Description

The Evil Spirit Hill is a place, where berry pickers and mushroom pickers have always been getting lost and walkers get confused right at the outset. The Rauda forest often is the venue for orienteering competitions, and all the athletes are aware that in the area of the Evil Spirit Hill, compasses are unreliable with the arrow dancing about like crazy; orienteering runners cannot detect the control points and run past them. Records made on journalists’ dictaphones in this area are ruined by noise interferences. If you follow the trail indications, you will not get lost!

Ancestral beliefs not to get lost:

• If you keep getting lost, swap your shoes: out your left shoe on your right foot and vice versa — then you will find the way.
• When you are hopelessly lost and can’t find your bearings, then bend forwards as low as possible, until you can look backwards through your legs. This way, you start understanding which way is the north, the east, the south and the west.
• When you lose your way, lie down on the ground, close your eyes, and turn your legs towards where your head was.
• If you get confused about your whereabouts in a forest, you should turn your scarf or hat backwards, and then you are sure to find the way.
• When you are lost, say the Lord’s prayer backwards three times to find the right way.

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You can read about the stories of werewolves in Kurzeme in the book "Werewolf Tales of Kurzeme" by the theologian Ralph Kokin, but the stories recorded here - in the Raudas Forest, can be read here.