person
Yefim Zhmenya
Zhmenya
also: Ефим Жменя, Yefim Zhmenya, Zhmenya
A recently-dead old peasant of Kovyli, remembered by the old shepherd as a lifelong sorcerer possessed by an "unclean power": melons that whistled, a pike that laughed, a white ox that was really him, a talking hare, and a throat sickness he was said to have loosed on the whole village in revenge for being flogged. Reputed to be the only person who could see the district's spellbound buried treasures -- and to have died without ever revealing or digging up a single one.
Reading notes
- Happiness §16 Yefim Zhmenya
The old shepherd's long character sketch of Zhmenya (sections 16-31) draws on a real strand of 19th-century Russian and Ukrainian steppe folklore: the reclusive, unmarried, sharp-tongued old man or woman suspected of being a znakhar or koldun (sorcerer/folk-healer figure) possessed by "нечистая сила" (unclean power/spirit). Markers the old shepherd lists as evidence -- keeping to himself, consorting mostly with old women, avoiding church and the tavern, working alone as a beekeeper and melon-watcher -- are the standard folk profile of a suspected witch or sorcerer in this tradition, not incidental character details; a period reader would have recognized every item as a checklist.