‘The tale is an invention; the song, a truth,’ declares a Russian proverb. Even the tale’s demonology differs sharply from the Russian folk beliefs, which have known neither Koshchey the Deathless, Baba Yaga, the Sea King, the Firebird, nor other fantastic figures appearing in the native fairy tale. This pantheon still presents many enigmas. Oversimplified romantic interpretation of supernatural beings in the folk tale as relics of prehistoric myths about the forces of nature was rejected by later critics, but the question of the genesis of the Russian magic world and its original peculiar traits still awaits further delving and resolution. Among these demonic names there are both common Slavic remainders and old Turkic borrowings. Thus, for instance, Baba Yaga together with the Polish jendza baba and such a Czech equivalent as jezinka, as well as the old Church Slavonic jendza and an old Serbian jesza “illness, nightmare” —originate in the primitive Slavic form enga, related, for instance, to the Old English inca “grudge, quarrel.” On the other hand the name of the chained and imprisoned demon Koschey signified in Old Russian, as well as its Turkic prototype koshci, simply prisoner. The intercourse and struggle of ancient Russia with the nomadic Turkic world bequeathed, in general, many names and attributes to the Russian tales.