A certain miller had extraordinary luck: he had sold his soul to the vodyanoy for a fixed term, and from then on everything went his way. If someone wanted water stopped somewhere, or damage done to another man's mill, they always came to him. He knew the magic for such things.

When the term was up, the vodyanoy came for his soul. ‘Give me your soul!’ He had brought a leather sack. ‘Climb in!’

‘But I don't know how. Show me!’

The vodyanoy foolishly climbed into the sack. The miller, no fool himself, tied it shut with the cord from around his neck and made the sign of the cross over it. And there the vodyanoy remained in the sack.

D. N. Sadovnikov, Tales and Legends of the Samara Region (1884), no. 68e, pp. 227–228