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Paper short abstract

Polish demonology constitutes an alternative ontology in which non-human beings are woven into everyday life. The existence of demons shapes rituals, work and morality, mediating between nature, culture and the Other – undermining the category of the “supernatural”.

Paper long abstract

Polish folk demonology has long been described in terms of ‘beliefs in supernatural beings.’ Such an approach, rooted in a naturalist conception of science, flattens the perspective of tradition-bearers themselves. In the rural folklore, demons did not function as entities from another world but as integral elements of the everyday experience, an important factor shaping agricultural practices, protective rituals, social relations and ways of interpreting illnesses or misfortunes.

This paper examines Polish demonological narratives from the 19th and early 20th centuries, approaching them as forms of knowledge about the world and its order. The analysis focuses on the ways in which these narratives organise experience – for example, by explaining the boundaries between day and night, domestic and wild space, community and the Other. Demonological beings can be read as mediators of everyday life: they comment on work, gender and morality, while also serving as tools for interpreting what escapes human control.

In line with the critique of the category of the ‘supernatural’, I propose reading Polish folk demonology as a system of alternative ontology, in which non-human beings are not ‘beyond nature’ but rather extend what is human and natural. Such a perspective allows us to interpret relationships with demons not as traces of irrationality but as a resource for reflection on the world, its boundaries and rules.