Types of Vampires: Strigoii, Strigoi Part 1
The Strigoii or also spelt Strigoi are one of my favorite types of Vampires to write about or discuss aside from one more which I won’t reveal just yet. They are the most popular and common species of Romania and believe it or not, have been the foundation for the imagination of many writers and their novels. There are two types of Strigoii, living and dead. We will be discussing both.
Males are called Strigoii, Strigoi which come from the Latin word Strix. (Striges–plural) These types of vampires can change or Shape-shift into a flying mammal. (Now we know how Dracula turns into a bat. Is it possible that he was a Strigoii?)
Dead Strigoii were those who died unforgiven of something, sins but usually by parents. Those who died before they wed were also high candidates to become Strigoii. If a cat walked over a dead body or the person died filled with pain or having regrets, they to became Strigoii. Precautions had to be taken which are as thick and heavy of a list as ways to become one. But you could bet your bottom dollar a priest would have to be involved, some form of decapitation and cremation.
If the name Strigoii is referred to someone who is living then it would mean that person was a witch, wizard and or made this their means of employment. Funny enough, much of what I have read on these creatures, it seems that some lore suggests that the living Strigoii were a good thing. In fact, they could use their magic to protect humans, particularly children, from being harmed by a dead Strigoii. But every source has its own meaning or version. In some, a living Strigoi was a witch who did favors for a dead Strigoii by way of magic and sooner or later, would become Vampire for their services.
In Romania, a female is called a Strigoica or Strigoaica. She can be either dead or living. If she is living then she is a witch, can shape-shift and has great power. During life, she takes power from anything having life so when she dies, she then turns into a dead Vampire. Priests often warned women to harness this ability they easily had or else after life, they would be severely punished for it by becoming a vampire.
The stories seem rather silly but it seems these women (living) were obsessed with milk and cows. They would suck all the milk from these cows so that no one else had any.
In one story, a Strigoica had no cow of her own so she got herself a wooden one. With her magic she would milk this wooden cow and the milk from everyone else’s cow would magically come through hers. She was so obsessed with milking her wooden cow that neighbors started to complain to the local priest. He investigated the matter and found the woman milking her wooden cow morning, noon and night. So the priest had the girl make butter from the milk she had bewitched from the wooden creature. He then told her to go out into the forest one morning and throw the butter on a tree.
“In three days,” he told her, “Go back to that tree and tell me what you find.”
She did what the old priest said and in three days was horrified by what she found. When she returned to the tree she saw different kinds of serpents and all kinds of horrible creatures slithering around and eating up the butter. When she ran back to the priest, frightened nearly to death, he warned her what would happen if she continued her naughty ways. “If you keep stealing the life from this world then those creatures will suck your blood for all eternity in the next!.” He warned. And that seemed warning and moral enough to frighten many a congregation.
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Something even more interesting in these stories is that Vampires, Evil Witches, Werewolves or whatever else that went bump in the night, were not forced to return to their graves at dawn but rather at 3 am in the morning.
So those of you who awake at 3 am each night for no reason in your beds…are you returning to your mortal bodies which just might be the form of your graves in this life? (Insert Vincent Price evil laughter here—Muahahahahahahaha!)
Who knew this particuliar Vampire would be so popular that we would need a …
Types of Vampires: Strigoii, Strigoi Part 2 <—- Click for it!
hi, your information is wrong, I’m from Romania and I know lots of things about those creatures.
My messenger: myky93@hotmail.com, and i will explain you!
June 19, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Really Myky? Please share what was wrong with the corrected version so my readers can have even more info. That’s always a good thing here.
As for my source, though, I have never been to Romania so I had to use The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, And Other Monsters by Guiley.
June 19, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Very nice post. I thought to let you know thuat you website wasn’tt getting displayed properly on opera mini web browser on my pda.
Have a nice time…sorry for typing mistake
November 30, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Well I’m from Romania and I never hear of ‘Strigoica’. Yes tey are male and female but we call them ‘Strigoi’. Anyway. Very interesting. Dracula actually ‘was’ a vampire not Strigoi. And when a men died and it was supposed to be a Strigoi they would have stake him in the heart or drew their hearts. I know. Stupid people.
June 25, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Awesome feedback Bianca. It was feedback like that, that i had to do a second article on the Strigoi. It amazes me, really, how our literature paints a different picture of the Strigoi than what they actually are or are believed to be in Romania. Our books list them as Vampires when that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. I wonder if it was wrongful translations of superstitions and so forth that put the confusion out there. Anyway, thanks for posting. With Myky’s help, I did a part two, to this.
June 26, 2010 at 11:23 am
hey. first of all excuse my bad english. i am frome romania so here are a few other things you should mension about strigoi. first the name strigoi its a singular form strigoii is the plural. so allways use the corect forme depending on what you want to say. also the meaning of the word strigoi ise more or less unknown evan to us but you can translate it something like thise strigoi = someone who yels werey loud . it comes frome the word strigat wich in romanian means shout (loud).
also in the general belife evan today especialy in the country sides the strigoi are mostley dead people that fore a reason or another couldent travel in the after life. posibly lost souls with unfinished business or people that got murdered. the strigoi are allways creatures of the night. they rase frome the dead and each night come to haunt the people. fore the female strigoi. well strigoaice ise today a no longer accepted gramatical form . its like the word doctor. there ise no feminin equvalent fore it.but still in the country sides you can still heare the word. they are no diferent frome the male. maybe you got a little confused there maybe you wanted to write about the “ielele” . those were basicly like sucubuse. if you have seen the movie dracula you must remember the thre vampire chics. they are inspired frome the iele. like in the movie they are supossed to seduce man and suck there life. idk if in a sexual way lol( sorry i couldent resist sleeping that joke in). evan today againe the people that leave in the country side celebrate a night each year fore these women. but they baisicly celebrate by standing wach so they dont come..ok i deviated frome the subject. a few years ago people frome a village in romania reported strange things hapening in there village at night. right before the events started a man died. so the people exhumated the body. they decapitated if i recall corectly took the hurt out burnned it after they poot the ushes in water and they drank’d it.so the fear of the strigoi is real evan to thise day.well to the owner of the site if you need more info contact me. by the way i live in transilvanya in brasov. cool city come and visit. also google castelu bran. and also i want to take advantage and say that other people that translate the name dracula never reserched it corectly. dracula comes frome the word drac wich means literaly devil.ok thanks and sorry fore my bad english againe and keep up the good work.
August 27, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Thanks so much Dracu! When I update the article, can I quote you?
September 15, 2010 at 9:55 am
Hi. Fantastic article. I have one question though. What are Moroi? If like the plural word is Strigoii then what about Moroi? Will a group of Moroi been Moroii?
May 3, 2012 at 4:17 am