Volkodlak

Keeping my distance,
sitting calmly outside
in the dark
on the porch
alone,
picking at my nails
running fingers through my hair
fighting an urge to eat
when I heard again
through the window
the story,
our old myth
told in the small, stuffy kitchen
a few sitting around the wobbly table
others leaning against the dated wallpaper

Teta, wrinkled, small,
with a slight five-o-clock shadow
commanded the room
breathed the legend out
in wispy stutters

     ...Her voice merges with my thoughts,
     there is no difference
     but for my perspective
     having lived and heard the myth
     since my birth...

Our people, descended from the
Kingdom of Illyria
crossed the waters and their fears
not for freedom from oppression
   - no war so great the the world was invited
     to attend, had spewed its curse yet -
but to flee the small village
our own had named
as home for untold time,
myths being persuasive in
our culture

Volkodlak had returned

Immortal
our ancient wolf-skinned man
left tufts of bristling hair in the pew
the vivid corpse eviscerated
in the ancient chapel
where crusaders
said their final prayers
before never coming back
from the land of Saracens...

Legend does not leave so much evidence
eh, Teta croaked

...wagons were loaded
deep rutted roads
led down the Adriatic coast
to harbors
departures
with haste arranged

Mati was young, single
and scandalous
swollen with child
a pretty peasant
on a slow
undulating voyage
barely into her adventure
  
     Cries in muffled echoes of steerage
     
     ...I hear them

     This world brought my life and
     took hers -
     a perverse exchange...

Uniforms slid her sheet-less body
over the side
in the dark
her prayers
making the bigger splash
as the void
swallowed them whole

     ...Teta and Stric wrapped me,
     fitted a bonnet of sorts over my
     unusual thick bristled hair, and
     I came to this land as
     their own...

     (I dozed through this portion, having a violent, vivid dream)

Teta wound her words to an end as
she shook the last of the slivovice from
the bottle on to her tongue.

     It is late and there is no need for a full moon

     ...I stir,
     chuckling at the irony
     of my people bringing more than their culture
     to these shores.
     Unknowing and eager
     they brought the myth
     that never dies...


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Slovenes tell the tale of Volkodlak, a wolf-man who transforms to hunt at night. So, go ahead, take your chance. Even if you manage to kill one, it will resurrect as a vampire, this time with the ability to transform to a wolf-man at will. They don't die easily by natural causes, and live as immortals unless killed in the usual, special ways. It was said the wearing of a wolf skin could turn one into a Volkodlak. Sometimes one was born as a Volkodlak, with the evidence being a baby with a head of wolf hair.

Slovene Translations:
Teta = Aunt
Stric = Uncle
Mati = Mother
Slivovice = a strong plum brandy


See Mythical Creatures List: Volkodlak

The dVerse Poets Pub doors swing open, myths and legends walk in with Fred, and another Poetics session begins.