Drude- Germanic DemonDemon

The Pressing

The Drude attacks in the deep of night. She slips through the smallest openings, keyholes, cracks in walls, gaps in woven cloth, and assumes her true form in the darkened bedroom. Then she settles on the sleeper's chest. The victim wakes paralyzed, gasping, unable to cry out, a crushing weight bearing down while a dark figure crouches at the edge of vision or directly atop the body. The Germans called this Alpdruck, elf-pressing.

In some traditions, the Drude was not a spirit at all but a living woman whose soul wandered while her body slept, attacking neighbors and enemies without conscious knowledge. A woman might become a Drude through a curse, through being born on a particular day (especially Sunday, or between Christmas and Twelfth Night), or as the seventh daughter in a family. These women did not choose their condition. Their dream-selves left their sleeping bodies and roamed the night.

If someone suspected a specific woman, there was a way to know: place a knife or awl where the Drude would be forced to grasp it during her attack. The corresponding wound would appear on the human Drude the next morning.

The Drudenfuss

German folklore prescribed elaborate defenses. The most important was the Drudenfuss, a pentagram carved on bedposts, cradles, and stable doors to block the spirit's entry. The five-pointed star trapped the Drude, who could not cross a complete pentagram. Related was the Drudenstein, a stone with a natural hole through which the spirit could not pass, hung above the bed or placed on the threshold.

Other measures accumulated by regional tradition: shoes placed beside the bed with toes pointing toward the door, a knife under the pillow, brooms or straw arranged in specific patterns. The abundance of defenses suggests how common and how feared the experience was.

Frau Trude

The Brothers Grimm preserved the Drude in their fairy tale "Frau Trude" (KHM 43). A disobedient child visits a terrifying woman whose name echoes the Drude. On the stairs the child sees horrifying visions. She tells Frau Trude what she saw. Frau Trude turns her into a block of wood and casts her into the fire.

In the regions where Drude belief was strongest, Bavaria, Austria, and the Tyrol, the line between the Drude and the witch was often indistinguishable. The same women were accused of both. The folk belief's suspicion of specific women (seventh daughters, women born on certain days) fed directly into witch persecution across German-speaking lands.