Home · Legends & Customs · Pricolici – the werewolf-vampire of the Carpathians
Between werewolf and vampire: the Romanian creature that never sheds its wolf face.
A shadow slips around the village at night, too large for an ordinary wolf, silent on four paws. The old women of the Carpathians have a name for it: pricolici. Unlike the strigoi, it never keeps its human face — it stays animal until dawn breaks.
Tradition gives two paths: as a child put back to the breast after weaning — a breach of the natural order the old people made you pay for dearly. Or as a violent, malicious man who returns in wolf form after death to carry on his old life. Even today, some villagers blame unusually large, aggressive wolves in the Carpathians on this superstition.
Folklorists agree: the terms pricolici, strigoi and vârcolac were never cleanly separated in the Carpathians. The pricolici always wears wolf form; the strigoi remains human in appearance. The vârcolac, in turn, is regarded in many regions as its own being that devours the sun and moon and so explains eclipses — sometimes imagined as a goblin-like spirit instead. On the night of Saint Andrew, November 30, tradition holds that strigoi, moroi and pricolici are at their most powerful. Even today, some families hang garlic on doors and windows because of it. No pricolici appears in the Carpathian Chronicles, but its model does: in hard winters the wolves come down to the farmyards and into the gardens, and the narrator of “The Village of the Hanged” once saw one in his own garden in the middle of the afternoon.
The pricolici, too, is more than an invention for book covers. The American folklorist Rosemary Guiley included it in her 2004 Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters. As early as 1888, Emily Gerard mentioned Romanian werewolf beliefs alongside those of the vampire in The Land Beyond the Forest – one chapter is titled "Vampires and Were-wolves." And the belief is not only history: to this day, residents of rural Romania report unusually large, solitary-hunting wolves that behave differently from ordinary pack animals – for some, a sign that no ordinary animal was abroad.
A being from Romanian folklore between werewolf and vampire — unlike the strigoi, it always stays in wolf form.
Either as a child put back to the breast after weaning, or as a violent person who returns in wolf form after death.
The pricolici always wears wolf form, while the vârcolac is regarded in many regions as its own being that devours the sun and moon — the line between the two has historically been blurred.
On November 30, tradition holds it is especially powerful alongside strigoi and moroi — which is why some families still hang garlic on doors and windows.
The undead of the Carpathians — the root of the vampire myth.
The difference between the two undead figures.
A church spire above a poison-red lake – villages erased from the map by decree.
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”.
The difference between the two undead figures.
What the Romanian word for ghosts means — and why a village stays silent.
Warding off the revenant: a sickle across the throat, a thorn in the mouth.
A forest no one can explain, and a castle built to a dead woman's instructions.