K61a1. Two heads in a bag. .27.28.30.31.

The supernatural character mistakes two people sleeping (hiding) in a bag for a two-headed monster and runs away.

Slovenians, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians (Transcarpathia), Persians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Livs, Lutsi, Russians Latgale.
Balkans. Slovenians (Carinthia) [Two young men are carrying a sack of wool. They notice the Forest Man in the forest. They are horrified and do not know what to do. They throw the wool out of the sack and climb into it so that only their heads come out. The Forest Man comes up to them, looking in surprise at the heads and the sack, where the legs should be visible. He rolls the sack first one way, then the other, shakes his head and cries: “Oh, oh-oh! Three times I remember the meadows, three times I remember the forest, I have never seen such an animal that has two heads but no legs. Father is too young, I must ask Grandfather what it is!” He goes into the dark forest, the young men leave the wool in place and run away]: Kelemina 1930: 221.

Central Europe. Poles (Krzyżanowski 1962, no. 377: 124-125), Slovaks [students must count the number of mountain peaks; go to bed; the monster takes them for a many-headed monster; says that he has walked around all the mountain peaks (naming their number), but has never seen anything like it; this is how the students learned the number of peaks]: Uther 2004(1), no. 500*: 286; Ukrainians (Transcarpathia) [a widower marries his neighbor; she makes it a condition that he get rid of their children, Ivan and Marika; he takes them into the forest, leaving a log to beat against a tree in the wind, as if he were chopping firewood; they return home; the next time the father takes them further, the children remain in the forest; they bake wild horseradish, go to bed with their heads in different directions; a bear and a wolf come, are amazed by the strange beast, leave ; in the morning there is good bread in the ashes; a magic shirt, gun, and sabre are on the sycamore; I. gets them, becomes a strongman; breaks into a robber's den, the princess is there; kills 11 robbers, the 12th pretends to be dead, I. leaves the body, lets the girl go to her father, leaves; the robber asks M. to bring living water, to pour it into the keyhole; he opens the door, the robber's severed ear grows back, M. takes the robber as a husband; in order to destroy his brother, he pretends to be sick, asks for wolf, then bear and other meat; the she-wolf, then the bear and other animals ask them not to kill them, gives a wolf cub, a bear cub, etc.; the robber suggests M. to send his brother for water from a spring between the crushed mountains; At noon they stop, I. got water; to bring flour from the mills that grind human bones, open once every 12 years; I. collects flour, manages to jump out, the doors slam shut, his animals remained inside; M. bathes I. in fresh milk, he grew languid, she tied him with horse hair, the robber took the shirt in which is strength; they gouged out I.'s eyes, threw them into the well; people pulled him out; he wandered through the forest, fell head first into a swamp, there is living water there, he regained his sight; bought good clothes, swapped clothes with his grandfather; he gave him bottles of water, one makes you look younger, the other makes you look older; came to M. and the robber disguised as a beggar; when they fell asleep, he took his shirt, saber, gun; ordered them to give him his flute; he began to play, the animals broke out of the mill, came running, tore the robber to pieces; left M. two barrels for tears, one to cry for him, the other for the robber; in the neighboring kingdom a snake locked up the water; I. ​​killed him, freed the princess whom the gypsy was carrying the snake, cut off the snake's tongues, the gypsy cut off a piece from each tongue, demanded the princess as a wife from the tsar; at home almost all the tears were cried for the robber; I. ​​shows the tsar not the tips of the tongues, but the tongues themselves, the animals tore the gypsy to pieces, I. took the princess; M. came, poisoned I., locked up the animals; they broke free, the Fox brought living water; the next time M. locked the gate again, put a pitchfork in I.'s bed; the same; the animals tore M. to pieces]: Verkhovyna's Tales 1970: 232-243.

Iran – Central Asia. Persians [in the gorges near Isfahan lived a div; if a traveler was caught there by night and fell asleep, the div licked his heel with its sharp tongue and sucked out the blood; two travelers were caught by night; they lay down with their feet facing each other, with their legs tucked into each other’s trousers; div: never saw a two-headed man!]: Korogly 1961: 205-206.

Baltoscandia. Lithuanians [Two brothers are caught in a downpour on the road. They ask for a place to stay overnight in the ancient Lyalishkai. There is no room in the hut, the owner sends them to the barn, warning them that the Vyalnyasy are strangling the lodgers there. On the way, the brothers take the owner's sack, cut off the bottom, cut off two rowan sticks. They climb into the sack so that the head is at one end and at the other. The Vyalnyasy see and are frightened by a two-headed man, afraid to approach. They call Lucifer, he is frightened, runs out screaming. The Vyalnyasy bring their old grandfather, who can no longer walk, sit him down on a stump in the barn, seeing the travelers, he screams: "Oh, run, men, evil will come!" The Vyalnyasy run away as fast as they can, forgetting their grandfather. The travelers climb out of the sack, kill the old Vyalnyasy. The owner treats them to porridge as a reward]: Vėlius 1989: 95-96 (=Vėlius 1998: 86-88); Latvians [Devils appear in the threshing floor and cannot be driven out. One stormy evening, two flax scoopers ask to spend the night in the house. They are sent to the threshing floor, warned that devils are up to mischief there. They reply that they are not afraid of devils and ask the owner for a sack. In the threshing floor, they rip the sack open and crawl into it so that their heads stick out of the sack at both ends. Around midnight, the devils gather in the threshing floor and there is a commotion, noise, and squealing. One of the devils sees the flax scoopers and calls the others. The devils cannot understand what kind of beast it is. They send three little devils to the hell of the oldest devil. They bring them, and he is so decrepit that he cannot open his eyes. The little devils lift his eyelids with a pitchfork and show him a sack. The old devil says: "I have sown barley in the sea, mowed hay on the mountain, but I have never seen such a strange beast with a head sticking out at both ends. He will destroy our tribe, we must flee from here!" The devils rush out, and are not seen in Riga again]: Arijs 1867: 290-291; Latvians [Two flax pullers come to a farm and ask for a place to stay for the night. The owner would gladly let them in, but there is only room in the barn, and there is a ghost there. The pullers agree, cut out a rowan club each, and go into the barn. They rip the sack open from below, both of them climb into it, so that their legs and bodies are inside, and their heads are outside at both ends. At midnight the devils come, start dancing, one notices the sack, everyone is amazed. They decide to go for the old man, he must know what kind of monster this is. Soon the devils drag the old devil on the grate. The young devil takes a pitchfork, lifts the old man's eyelids with it, and points to the sleeping people in the sack. The old devil says that trouble will happen now: he has seen many animals, but they all have a head on one side, a tail and legs on the other, and this beast has a head on both sides. Death is inevitable, the beast will swallow them all. The devils rush out of the barn, leaving the old man alone, he cannot walk on his own. The pullers beat him with rowan clubs until he crumbles to dust. Since then, not a single devil has shown up in the barn [Alksnite et al. 1957, No. 87: 285-286; Lutsi(zap. 1893) [the threshing floor is warm and spacious, but no one has ever left it alive in the morning; three barge haulers: the man is not afraid of devils; they stayed overnight with their heads in a sack; the devils came and wondered what kind of beast it was: six legs, no head; they had to call the kõvver (vid., Estonian "kõver", crooked) - he was present at the creation of the world, he should know everything; the oldest kõver came, his eyelids propped up with splinters; (on his head) 9 horns about a slanting fathom long; the barge haulers were scared, but pretended to snore; the devils bring another book, open it - nothing like that is written; the old devil says he doesn't remember anything like that; the devils ran away - through the doors, walls and roof; the oldest one caught on a beam connecting the rafters, knocked the horns off his head]: Annom et al. 2018: 337-338; Livs [the owner warned two workers that there were devils in the threshing floor, but they went there to spend the night, taking some rods and a sack with a cut-open bottom; they lay down with their feet in the sack and their heads outside in different directions; little devils came, started dancing, saw a strange beast; the old devil also didn’t understand what kind of beast it was; he sent the little devils to bring big pincers; then the workers jumped out, started beating the devil with rods and he ran away; he met the little devils and told them not to go into the threshing floor; they brought in a very old devil; he couldn’t see anything because of his eyelashes hanging over his eyes; then one little devil lifted his eyelashes with a pitchfork; meanwhile the workers climbed into the sack again; the old devil saw them and said that it was an unknown beast that could tear them all to pieces; the devils ran away, and the workers beat the old devil with rods]: Loorits 1998(2): 185–186; RussianLatgale (west of Riga from a native of Latgale) [A traveler goes to spend the night in a threshing floor, and at midnight the devil appears and asks who he is. The man replies that he is flax. The devil asks if he can step over him. The man replies that he can only do so if he endures the torment that flax has endured. Thousands of flax stalks were torn from Mother Earth, their heads were cut off, they were drowned in a pond, thrown into a field under the open sky, dried, and taken to a threshing floor, and here they will crush them, break their bones in a masher, put them on a scutching machine, beat them, comb them, wind them, spin them, weave them, and sew them, and then wear them out, tear them into rags, and throw them away. The dialogue is repeated until the devil gets tired of it, leaves, and promises to come tomorrow. The traveler gets enough sleep and leaves. Two scutchers come to scutch flax, stay overnight. They ask for a large sack, rip it open, climb into it, only their heads stick out, and fall fast asleep. Yesterday's devil comes with other devils, making noise - they do not wake up. They run to the scutchers, cannot understand what kind of beast it is with two heads, top and bottom, they send the young devil to hell after the old devil. He is so decrepit that he cannot open his eyes. The little devils lift his eyelids with pitchforks and show him the sack. The old devil says that he sowed oats in the sea, mowed flax on the mountain, but he has never seen such a monster, it will destroy their treasures and their tribe, they must flee. The devils rush away, the devil, who heard about the torment of the flax, thinks that it is good that he did not step over the flax, otherwise he would have been lying on the floor too]: Friedrich 1980: 227-229; Russians of Latgale [“The image of the main old devil, whose eyelids are lifted with a pitchfork, in the tale about how the devils were afraid of the flax scutchers”]: Makashina 1976: 96.