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Illustration of Hortlak
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
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Hortlak

Also called: hortdan, xortdan, cadı, obur
Folklore and mythUndead1500 to 1899

Hortlak is the everyday Turkish word for a dead person who climbs back out of the grave. Ottoman judges and muftis were asked to rule on such cases from at least the 16th century and authorised staking or burning the bodies, much as Christian authorities did in the Balkans. Related figures appear among the Azerbaijanis (xortdan) and Tatars. The tradition shows that the walking-corpse panic of south-eastern Europe was shared across the religious frontier.12

Battle it
First recorded
1550
Cases involving hortlaks appear in Ottoman kadı court records from the mid-16th century
Origin
Turkish and wider Turkic
Turkey, Azerbaijan
What causes it
Never explained
The dead person does not stay dead; Ottoman usage often attributes this to the deceased having been a witch (cadı).
How you become one
A corpse that fails to decay in the grave, often that of a reputed witch or sorcerer.
Intelligence
Some intelligence
Weak spots
  • a stake through the heart or body
  • burning
  • decapitation
  • quicklime poured on the corpse
  • throwing the body into a river

When did it first appear?

Ancient worldMiddle Ages1500 to 18991900 to 19671968 to 19992000 to 20092010 to today1550

Cases involving hortlaks appear in Ottoman kadı court records from the mid-16th century

field notes

What the sources say

1

The name comes from the Turkish verb hortlamak, to come up out of the grave12

2

The traveller Evliya Çelebi defined obur as witches, sorcerers and those who rise from their graves12

3

Ottoman fatwas permitted exhuming and destroying corpses that returned to trouble the living12

4

Risen cadıs were blamed for throwing stones, moving objects and possessing animals12

5

In 1826 former Janissaries at Tırnova were publicly branded as risen dead, a case historians read as political12

Sources

  1. Hortdan - Wikipedia
  2. Vampires in Turkish Culture - KÜRE Encyclopedia

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected].

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Folklore from the same lands

MhachkayTatar and wider Turkic, 1833ÖrekTurkic (Tatar, Bashkir, Turkish, Azerbaijani)

Same era: 1500 to 1899

JiangshiChinese, 1789Zombi (Haitian)Haitian (Vodou folklore), 1750StrigoiRomanian, 1714Vampir (South Slavic)South Slavic (Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Bosnian), 1725AbhartachIrish, 1870Arnold PaoleSerbian, 1732
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