Bestiary · Slavic · Werewolf
Vovkulak
Also known as: vovkulak, vovkulaki, vukodlak, vukodlaci, vrkolak, vlkodlak, wilkołak, vavkalak, vilkacis
The Slavic werewolf, a sorcerer who turns himself, or a person he has bewitched, into a wolf; in the south he is also a vampire.
The Slavic werewolf has many names: Ukrainian vovkulak, Belarusian vavkalak, Polish wilkołak, Czech vlkodlak, Serbian vukodlak, Bulgarian vrkolak. Sorcerers and witches most often turn a newly married couple and their wedding party into wolves, using a magic knot: as many straps or strips of bast as there are people to be turned, whispered over with spells. Werewolves suck the milk of cows and bring murrain on cattle, and the Serbs and Bulgarians believe that the vukodlak rises after death as a vampire. Afanasyev links the werewolf to the storm wolves of myth that swallow the sun and the moon, and the vrkolak of Carniola does just that in an eclipse.