The Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi arrived in a Circassian village at the end of April, 1666. He learned from the locals that it was the night of battles with the Kara-Kondjolos (vampire witches). Çelebi went out with eighty members of his party and observed a fantastic battle in the sky.
The sorcerers of the Abkhaz - his mother's people - rose into the sky mounted on uprooted trees, terracotta pots, axes, shovels, cartwheels, rugs and more. Circassian shamans took to the air to oppose them, sailing in fishing boats or riding horses, bulls or camels. The battle lasted six hours and was partly waged on the ground when witches and sorcerers fell from the sky.
When roosters
crowded the contenders became invisible. Çelebi said he had never believed stories
of such night battles until he and thousands around him witnessed this one.
He included this episode in book VI of his Book of Travels, the Seyahatname,
an enormous ten-volume work that he
compiled after forty years of travel all over the Ottoman empire, and to bordering lands.
Illustration RM + AI
