The Kashubs received news in their homeland of free land from the Canadian land agents. Canada encouraged the Europeans to come and develop this part of Renfrew County. The Kashubs, a Slavic people closely related to the Poles settled in and around the village of Wilno and spread to Barry’s Bay and Round Lake Centre.
When they came from Pomerania in 1858 and thereafter, folklore says they brought along their own demonology, which included belief in vampires, dwarves, witches, and succubae. People insisted that the Slavic folk belief in vampires etc. came to the New World with Kashubian emigrés to the area.
In 1972, their belief system was studied after collecting collecting oral histories and writings from 15 locals. Jan L. Perkowsky’s wrote a report called “Vampires, Dwarves and Witches Among the Ontario Kashub’s” and it was issued by the National Museum of Man. You can understand that when all this information was released that the Polish and Slavic population were not happy about the book. I know I would not be.
Things went viral in their own way back in the 70s, and media such as The National Enquirer etc. published stories that the Kashub descendants at Barry’s Bay and Wilno insisted that all was not well in that area. Gossip of open graves and headless corpses were said to be found to ward off evil spirits. Vampires known as the Vjeszczi or Vjescey were said to walk among them, and the legends indicate that humans were destined to become Vjesci at birth if born with teeth or a more common condition, ‘cradle cap”. If the child was born with a cap, the mother could protect the child by drying the cradle cap, grinding it into a fine dust and retaining it until the child’s 7th birthday; when she would feed it to him or her to ward off curse.
That’s all I got for you. I just heard if I go sit down for a spell at the Wilno Tavern I might get some stories that might curl my hair LOL
Peter Harrington If there are vampires in Wilno, they don’t drink blood but do a lot of smoke
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