Abstract

Information is given about the narratives about the "petrified woman" and the "sacrilegious dancer" that have firmly penetrated into modern religious reality. The story under consideration in a more or less developed form first appears as a rumor in the late 1880s of the IXX century, then reappears in 1895-1896, 1919, and is updated with a new force in the late 1950s in connection with a resonant story from the Kuibyshev region about Zoya's standing (Stone Zoya). Oral and written forms of this new Christian legend were introduced to the territory of Belarus for the second time in the late 1950s with letters of happiness and apocryphal texts about "Zoya's Life". Distinctive features of local texts about a woman turned to stone are given, Parallels are drawn with traditional views of Belarusians on punishment for work on a holiday and the biblical story about Lot's wife. It is emphasized that due to geographical remoteness, the connection of the narrative under consideration with the "original" story of Zoya's standing, not to mention the predecessor texts, has undergone significant reduction, and the miracle itself has practically lost its specific localization here.