Strigoi

**Strigoi** (singular also **strigoi**) are the troubled spirits of the dead rising from the grave. Some strigoi can be living people with certain magical properties. Some of the properties of the strigoi include: the ability to transform into an animal, invisibility, and the propensity to drain the vitality of victims via blood loss. Strigoi are the myth behind the modern Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The encyclopedist Dimitrie Cantemir and the folklorist Teodor Burada in his book *Datinile Poporului român la înmormântări* published in 1882 refer to cases of strigoism. The strigoi can be a living man, born under certain conditions:

* Be the seventh child of the same sex in a family;
* Lead a life of sin
* Die without being married…
	+ …by execution for perjury
	+ …by suicide
	+ …having been cursed by a witch.

According to Ionna Andreesco, in his book *Where are the vampires?* published in 1997, children born with a caul atop their head will become strigoi to their death.

A common cause of illnesses, the strigoi is a ghastly creature that likely gave birth to both the vampire and the werewolf. This undead monster can shapeshift into any animal, turn invisible, and has a insatiable thirst for blood. Getting the family together, digging up the coffin of the deceased, cutting its heart out, and afterwards burning the  remains, mixed his ashes with water, and drinking it. This is the way to destroy a strigoi. Villagers tend to stake the recently deceased through the navel for good measure.

Strigoi in Romania and beyond are described as having many supernatural and mystical attributes and powers such as: Super Strength, Super Speed, Super Senses, Weather Manipulation, Shapeshifting, Immortality, Invisibility, Immunity to Sunlight, and Spell Casting.

If the deceased has red hair, he is very concerned that he was back in the form of dog, frog, flea or bedbug, and that it enters into houses at night to suck the blood of beautiful young girls. So it is prudent to nail the coffin heavily, or, better yet, a stake through the chest of the corpse.

There is a known method used by the Roma people to get rid of a strigoi:

1. Exhume the strigoi.
2. Remove its heart and cut it in two.
3. Drive a nail in its forehead.
4. Place a clove of garlic under its tongue.
5. Smear its body with fat of a pig killed on St. Ignatius' Day.
6. Turn its body face down so that if the strigoi were ever to wake up it would be headed to the afterlife.

## Variations

A *strigoaică* (singular feminine form) is a witch.

The *strigoi viu* ('living strigoi') is a kind of sorcerer. According to Adrian Cremene, in his book *Mythology of the vampire in Romania*, the living strigoi steals the wealth of farmers, that is to say, wheat and milk. But it can also stop the rain, drop hail and give death to men and cattle.

The *strigoi mort* ('dead strigoi') is much more dangerous. Its nature is ambiguous, both human and demonic. He emerges from his grave, returns to his family and behaves as in his lifetime, while weakening his relatives until they die in their turn.

## Etymology

The word is generally thought to originate in the Ancient Greco-Roman concept of the *strix* (Late Latin *striga*, Greek στρίγξ), which denoted either a witch or a type of ill-omened nocturnal flying creature or a hybrid of the two that was said to crave human flesh and blood, particularly of infants.

The name *strigoi* is related to the Romanian verb *a striga*, which in Romanian means "to scream". Virtually all authorities derive it directly from the Latin terms *strix* and *striga*,[14]the root of which relates particularly to owls and commonly appears in related taxonomic terms for them as well as for blood parasites such as the *Strigeidida*. Cognates are found throughout the Romance languages, such as the Italian word *strega* or the Venetian word *strìga* which mean "witch". In French, *stryge* means a bird-woman who sucks the blood of children. Jules Verne used the term "stryges" in Chapter II of his novel *The Castle of the Carpathians*, published in 1892. The Greek word *Strix* and the Albanian word *shtriga*are also cognate.