Zmeu

Though referred by some sources as a dragon, the zmeu is nevertheless distinct, because it usually has clear anthropomorphic traits: it is humanoid and has legs, arms, the ability to create and use artifacts such as weapons, and to ride a horse, and has the desire to marry young girls.

However, Václav Machek considered this problematic, leading to Romanian linguists Sorin Paliga and Eugen S. Teodor to propose the hypothesis of an early Slavic loan from the North Thracian language.

[a][9] Indeed, zmeu has been described as a sort of man-eating giant, an equivalent of the Western ogre, possessing a "rocky tail",[10] but still able to mount a horse.

[10][6] The zmeu was no more than a creature with human-face, though somewhat taller and thicker-bodied, according to the assertions of some folklorists,[11] and are capable of human speech, though in somewhat uncouth a fashion.

[12] One paper categorized the zmeu among the Rumanian vampires, alongside the vârcolac (blood-drinking werewolf),[13] but the latter tends to be confused more with the blood-sucking strigă (pl.

[6] The "zmeu" figures prominently in many Romanian folk tales as the manifestation of the destructive forces of greed and selfishness.

For example, in the ballad of the knight Greuceanu, the zmeu steals the sun and the moon from the sky, thereby enshrouding all humanity in darkness.