Dead before dawn

The Night the Hill Disappeared in Sarakina

The story is true. While it is not exactly paranormal, it is unlikely. Yet it happened. Crete (Greece), August 2025.

Greece blew my mind away. I long hesitated to go. I knew everyone was going to Greece. I imagined a country of overtourism, commercial beaches and hotels everywhere. But I went - and In the mountains of Kriti (the Greek name of the island of Crete), I discovered a completely different Greece: local and genuine. What helped was my interest in traditional music. In Kriti, I followed the culture of panigiri: the local village parties, often lasting all night, where music is played until dawn and people dance in big circles.

Panigiri on a Greek island

At one such party I met Eleftheria. Greek names are meaningful - this one means freedom. Freedom invited me to another panigiri, very local, in her village Sarakina. Sarakina is tiny: population of thirty. The name likely means the dwelling place of the Arabs, who did invade Crete in the 9th century. The Arab conquest, then followed by much longer Ottoman occupation, is still very much alive in people’s memory and tradition. Cretan dances, like Pentozali (Πεντοζάλης) are war dances, performed by men before battles. They are associated with resistance, uprisings, and heroism.

Sarakina was an hour’s drive. The curvy road meandered among the mountains; it seemed I was completely lost, and it was beautiful. The sun was slowly setting. I arrived early: The panigiri, which took place in a schoolyard away from the village, started at 9:00 p.m.

I was seated next to people who didn’t speak English, which forced me to speak Greek the best I could. My neighbor was Mylates, the local farmer and his family. Nearby was young Antonis with his parents.

The tables were laid and food was served by volunteers in the schoolyard. The school had one classroom with portraits of Hellenic fighters. A decalogue for schoolchildren hung there as well. The class had a wood burner heater. As it was explained to me, the classroom was preserved for historical reasons. Today, there aren’t enough children in the village to keep the school open, and so the school yard only serves the panigiri.

The goat meat was excellent, and dancing was good. But I was soon tired. Things happened too fast and over the past days I had slept very little. At one moment I found myself dozing off in my chair. I felt I must rest. So I left the party. I came to my car, but I was too tired to drive back. In the moon light, I saw a quiet place in the olive grove near the church. I decided to spend the night here, under the stars - no tent was needed because the night was warm. I pitched a mattress under an olive tree, and my eyelids fell down fast. The music of the panigiri was heard in the distance.

Before falling asleep, I noticed some rustling in the bush. I spotted a pair of tiny eyes, shimmering in the dark, looking at me from under the foliage. The eyes moved quickly. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but I thought this must be a weasel or maybe a marten. I didn’t pay more attention. That’s the beauty of sleeping in nature: you often have wild visitors. But now I was too tired. I fell asleep. It was about 2:00 a.m.

*** *** ***

Something woke me up - a noise in the bush. Someone or something big was walking around my mattress. I opened my eyes. The noise disappeared, and the silence was deep. There was even no music - the party must have finished - yet it was still dark, so it must have been 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. I looked around and saw the pair of eyes looking at me again. Now they were in a different place. Toward my right, about fifteen meters away, there was a small rocky hill, almost vertically steep. In the vertical rock wall there was a hole, a tiny cave, three or four meters above the ground. The shiny eyes were now in the cave.

As I observed, a shadow crawled out of the cave. The animal was much bigger than I had thought. It was a dark, moonless night, so I didn’t see very well. It was black and white. At first, I thought it was a goat. Then it looked like an anteater — absurd. Finally, it became clear: I was looking at a badger. The badger seemed to forage around the rock. Sometimes it looked at me, sometimes it lurked back in the cave and appeared again.

Then it became more interesting. A second badger crawled out of the cave. Now there were two badgers and me.

I remained quiet for the spectacle. The badgers did not seem very afraid. They went about their business. They were astonishingly quiet. In all their activities, I never heard a sound.

I instinctively felt the silence was ominous. In my experience, the forest is rarely silent. You normally hear birds, cicadas or cracking of branches. Only once in my life I remember the forest as completely silent. This was when I camped alone in the Rocky Mountains in the US. The moment I realized the silence was abnormal, I turned my head and saw a bear right next to me. I jumped and the bear jumped, and the animal run away. Nothing happened, but I remembered the silence as something meaningful. This time too, I felt something strange about badgers walking in complete silence. I did not feel scared, but I felt uneasy.

Yet, I was mesmerized. Badgers are not easy to spot. They avoid people and only walk at night. With all my outdoor experience, only once in my life had I seen one. I had never seen two.

The spectacle went on for a while. At some point, the badgers looked at me again and walked back into the cave. Soon, I fell asleep again.

I was woken in the morning by the crisp sound of the church bells. It was 8:00 a.m., and the church warden, an old lady, had come to ring the bells and clean up things near the church. She was not happy to see me under the tree — but it was not inhospitality, just the opposite: she would prefer that I had found a proper bed.

She lamented for a while in Greek, then pointed the finger to the nearest house and said “The coffee shop is over there.”

Before going to the coffee shop, I rolled up my mattress. While doing so, I remembered the badgers and decided to explore the cave. I turned my head to the right. And that was weird. Where I had seen the cave, there was no cave. There was no hill either, in which the cave would have been. I was in the middle of an olive grove; the terrain was flat.

I was so confused. Did I dream the hill, the cave, and the two badgers? The memory was so crisp and detailed, I could hardly believe it would have been a dream. Yet, where I had seen the cave, there was no cave. What the hell.

Maybe I needed coffee to wake up.

The coffee shop was closed, but neighbors spotted me and let the owner know. He soon walked in, opened the shop, and prepared coffee and a toast for me. The neighbor Angelo joined in. I remembered him from yesterday’s party, so we talked. Angelo originated from Sarakina. In his youth, he had immigrated to the U.S. and worked most of his life in New York. Now he was retired, back here, and enjoying his life. Like me, he had been to the panigiri yesterday. Soon, one by one, the cafeteria filled up with people: neighbors and visitors who had just woken up after the festival. Angelo’s wife came as well, and I was introduced.

Angelo

I enjoyed the moment, but I had to go. I bid farewell and walked to my car. I started the engine and slowly passed the tiny village.

Outside the village, I spotted something on the road. I approached slowly and recognized the shape.

It was a dead badger. But not one. A second body lay a few meters away.

Two dead badgers.

I took a picture of the second badger.

I took a picture of the second dead badger

Many thoughts stormed through my mind later that day. Maybe the badgers had been killed by drunk drivers after the party, about 3:00 a.m. But what did happen to me, and what really occurred that night in Sarakina?

Bonus…

Some more panigiri pictures from Crete and other islands this year.