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

Also called: kukudhi, kukuvriq, karkanxholl
Folklore and mythUndead

The kukudh is an Albanian revenant with two faces: the undead miser who will not leave his house, and a demon of epidemic disease. Nobody would spend a night in a dead miser's home for fear of it. The double meaning, corpse and plague at once, is the same association found in Greek, Slavic and English revenant lore. The name is probably connected with an Albanian word for lamenting.1

Battle it
Origin
Albanian
Albania
What causes it
Other
The soul of a miser cannot leave his property; in another tradition it is a lugat that was not burned in time.
How you become one
A miser dies and stays on to guard his house.
Weak spots
  • strangling it with a noose made of vine
field notes

What the sources say

1

Pictured in some districts as a short, stocky man with a goat's tail1

2

Ordinary weapons do not harm it1

3

Only a brave boy can defeat it, and he is rewarded as its heir1

4

In southern Albania the same name is given to a blind female plague demon1

5

The related karkanxholl is a corpse that roams in January loaded with chains and breathing out death1

Sources

  1. Kukudh - Wikipedia

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

Folklore from the same lands

LugatAlbanian

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