Talk:Simon Belmont (Super Castlevania IV)/@comment-104.221.92.152-20190313020014/@comment-3200351-20190313113123

The author seemed to have been inspired by Slavic lore about the Kresnik.

" A shaman who transformed into a white-coated animal to fight the Kudlak. In Croatian and Slovenian lore, a person born with a caul was destined to become either a Kudlak or a Kresnik. A person so destined to become a Kudlak would already begin a career of evil while still alive - his soul would leave his body at night in animal form and fly through the air to attack people or to magically do other harm to the community he lived in. When he died, he became an undead vampire who was then an even greater threat to the community. But if a person born with a caul became a Kresnik, he became a champion of the community. While he lived, his soul left his body in animal form at night to fight against both living and undead Kudlaks.

Where the kresnik was the representative of goodness and light, the kudlak symbolized evil and darkness."