Cikavac

For forty days the egg never left the warmth of her body. A woman took it from beneath a black hen, tucked it into the hollow of her left armpit, and let it ride there against the skin through every chore and every night, slick and hidden under her clothes. In all that time she did not pray. She did not go to confession, did not wash her face, did not pare her nails. The egg was warm and the body around it was deliberately unclean, and what was forming inside the shell was not a chicken.

What hatched was a bird, or near enough to pass for one. The cikavac comes into the world winged and long-beaked, and beneath its lower bill hangs a loose pouch of skin, the kind a pelican carries. It is a small thing, the better to go unnoticed, a dark shape that could be mistaken for any night bird crossing a field. The sack under the beak is the whole point of it. That pouch is a larder on the wing, and the creature spends its nights filling it with things that belong to other people.

On a still night it slips out of the house and crosses onto a neighbor’s land. It settles at the mouth of a hive and draws the honey out, then moves to the byre and takes the milk straight from the udders of another man’s cattle, and it carries the lot home in the pouch beneath its beak. By morning one larder is fuller and another is thinner, the bees more sluggish, the cows giving less, and nobody has seen anything at all. A family with a cikavac prospers without quite explaining how. Their hives run heavy when the neighbors’ run dry.

The honey and the milk were only the daily work. A cikavac granted its owner’s wishes, whatever those wishes were, and it loosened the speech of animals for them, so the barking of dogs and the chatter of birds became plain talk they could follow. To keep such a creature was to have a quiet, tireless servant who asked for nothing a person was willing to admit to wanting. It belonged to the woman who had carried it and to no one else. It was a demon kept close as a pet.

Because the thing was made, not found. Every condition of its making was a small turning away from God. No prayer, no confession, no washing, no trimming of the nails, the body left untended and unguarded for the full forty days while the egg grew warm against it. The taboos are not incidental decoration. They are the price, and the price is paid in piety. A woman who wanted the creature had to spend more than a month outside the protections the church offered, carrying the future demon in her armpit the way another might carry a secret, and at the end of it she had a familiar that was entirely hers and entirely damning.

The belief held firmest in Serbia, but the cikavac was known well beyond it, across Bosnia and Herzegovina, into Montenegro and North Macedonia, anywhere Slavic farmers weighed their own luck against the farm over the fence. The stories did not all describe the same creature. In Bosnia it was said to fly backwards, against the grain of every other bird, and to fold invisibility over whoever kept it, so that owner and servant alike could move through the world unseen. The details drifted from village to village, but the shape of the thing stayed constant: a made bird, a hidden pouch, a household growing rich on what it carried in.

For all its usefulness, the cikavac created nothing. This is the quiet flaw at the center of it. Everything it brought was lifted from someone within walking distance, honey from a known hive, milk from a known cow, a wealth that was only ever borrowed from the people next door and bitterly counted as theft when it was noticed. The creature was bound to its maker and to the single household it served, no use to anyone else and no threat to anyone it was not sent against. And the whole arrangement balanced on a ritual that broke at the first lapse. One prayer, one wash of the face, one nail cut short across those forty days, and the egg in the armpit stayed nothing but an egg. The power came cheap in money and dear in soul, and it could be lost by a single moment of ordinary decency.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a cikavac?

The cikavac is a winged, bird-like familiar from Serbian and wider Balkan folklore. It has a long beak and a pelican-like pouch of skin beneath the bill, and it serves a single owner by stealing honey and milk, granting wishes, and giving the power to understand animal speech.

How do you make a cikavac?

A cikavac is created by taking the egg of a black hen and carrying it under the armpit for forty days. During that time the person, usually a woman, must not pray, go to confession, wash her face, or cut her nails. If the taboos are kept unbroken, the egg hatches into the cikavac; if any are broken, the ritual fails.

What does a cikavac do for its owner?

A cikavac enriches its owner’s household at the expense of the neighbors. It sucks honey from other people’s beehives and milk from other people’s cattle and carries it home in the pouch under its beak. It also fulfills its owner’s wishes and lets them understand the language of animals.

Is the cikavac good or evil?

The cikavac is regarded as a demonic familiar rather than a benevolent spirit. The ritual that creates it requires deliberately abandoning Christian practice, and its gifts come entirely from stealing what belongs to others, so its benefit to one family is always a loss to its neighbors.

Where is the cikavac found in folklore?

The cikavac belongs to Serbian mythology and is also known across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Regional versions vary; in Bosnia it is said to fly backwards and to make its owner invisible.

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Drekavac, Zduhać, Psoglav, Bauk, Ala, Bes, Mora, Vila, Vodyanoy, Domovoi, Kikimora, Aitvaras, Pūķis, Kaukas, Witch