SpiritHalloween

Ustrel

Another type of Bulgarian vampire, the ustrel is an infant who had been born on a Saturday and who had died before receiving baptism.

Nine days after burial, the ustrel claws its way out of its grave. It then finds a herd of cattle to satisfy its thirst for blood. It then returns to its grave. But on the next day it returns to the herd and never returns to its grave. It then resides in the horns or a bull or the hind legs of a milk cow. It feeds first on the fattest cattle and then works its way on down as the poor animals whither and die.

To get rid of an ustrel a vampire hunter called vampirdzija must perform the ritual of the need fire. On a Saturday morning, all the fires in the community are extinguished. Then two bone fires are created at a crossroads. The cattle are then led between the two fires. The ustrel drops onto the crossroads from the animal whose horns or hind legs it had inhabited when that animal passes between the two fires. The ustrel cannot leave the crossrroad and is eventually devoured by wolves.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , Comments Off

Tlahuelpuchi

Belief in the vampire Tlahuelpuchi (plural tlahuelpocmimi) is prominent in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, with deep roots amongst the indigenous Nahua culture of the region.

The tlahuelpuchi is a type of vampire or witch that lives with its human family. It is able to shapeshift and sucks the blood of infants at night. It has a kind of glowing aura when shape shifted.

Tlahuelpocmimi are born with their curse and cannot avoid it. They first learn of what they are sometime around puberty. Most tlahuelpuchi are female and the female tlahuelpuchi are more powerful than males.

The tlahuelpocmimi have a form of society. Typically they each have their own territories. They also have a pact with shamans and other supernatural creatures; a shaman won't turn in a suspected tlahuelpuchi. The typical sign that a victim was killed by the tlahuelpuchi are bruises on their upper body. The Tlahuelpuchi largely feeds on children, though it can kill others.

The tlahuelpuchi is similar to the nahual in that they both can shape shift into various animal forms. The nahual, however learns his craft and does not need to suck blood. Also the nahual looks like a natural animal when shapeshifted.

Tlahuelpocmimi are able to change form by detaching their body from their legs (which are left in the house of the witch). They then go hunting, usually in the form of some bird like a turkey or a vulture. The tlahuelpuchi has to perform a ritual before she can enter the house of a victim. The tlahuelpuchi must fly over the house in the shape of a cross from north to south, east to west. Coincidentally the shamans of the region cleanse the bodies of victims by uncrossing them. Victims also are given different burial rites.

Tlahuelpocmimi must feed at least once a month on blood or they die. Their victim of choice is an infant. There is no way to detect a tlahuelpuchi except by catching them in the act. Their family protects them out of shame and because if a family member is responsible for the death of a tlahuelpuchi the curse will be passed down to them. The curse cannot be lifted, and if a tlahuelpuchi is identified, they must be killed on the spot. Garlic, onions and metal repel the tlahuelpuchi. Often people report seeing glowing animals before a tlahuelpuchi attack. The tlahuelpuchi are able to avade capture by turning into an animal so small, like tick, that the glowing is not noticable.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , Comments Off

Succubus

In medieval legend, a succubus (plural succubi; from Latin succuba; "prostitute") is a female demon that seduces men (especially monks) in dreams to have sexual intercourse. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim. From mythology and fantasy, Lilith and the Lilin (Jewish), Lilitu (Sumerian) and Rusalka (Slavic) were succubi.

According to the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Witches' Hammer", succubi would collect semen from the men they slept with, which incubi would then use to impregnate women. Children so begotten were supposed to be more susceptible to the influence of demons.

Honoré de Balzac wrote a short story The Succubus [1] concerning a 1271 trial of a she-devil succubus in the guise of a woman, who amongst other things could use her hair to entangle victims.

From the 16th century, the carving of a succubus on the outside of an inn indicated that the establishment also operated as a brothel.

The appearance of succubi varies just about as much as that of demons in general; there is no single definitive depiction. However, they are almost universally depicted as alluring women with unearthly beauty, often with demonic batlike wings; occasionally, they will be given other demonic features (horns, a tail with a spaded tip, snakelike eyes, hooves, etc). Occasionally they appear simply as an attractive woman in dreams that the victim cannot seem to get off their mind. They lure males and in some cases, the male has seemed to fall "in love" with her. Even out of the dream she will not leave his mind. She will remain there slowly draining energy from him.

To this day the blame of nocturnal emissions and other sexual occurrences or mysteries are, in some cultures and circles, blamed on a demon of sins such as a succubus.

Experiences of apparent supernatural visitations at night can sometimes occur as effects of hypnagogia.

The succubus is a popular figure in modern fantasy fiction.

Mare was also a term for the sighing, suffocative panting, or an intercepted utterance, with a sense of pressure across the chest, which occurring during sleep. These symptoms were also thought to be an incubus (or succubus), a evil preternatural being causing nightmares and/or nocturnal emissions.

Succubi are often featured in fantasy fiction and role-playing games, and often shown with batlike wings and bikini clad. Succubi are often very prominent in the sexual aspects of fantasy fandoms and paraphilia.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , , , , Comments Off

Strix

Strix, also known as striges, are witches who transformed into screech owls at night and, in this form, preyed upon infants by drinking their blood and sometimes eating their internal organs as well.

  • The earliest recorded tale of the strix is from the lost Ornithologia of the Greek author Boio, which is partially preserved in Antoninus Liberalis's Metamorphoses. This tells the story of Polyphonte and her two sons Agrios and Oreios (their father being a wild bear), who were punished for their cannibalism, like Lycaon, by being transformed into wild animals. Polyphonte became a strix "that cries by night, without food or drink, with head below and tips of feet above, a harbinger of war and civil strife to men".
  • The first Latin allusion is in Plautus's Pseudolus dated to 191 BCE, in which a cook, describing the cuisine of his inferiors, compares its action to that of the disembowelling a hapless victim.
  • Horace, in his Epodes, makes the strix's magical properties clear: its feathers are an ingredient in a love potion. Seneca the Younger, in his Hercules Furens, shows the striges dwelling on the outskirts of Tartarus.
  • Ovid (Fasti, vi.101 ff.) tells the story of striges attacking the legendary king Procas in his cradle, and how they were warded off with arbutus and placated with the meat of pigs, as an explanation for the custom of eating beans and bacon on the Kalends of June.

The concept of the strix was nonetheless vague. The scientific Pliny, in his Natural History confesses little knowledge of them; he knows that their name was once used as a curse, but beyond that he can only aver that the tales of them nursing their young must be false, since no bird except the bat (at the time commonly and wrongly classified as a bird, with the exception of Aristotle who considered the bat as halfway between bird and land animal) suckled its children.

Roman poet Ovid, by the way, suggested three possible theories as to the origin of Striges. They were either:

  • born as striges
  • enchanged
  • hags put under a spell

The Synod of Rome, dated 743, outlawed offerings to Striges. In 744 "A list of Superstitions" drawn at the Council of Leptinnes renounced "all the works of the Demon and all the evil beings that are like them". Many laws were then passed forbidding belief in pagan spirits, punished sometimes (as in Saxony, back in 789) with execution.

In the Middle Ages striges were said to be servants of Satan and his demons.

The appearance and sound of the screech owl influenced Roman ideas of the blood-drinking strix. The strix or striga (pl. striges; occasionally corrupted to stirge) was an Ancient Roman legendary creature, usually described as a nocturnal bird of ill omen that fed on human flesh and blood, like a vampire. Unlike later vampires, it was not a revenant.

A strix is depicted as a blood-drinking bird, with huge talons, misshapen heads, breasts full of poisonous milk.

Striges were said to be very fond of livers and internal organs. They fly by night and no barriers may keep them out. A Strix could prey upon sleeping men (by turning into women and had sexual intercourse in order to suck their life-force off) and children (by offering them the poisoned milk).

Crane in Ovide's sprinkles the door way with "drugged" water and places a branch of hawthorn in the window. In much later European lore, hawthorn is often considered as effective as garlic for the purpose of warding away or confining the undead vampires and the best material for stakes to pound through their hearts.

The word has a Greek origin and means "owl", with which bird it is usually identified. The Latin feminine plural form of "stryx" is "striges". In the modern Italian language, "striga" has become a general word for "witch".

The association of Striges with screech owls gave rise to the term owl-blasted, meaning wasting-away spell cast upon a man. The term was popular in Britain through the 16th century.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , Comments Off

Strigoi

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

A strigoaica (singular feminine form), or Strigoica, is a witch. Strigoi are also known as "moroi" in some parts, especially rural areas. They are close relatives of the werewolves known as "pricolici" or "varcolac", the latter also meaning "goblin".

Strigoi have their origin in Romania, Transylvania included.

In Romanian mythology, strigoi (same form singular or plural) are the evil souls of the dead rising from the tombs (or living) that transform into an animal or phantomatic apparition during the night to haunt the countryside, troubling whoever it encounters.

According to Romanian mythology a strigoi has ginger hair, blue eyes and two hearts.

By Slovenian mythology a "štirga" is most likely a woman but there are exceptions when she is a male.

One of the ways for ending her powers is to expose her to public after witnessing her powers.

Folklore superstitions also says she can't be killed unless killed while she is feasting on the life-force of the prey.

Names are derived from striga, which in Romanian means "witch" or "barn owl", cognate with Italian strega, which means "witch", and descends from the Latin word strix, for a shrieking vampiric bird.

There are different types of strigoi:

strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after death.
They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort, who are dead vampires.

strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours. They are most often associated with vampires or zombies.
A person born with a caul (a veil of fetal membrane still attached to the head), tail, born out of wedlock, died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire. As was the seventh child of the same sex in a family, the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt or was looked at by a vampire, or a witch. And naturally, being bitten by vampire, meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death. Other people doomed to become a strigoi are:

unmarried people (their corpses should be stabbed in the hart with a sickle to protect their families).
corpses walked over by cats. To get rid of them, a wine bottle must be buried next to the grave, then six week later has to be exhumed and relatives and drank by relatives.
a person filled with pain and regret will turn into a cat or dog after death, then return as a strigoi. Piercing a body with a needle will prevent it from leaving the grave.
Strigoi are not necessarily evil though they are feared for their appearance bodes ill and they are omens of misfortune and sickness.

  • In most ways, the Romanian Strigoi Morti resemble the undead vampires found in other Eastern European countries. They were frequently blamed as the cause of death in cases of epidemics.
  • The Strigoi Vii join together in covens and meet with the Strigoi Morti on special Sabbath nights, such as the Eve of St. George April 22nd .

The Strigoi Viu is not a blood drinker, but its powers include what could be called psychic vampirism, as it can steal the vitality of his neighbours' crops and animals to enhance its own. Also, strigoi can leave its body at night in the form of an animal or a small spark of light that can be seen flying through the air. Sometimes it was said that a Strigoi Viu took animal form by stealing the form from the animal.

  • a remedy against a strigoi to leave its grave is to bury a bottle of whiskey with the corpse: the strigoi will drink it and not return home
  • Strigoi may be destroyed after exhuming their dormant bodies from the grave by such typical means as impaling them with a stake or by cremating them.
  • the Gypsy remedy to kill a strigoi is the following: dig up the corpse, remove its heart, cut it in two, then dig a nail in the forehead, place garlic under its tongue, smearing the body with the fat of a pig killed on St. Ignatius' day. Then placing the corpse face-down back in the coffin.
  • It was believed that if a strigo was not destroyed within seven years after burial, then on the seventh year it would no longer have to dwell in its own grave and could pass as a normal mortal human. According to one source, the strigoi also then loses his need to prey upon humans and, eventually, even animals. Like the Serbian vampire at such a stage, it would then depart to another region where it could not be recognized, marry, and have children But each week, from Friday night to Sunday morning, such a strigoi would either have to rest in a grave in a nearby cemetery or meet with the local strigoi for supernatural social activities. The children of such a vampire were all "living vampires", destined to become undead themselves.

A shapeshifting vampire in Romanian lore, either dead or living, as for the Strigoi.

The Strigoaica steals power from people and animals through psychic vampirism when alive, then returns as a vampire after her death.

The Strigoaica is famous for stealing the life-force of cows by sucking their milk, leaving the animal with none to give.

  • A story out of Romanian folklore tells about a strigoiaca who had no cow of her own so she was forced to keep a wooden one in her house.

She kept it there, filling it with the milk of cows owned by others.

  • Another tale, with Christian elements, narrates about the punishment waiting for the Strigoiaca, as one went to confession and told the priest she had taken powers from other people's cows.

The priest ordered her to take butter from the milk, then anoint a tree in the forest. Three days later she was supposed to go back to the tree to see what had happened. She did so and found that many kinds of creatures and snakes were in the butter. Then the priest told the Strigoiaca these creatures would suck her blood in the next world, because she had stolen so much power in this one.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , , , , , Comments Off

Soucouyant

Soucouyant, also known as Soucoyah, in Trinidad lore appears as an old woman who sheds her skin at night. The skinless phantom flies through the air, usually appearing as a ball of fire and sucks the blood from her victims.

This blood-sucking shapeshifter belongs to a class of evil spirits known as jumbies.

Thought to be an old woman, the Soucouyant is said to hide her skin under a stone mortar, the one she uses to grind her food.

Skins shed by the Soucouyant are very valuable in order to practice the Obeah magic.

If too much blood is drained, some theories say victims may die and become Soucoyant themselves.

Soucouyant may turn into a fire ball, then enters the house of victims though a hole or a keyhole.

It's still debatable whether the victim becomes a new Soucoyan or an existing Soucouyant possesses the dead victim's skin.

The Soucouyant must return to her skin by morning, hence possession of the skin by an Obeah gives control over the Soucouyant.

Soucouyants may be stopped by scattering rice or flour at the front of the doorway.

They will be forced to stop and count all the grains. As this can't possibly be achieved before dawn comes so the will lose their power.

A Soucouyant can be killed by visiting her place when she left her skin and sprinkling it with hot pepper, for she will burn to death once they try to put it back on.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , , Comments Off

Shtriga

In Albanian folklore a shtriga is a witch who preys upon infants by drinking their blood at night. But instead of transforming into an owl when she goes for her midnight snack, she is more apt to take the form of a flying insect.

The shtriga in Albanian mythology was a witch that would suck the spirtus vitaé, the living force, out of people at night while they slept, and would then turn into a flying insect.

Only the shtriga herself could cure those she had drained (often by spitting in their mouths), and those who were not cured inevitably sickened and died.

She preferred to drink from young children or even infants.

Traditionally there are several methods effective for defending oneself from shtriga, such as:

  • a cross made of bone placed at the entrance of a church on Easter Sunday, rendering any Shtriga inside unable to leave. They could then be captured and killed at the threshold as they vainly attempted to pass.
  • as after draining blood from a victim, the shtriga would generally go off into the woods and regurgitate it, it was believed that soaking a silver coin in that blood, then wrapping it in cloth, it would become an amulet offering permanent protection from any shtriga.

Even recently many Albanians regard the Shtriga as the most common cause of infant deaths.

The shtriga is related to other witch/vampires such as the Romanian strigoi and the Roman strix.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , Comments Off

Sasabonsam

The sasabonsam is a forest vampire which originates from the Ashanti people of Southern Ghana but is also found in Togo and the Ivory Coast.

Little is know about this creature outside of native folklore, which is prone to exaggeration and contradiction. The creature is described as about man sized with short, stubby arms, but has been reputed to have a wingspan of up to 20 feet. It is also often given iron teeth. Sasabonsams are rarely seen nowadays, but they were known to sit on treetops and catch unsuspecting passers-by to suck their blood.

Much like the kongamato, the sasabonsam may be a conflation of representatives from multiple baramins, combined with some Ashanti imagination. More research is definitely needed.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: Comments Off

Red Cap

A Red Cap or Redcap, also known as a powrie, is a type of malevolent murderous goblin found in Irish and Scottish folklore.

Aka : Fir Larrig, Dunters

An emaciated man with a leathery body and little or no hair, a Redcap carries a sharp wooden scythe or an iron pike to strike down all who invade the area he has decided to guard for the time being. The Red Cap he wears, and for which he was named, is said to be made of dried human skin, died in blood. He is very fast in spite of the heavy iron pike he wields and the iron-shod boots he wears.

They are border goblins and live solitary.

Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes, sometimes by pushing boulders off cliffs and on to them, staining their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name).

Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Outrunning the buck-toothed little daemons is quite impossible; the only way to escape one is to quote a passage from the Bible. They lose a tooth on hearing it, which they leave behind.

The Red Cap moves from place to place on a whim throughout the extreme lowlands of Scotland along the English border. He haunts the ruins of old castles and cairns which he guards with his life.

The most infamous redcap of all was Robin Redcap. As the familiar of Lord William de Soulis, Robin wreaked much harm and ruin in the lands of his master's dwelling, Hermitage Castle. Men were murdered, women cruelly abused, and dark arts were practiced. So much infamy and blasphemy was said to have been committed at Hermitage Castle that the great stone keep was thought to be sinking under a great weight of sin, as though the very ground wanted to hide it from the sight of God.

Yet Soulis, for all the evil he wrought, met a very horrible end: he was taken to the Nine Stane Rigg, a circle of stones hard by the castle, and there he was wrapped in lead and boiled to death in a great cauldron.

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , Comments Off

Rakshasa

A rakshasa (alternately, raksasa or rakshas) is a demon or unrighteous spirit in Hinduism. A female rakshasa is called a rakshasi, and a female rakshasa in human form is a manushya-rakshasi.

The Rakshasas have a great many epithets descriptive of their characters and actions. They are called Anusaras, Asaras, and Hanushas, 'killers or hurters;' Ishtipachas, 'stealers of offerings;' Sandhyabalas, 'strong in twilight;' Kshapatas, Naktancharas, Ratricharas, and Samanishadas, 'night-walkers;' Nrijagdas or Nrichakshas, 'cannibals;' Palalas, Paladas, Palankashas, Kravyads, 'carnivorous;' Asrapas, Asrikpas, Kaunapas, Kilalapas, and Raktapas, 'blood-drinkers;' Dandasukas, 'biters;' Praghasas, 'gluttons;' Malinamukhas, 'black-faced;' Karburas, etc. But many of these epithets are not reserved exclusively for Rakshasas.

They are not all equally bad, but have been classified as of three types: one as a set of beings like the Yakshas, another as a sort of Titans or enemies of the gods, and lastly, as blood-drinking ghouls which has become the most common use.

In the popular lore, rakshasas are demons and fiends who haunt cemeteries, disturb sacrifices, harass priests, possess and devour human beings, and vex and afflict mankind in all sorts of ways. They are said to drink blood and preferred to attack infants and pregnant women.

When they show up as monsters, they are usually described as yellow, green, or blue with vertical slits for eyes, large bellies, fangs and poisonous fingernails. They also stink because they feed on human flesh and spoiled food.

Rakshasas have the power to change their shape at will and appear as animals (large birds), as monsters, or in the case of the female demons, as beautiful women. Hanuman, during a visit to the rakshasas' home in Lanka, observed that the demons could come in any form imaginable. It is believed that many Rakshasa were particularly wicked humans in previous incarnations. They are most powerful in the evening, particularly during the dark period of the new moon, but they are dispelled by the rising sun.

They are descended, like Ravana himself, from the sage Pulastya. The Vishnu Purana also makes them descendants of Kasyapa and Khasa, a daughter of Daksha, through their son Rakshas. Other sources refer to the rakshasas as children of the Vedic goddess of death, Nirriti, and her consort Nirrita.

According to the Ramayana they sprang from Brahma's foot. When Brahma created the waters, he formed certain beings to guard them who were called Rakshasas (from the root raksh, to guard).

Posted in Vampires around the World Tags: , , , , , Comments Off
« Older Entries
Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More

  • Featured Video