An invitation to the dead
This week, The Mythologist travels to Romania to uncover the horrifying reason why we seek refuge from vampires inside our homes
Our homes are sacred places. Safe places within which we seek sanctuary from the evils of the world beyond. There’s a rush of calm that falls over your body as you enter your house at night, closing and locking the door behind you. This is your domain and in here you are safe from monsters. But what happens when you’re the one that invites the monsters in?
Since Bram Stoker wrote his infamous novel Dracula in 1897, a key rule one must abide by in order to obtain protection, if protection is even possible, from vampires is to ensure to never invite them into your home. But where did this tradition begin?
Like much of modern vampirism, it stretches back to Eastern Europe and, in particular, to Romania. Romanian folklore is bursting with creatures that stalk the mountains and streets of the historic country in search of prey but few are as insidious as the Strigoi. Thought to be the ancient precursors to the modern vampire, the strigoi were bloodthirsty creatures who, it is said, feasted on children.
Like vampires, though, the strigoi needed an invitation before they could be allowed into their potential victims home. In one particular folktale, it is said that a strigoi disguised themselves as a nursing maid before knocking on the door of a pregnant woman in labour. The strigoi would help the woman to give birth before leaving to bring the tired mother something to eat. Upon returning it would ask; “Do you want to eat living meat or dead meat?”
As the story goes, the mother then noticed that the nursing maid had goats hoofs hidden beneath her shawl and a long tail. Horrified, the mother rallied the townsfolk to help her kill the creature only for it to return with the meat it had promised. The strigoi held aloft a small coffin, a child’s coffin and inside, the corpse of the woman’s child.
The strigoi, like much of Romanian folklore, has become entwined with our understanding of the modern vampire. Their lust for blood and predilection for hunting during the shades of night are two particularly vicious traits modern vampires have inherited from the mythic forebears. It goes without saying, of course, maybe think twice before extending an invite to that mysterious person knocking on your door late at night.
