[tied] Re: Vampire

From: Abdullah Konushevci
Message: 25605
Date: 2003-09-07

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> 07-09-03 02:25, cristi mindrut wrote:
>
> > about the following:
> >> ... There are
> >> also other kinds of non-dead guys (merely kinds of ghosts) from
> >> which the most vampire-like word could be "strigoi" (still
Slavic).
>
> > "strigoi", i would relate it with the verb "a striga", in
romanian,
> > meaning "to shout/to scream",
>
> It's most likely a loan from Latin (<strix, strigis> 'barn owl'),
> imported into Slavic perhaps via tha Balkans. As far as I know,
strigas
> occur especially in Slovene and West Slavic folklore. In Poland, a
> <strzyga> was a feminine blood-sucking or flesh-eating night demon,
> transforming herself into an owl to fly from place to place. An
> unbaptised baby who died could turn into one (especially if born
with
> teeth). Strigas were eliminated like vampires -- by burning, or by
> driving stakes or blessed nails through their bodies. The masculine
> counterpart <strzygon'> is to all practical purposes a synonym of
the
> vampire.
>
> Piotr
************
Even I think that <strix> is a loan from Greek <strings> (cf.
Divkovich, Latinsko-hrvatski rjecnik, Zagreb,1900, pp. 1012), I think
that you have right that it was imported via Balkans, about which
testifies also its plural form strigoi. It is also present in
Albanian as: shtrig, -u (masculine) (pl. shtrigje), shtrigan
(masculine) and shtriga (feminine)'id.'.

Konushevci