Stryge

The stryges or striges (of the Greek strigx , “night-bird”), are demon S winged females, semi-women semi-birds, who push piercing cries. They appear as of the Antiquité in the Roman belief (the first texts relating to the subject indeed were written in Latin and seem to refer to an old popular belief).

The stryges are caught some primarily with the newborns, either that they suck their blood, or that they remove them their hooked greenhouses… They for that are often confused with the Vampire S. They are also associated with the cemeteries. According to Pline, they poisoned the children with their milk.

The word “strige” was also used as insult in the Roman world.

The Carna goddess, who took care on the hinges of the doors of the houses, had as a function to draw aside these monsters thanks to magic incantations.

The Saxons were convinced that the stryges ate or sucked the blood of alive and to preserve some, it had at all costs to be burned the stryges that they had surprised and to eat the flesh of it.

Among Arabic, the stryge takes the name of Goule (or ghole ) and was repait of the corrupted flesh of the corpses.

In the literature and the History

Ovide, with book IV of the Records written:

“ There exist voracious birds, with the enormous head, the fixed eyes, the nozzle sharpened for the plunder: their feathers are white and their hooked greenhouses. It is said that they tear the entrails of those which still nourished only milk and which they like with enivrer of their blood. They are named stryges because of the sinister cry of which they terrify the night. ”

Pétrone in its Satiricon the watch concealing the corpses of the young men and the substitute by mannequins of straw:

“ Striges had stolen the child and had put at his place a puppet of straw. ”

Pline Old the, in its Natural history describes a popular belief:

“ I indeed regard as a fable what one says of Striges: that they milk the milk of their udders between the lips of the children. Strige is an already old insult, but I then to determine which is this bird ”

In addition, a Salic law going back to the 4th century and allotted to an ancestor of Clovis indicates that:

“ If somebody treated with high voice a woman of stryge or prostitute without being able to prove it, it will be condemned to a fine of 2500 sums of money… If a stryge devoured a man and that she is convinced by it, she will be condemned to pay the 8000 last. ”

Charlemagne, Christian who did not believe in the spirits malefic, condemned to death, in its capitulary, the Saxons which had made burn people, men or women, shown to be stryges.

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