Vanapagan, the Devil Who Always Loses
In Estonian folk tales, the devil is a giant, rich and powerful, and very stupid. A clever farmhand cheats him every time.
What was reported
Vanapagan, 'the Old Heathen', is the devil of Estonian folklore, but he's not much like the devil of other traditions. He's usually a giant, wealthy and strong, living on a farm with his wife, and he's easily fooled.
In many tales, his farmhand, the cunning Kaval-Ants, 'Clever Hans', tricks him again and again: in contests of strength, bargains over crops or wages, until Vanapagan loses everything. Huge boulders in the Estonian countryside are said to be stones he threw.
Explanations offered
Vanapagan probably grew from older pre-Christian beliefs about giants, later mixed with Christian ideas of the devil. Tales of the foolish giant tricked by a poor man are found across northern Europe. Estonia's glacial boulders are real, carried there by ice sheets.
- When
- Told for centuries
- Where
- Estonia
- Witnesses
- Estonian folklore
- Status
- Folklore
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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