. On her head she wore a wreath of dry fern, she wrapped herself with a gray tatter pulled out from under the couch of the deceased, on her feet she wore clogs made by herself of green cane from the lake or water weeds rising over the waters. She walked slowly, head bowed, sat frequently in cemeteries or figures at the crossroads.
When she found sad, crying, lonely girls, she sat with them, enfolded them in her emaciated hands and kissed on lips, put a heavy hand on their hearts. Longing possessed mostly young women who had no children yet. These women did not suffer physically and did not have any scars on their bodies, but affected by the longing lost vigor, did not drink and did not eat, insomnia plagued them, become weakened and limp. Such girls usually lived very short. Their only salvation was the arrival of the Three Niewiads, the angels. Only they can get them from the clutches of Longing.”
In my old habit, I’m giving you some music:
