Alter Aeon The Great Library

Welcome to the Alter Aeon Historical Archive!

Note - as with any topic, researchers should question the reliability
and veracity of these texts.  The library's aim is to preserve
documents, not verify accuracy.

AABN:  43110
Title: a book entitled, "The Tale of Strega"

This volume is written in a spidery script. The foreward says it was copied
from a manuscript of Falsta, a priest of Shadowfax.

"Long ago, on the evening of the first vendetta, the young Strega was
handed the body of her young husband. She placed her mouth on his wounds,
sucking the blood as a pledge of love and vengeance. Then with a dagger,
she killed herself."

"It is said that the child she carried in her womb was born as she was
lying in the tomb. She fed herself as best she could, then left her
mother's grave and came to earth. Mingling with the small creatures of the
night, hunting nocturnal walkers on the moors, and mating with the black
goblins of the Wild Hunt, the Daughter of Strega gave birth and became
Mother of Streghes."

"Her children live on in these benighted days. Horrible undead creatures,
said by some to be the forebears of vampires, for they feed on the blood of
the living. They favor the taste of children, and often collect the bodies
of those they slay. Their dwellings can be told by certain hideous clues:
bloody ditches, ossuaries with tiny skeletons carefully cleaned and circles
of thicket trampled by wild dancing."

"They can change form, sometimes appearing as dogs or bats, though their
true shape is far more terrible. They can be slain with force, or with
fire. Blessings can also harm the monsters. Their bodies must then be put
to rest with a proper ritual and cremated, lest they rise again."