#superstition

• Aca de Barbu — An archaic popular designation or regional mythological character from Romanian vernacular beliefs, sometimes associated in incantations, rural superstitions, or folk tales with a local authoritarian figure (such as a reeve or a local boyar named Barbu) or with a traditional instrument of measurement or punishment. In some regions, the phrase is preserved as a collective nickname or saying referring to a harsh, yet often ridiculous or outdated order.
• Antipalagă — An extremely rare term from Romanian popular beliefs and superstitions, designating an archaic ritual, an incantation, or an apotropaic object utilized by rural communities to ward off, counteract, or scatter hail, violent storms, and destructive clouds looming over crops.
• The female demon — The definite articulated form of the noun 'avestiță', which in Romanian popular mythology (especially in the folklore of mountainous regions and Oltenia) denotes an evil spirit, a female demon, or a wicked witch, often described as a hideous apparition with long hair and iron claws, wandering through forests or at crossroads; according to legends, this malevolent entity attacks young children, steals their sleep, or causes severe illness to women in childbirth, traditionally countered through charms, herbal amulets, and magical formulas of banishment.
• Baba-Coaja — A minor supernatural character from Romanian popular demonology, found in regional superstitions and folkloric bogeyman tales, often used to discipline disobedient children. Depicted as a hideous, solitary, and harsh old woman (the name structurally implying dry, wrinkled skin or a rigid crust), this mythological figure acts as a punitive night spirit, similar to other entities like Baba-Cloandă or the forest mother, embodying ancestral fears of darkness and the unknown.
• Baba-gaia — A popular regional term used to designate a hawk, kite, or a nocturnal bird of prey, frequently surrounded by superstitions regarding bad omens or adverse weather conditions. In a folkloric and mythological sense, the formula is utilized as a symbolic bogeyman or an archaic pejorative epithet directed at a quarrelsome, malicious, or ill-omened woman, acting in fairy tales as a personification of destructive forces or physical degradation.
• Insertion — The act of inserting or pouring something inside; insertion. In Romanian folk superstitions and witchcraft, the term designates a cursed object (strands of hair, bones, threads, graveyard dirt) secretly placed inside someone's house, pillow, or yard to cause illness, discord, or bad luck.