inkyami: Kriksa (derived from rus. крик (krik) - scream) aka nochnitsa (derived from rus. ночь (noch
inkyami: Kriksa (derived from rus. крик (krik) - scream) aka nochnitsa (derived from rus. ночь (noch’) - night) — is an evil spirit in west-slavic mythology. It is believed that kriksa appears from a transformed soul of a witch, in case if she died childless. Apart from the image of long-armed woman in black, nochnitsa could turn into a bat, a worm or any kind of nocturnal birds. Their main trait is to crawl into a house at night and torture the children in various ways, which resulted in cries, insomnia and nightmares. To protect their children from nochnitsas, mothers avoided carrying a child out of the house after the sunset, washing diaper sheets in a water that stayed in a tub for a night and to rock an empty cradle. -- source link
#nochnitsa#kriksa#malevolent spirits#nightime spirits#slavic mythology#mythology