Murraue

(MUR-row)

Historically, the land between Germany and Poland was once called Pomerania, and it is from there that the vampiric spirit known as a murraue originates. Essentially, the murraue is an ALP, a species of vampire that is common in this region of the world. However, the murraue has several small, unique aspects that warrant it to be recognized as its own species of vampire, if not a subspecies of ALP or INCUBUS or SUCCUBUS.

If a child is born on a Sunday, it will have a predisposition to becoming a murraue when it eventually dies. Another indicator is when a person's eyebrows are grown together.

Sometimes the needles of a pine tree curve as they grow and form what looks to be something like a small bird's nest. When it rains, water will gather in amongst the needles, and if a person should walk underneath one of these mock nests and a drop of its water falls on the person's head, they have been marked to be the next victim of the murraue.

The murraue comes at night when it is dark and its victim is asleep. It starts its assault by causing fear in the person and asserting pressure on their feet. Then, it moves up their body, toward the stomach and on up to the chest, and eventually to their head, paralyzing the whole body. Then it will straddle the person and "RIDE" them, draining their sexual energy (see ENERGY VAMPIRE).

If before someone is paralyzed he can call out the name of the person who the murraue was in life, it will immediately flee. Also, exposing it to light will harm, if not kill, it, as it is very susceptible to sunlight.

Source: Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, 1697; Meyer, Mythologie der Germanen, 131; Thorpe, Northern Mythology, 154 ­55