Wurdulac, also spelled wurdalak or verdilak, is a

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...

in the

Slavic folklore Slavic folklore encompasses the folklore of the Slavic peoples from their earliest records until today. Folklorists have published a variety of works focused specifically on the topic over the years.See, for example, Kononenko 2007. See also * ...

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

. Some Western sources define it as a type of "Russian vampire" that must consume the blood of its loved ones and convert its whole family. This notion is based apparently on Alexey K. Tolstoy's novella ''

The Family of the Vourdalak ''The Family of the Vourdalak'' is a gothic novella by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written in 1839 in French and originally entitled ''La Famille du Vourdalak. Fragment inedit des Memoires d'un inconnu''. Tolstoy wrote it on a trip to Fran ...

'', telling the story of one such Slavic family. In Russia the common name for vampire (or wurdulac) is "upyr" (russian: упырь). Nowadays the three terms are regarded as synonymous, but in 19th century they were seen as separate, although similar entities. The Russian ''upyr'' was said to be a former

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

or a particularly nasty sinner who had been excommunicated from the church. In

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

the ''upyrs'' were also feared as the vampires who could bring about droughts and epidemics.Levkiyevskaya, E
Упырь
Russian Myths // Мифы русского народа. Астрель, Аст, In Russian language the word "wurdulac" (russian: вурдалак) first appeared in early 19th century, and became common due to

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

's 1836 poem of the same name, part of the '' Songs of the Western Slavs'' cycle. It is the corrupt form of the West Slavic word "volkodlak" (russian: волкодлак), meaning literally "wolf-fur" or "wolf-hide" (i.e., it denotes someone "wearing" a wolf's skin; a werewolf).Slovopedia
Krylov's Ryssian Etymological dictionary

References

Russian mythology Vampires Slavic legendary creatures {{Europe-myth-stub