A maiden from Grabs became pale and lost weight. When questioned, she explained that she was crushed terribly every night by a “Schrättlig“. She was advised to hold a sharp knife to the monster. She did so when he came; he drove himself onto the knife and immediately moved away again. In the morning, the whole room was bloody; the girl followed the trail, and it led to her parents’ house in Grabs, where, despite her mother’s resistance, she forced her way into the bedroom and found her own father ill with a stab wound, from which he died.

Dr Henne-Am Rhyn, Deutsche Vollssage.

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Der Schrättlig

Ein Grabser Mädchen war in Rans Magd, blassete zusehends und nahm ab. Befragt, erklärte sie, ein Schrättlig drücke sie allnächtlich furchtbar. Man riet ihr, dem Ungetüm ein scharfes Messer vorzuhalten. Sie tat es, als er kam; er fuhr ins Messer und entfernte sich gleich wieder. Am Morgen war die ganze Kammer blutig; das Mädchen folgte der Spur, und die führte nach Grabs ins elterliche Haus, wo sie trotz Abwehrens der Mutter ins Schlafzimmer drang und – den eigenen Vater an einer Stichwunde krank fand, an welcher er starb.
Dr. Henne-Am Rhyn, Deutsche Vollssage.

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Editor’s note: Damn! Sometimes folktales can get really, really dark. This one paragraph horror story has more subtext than actual text, which makes it a really incredible example of short story writing/telling. Interestingly, in other stories the Schrättlig is either a witch or a women under a curse (or both). I think this is the only one where the Schrättlig is male, but the implication is that this isn’t a supernatural sleep/pressure demon but just straight up parental sexual abuse (both the father as the perpetrator and the mother as the inferred enabler), but it is open to multiple interpretations, which I think good stories should do.

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