Tradition / Region: Romanian Mythology Alternate Names: The Money Chicken; The Hearth Chicken; Black Familiar Chicken Category: Chicken
The Myth
A man from Pretai was once returning home from the mill when he noticed something small and black lying by the roadside. When he bent down to look, he saw it was a chicken, entirely black. He picked it up and carried it home, placing it beneath the hearth and feeding it.
After some time, one night he heard a voice coming from the hearth. It was the chicken speaking.
“What should I bring you?” it asked.
Startled, the man muttered, “Be quiet! What could you possibly bring me?”
The following night, the chicken spoke again. “What should I bring you?”
This time the man answered, “If you truly want to bring me something, then bring me plenty of money.”
From that night on, the chicken did exactly that, and the man soon became rich.
In the villages and marshlands of Hungary, people speak of the Lidérc, a restless and many-formed spirit that moves between fire, flesh, and shadow.
On some nights it appears as a shooting star or a wandering flame, streaking low across the sky or flickering over bogs and fields. Wherever it passes, sparks leap and fires may break out, barns and pens igniting without cause. In other places it takes the shape of a fiery rod, a blazing figure, or a marsh light that lures the unwary.
But the Lidérc is most feared for the form it takes among humans.
It seeks the lonely: widows, widowers, abandoned lovers, those whose beloveds are far away or dead. Slipping through the night, it enters their homes and assumes the exact appearance of the person they long for most. It speaks gently, knows their memories, and offers comfort, affection, and desire. Night after night it returns, lying beside its victim, feeding not on blood but on life itself. The victim grows pale and weak, dizzy and thin, until at last they waste away and die, loved to death. When its prey is spent, the Lidérc abandons the body and rises again into the sky as a star, seeking another heart to consume.
Yet the Lidérc is never perfect in its disguise. One of its legs always betrays it: a scaly goose foot, a chicken’s claw, or sometimes a horse’s iron-shod hoof. Those who scatter ashes at their threshold may see the tracks—one human footstep, one monstrous—and know what has crossed their door. Garlic, cords, and household charms can bar its entry, if the danger is recognized in time.
There is another kind of Lidérc as well, one born not from fire but from human greed. If the first egg laid by a black hen is hidden beneath a person’s armpit and warmed there, a strange, featherless creature will hatch. This Lidérc binds itself to its keeper, speaking with intelligence and obeying commands. It brings wealth, steals treasure, and works tirelessly, living on butter and favors. But it is never satisfied. If its master fails to give it constant tasks, it becomes restless and cruel, pestering day and night until it finally destroys the one who raised it.
The only escape is to give the Lidérc an impossible command: to carry water in a sieve, to squeeze through solid wood, to complete a task that cannot be done. Unable to endure failure, the creature will rage, weaken, and finally vanish.
Thus the Lidérc remains a warning whispered in Hungarian folklore: that desire, loneliness, and greed can summon something that looks like love or fortune—but feeds only on ruin.
