Once, some girls were gathering for a social evening. On their way to the bathhouse, which was used at certain times for games and spinning gatherings, the girls noticed a dead mare lying there. One mischievous girl addressed the mare with these words:
— “We invite you to our gathering.”

At midnight, in the middle of the gathering, the mare came to the bathhouse where the girls were and asked why they had called her. The girls were paralyzed with fear; however, the eldest among them found an answer: she challenged the mare to count the threads in some shirt. And so the mare began counting, biting off each thread as she counted it.

— “If I count them all, I’ll eat you up!” the mare threatened the girls.

Only one thread remained uncounted; but by then dawn had come, the rooster crowed, and the mare was forced to leave the bathhouse.

V. N. Dobrovolsky, Smolensk Ethnographic Collection, Part 1, 1891, p. 142.