Home · From the Carpathians
The folklore, the superstition and the true motifs beneath the Carpathian Chronicles. Every story here is researched — not horror for its own sake.
Available in Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Português and Română – including the language these legends come from.
The difference between the two undead figures.
The undead of the Carpathians — the root of the vampire myth.
What the Romanian word for ghosts means — and why a village stays silent.
The being that always stays in wolf form — never in human shape.
The night of 30 November: a garlic cross on the window — and stories told until cockcrow.
More than 500 inscribed skulls at Neamț Monastery.
When the bride is stolen at the wedding — a game with a serious origin.
For forty days the soul does not know it is dead.
Warding off the revenant: a sickle across the throat, a thorn in the mouth.
Why the dead can never be left alone on the first night.
Why the mirrors are veiled in a house of mourning.
When the graves are opened in the Carpathians.
Between Christmas and Boboteaza: the dead come to the table, the animals talk.
A compliment without the words, then headache and yawning – and what nine embers in water reveal.
Why you had better stay in bed at 3 a.m.
Three knocks after midnight — and why you don't open.
The superstition of never answering a voice at night.
A forest no one can explain, and a castle built to a dead woman's instructions.
A church spire above a poison-red lake – villages erased from the map by decree.
The castle was a customs post, the prince was never there — and Stoker never saw it.
The fortress that was really his — and the legend invented in 1973.
Corben Vale's Carpathian Chronicles tell exactly these kinds of stories — based on true events. The Village of the Hanged and Stafii are out in seven languages.
Subscribing to the newsletter comes with the free PDF “Thirteen True Customs of the Carpathians”.