Drekavac
It often seems graveyards and cemeteries are some of the most fertile ground for the stranger creatures in this world (if you believe any of this at all). For example, you have the Church Grim, ghosts of the deceased, and the remnants of untold rituals. You can also add the drekavac, a common creature with stories found among Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, and in Montegerian and North Macedonian peoples. What is it, and why does it make these dour places its home?
Now, oral tradition being what it is, drekavac is a very widespread and varied feature of folklore, and what it is depends on who is telling the story. For the sake of consistency, we will not focus on stories where drekavac is basically another name for a vampire but look at it as a distinct creature. Some believe it is a creature of its own, however, some stories claim that the drekavac is what happens to a soul that dies before it is baptized. Additionally, if it is said to be the soul of the person it will haunt and cause misery to anyone who mistreated them during life.
In particular, stories of the drekavac are most popular in the more rural areas of the world. In fact, in some villages older people still claim to know the specific locations and graves haunted by them, and will remind you to avoid them after dark. If you see a burrow, hole, or cave in a graveyard or cemetery, be sure to walk the other way.
Some folk tales describe drekavac as an undead, decaying man who rises out of the grave during nighttime to haunt people. In other versions, it takes the form of an undead child, who was unbaptized and returned to haunt its parents. In Eastern Serbia, the creature has been depicted as a humanoid canine creature that walks on its back legs. It was popularly believed that drekavac was visible only at night, especially during the twelve days of Christmas and in early spring when other demons and mythical creatures were believed to be more active during the change of seasons.
Similar to the banshee one thing, despite its changing physical descriptions, that is consistent among all drekavac tales is its piercing howl. It is said to scare men more than the howling of wolves and if you're unlucky enough to hear it...you may want to start running.
Interestingly, when the drekavac assumes the form of a child (which it does from time to time), it is believed to predict someone’s imminent illness or death. If the shadow of drekavac falls upon some person, then that person will turn sick and die.
Kat S, one of our amazing mods on the Facebook group, also underscores the importance of the story of Mita and the drekavac, which is a story she heard from her family:
Mita was a poor fisherman's young son, but despite that, he was the only one in his village going to school. At school, he kept hearing the other children talk about a drekavac and decided to go down to the river marshlands on his own in a canoe to find it. But, the drekavac wasn't in its typical fearsome form, it was in the form of a bird which he cleverly caught He then took it to the city, where he learned more about what kind of bird it was. It turns out it was quite a rare bird and he somehow manages to save his village from the terrors of the drekavac and save the form of the bird.
Kat also notes that this was often used to scare Slavic children, like herself, and it did!
While drekavac do not seem to be overly aggressive and more serve as a warning or even prophecy, there are some tales of the drekavac jumping on people’s backs and trying to drown them or otherwise kill them. While there aren’t any tried-and-true methods of protecting yourself against a drekavac (because the stories of them attacking are somewhat rare)...it seems that running back home or to civilization in some way can scare it off.
Though most people no longer believe in these creatures, they are an essential part of the region’s cultural history that cannot be erased. Drekavac has left an indelible mark on society.
Thanks to @UncannyLassie for this blogstonishing suggestion!
Illustration d'un Drekavac via Midjourney. This file is in the public domain because it is the work of a computer algorithm or artificial intelligence and does not contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim.
