Cat Bayun

Kot Bayun (Bayun cat, cat Bahari) - a character in Russian fairy tales, a huge man-eating cat with a magical voice.

He speaks and lulls with his talk and singing approaching travelers and those of them who do not have enough strength to resist his magic and who are not prepared for a fight with him, the sorcerer cat kills with iron claws. But the one who can catch a cat will find salvation from all diseases and ailments-Bayun's fairy tales are healing.

According to researcher Kirill Korolev, the image of the learned cat-storyteller (Bahar) came from popular Russian legends about the wonders of the fabulous "Indian Kingdom". The features of the cat-monster, which can enchant a person to death with its voice, could also be borrowed from medieval texts like "Physiologist" and ABC books.

The oldest known record of a cat is the text of A. Pushkin's nanny. Further spread of the image was promoted by popular prints that illustrated the prologue to "Ruslan and Lyudmila", and largely thanks to them, the learned cat as the personification of storytelling became a well-known character.

In the fairy tales from the collection of A. N. Afanasiev, most likely, the cat-Bayun replaced the devil.