The Soucouyant

Region: Caribbean
Location:Caribbean (especially Trinidad, Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia)

The Soucouyant is a feared figure in Caribbean folklore — usually depicted as an old woman who appears harmless during the day but transforms at night by shedding her skin and becoming a ball of fire. In this fiery form, she flies through keyholes and cracks beneath doors to suck the blood of sleeping victims. Her feeding leaves small blue or red bruises, which communities once blamed for unexplained fatigue, illness, or weakness. Because she carries her discarded skin with her, hidden in a clay jar or a hollow tree, she is vulnerable only when separated from it.
  The Soucouyant occupies a space between witch, vampire, and shapeshifter, and her stories are soaked in themes of secrecy and fear of the night. Villagers traditionally believed she bargained with dark forces and maintained her powers by offering the souls of those she drained. Her flight is described as glowing streaks of light drifting across the sky — something like a falling star in reverse. Some stories say she chooses lonely houses or victims who are isolated or unprotected, while others warn that her visits follow resentment, jealousy, or community tensions.
  The surest way to defeat a Soucouyant, tradition says, is to find her shed skin and rub it with salt or pepper, making it impossible for her to slip back inside before dawn. Without her skin, she shrivels and dies at sunrise. Because of this vulnerability, stories of Soucouyants often revolve around neighbors keeping watch for strange lights, checking under steps for discarded skin, or listening for soft knocking at windows — subtle signs that one of these fiery night-witches may be hunting nearby.

World
Koina
Owner
kaixabu
Views
5
All content (text, images, maps, audio, code, etc.),
unless stated otherwise, are
copyright © 2023 - 2026 by Morgan Berry.   Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The spark is human. The polish is digital.

 

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!
Powered by World Anvil