Schrat

What it is

The Schrat is a legendary being from German and Slavic folklore, and it is not one thing. The same name covers a shaggy wood sprite, a house spirit that can bring a household property and honour, and a nightmare demon blamed for pressure on the chest and for illness. Old High German writers used the word to render Latin terms for woodland beings and night visitors, among them fauns, satyrs, hairy sprites and the incubus. Later glosses matched it to the penates, given as domestic or hearth spirits. Its many diminutive forms, such as Schrätel and Schrättele, lean toward the nightmare sense. Elsewhere the being is also called Skrat.

Where it comes from

The name appears in writing from the medieval period. Old High German sources give forms such as scrato, scrat, scraz and waltscrate, where walt means forest. Middle High German adds schrat, schrate, waltschrat and the diminutive schretelîn. Because the word translated Latin pilosi (hairy sprites), fauni, satiri, incubus and larva (a spirit of the dead), the earliest Schrat is thought to have been a hairy woodland being that brought nightmares. Later Middle High German glosses still gave satyrus and incubus as Schrat, while one vocabulary listed it as penates. Scholars have argued for a Celtic background in the Schrat of Arthurian romance and in the legend of Saint Brendan, an Irish monk. The German term then passed into Slavic languages and, through North Germanic, into Finno-Ugric ones.

How it is done

Protection was a household custom rather than a specialist craft. A wooden slat fence called the Schrattlgatter, made of five interlocking pieces, was hung above a stable door, and in Tirol farmers are said to have kept one in the henhouse. A convex glass, the Schratspiegel, was used in the same way. Burning the bone or the straw that the spirit was thought to take as its morning shape was held to drive it off for good, as was a cut from a knife with three crosses on the blade. The Schrat was also said to fear the belemnite and the pentagram.

Tools and materials

Several everyday objects carry the Schrat's name. The belemnite, a fossil, is the Schrattenstein, the Schrat stone, and serves as both the arrow it is said to shoot and the charm against it. Stones bearing dinosaur footprints carry the same name and the same protective use. The pentagram is the Schrattlesfuß, the Schrat foot, in Swabia. A knife with three crosses on its blade is the Schreckselesmesser. Wooden slats form the Schrattlgatter, and a convex glass is the Schratspiegel. In the medieval tradition people also left pairs of little red shoes for the schretlein or trut.

What it is for

In the record the Schrat is not petitioned. It is feared or honoured, and it acts on its own. A belief from the 15th century held that every house has its schreczlein, and that a household which honours it receives property and honour in return. In a Styrian legend a Schrattel works as a gold devil, made to serve a person and fetching gold or silver found in the Pusterwald region; Fridolin von Freythall recorded it in his novel Das Hochgericht vom Birkachwald. On the other side, the nightmare form is blamed for a heavy feeling on the chest, for stifling, and for sickness. As a forest being it plays malicious pranks, breaking woodcutters' axes and letting trees fall the wrong way.

Who does it

No priest or specialist serves the Schrat: it belongs to the household and the farm. Farmers made the wooden gates and hung them over stable doors, and families honoured the house spirit. The nightmare form was often thought to be a living person. In Swabia the Schratt is a woman with an inherited condition called schrättleweis gehen, going in the manner of a Schrat. Recognised by eyebrows that grow together, the Räzel trait, she is said to leave her body at midnight and press a person, an animal or a tree. In Baden the Schrat is taken to be a dead relative of the sleeper.

Peoples and places

The house-spirit sense survived mainly in southeastern Germany and the West Slavic lands. It is reported from Bavaria, in the Upper Palatinate and the Fichtel Mountains where they reach into Czechia, from the Vogtland that spills into Saxony and Thuringia, and from the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia. The forest form, the Waldschrat, is described for Austria, and the Swiss Muotatal had its own related pair of figures, Strudeli and Strätteli. In Swabia and Baden the name belongs to the nightmare. Related words elsewhere include Polish skrzat, Czech škrat, Slovene škrat and Estonian kratt, a domestic sprite said to bring treasure.

What people believe

Behind the being sits a world of night visitors and house spirits. In southern Germany and Switzerland, especially in Alemannic-speaking areas, the name Schrat is given to the Alp, the demon that presses on a sleeper and is also counted a cause of sickness. In Swabia the nightmare bringer is said to be a child who died unbaptized, or, in Baden, a dead relative. The Schrat-witch's soul is said to leave her body as a white mouse while she lies as if dead. The house spirit, by contrast, is a being to be honoured, and medieval writers listed it among the penates.

When it is done

One calendar occasion is recorded. Before 1638 the Swiss valley of Muotatal held an Epiphany procession called the Greifflete, linked to two female wood sprites, Strudeli and Strätteli, the second a form of the Schrat's name. Otherwise the being has no feast day. Its time is the night: the Swabian Schratt is said to leave the house every midnight, and the nightmare comes while people sleep. In Tirol the Schrattl is said to press cattle, pigs and hens, a weight called Schrattldruck.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Hans Pehl, summarising in the HdA, gives the shaggy Waldschrat joined eyebrows, an animal-like body and wolf teeth, but that profile is a patchwork from different texts. Jacob Grimm found the Waldschrat in medieval romances such as Barlaam und Josaphat and Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet, and in a poem retelling Bonerius's fable 91, where little is said of its looks beyond dwarfish size. Karl Joseph Simrock's commentary calls the forest spirit hairy. Wilhelm Hertz suggested that the name Räzel was a shortened form of Schräzel. A Celtic origin has been argued for the Schrat in Arthurian works and in the Brendan legend.

Compare and confuse

The Schrat overlaps with several neighbours in German folklore. It is close to the Alp, the nightmare demon, and to the Trud or drude, which is said to press humans while the Tirolian Schrattl presses livestock. It is also a kobold, a house spirit, and a wood sprite. The same word travels: Polish skrzat and skrzot, Czech škrat and škrítek, Slovene škrat and škratec, Estonian kratt, Icelandic skratti, Swedish skratte and English scrat, where it means devil.

Questions people ask about Schrat

Good reading and sources

• Schrat on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data