Among the Bulgarians and Sloyakians the were-wolf is called vrkolak, a name resembling that given it by the…
- Date of account
- Published 1865
- Source
- The Book of Were-Wolves
- Reference
- The Book of Were-Wolves · selected passage 66
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Among the Bulgarians and Sloyakians the were-wolf is called vrkolak, a name resembling that given it by the modern Greeks {Greek brúkolakas}
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyAmong the Bulgarians and Sloyakians the were-wolf is called _vrkolak_, a name resembling that given it by the modern Greeks {Greek _brúkolakas_}. The Greek were-wolf is closely related to the vampire. The lycanthropist falls into a cataleptic trance, during which his soul leaves his body, enters that of a wolf and ravens for blood. On the return of the soul, the body is exhausted and aches as though it had been put through violent exercise. After death lycanthropists become vampires. They are believed to frequent battlefields in wolf or hyæna shapes, and to suck the breath from dying soldiers, or to enter houses and steal the infants from their cradles.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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