Diachka Foma Grigoryevich had already once told this story, and a certain “panic in pea caftan” had already let it out in a book, but the retelling of this did not satisfy the author so much that he undertook to tell this story again, as it should, and the conscientious pasichnik accurately convey it the words.

The story heard by the deacon from his own grandfather (glorious for the fact that he never lied to his life) and many of the details of which belonged to his grandfather's aunt, who at that time contained shinks, happened a hundred years before, on the site of Dikanka, which was then “the most poor farm. " Every nation staggered around, many were idle, and among them was Basavryuk, "the devil in a human form." He didn’t go to church on Bright Sunday either, but he gave red girls gifts that crushed them, bit them and caused all kinds of horrors at night. Meanwhile, in the village there lived a Kozak Korzh with a beautiful daughter, and he had an employee Petrus, nicknamed Bezrodny. Having once noticed that the young people love each other, old Korzh almost beat Petrus, and only the tears of his six-year-old Pidorkin brother Ivas saved the poor couple: Petrus was expelled. And soon some kind of lamb “trimmed with gold” fell in love with Korzh, and now everything goes to the wedding. The fagot sends Ivasia to tell Peter that he would rather die than go for a scumbag, and when the shocked Petrus pours grief in a shred, Basavryuk comes up to him and offers untold riches for a trifle, for a fern flower. They are determined to meet in the Bear ravine, because only this night, on the eve of Ivan Kupala, fern blooms. At midnight they make their way through the marshy swamp, and Basavryuk points to Petrus three hills where there will be many flowers of different colors, and only the fern should be picked and kept without looking back. Everything, as it is known, is done by Petro, although he is scared that hundreds of shaggy hands stretch behind the flower, and behind him something moves unceasingly. But a flower is torn off, and Basavryuk, motionless and blue, like a dead man, appears on a stump, coming to life only from a terrible whistle. He tells Petrus to obey everything that will be before them. Suddenly there is a hut on chicken legs, and the dog that jumped out of it turns into a cat, and then into an ugly witch. She whispers something above the flower and tells Peter to drop it - the flower floats in a ball of fire in the darkness and falls to the ground in the distance. Here, at the request of the old woman, Petrus begins to dig and finds a chest, but laughter is heard behind, and the chest goes into the ground, deeper and deeper. Having said that it is necessary to get human blood, the witch brings a child of about six years old under a white sheet and demands to cut off his head. Petrus tears off the sheet from the child and, seeing little Ivas, rushes to the old woman and brings her hand in. But Basavryuk remembered Pidorku, and the witch stamped her foot, and everything became clear that was in the ground under the place where they stood. And Petrus's mind became confused, "and innocent blood splashed into his eyes."

Then the real coven began, Petrus runs, everything around him seems to be in red light, he falls in his house and sleeps two days and two nights without waking up. Awakening, Petrus does not remember anything, even finding two bags of gold at his feet. He carries bags to Korzh, and he rolls up such a wedding that the old people will not mention it. Ivas alone is not at that wedding, he was stolen by the gypsies passing by. It’s wonderful to Pidorka that Petrus and her little brother’s faces do not remember. But Petrus cannot remember anything else of importance and sits day after day, remembering. Pidorka, no matter how much the healers have addressed, is useless.

And the summer passed, and autumn, and winter, - Petrus is terrible, and feral, and angry, but everything is tormented by his vain recall. And the unfortunate Pidorka decides on the last resort - to bring a sorceress from the Bear Gully, who knows how to heal all diseases - and brings her on the evening before Kupala. And peering, Petrus remembered everything, laughed and put an ax at the old woman. And instead of the old woman a child appeared, covered with a sheet. Pidorka Ivasia recognizes, but, covered with blood, he lights the hut, and Pidorka runs away in fear. When the runaway people plant the door, there is no one in the hut, only a handful of ashes instead of Petrus, and broken shards in the bags. Fagot goes on a pilgrimage to Kiev, in the laurel. Basavryuk soon appeared, but everyone eschewed him (for he realized that he took on a human form in order to tear treasures, and lured young people, since treasures were not given to unclean hands), and his aunt, the grandfather of the grandfather, so on, left his old tire on the Oposhnyanskaya road to cross over to the village. For this, Basavryuk and takes out the grudge against her and other good people for many years, so that the father also remembered his deacon's tricks.