Vrykolakas

In Greek folklore, there is a kind of undead called Vrykolakas (vorvolakas, vurdulakas, Greek. βρυκόλακας ή βρικόλακας, pronounced [vriˈkolakas]). In Crete, they can be called katakano.

The word comes from the Bulgarian vrkolak. The term has analogues in many other Slavic languages, e.g., Russian volkolak, Serbian vukodlak, Polish wilkołak, etc., and in Lithuanian (vilkolakis) and Romanian (vârcolac) borrowed from them. Interestingly, in Sanskrit, the word wolf is vṛka (pronounced vrika).

The term is a compound word derived from vâlk (vâlk)/vuk (vuk), "wolf" and dlaka, "(strand) of hair" (i.e. having hair, or fur, wolf), and originally meant "werewolf" (in the above languages this meaning has been preserved).

This word (in the form of "vukodlak") began to be used in the meaning of "vampire" in Western folklore Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro (while the term "vampire" is more common in Eastern Serbia and Bulgaria). These two concepts seem to have mixed up.

In Bulgaria, the general folklore, as a rule, describes the vrkolak as a subspecies of a vampire without any wolf features.

It is believed that the name of another kind of vampire — ghouls also came from a distorted common Slavic term in the Russian language.

In the story of the XVIII century. "Vrikolokas" Pitton de Tournefort, the author refers to the creatures as "werewolves" (loups-garous), which could also be translated as a beech.

The Greeks usually believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death for many reasons:

• because of the sacrilegious lifestyle,
• excommunications from the church,
• burials in unconsecrated ground,
• because a cat jumped over an unburied corpse
• the dead man ate the meat of a sheep wounded by a wolf or werewolf.

Some believed that a wolfman could become a vampire after death, and keep the wolf fangs, hairy palms and burning eyes that he had during his lifetime.

The body of the creature has the same distinctive features as the bodies of vampires in Balkan folklore: 

• they do not decompose, but swell and get fat from drinking blood, and may even become "like a drum",
• they are very big, have rosy cheeks, and, according to one story, "fresh and full of new blood."

In the old folklore of Serbia and the surrounding areas, red-haired, gray-eyed people were considered vampires.

Vrykolakas comes out of the grave and "wanders" around, can cause poltergeist phenomena, spread plague and pestilence.

Also, the creature knocks on the doors of houses and calls out the names of residents. Without receiving an answer, it leaves without causing any harm. If someone answers through the door, in a few days he will die and also become a vrykolakas. For this reason, even now in some Greek villages there is a superstition that one should not answer through the door until the second knock.

Legends also say that vriolakas crushes or strangles a sleeping person while sitting on them, just like mara or incubus (cf. sleep paralysis) — just like a vampire does in Bulgarian folklore.

If vrykolakas is left alone, he becomes more and more powerful.

Some believed that a wolfman could become a vampire after death, while he would retain wolf fangs, hairy palms and burning eyes. The bodies of such creatures do not decompose, swell and get fat, and also have rosy cheeks. It is capable of causing poltergeist phenomena, and spreading plague and pestilence.

Also, legends say that vriolakas crushes or strangles a sleeper while sitting on them.

Like many vampires, there is an obsessive desire to count, so grains or sand are often left on graves.

His body can only be destroyed on Saturday, the only day when vrykolakas lies in his grave (also, Bulgarian vampires). This can be done in various ways: exorcism, impaling, beheading, dismemberment and especially cremation of a suspected corpse, etc.

It is believed that vrikolakas cannot swim, so they were often buried on separate desert islands.