The Bauk and Ciri from the Witcher 4 trailer, by CD Project Red
In our own world, the Bauk is a creature from Serbian folklore used to frighten children.
Accounts of the creature made by villagers in Gruža describe it as being clumsy and fat, and say that it lives in dark corners, holes, and streams, where it captures disobedient children. It hides from the light, and can be chased away by shouting, banging and by using fire.
If a child says it's being followed by the Bauk, folk traditions advise that one needs to cover the child in the smoke of burnt bear’s hair in order to ward it off.
In folk songs the Bauk is mentioned among a list of other wild animals, and there are suggestions that it resembles a bear in both appearance and traits. There’s a theory that the Bauk is a folk personification of the bear, which has largely disappeared from those parts of the world. But since people still remembered them as dangerous animals, in traditional culture, the name was replaced with euphemisms like Bauk. From the available evidence about the age of the creature, it doesn’t seem to have originated in mythological times, so we can assume that the Bauk is a more recent creation.
Going back in time, before the conception of the Bauk, it’s possible that the original name for the bear was lost to time, as it became a cultural taboo to say it out loud, less the power of the name summons it. A linguistic theory states that due to this taboo people started using descriptive names for it like “The Brown One” used by Germanic peoples, and “The Honey Eater” by Slavic peoples. Linguists reconstructing the Proto Indo-European language arrived at a possible word for the original name of the bear - *rkto- (others variations are *rktho-, *rkso-, *rtko-), meaning “Destroyer”.
And with a name like that it’s easy to imagine why people would want to change it, for fear they would bring this terror upon themselves. From there it’s a shorter leap to understand how such an animal might inspire a legendary creature like the Bauk, and how this in turn would lead the makers of the coming Witcher game to create a monster that’s worshiped and feared as a god.
Resources
Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду, књ. 8
Pages 104, 105, 106, 107
СРПСКИ МИТОЛОШКИ РЕЧНИК - Ш. КУЛИШИЋ · П. Ж. ПЕТРОВИЋ · Н. ПАНТЕЛИЋ
Page 26
https://archive.org/details/srpski-mitoloski-recnik/page/26/mode/2up?view=theater
The Brown One, The Honey Eater, The Shaggy Coat, The Destroyer
https://www.charlierussellbears.com/LinguisticArchaeology.html
The Witcher IV – Official Cinematic Reveal Trailer Breakdown
https://youtu.be/3FIFslGpiZA?si=uwZYC_YhYg1hx6TD&t=300
The Witcher IV — Cinematic Reveal Trailer | The Game Awards 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54dabgZJ5YA
The tweet from linguist Gretchen McCulloch
https://x.com/gretchenamcc/status/1113195661275611137
Images
Bauk by Erik Noah Salaun - https://eriksalaun.artstation.com/projects/04Nzg5
Bauk by Danijel Matanic -https://danijelmatanic.com/slavic-myths/
Bauk by Dejano23 - https://www.deviantart.com/dejano23/art/Bauk-378605050
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