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The vrykolakas (Greek βρυκόλακας pronounced "vree-KO-la-kahss", IPA [vri'kolakas]), variant vorvolakas, is a monster in modern Greek folklore. It has similarities to many different legendary creatures. For example, it is like a ghost, in that it is a haunting spirit of the dead. Legends also say it crushes or suffocates the sleeping by sitting on them, much like a mara or incubus (cf. sleep paralysis). The vrykolakas also has many affinities with the werewolf, but most sources equate it with the vampire.

The Greeks traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, an excommunication, or a burial in unconsecrated gound, but especially by eating the meat of a sheep which had been wounded by a werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed, and would retain the wolf-like fangs, hairy palms, and glowing eyes it formerly possessed. The very word vrykolakas comes from the Bulgarian word върколак "(vŭrkolak)" meaning "werewolf" (which is also the origin of the Romanian vârcolac - a fabulous creature that feeds off the Sun and Moon).

The vrykolakas knocks on the doors of houses and calls out the name of the residents. If it gets no reply the first time, it will pass without causing any harm. If someone does answer the door, he or she will die a few days later and become another vrykolakas. For this reason, there is a superstition present in certain Greek villages that one should not answer a door until the second knock.

Since this creature becomes more and more powerful if left alone, legends state that one should impale, behead, and cremate a suspected body as soon as possible, so that the it may be freed from living death and its victims may be safe.

The traditional tales of the vrykolakas are only vaguely similar to those of the vampire, but the two have long been equated. It has become normal, in translating vampire movies and the like into Greek, to translate "vampire" as "vrykolakas". Presumably Modern Greeks raised on Hollywood vampire movies would be just as likely, if not more so, to think of Dracula, instead of the traditional Greek monster, when a vrykolakas is mentioned.

One of the few instances of the vrykolakas or vorvolaka being used in popular art and media is in the film Isle of the Dead, starring horror icon Boris Karloff. The film, directed by Mark Robson and produced by legendary horror producer Val Lewton, centres around a group of people on a small island, whose lives are threatened by a force that some believe to be the plague, and others believe to be the work of a vorvolaka.

External links

bg:Върколак de:Wrukolakas fr:Vrykolakas la:Brycolax