Drekavac
Encyclopedia
Drekavac (literally "the screamer"), also called drek and drekalo 'дрекавац' in Serbian is a mythical creature in south Slavic mythology
.
s of children who have died unbaptised
.
The creature is not consistently described. One description is that its body is dappled, elongated and thin as a spindle
, with disproportionately large head; yet another is that it is some kind of bird
; a modern find of supposed drekavac body looked like a dog
or a fox
, but with hind legs similar to those of kangaroo
. It may also appear in the form of a child and call for people passing near the cemetery to baptise it. The one feature everyone agrees about is its horrifying yell.
Drekavac could be seen at night, especially during the twelve days of Christmas
(called unbaptised days in Serbian
) and in early spring
, in time where other demons appear most often. In the form of the child it predicts someone's death
, but in the form of the animal, it predicts cattle disease. Drekavac rarely bothers its parents, as it is afraid of dogs.
Drekavac is often used as a child
scare, in a similar way a banshee
is in the West
. It is probably more useful than banshees in rural
areas, as children surely sometimes hear a sound of some animal and attribute it to drekavac, thus convinced it really exists; which would then probably prevent them from wandering far from home. In the cities, however, belief in it has faded, and Baba Roga, which more closely resembles western bogeyman, is much more used.
report seeing it, and almost everyone reports hearing it. In 1992, it was reported that in the Krvavicka River the villagers found remains of an animal unlike any known, and claimed it was a drekavac. It looked like a dog
or fox
, but with hind legs similar to a kangaroo
. A more recent encounter is from 2003, in the village of Tometino Polje near Divcibare
. A series of attacks on sheep took place, not unlike those in other parts of the world attributed to chupacabras, and some villagers concluded that they must have been perpetrated by a drekavac. Others think it could not have been a drekavac because they have only heard the yells during the night, and the sheep were mutilated during the day. In September 2011 a horrifying yell and unverified encounters with strange creature, claimed to be drekavac, were reported in villages around Drvar
in western Bosnia.
. An example is a short story by Branko Ćopić
Brave Mita and drekavac from the pond in which superstitious
fishermen hear yells in the pond they fish in and, believing they hear a drekavac, stop fishing, which leads to hunger in the village. The protagonist
, a courageous village boy named Mita, investigates and captures the drekavac, which turns out to be a Great Bittern
, a bird very rare for the area. Drekavac is also mentioned in Ćopić's book Eagles Fly Early. A more recent and much more popular example comes from the movie Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
where (lack of) belief in the drekavac is present in one of the central points of the movie:
Drekavac is rarely depicted in video and roleplaying games. An exception is the Magic: The Gathering
card from the Dissension set
. Serbian trading card game Izvori Magije has numerous cards of drekavac type, one of them named Drekavac iz Vira (meaning "Drekavac from the whirlpool"). This creature is described as: Big-headed and with long thin necks, drekavacs often jump out of whirpools to attack people who are returning home from watermills.
Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation.The religion possesses many common traits with other religions descended from the Proto-Indo-European religion....
.
Original beliefs
Drekavac come from the soulSoul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s of children who have died unbaptised
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
.
The creature is not consistently described. One description is that its body is dappled, elongated and thin as a spindle
Spindle (textiles)
A spindle is a wooden spike used for spinning wool, flax, hemp, cotton, and other fibres into thread. It is commonly weighted at either the bottom middle or top, most commonly by a circular or spherical object called a whorl, and may also have a hook, groove or notch, though spindles without...
, with disproportionately large head; yet another is that it is some kind of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
; a modern find of supposed drekavac body looked like a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
or a fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, but with hind legs similar to those of kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
. It may also appear in the form of a child and call for people passing near the cemetery to baptise it. The one feature everyone agrees about is its horrifying yell.
Drekavac could be seen at night, especially during the twelve days of Christmas
Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas are the festive days beginning Christmas Day . This period is also known as Christmastide and Twelvetide. The Twelfth Night of Christmas is always on the evening of 5 January, but the Twelfth Day can either precede or follow the Twelfth Night according to which...
(called unbaptised days in Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
) and in early spring
Spring (season)
Spring is one of the four temperate seasons, the transition period between winter and summer. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and broadly to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth. The specific definition of the exact timing of "spring" varies according to local climate, cultures and...
, in time where other demons appear most often. In the form of the child it predicts someone's death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
, but in the form of the animal, it predicts cattle disease. Drekavac rarely bothers its parents, as it is afraid of dogs.
Drekavac is often used as a child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
scare, in a similar way a banshee
Banshee
The banshee , from the Irish bean sí is a feminine spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld....
is in the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. It is probably more useful than banshees in rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas, as children surely sometimes hear a sound of some animal and attribute it to drekavac, thus convinced it really exists; which would then probably prevent them from wandering far from home. In the cities, however, belief in it has faded, and Baba Roga, which more closely resembles western bogeyman, is much more used.
Other believed attributes
- Some believe that there are variant types of Drekavac (different regions having different breeds). Consistently though, its size is said to be one meter or more (on four legs), but never less. According to some stories Drekavac can live in packs, in caves and tunnels.
- Generally it is believed that Drekavac can not be killed or pass on until its soulSoulA soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
finds its peace (or through baptism).
- In some parts of Serbia and Balkans it is believed that one must first have a dream about Drekavac to actually encounter one. Also Drekavac can strangle people while they are sleeping, if they did something bad to it in life.
- It is believed that when a Drekavac screams all night long someone from the house that heard it will die.
- Also, it is believed that if the shadow of Drekavac falls upon some person that that person will turn sick and die.
- In some places it is believed that Drekavac's cry is due to his long fur, on which it steps often, and then yells in pain.
- It is also believed that the Drekavac are afraid of light to some extent
- Drekavac likes to move in areas that are covered in fog, according to folk tales.
- While the word "Drekavac" can mean "the yeller", a more correct meaning is "one that cries while yelling" taken from verb "drečati" (commonly means to cry like a baby). This is due to belief that Drekavac is a soul of unbaptised child.
Similar creatures
- BukavacBukavacBukavac is a demonic mythical creature in Serbian mythology; belief about it existed in Srem.Bukavac was sometimes imagined as a six-legged monster with gnarled horns. He lives in lakes and big pools, coming out of the water during the night making big noise , jumping onto people and animals and...
, recorded in Srem, a six-legged monster with gnarled hornHorn (anatomy)A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae...
s that lives in water, coming out of it during the night to make big noises, and strangle people and animals. - Jaud (jaud), similar to drekavac, from a vampirised premature baby.
- MylingMylingIn Scandinavian folklore, Mylings are the phantasmal incarnations of the souls of unbaptized children that had been forced to roam the earth until they could persuade someone to bury them properly.-Lore:The myling is said to chase lone wanderers at night and jump on their backs, demanding to be...
- Nav, the soul of dead child that died before its third age.
- Nekrštenac
- Plakavac, recorded in HerzegovinaHerzegovinaHerzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...
, is a small vampire, a newborn strangled by its mother, which will rise from its grave at night, return to its house and scream around it, but otherwise can't do any harm. - Svirac
Modern sightings
Though the creature is used as a scare tactic for children, there are adults who do believe in its existence. According to the guide of a reporter of Duga magazine, numerous villagers on the mountain of ZlatiborZlatibor
Zlatibor is a mountain region situated in the western part of Serbia, a part of the Dinaric Alps.The mountain range spreads over an area of 300 km², 27 miles in length, southeast to northwest, and up to 23 miles in width. The highest peak is Tornik at 1496 m...
report seeing it, and almost everyone reports hearing it. In 1992, it was reported that in the Krvavicka River the villagers found remains of an animal unlike any known, and claimed it was a drekavac. It looked like a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
or fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, but with hind legs similar to a kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
. A more recent encounter is from 2003, in the village of Tometino Polje near Divcibare
Divcibare
Divčibare is a mountain resort situated on the mountain Maljen in western Serbia, south-east of Valjevo, at the altitude of 980 metres above sea level...
. A series of attacks on sheep took place, not unlike those in other parts of the world attributed to chupacabras, and some villagers concluded that they must have been perpetrated by a drekavac. Others think it could not have been a drekavac because they have only heard the yells during the night, and the sheep were mutilated during the day. In September 2011 a horrifying yell and unverified encounters with strange creature, claimed to be drekavac, were reported in villages around Drvar
Drvar
Drvar is a town and municipality in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, located on the road between Bosansko Grahovo and Bosanski Petrovac, also near Glamoč. It is administratively part of Canton 10 of the Federation....
in western Bosnia.
In fiction
Belief in Drekavac is sometimes described in modern fictionFiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
. An example is a short story by Branko Ćopić
Branko Copic
Branko Ćopić was Yugoslav writer. He was an ethnic Serb born in the village of Hašani near Bosanska Krupa. He attended schools in Bihać, Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Karlovac before moving to Belgrade to study philosophy at the University of Belgrade until his graduation in 1940.Upon the uprising in...
Brave Mita and drekavac from the pond in which superstitious
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
fishermen hear yells in the pond they fish in and, believing they hear a drekavac, stop fishing, which leads to hunger in the village. The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, a courageous village boy named Mita, investigates and captures the drekavac, which turns out to be a Great Bittern
Great Bittern
The Eurasian Bittern or Great Bittern is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies.-Etymology:...
, a bird very rare for the area. Drekavac is also mentioned in Ćopić's book Eagles Fly Early. A more recent and much more popular example comes from the movie Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame is a 1996 Yugoslavian film directed by Srđan Dragojević that gave uniquely bleak yet darkly humorous account of the Bosnian War.It is considered a modern classic of Serbian cinema...
where (lack of) belief in the drekavac is present in one of the central points of the movie:
- Halil (Bosnian Muslim): "Who torched my house?"
- Milan (Bosnian Serb): "And who slaughtered my mother?"
- Halil: "I haven't slaughtered your mother."
- Milan: "And I haven't torched your house."
- Halil: "Then who did, Kurac? Maybe it was drekavac from the tunnel?"
Drekavac is rarely depicted in video and roleplaying games. An exception is the Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
card from the Dissension set
Dissension (Magic: The Gathering)
Dissension is the 60th Magic: The Gathering set, 38th expert level set, and the third and final set in the Ravnica Block, released on May 5, 2006.-Design:...
. Serbian trading card game Izvori Magije has numerous cards of drekavac type, one of them named Drekavac iz Vira (meaning "Drekavac from the whirlpool"). This creature is described as: Big-headed and with long thin necks, drekavacs often jump out of whirpools to attack people who are returning home from watermills.