While I don’t believe in the supernatural, I do like the stories. I thought I’d share this one since it is creepy and unique and there’s little information about this creature online.


This story is taken from the September 1913 edition of The Occult Review, which in turn says the story was recorded in a “German psychological publication, some sixty years ago.”

Precolitsch (aka Prikulics) is a name given in the Wallachian Mountains of Transylvania to a being described as a “species of wandering Terror … with the power of assuming various forms, and possessing unheard-of strength.”

In the account, an ensign with the Austro-Hungarian army was stationed at the Pass of Temesn in Transylvania. This pass is described as “a long, narrow ravine, walled in on each side by rocky precipices, inaccessible to human foot” and “about fifty yards wide.”

A wall with a gate formed a barrier across the pass. This barrier was guarded by two sentries – one close to the gate, and another farther out.

The incident happened one winter around Christmas time when the Pass and the mountains around it were covered with snow.

One of the soldiers – a Hungarian gipsy – begged his officer to be allowed to change shifts with another soldier so as to not be stationed outside at that time. It was this soldier’s turn to be a sentry outside the gate from 10PM until midnight. He was to be at the outer of the two posts.

When the officer asked why, the soldier explained that he had been born on what he called “New Sunday” and therefore possessed a form of second sight. Thus he had become aware that if he was on sentry duty at that time, a great misfortune would befall him. After midnight he would be safe.

The officer declined the soldier’s request, gave him a lecture on the silliness of superstition, and told him to be at the outer guard from 10PM until midnight.

That night around 9:30PM the officer was playing chess with the Superintendent when they both saw a man’s face staring at them through the window. His face was strange and wild and had an expression of mockery and derision. The two followed the figure outside along a wall until it disappeared.

They returned to their chess game. Sometime after 10PM their game “was interrupted by the sound of a shot from without, closely followed by another, then by a confused noise, and shouting”

The officer and the guard ran outside of the gate where they found the inner sentry grasping his smoking gun and staring at the place where the outer sentry should have been. But the outer sentry was gone.

The officer rushed to the spot where the soldier had been standing and found his gun lying in the snow. It had been bent into a sickle shape.

The soldiers’ footprints were found in the snow, alongside “other footmarks … shapeless ones.”

The soldier was found lying below the crest of a slope. His whole body had been burned. His face and breast were blackened. He never regained consciousness and died the next day.

The inner sentry reported that he had never once taken his eyes off of the outer sentry, being aware of his fears. Suddenly a black shape was standing just beyond the outer sentry. He described this shape as ugly, more animal than human, and not very big.

The outer senty challenged the dark shape, then fired at it when it approached him. The shape lunged at him and the inner sentry fired his gun. The shape seized the outer sentry by his breast after which they both disappeared from the inner sentry’s sight.

The article says “Hungarian authorities seem to identify the Precolitsch with the Hungarian Farkaskoldus.” The Farkaskoldus is a type of vampire. “It is said that shepherds, especially when they have been unjustly treated during life, are apt to become Farkaskolduses after death, and ravage the flocks of those who have injured them; they also kill human beings. When their revenge is accomplished they return to the grave.”

It’s not clear to me how the being in this story is identified as a Precolitsch.


Links / Credits

The Occult Review article:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220801062123/http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/occult_review/occult_review_v18_n3_sep_1913.pdf