Accounts present Bysen as a local forest spirit of Gotland and as a liminal figure bound up with property boundaries. Some sources liken Bysen to the Norwegian Deildegast: deceased people who cheated others by moving boundary markers and are condemned after death to walk the faulty border, moving the sticks while mumbling. Thus variants treat Bysen either as a nature-associated, gnome-like woodland being or as a punished human soul whose restless existence is tied to a crime involving land markers.
Descriptions vary: Bysen is often called gnome-like and is said to appear as either a tree stump or an insignificant, little, grey man. He is reported to carry an axe and is sometimes described as wearing a red woven cap.
Bysen is credited with mischief and interference in the forest economy: he attracts people and causes them to become lost, meddles with foresters by delaying transports and tipping loads of timber over, and is broadly 'accused of all sorts of mischief.' If Bysen 'catches sight of you where you are in the forest,' he is said to enchant your vision so that you cannot find him again. In boundary-related variants, condemned Bysen walk borders moving markers while mumbling 'This is right, this is wrong.' One account associates him with long-term forestry work, carrying an axe and cutting down Gotland's forest slowly (sometimes described as one tree per century).
Weaknesses
- ritualfollow and restore boundary markers
- conditionbeing seen then disoriented (countered by turning a garment crooked)
Wards
- ritualmove wrongly placed sticks to correct positions
- conditionturn a garment crooked (restores enchanted vision)
Buso
A capacious Bagobo category for malevolent non-human beings in Mindanao animistic belief; buso are implicated in disease, death, and consumption of flesh and are managed through offerings, avoidance, and local ritual practice. The term covers many named types (tigbanua, mantianak, karokung, etc.) rather than a single mythic personality.
Butes
Boutes (Ancient Greek: Βούτης, Boútēs, literally 'herdsman') is a personal name applied to several distinct figures in Greek mythology — mortal princes, Argonauts, warriors, and local cult-heroes — rather than a single supernatural species. Bearers of the name appear across multiple heroic cycles and locales, notably an Athenian priest-hero, an Argonaut rescued by Aphrodite, and a Thracian punished by Dionysus.
Button-Bright
Button-Bright is a fictional boy created by L. Frank Baum who appears as a recurring secondary protagonist in several Oz books. He is portrayed as an absent-minded, wandering child who participates in journeys around the Emerald City and its neighbouring lands rather than as a supernatural being.
Buttons (pantomime)
Buttons is a stock theatrical character in British and Australian Cinderella pantomimes, typically a male household servant who helps Cinderella, expresses affection for her, and provides comic and emotional engagement with the audience. The role is conventional to stage pantomime practice rather than a supernatural being.
Buzi
Buzi (Hebrew: בּוּזִי, Būzī) is attested in Hebrew sources as the father of the prophet Ezekiel and identified as a priest of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 1:3). The name derives from the Hebrew Buz (בּוּז), which can mean 'despise' or indicate descent from Buz son of Nahor; later traditions sometimes read the name thematically rather than ascribing further biographical detail.
Byggvir
Byggvir is a minor named attendant of the Vanir god Freyr attested in the Old Norse poem Lokasenna (prose introduction and stanzas 55–56). Scholarly commentary commonly reads him as an agricultural personification linked to barley or to mill-refuse (chaff), though the primary texts give only sparse narrative detail.
Byssa
Byssa (Ancient Greek: Βύσσα, Bússa) is a woman of Meropis on the island of Kos in Greek myth who, according to surviving summaries of a myth preserved in metamorphosis compilations, refused to honor Artemis, Athena, and Hermes and was punished by being transformed into a bird.
Byōbunozoki
A Japanese yōkai recorded in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, described as a creature that peers at a person from the outside of a folding screen (byōbu), literally a 'folding-screen peeper.' The entry is primarily a literary/visual bestiary motif rather than a detailed folkloric tradition.
Bà Chúa Xứ (Lady of the Realm)
Bà Chúa Xứ, also called Chúa Xứ Thánh Mẫu, is a localized tutelary and prosperity goddess in Vietnamese folk religion centered at Vĩnh Tế village at the foot of Sam Mountain, An Giang province. She is worshipped as a protector of business, health, and the Vietnamese border and attracts pilgrimages and a major three-day festival beginning on the 23rd day of the fourth lunar month.
Bà mụ
In Vietnamese mythology, the Bà mụ are twelve deities revered for teaching infants important skills and traits. (Note: - Power tier should be Ancient, not Primordial (deity-level abilities described) - Abilities description supported by source material, but could be expanded upon - Sensory cues are missing; add that B)
Báigǔ Jīng
The White Bone Demon of Journey to the West — a skeletal demoness who shapeshifts into innocent humans three times to attempt to capture and devour the monk Tripitaka.
Bârmân (بارمان)
Bârmân is a Turanian hero and commander in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh who fights in the Great War of Iran and Turan during the reign of Nowzar. In the epic he kills the Iranian Qobád and is later slain by the Iranian warrior Qaran; he is represented in Safavid illustrated Shahnameh folios as a recognizable martial figure.
Community Record
- [1]Bysen — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Bysen' entrywiki
- [2]Bysen — Wikidata. Wikidata item Q5004520other