Tag Archives: dracula

The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga

Arkane Curiosities

Picture a small thatched hut of warped boards, old rusty nails, and decaying thatch. Bizarre symbols and human skulls adorn the walls. You step too close and the hut rises up, perched atop gigantic chicken legs growing out of the foundation. This is the dancing hut of Baba Yaga, one of the most bizarre and bewildering sights in all of Slavic folklore.

The Dancing Hut

The Dancing Hut was originally a simple wooden cabin, built by Baba Yaga as a place to retreat and conduct her sorcery in solitude. Over time, however, the Hut began to take on a life of its own, growing in size and becoming increasingly twisted and malevolent. Perhaps, Baba Yaga cast a powerful enchantment on the Hut, imbuing it with a sinister sentience that allowed it to move and dance of its own accord.

Why chicken legs? Does Baba Yaga have a fondness for poultry? It might be a nod to the ancient Slavic tradition of using chicken feet in various magical rituals. Baba Yaga simply incorporated this imagery into the Hut as a symbol of her power.

One site mentions that Baba Yaga’s hut might not have always resided atop chicken legs (or курьи ножки meaning chicken bones). Instead it might have sat on smoked legs (курные). This is the practice of setting a house up on wooden struts saturated with smoke to avoid rot. This was common in the houses of the dead where Slavic people stored the ashes of their ancestors. 

Ditching the Broomstick

Baba Yaga didn’t use the conventional methods of flying like a broomstick or flying carpet. Picture, if you will, a gigantic wooden mortar, with a pestle as long as a tree trunk jutting out from one end. Baba Yaga sat in the hollowed-out bowl of the mortar, gripping the pestle like a joystick, cackling maniacally as she hurtled through the skies. Yes, you read that right. A mortar and pestle, the kind used for grinding herbs and spices in the kitchen.

She did incorporate a broom in flying. Not for the flying part, but to keep her peregrinations secret. The witch gripped a broom constructed of silver birch and swept away any traces of her passage. 

Be Warned

For those brave enough to seek out Baba Yaga and her dancing hut, the rewards can be great. The witch is known to possess great knowledge and power, and those who approach her with respect and humility may find themselves blessed with her gifts. 

But be warned: Baba Yaga is a creature of chaos and contradiction, and her dancing hut is but one facet of her strange and otherworldly existence. To encounter Baba Yaga is to embark on a journey that is both perilous and profound, a dance with the unknown that may lead to either enlightenment or destruction.

Tim Kane

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Flying Head Vampire: The Penanggalan

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In Malaysia the Penanggalan detaches its head, leaving its body behind as an empty husk. This flying head vampire seeks out pregnant women to drain their blood. In fact, “Penanggal” or “Penanggalan” in Malay literally means “to detach” or “to remove”. But it’s not just the head. The internal organs dangle below, twinkling like fireflies.

Invisible Tongues

The Penanggalan, who always appears as a woman, looks completely normal during the day. She’ll avoid eye contact and smell strongly of vinegar (a tool of the vampire trade). Typically, Penanggalans take jobs as midwives. 

At night, it twists its head off and soars through the air, intestines and organs dangling below it. The Penanggalan perches on the roof and waits for the woman to go into labor. Then it wriggles an invisible tongue into the house to drain the blood from the mother. 

Legend has it, the tongue can pass through walls or slither through floorboards to reach its victim. Alternately, it will entwine the victim in its long intestines. 

Vinegar Bath

Upon reaching home again, the Penanggalan takes a quick dip in a tub of vinegar. Why, you ask? The vinegar shrinks the organs so it can squirm back into the body suit and pretend to be a person again. 

Snag Those Intestines

Want to keep yourself safe from this horrific creature? Your best bet is to snag those dangling intestines. Often people will scatter thorny leaves on roof or windows. Additionally, they might plant a pineapple tree under their house (Malaysian houses are built on stilts).

Still want a little more protection? Slide a pair of scissors under your pillow.

Mess With the Body

If your intent is to stop the Penanggalan for good, you’ll need to track the vampire to its lair (possibly by following anyone with the strong scent of vinegar). When the head detaches for the nightly peregrinations, you go to work. 

Fill the empty body with shards of broken glass. Then, when the creature returns to crawl into its body, the glass will shred the vampire’s organs. 

If you simply want to mess with the Penanggalan, just flip the body over. These creatures don’t really understand how human bodies work. It will reattach backward. Then the head will be facing in the wrong direction (an easy way to spot the vampire). 

Tim Kane

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3 Weird Ways to Confuse a Vampire

Arkane Curiosities

If a vampire has you on their menu, you can reach for a stake or garlic. But another solution is to simply confuse the vampire. Through the years, people have surmised various weaknesses of these nocturnal bloodsuckers and come up with different ways to perplex them. A confused vampire is one that won’t be feasting on you.

Force the Vampire to Do Some Math

Many cultures contend that vampires are obsessive to the point of compulsion. They will count various objects, no matter how many, until the job is done. We can use this to our advantage.

Germans would scatter seeds (poppy, mustard, oat or carrot) around the grave of a suspected vampire. The undead was compelled to count all the seeds before leaving the grave to seek blood. Although this seems like a simple task, often the vampire found themselves delayed till daylight. The Kashubs of Poland believed a vampire could only count a single seed a year, thus keeping it busy for centuries. 

Knots could also delay a vampire. Nets were often buried with the deceased forcing the undead to untie all the knots.

A more macabre practice was to leave a dead cat or dog on your doorstep. In this case, the vampire must count all the hairs on the animal. Personally, I would opt for the seeds. 

Trick the Vampire with Poop

Never has the poop emoji been so powerful. No garlic or crucifix at hand? Just shove a bowl of excrement in the vampire’s face.

In Europe, vampires were thought to exit the grave through small holes (the size a serpent might make). In Bulgaria, they placed bowls of feces (or poison) right outside these holes. The vampire, it seems, is so famished that it will consume the first thing it comes across, devouring the bowl of excrement. 

Get the Vampire Drunk

A happy vampire is one that won’t invade your home. Sometimes a bottle of whiskey was left in the grave with the corpse. If the vampire became too drunk, it might not be able to find the home of its relatives, preventing it from feeding on you. 

In Romania, people would bury a bottle of wine with the corpse. After six weeks, they dug up the bottle and drank it, offering a form of protection from the strigoi (a Romanian vampire).

Tim Kane

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3 Weird Ways to Keep Vampires Away (Bread, Clocks, Salt)

Arkane Curiosities

We all know garlic is the go to deterrent for vampires. But the vampires know this too. What if you want a more offbeat or weird way to keep vampires away from your house.

There’s a history of smelly objects that repel the undead. The Saxon Neuntöter was afraid of the citrus strength of lemons. Likewise, the strong odor of tar would keep bloodsuckers away. People would smear it on their doors in the shape of a cross. 

Bake Some Blood Bread

The blood of the vampire is a potent liquid with many magical properties. A tradition in Poland is to bake bread using the blood of a suspected vampire. By eating this bread, you would be protected from vampire attacks. 

The Romanians took this practice to the extreme. They would chop up the whole vampire body, burn it to crisp, and mix the ashes with water or brandy. When the surviving family drank this liquid, it was supposed to keep them from succumbing to vampirism themselves. 

Think this is a forgotten tradition? The last documented case of corpse-ash drink was 2004!

Stop the Clock

The folklore of Germany and Great Britain command us to stop the clock when someone dies. This is in the days of mechanical clocks where the hands can be halted by halting the swing of the pendulum. 

The idea behind this tradition is to allow the soul of the deceased to move onto the next life. If the clock keeps ticking, you might invite the spirit to return to your house. Possibly as a ghost or even a blood sucking vampire. 

In Poland, the clocks are stopped to keep them from counting down the time for the deaths of the rest of the household. 

Use Plenty of Salt

During Medieval times, people used salt to preserve meats and the mineral took on magical properties. This started even before birth. 

Romanians believe that a woman who had a high salt diet will give birth to a healthy baby. On the other hand, women with low-salt intake were sure to produce a vampire. 

People would carry salt with them at night to ward off evil creatures. A bag of salt was even hung over a baby’s crib to protect it. And tossing salt over your shoulder…? That was so you can blind any creature trying to sneak up on you. 

Finally, you can sprinkle salt along your floorboard. In addition to the protective qualities of salt, a vampire would step in the salt and then leave a trail of the stuff back to its grave. 

Tim Kane

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3 Weird Ways to Stop a Vampire (Carpet, Hairpin, Lemon)

Arkane Curiosities

Vampires rise from the grave to bite our necks and gulp down our blood. Not a great situation if you’re on the punctured side of the equation. The best way to cope with these bloodsuckers is to make sure they never get out of their coffins in the first place.

Wrap the Vampire in a Carpet

In areas of Eastern Europe, people bound the knees (or sometimes even the whole body) of a suspected vampire with a rope. This prevented the corpse from clambering out of the grave. People would take this one step further, and wrap a rug around the bloodsucker to completely immobilize it. In Ireland, people would pile stones on the grave to keep the Dearg-dul (Irish vampire) from rising. 

In the case of the recently discovered vampire in Poland, the corpse had a padlock on her left big toe to symbolize that she would never rise again. Serbians took this one step further and cut off the toe of a Vlkoslak (a Serbian vampire).

Poke the Vampire with a Hairpin

Various sharp objects have been found in vampire graves, all meant to discourage the undead from leaving the grave. The discovery of a female skeleton buried with a sickle across her neck was not the first anti-vampire method. The idea with the sickle was to cut the head off if the vampire should rise.


Image credit: Miroslav Blicharski / Aleksander. Photograph:( Others )

Hairpins or thorns would also prevent a vampire from rising. These objects were inserted either under the tongue or in the navel. In Bulgaria they wrapped their version of a vampire (Krvoijac) with wild roses. The thorns of these were seen as a deterrent. 

When dug up, people noted that some corpses looked plumper than before (due to the swelling of the body after death). Pins or thorns were thought to keep the body from swelling.

Give the Vampire a Lemon

A certain German vampire called Neuntöter was afraid of lemons. Placing a lemon in its mouth when buried would keep the vampire in its grave (they would sometimes cut off the head between 11pm and midnight). 

The lemon has long been seen as a treatment for illness and poison. The ancient Romans used lemon juice to cure colds and fevers, while the Egyptians would drink the juice to protect against poison. Ancient Greeks claimed that eating lemons could help people survive being bitten by a poisonous snake.

Tim Kane

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