Stool
The Aufhocker ( Low German Huckup , Sorbian Bubak ) is a goblin-like pressure spirit in mythology who jumps on the shoulders or back of hikers who are still on the move at night and becomes heavier with every step.
The hiker is paralyzed, suffers from anxiety and is unable to turn around. The stool remains seated on the hiker until he is released from him by the breaking light, a prayer or the ringing of bells ( Friedrich Ranke ).
The nightmarish experience of squatting often takes place in three phases. The wanderer is first spoken to or accompanied by an eerie being, then the demonic companion grows to supernatural size and finally he jumps on his victim's back.
Typical haunted places such as streams, bridges, lakes, forests, ditches, crossroads, ravines , cemeteries and sites of murder or execution are the usual places for an encounter with the stool, which leads to physical and mental illnesses and sometimes even death for the hiker can.
Sometimes the boobers first appear as pathetic old women; but they can also take on animal forms such as dogs, bears or werewolf . Even elementals as Aquarians or wisps act as aufhocker. The decisive factor is not the shape of the stool, but the oppressive nature of the situation. A stool in the shape of an old man has also come down to us from the oriental fairy tale collection Thousand and One Nights , in which he meets " Sinbad the Navigator" on a lonely island.
However, the belief in the stool has its origins in the fear of the revenant , the undead . The earliest reports of stoolers clearly speak of "corpses cuckling up" and not of goblins or ghosts. In contrast to the after-eater , who did not have to leave his grave if he wanted to harm the living, other undead climbed out like the vampires and robbed the people of their vitality. This could be done sensually and specifically by sucking off blood, but also in a more abstract form. As recent studies show, this also applies to vampires, who in the oldest reports are said to have a damaging effect through "gagging" and "wasting", but not through sucking blood . In the west of Germany, the stool merges with the werewolf to Stüpp , a dangerous monster who jumps on people and lets themselves be carried around until the victim dies of exhaustion.
literature
- Norbert Borrmann: Lexicon of monsters, ghosts and demons . Lexikon-Imprint-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-88059-998-X
- Gerda Grober-Glück: Sit up and sit up according to the collections of the Atlas of German Folklore . In: Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde , Volume 15-16 / 1965, Pages 117-143
- Leander Petzoldt : Small lexicon of demons and elementals . 3. Edition. Munich 2003, pages 27-29, ISBN 3-406-49451-X
- Peter Kremer: Where horror lurks. Bloodsuckers and headless horsemen, werewolves and revenants at Inde, Erft and Rur , Düren PeKaDe-Vlg. 2003 ISBN 3-929928-01-9
- Peter Kremer: Dracula's cousins. On the trail of the vampire belief in Germany , self-published, Düren 2006 (2nd, extended edition)
- Friedrich Ranke: Volkssagenforschung , Stuttgart 1935 (with basic article on "Huckup" and on the psychomedical explanation of the "sit-up experience")
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Düren's Hackestüpp is such a stunner , who initially accompanies his victims as a playful dog, then jumps on their backs, can no longer be shaken off and becomes heavier with each step.
- ↑ The Bahkauv ("Bach calf") is a legendary figure from Aachen who is supposed to frighten drunk men at night and to ask them to carry them on their shoulders.