Reminds you of that quest in Witcher 3
I wouldn't have thought it was a Germanic belief (rather than Russian)
Did you know Iceland had N I T H I N G P O L E S ?
It's a pole with a dead animals had at the end, used to curse enemies in the Germanic pagan tradition. In Iceland, this practice has survived from the time of the settlement until the modern era. Contemporary examples include the following:
>In Iceland there are modern examples of a nithing pole being raised. It is thought that the tradition has continued unbroken since the settlement of Iceland. A notable example from 2006 happened when a farmer in Bíldudalur, claiming direct descent from Egill Skallagrímsson, raised a pole with a calf's head attached against another local man with a note attached to the effect that he would not rest until the man was either outlawed or dead. The reason the nithing pole was raised was that the man had run over the former's puppy. The matter was reported to the police as a death threat.
>Improvised nithing poles with dried cod heads were used during the April 4, 2016 demonstration against Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.
>On April 3, 2020, a nithing pole with two svið was put up in front of Alþingi in Iceland. A sign on the pole cited that the government has been treating working classes that are predominantly female poorly, for example, lowering the pay of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pole claimed to turn that around on Alþingi with the curse.
Btw, a svið is a sheep's head. You can buy them in basically every Icelandic supermarket.
