Tradition: Mansi Mythology, Russian Mythology
Alternative Names: Anshikh Sisva Pyalt; Anshikh Sisva Pyalta; The Old Man as Long as a Hare
Category: Dwarf
The Myth
Anshikh Sisva Pyalta is a strange dwarf with incredibly long ears that trail behind him along the ground. He also has a harelip, giving him a peculiar and unsettling appearance.
In the Mansi fairy tale The Son with the Deer Ear, a woman hears someone at the door and finds the little old man standing outside. He has already stepped onto the seventh floor of the house, yet his enormous ears are still lying across the threshold. The Old Man as Long as a Hare sits down at the table, grabs his ears, and throws them onto the bench beside him.
He whispers that the creature is an unclean spirit and asks what kind of being he is. The old man then stretches out one of his ears, telling her to look at its length. He grabs a sharp tooth and sinks it into the upper part of his ear. The ear stretches even farther, reaching two-thirds of the way across the room. He pulls the other ear toward him in the same manner, making it stretch in the opposite direction.
The old man then swallows his head, ears and all, and kicks his legs up from beneath his enormous ears. He jumps and leaps about, shouting and dancing. The strings begin to sound like singing spring birds, while the woman’s head spins and the old man carries her away in a dance.
Sources
“Anshhih Sisva Pjalt.” New Bestiary (Bestiary.us). Accessed October 4, 2026.
https://www.bestiary.us/anshhih-sisva-pjalt