The following is an excerpt from the book, 50 Stories and Legends About Vampires, written by Robert J Dornan. This is used with permission and no other permissions are granted under Copyright laws.
In the shadowy lands of Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, tales of the dead rising from their graves have terrified generations. These revenants, creatures who return to haunt the living, are not the romanticized vampires of modern folklore. They are far darker, born of pestilence, death, and insidious hunger. Revenants don’t merely drink blood; they return to spread disease, decay, and fear, dragging the living toward a slow, inevitable death.
Bohemia, with its mist-shrouded forests and ancient, forgotten cemeteries, has long been the birthplace of chilling stories, and none more so than that of the revenant. To the people of the region, the revenant is not an abstract myth but a dangerous reality, the restless dead who crawl from their graves, tormented by some unknown evil, cursed to bring suffering upon the living.
Revenants are not born out of a single source but seem to be creatures of fate, punishment, and despair. According to Bohemian folklore, these beings arise from the graves of those who died under violent or tragic circumstances. People who committed terrible acts in life—murderers, blasphemers, or those who dealt with dark magic—were at particular risk of returning as revenants. But in times of plague or famine, even those who died naturally were sometimes believed to return, their restless souls driven by fear or a sense of injustice.
Unlike traditional vampires, revenants were often bloated, decayed, and horrifyingly physical in appearance. Their bodies were described as corpse-like, sometimes swollen from the gases of decomposition, with blood and other fluids seeping from their mouths. Their eyes, hollow or glowing, held an insatiable hunger. The revenant’s hunger, however, was not just for blood. Some legends speak of them spreading disease, feasting on the very life force of their victims. Where a revenant walked, sickness followed.
One of the most terrifying tales of a revenant’s reign of terror comes from a small Bohemian village called Lidice, nestled deep in the countryside. This peaceful, quiet settlement was thrown into chaos one winter when a particularly cruel and despised man named Janek was buried in the local cemetery.
Janek had been a cruel figure in life, known for his violent temper and his dealings with dark practices. It was whispered among the villagers that he had cursed neighbors and even caused the mysterious deaths of several children. When Janek finally died, struck down by a sudden illness, the villagers believed they were free of his evil once and for all. They buried him hastily, deep in the frozen ground, hoping that the soil itself would keep him locked away forever but peace did not return to Lidice.
A few weeks after Janek’s burial, strange occurrences began to unfold. At first, it was nothing more than a sense of unease, a chill in the air that clung to the skin like icy fingers. Cattle began to die without explanation, their bodies found bloated and riddled with strange, festering wounds. The animals’ eyes were wide open, frozen in terror, as though they had seen something horrifying in their last moments.
Soon, the villagers began to fall ill. At first, it was merely a persistent cough or fever, but the sickness spread quickly, striking even the healthiest men and women. The dead were piled in makeshift graves, their bodies blackened with disease. Those who still clung to life grew gaunt, their flesh gray and tight against their bones. They whispered of shadows moving through the village at night, a hulking figure that seemed to ooze darkness wherever it stepped. And then, the deaths became more violent.
One winter night, a farmer named Lukas returned home late after tending to his dying cattle. As he approached his modest home, he saw something that made his blood freeze. In the distance, near the edge of the forest, there was a figure—large, grotesque, and stumbling through the snow. Its limbs moved unnaturally, jerking with every step. Lukas felt a deep, primal terror rise within him as he recognized the shape.
It was Janek.
The man who had been buried weeks ago was lumbering toward him, his skin bloated and blackened, eyes glowing with an unnatural fire. Blood dripped from Janek’s mouth, pooling at his feet and staining the white snow beneath him. His lips curled back in a hideous smile, revealing teeth sharpened from gnashing in the grave.
Lukas dropped his tools and ran, but the revenant was already upon him. The creature’s heavy, cold hands clamped onto Lukas’s shoulders with an unnatural strength, pushing him into the frozen ground. Lukas could feel his life draining away as Janek’s bloated form hovered over him, the scent of decay suffocating him. Janek’s mouth opened wide, and before Lukas could scream, the revenant bit into his neck, tearing flesh away in chunks. Blood spurted from the wound, and in those last few moments, Lukas saw the face of the creature—an unholy combination of man and something far darker.
The next morning, Lukas’s body was found by his family, drained of blood, his skin pale and cold as stone. But worse than his death was the look of horror frozen on his face—eyes wide, mouth agape, as though he had seen the very face of death itself.
The village of Lidice descended into chaos. More deaths followed, all with the same gruesome signs—bodies drained, the scent of decay in the air, and an unshakable sense that Janek’s presence lingered. In desperation, the villagers turned to an old, blind woman who lived on the outskirts of the village, known for her knowledge of ancient rituals. She warned them that Janek had returned as a revenant, a creature cursed by the gods, and that unless they acted quickly, the entire village would be wiped out.
The old woman instructed them to dig up Janek’s body from the frozen earth and burn it to ash. She told them that only by destroying the body could they sever the revenant’s connection to the living world. Armed with torches and weapons, the men of the village braved the icy cold night and descended upon the graveyard.
When they dug up Janek’s grave, they found his body not as they had buried it, but as Lukas had described—a bloated, grotesque figure with blood still wet on its lips. The men recoiled in terror, but knowing their lives depended on it, they drove a stake through the revenant’s heart and set the corpse ablaze. As the flames consumed the body, a terrible scream echoed across the valley, so loud and so filled with anguish that some of the villagers fell to their knees, weeping in fear. The nightmare was over.
The sickness that had plagued Lidice began to subside, the deaths stopped, and the shadow that had haunted the village seemed to lift. Janek, the revenant, was gone, burned to ash and banished from the world of the living. Yet the fear of his return remained, a silent, creeping dread that still lingers in Bohemia today.
To this day, the revenants of Bohemia remain a terrifying reminder of the restless dead. Unlike other vampire myths, the revenants represent a far more physical, haunting evil. They are not elegant creatures of the night but monstrous reflections of our darkest fears—decay, disease, and the specter of death that waits for us all.
The people of Bohemia still whisper stories of revenants, warning that the wrong death, the wrong burial, or the wrong spirit might cause the dead to rise once more, hungry for revenge, and eager to bring ruin upon the living. And somewhere, perhaps deep in the forgotten forests of Bohemia, the restless dead may still stir, waiting for the next victim to cross their path.
