According to Albanian folklore, a shtriga was a vampire-like witch who was said to suck the blood of infant children while they slept, and then turn into a flying insect. - Pad of Definitions, Official WebsiteContents |
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This shtriga prefers to feed on the life force, the spiritus vitae, of children, but can also take from adults. In Something Wicked, the shtriga was feeding on children in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin roughly 17 years previously. It broke into a hotel room and was feeding on little Sammy, only to be interrupted by young Dean. John Winchester had been hunting it, and tracked it back to the motel the boys were staying out, arriving to shoot at the shtriga to run it off. It managed to loose the hunter and moved onto a new hunting ground.
Posing as Dr. Hydecker, a pediatric doctor, in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, this same shtriga sets up it's new hunting ground. It is able to attack four children. It attacks Mary Tarnower, with the next night attacking her younger sister Bethany. Dean and Sam from the CDC show up at the hospital asking questions, and in his guise of Dr. Hydecker, he answers questions, throwing them off-track.
That night it attacks Asher. Dean is in Asher's hospital room, claiming to Dr. Hydecker they were working on a few leads. That night it goes back for Asher's older brother Michael. However, Dean and Sam Winchester discover that Dr. Hydecker is the shtriga and set up a trap for him using Michael. When they came into Michael's room with guns blazing and interrupted it's feeding, the shtriga pretending to be dead for a bit. Catching Dean off-guard, it throws him away. He then smashes Sam into the wall and on the bed, where he could hold him down. Forcing his mouth open, he begins to feed off the life energy from him until the other one interrupts his feeding, shooting him in the head.
After it's dead, Dean shoots him several more times, releasing the life energy. Asher and all the children recover.
Figure of Albanian mythology. The Alb. word shtrigë, def. shtriga 'witch,' is derived via Slavic from Lat. striga 'witch' and is related to Ital. strega, Slovenian štriga 'witch,' Dalmatian streghe, Rom. strigoiǎ 'ghost, vampire,' Arom. ştriglǎ, and Mod. Gk. στρίγγα 'witch.' Though any woman, young or old, can be found to be a shtriga, they are usaully ugly old hags who live in hidden places in the forest and have supernatural powers. Their rarer male counterparts are called shtrig or shtrigan 'wizard.' If a woman's hair turns white when she is twenty, this is a sure sign that she is a shtriga. They love to eat human beings, especially young boys and anyone they happen to dislike. The shtrigas of a village will often plot to eat one another's sons. When they fall asleep at night, their souls wander off, leaving their lifeless bodies in bed. On the night before Ash Wednesday, they fly down their victim's chimney and drink his blood, whereupon the victim dies. A sick or emaciated person in Albania is thus called a "witch's plant," Alb. bimë strigash. If you catch the shtriga in time, you can save the victim's life by forcing the shtriga to spit in his mouth. Shtrigas will also gouge out a young man's heart and fry it for dinner. When they return to their own bodies, they enter them through the mouths. Should someone have turned the bodies over in their absence, the shtrigas will cause great commotion in their attempt to get back in. Equally, if you turn a sleeping woman around so that her head is where her feet were, and then wake her up, she will die on the spot if she is a shtriga because the spirit cannot find its way back to her body.
In Albanian folklore the shtriga is a vampire witch which sucks the blood of infants during the night. After she has had her fill, she would then turn into a small flying insect (typically a moth, bee or fly) and make her escape.
She would also sometimes take adult victims by sucking out their 'spirtus vitaé', the living force, while they slept. However she preferred to drink from infants and young children as their force was stronger.
On a rare occasion, the shtriga would cure those she had drained by spitting in their mouths. The children who remain uncured will get extremely sick, go into comas, and then ultimately die. The Albanian shtriga was typically seen as a woman who lived in secret within the community. A common telltale sign was that of a young girl whose hair was turning white. Other people believe that the Shtriga is a flying demon who would only attack at night.
There were ways to catch and expose a shtriga. The easiest way was to wait until the community gathered in a church. A person would then nail a cross made out of pig bone to the door of the church. When the people left the church, the shtriga would be unable to pass through the door, thus trapping her inside the church.
Another way was to follow a suspected Shtriga and see if she vomited up the blood of her victims. It was also said that if you soak a silver coin in this blood and wear it wrapped in a cloth around your neck, you will have permanent protection from any shtriga.
It is often said that an iron wrought round may kill a shtriga but only when the shtriga is eating.
The shtriga is related to other witch/vampires such as the Romanian strigoi, Polish strzyga and the Roman strix.
The shtriga can shapeshift itself to look like any normal human. It takes on the form of a wrinkled old hag when it goes to feed. It also has long, thin fingers. As it is feeding, a white light can be seen coming from it's mouth. When it touches something made of wood, the wood rots in the shape of the handprint.