The print depicts a devil riding a sinner who is laden with all sorts of baggage. A very similar image often appears in narrative folklore.

Grandmother Anna Alekseyevna told this story too. Someone had told it to her—a blacksmith.

— Well, you see, a woman had hanged herself… She was to be this blacksmith’s godmother. A good while had passed. Then, at eleven o’clock, they came.

— Be a good fellow and shoe my horses (there are two of them)!

— Yes, he says, it’s dark. How am I supposed to… shoe them?

— No, be a good fellow and shoe them! I’ll pay you a lot of money… good money.

So he went to shoe them. He lifted a leg—the hoof—and there was a human leg! She had laid her head on the shafts and was crying. It was his own godmother! Devils were riding her, taking turns, because she had hanged herself. The other horse was some kind of relative too. He came up and wanted to shoe it, but his hands dropped limp. Then they whistled, shrilled, and screamed. The roosters crowed (…)—and they were gone as if they had never been there. (Zinoviev 1987, 110–111)


Illustration: Unknown artist — The Seven Deadly Sins — 1820s–1830s