- Strzyga
A strzyga IPA2|'stʂɨga is a kind of
vampire in Slavic (and especially Polish) folklore. While still alive, the strzyga has two hearts and two souls, as well as two sets of teeth (one of which grows in normally). When such a person dies, only one soul gets passed on, and the other soul causes the deceased "strzyga" to come alive and prey upon other living beings. Decapitating the corpse and burying the head separate from the rest of the body is said to prevent "strzyga" from rising back from the dead; burying the body face down with asickle around its head is said to work as well.A common version of this belief says that a "strzyga" is an undead newborn child. Any child born dead was believed to become one if certain precautions (like those mentioned in the previous paragraph) were not met. Those undead little creatures would stalk forests at night and attack night-time travellers and people who simply wander off into the woods at night, eating out their insides.
Probably, the Italian word: "strega" (witch) comes from slavic languages as a distortion of "strzyga".
ource
[http://www.geocities.com/mabcosmic/polish/pspirits.html Polish Supernatural Spirits. By Margi]
ee also
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Polish mythology
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