Gramada is a town in north-western Bulgaria's Vidin Province, near the borders with Serbia and Romania.
Gramada in "The Bleeding Moon"[]
One hundred fifty years after Turks conquered Bulgaria, the village of Gramada was involved in feud with the nearby village of Kula. A young girl from Kula had run off and married a young man from Gramada without her parents leave. In revenge, an unidentified group from Kula ambushed and murdered a young man named Todor while he was out hunting. They slit his throat and left his body in the woods.[1]
Todor's death begat a second problem for Gramada: a Vurkolak was born from Todor's blood forty days later. This Vurkolak killed sheep in the village, and attempted to draw out human prey. Finally, the people were forced to take action when the Vurkolak attacked the full moon in an effort to drinks its blood. The people of the village came forth and made as much noise as they could. When the headman, Symeon, and his brother Rossen, fired off their muskets, the noise frightened off the Vurkolak. The people of Gramada waited with apprehension until the next full moon, but the Vurkolak stayed away.[2]
Months later, Symeon returned from delivering the village's tribute to the Turks in Vidin with news that something was killing sheep in Kula. The people of Kula seemed helpless to stop it. While he'd shared words of sympathy, Symeon was unsympathetic, as were the people of Gramada when he told the tale.[3]
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