Wrukolakas

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The expression Wrykólakas ( Greek βρυκόλακας also Wrukólakas, Brukolák, masculine) denotes a vampire in Greek and Salentine popular beliefs . Originally of Slavic origin, it called a werewolf .

According to the Greek popular belief, a wicked way of life, excommunication , apostasy from the orthodox faith, burial in unconsecrated earth, but especially the consumption of meat from a sheep that was torn from a werewolf, led to a person becoming a wrykólakas after death. According to certain ideas, a killed werewolf turned into a powerful vampire, who takes over the fangs , hairy palms and glowing eyes of the werewolf. The Wrykólakas knocked on the front door at night and called the residents by name. If he didn't get an answer the first time, he passed by without doing any harm. Therefore, in certain areas, one answered knocking or calling only the second time. Wrykólaka victims themselves became vampires. Since such a bloodsucker became more and more powerful when he could go about his business unhindered, the suspicious corpse had to be finished off as quickly as possible. Traditional methods were the well-known staking , beheading , tearing out the heart with subsequent boiling in vinegar and burning the corpse. In the process, the victims afflicted by it were freed from the curse of undead existence .

In the Greek Orthodox rite it was customary to open the grave of a deceased after 40 days and, in the presence of the priest, to check whether the decay had progressed so far that a return of the dead as a vampire was no longer to be expected. However, if the decomposition did not appear to have started, the general belief was that the corpse was possessed by the devil and therefore had to be destroyed. Every dead person who could not be redeemed was considered incorruptible. It is often reported that the Orthodox Church exploited this popular belief to discourage believers from converting to Islam . The fear of not being redeemed dominated the people in the Balkans .

The strange confusion of terms is due to the adoption of the Slavic word "vurkudlak", which translates as "wolf's fur" and has meanwhile also taken on the meaning of "vampire" among Serbs and Macedonians , but sometimes also denotes the werewolf (Serbian: vukodlak). The background to this is the popular belief that is widespread across Europe that a person who harmed others in the form of a werewolf during his lifetime, remained unrecognized and was not punished, will return as a vampire after his death or will harm the living as a after-eater from the grave, unless appropriate measures are taken were taken to banish or destroy the monster. The original Greek word for werewolf was "kallikántsaros", while the term "lykanthropos" (literally: "wolf man"), often found in literature, only appeared in the language of scholars, for example among medical professionals. An ancient Greek term for vampire that dates from before the adoption of the Slavic word is not known, which has led to the assumption that the Greeks only adopted the vampire belief through contact with the immigrating Slavs. So far, all attempts to determine the different roots of the Greek vampire belief have not brought satisfactory results. In any case, it is not certain that other blood-sucking beings known to us from ancient mythology are to be seen as forerunners of the vampires, because they are demons ( lamias or empuses ) and not recurring dead, i.e. human beings . They therefore have a different mythical background, even if some of the attributes ascribed to them are fused with those of the vampires.

See also

literature

  • GF Abbott : Macedonian Folklore. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1903 (Reprint. Ibid 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-23342-2 ).
  • John Cuthbert Lawson : Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion. A Study in Survivals . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1910 (Reprint. Ibid. 2011, ISBN 978-1-107-67703-6 ).
  • Leopold Kretzenbacher : Kynokephale demons of southeast European folk poetry. Comparative studies on myths, legends, mask customs around Kynokephaloi, werewolves and South Slavic Pesoglavci (= contributions to knowledge of Southeast Europe and the Near East. Vol. 5, ZDB -ID 1072151-4 ). Trofenik, Munich 1968.
  • Bernhard Schmidt : The popular life of the modern Greeks and the Hellenic antiquity. Teubner, Leipzig 1871.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brucolachi Salento, Antonio De Ferraris. In: La Naturalizzazione d'Italia. February 11, 2019, accessed March 1, 2020 (it-IT).