Jure Grando (štrigon of Kringa)

According to the local legend recorded in European print by Johann Weikhard von Valvasor and summarized in modern accounts, Jure Grando Alilović was an inhabitant of the village of Kringa who died in 1656. After his burial he is said to have risen at night and, for sixteen years, returned from his grave to make nocturnal visits that brought death to households and to assault his widow Ivana. The phenomenon was interpreted locally with the term štrigon (a Venetian/Istrian word glossed as resembling a vampire or sorcerer). In 1672, after persistent terror, villagers acting with the village priest conducted prayers of exorcism and a named villager, Stipan Milašić (with the priest present and after ritual speech), decapitated the corpse; after the head was sawed off and blood flowed, the visits ceased and the village had peace.

Reports in the recorded account describe the corpse as 'perfectly preserved' with a 'smile on its face' when exhumed; the widow Ivana described his nocturnal appearance as looking 'as though he was smiling and gasping for breath.' When his grave was opened and his head was sawed, the corpse reportedly screamed and blood flowed from the wound. These details present a buried body that appeared life-like and animated during the episodes related in the narrative.

The legend attributes a series of nocturnal behaviors to Jure: rising from his grave at night for sixteen years, knocking on village doors with the reported consequence that a person in the knocked-on house would die within days, and making repeated nocturnal visits to his widow in which she reported sexual assault. A described attempt to kill him by piercing his heart with a hawthorn stick failed in the account — the stick reportedly bounced off his chest — while confronting him with a Christian cross and invoking Jesus preceded the exorcism prayers and the eventual decapitation that ended his activity. When mortally wounded during the decapitation, the corpse is said to have screamed and bled.