Sometimes, in anger, mothers and fathers curse their children, sending them to the devil. According to folk beliefs, devils often abduct such children; they even abduct adults if they are not wearing a cross. The abducted children are usually later found in the tops of trees, or caught while crossing rivers over the water (they walk on the water and do not drown because the devil invisibly leads them).

Russian Peasants: Life, Daily Customs, and Ways, materials of Prince V. N. Tenishev’s “Ethnographic Bureau.” Vologda Province, 2007, part 3, p. 76