Inside the Legend: Something Wicked

 

SOMETHING WICKED
“Albanian, but legends about ‘em date back to date back to Ancient Rome”

The Shtriga is an Albanian vampirelike witch who is often believed to take on the form of an elderly woman. The Shtriga preyed upon infants by drinking their blood. “They feed on Spiro Vitae, Latin, translates into meaning ‘breath of life’ Like your life- force or essence.” The Shtriga is also believed to the cause of adult mortalities and diseases. The word Shtriga is derived from the Latin word Strix, ‘screech owl’, which refers to flying demons that only attack at night. At night the Shtriga can change into a moth, fly, or bee. Belief in the Shtrigas continued to exist up until the early 20th century. Most of what we know about Shtriga is from two written works by Edith Durham who traveled through Albania and other Balkan countries.

SAFELY SPOTTING AND SLAYING A SHTRIGA
“We’re going to kill this thing. I want it dead.”

One way to create a charm to protect against the Shtriga is to follow a Shtriga in her natural human form at night. Eventually she will vomit some of the blood she had drank from her victims. According to the belief, if you scrape up some of this vomit onto a silver coin, wrap the coin in cloth, and wear it always, no Shtriga can harm you.

The Shtriga usually lives incognito in a community. It was generally hard to identify her, however, a telltale sign was a young girl's hair turning white. She even goes to church for the regular services. She could be detected during such a service by passing out bread spiced with garlic. A Shtriga will always refuse to eat anything containing garlic. The second way is to place a cross of pig bone on the doors of the church after everyone in the community has gathered inside. Everyone but a Shtriga will be able to leave the church through these doors.

SCIENCE OF THE SHTRIGA
“Doc said the kids’ bodies are wearing out”

Infant mortalities may actually not be the cause of a Shtriga, but of a mother’s over protective instincts. Late as the twentieth century, the Shtriga was blamed for otherwise unexplained infant deaths. In America, we refer to these deaths as “crib death” or “sudden infant death syndrome” (“SIDS”). These mothers, who believed that they were protecting their infants from a Shtriga, were actually “suffocating” the child under the weight of the numerous blankets; causing them to grow pale and sick from a lack of fresh air and sunshine. Dr. Edith Durham reported that she tried to persuade some mothers to reverse this, but they could not be persuaded to depart from tradition.