Tradition: Polish Mythology
Alternative Names: Czarny Mór, Morawica, Mór, Morowce Powietrzne, Powietrze, Czarna Śmierć, Pomór, Pomorek, Przymorek
Category: Ghost
The Myth
Zaraza is a personification of deadly epidemic diseases in Slavic mythology, representing the terrifying forces of plague and widespread illness. She is depicted as a gloomy female apparition, unnaturally thin, with disheveled hair and clothing that is either white or black. In some accounts, she wanders through villages in the form of a pale, gaunt woman wrapped in a bedsheet, bringing the threat of sickness wherever she appears. Her dark appearance reflects the fear of contagious diseases that could devastate entire communities.
Beliefs surrounding Zaraza were recorded in Poland, where people sought ways to drive the spirit of disease away from the sick. In the nineteenth century, in the Sandomierz region, when someone fell ill with typhus, people sometimes attempted to frighten Zaraza out of the room by firing guns into the four corners of the ceiling above the patient. Such practices reflected the belief that epidemic illness could be caused or embodied by a supernatural presence that might be expelled through ritual action.
During a cholera epidemic in 1888 in Machów, near Tarnobrzeg, a local woman reportedly recounted that several men standing guard had seen the apparition of the disease itself. They described a tall, black-clad woman with disheveled hair walking through the village. The sight was interpreted as a manifestation of Zaraza, giving a visible form to the invisible threat of contagion. The figure also survives in Polish expressions invoking the plague, such as “May the plague take you!” and “Damn the plague!” These sayings preserve the memory of Zaraza as an embodiment of sickness, calamity, and communal fear.
Sources
“Zaraza (demon).” Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 16, 2026. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaraza_(demon)