All the vracare or vracarke (fortune-tellers, soothsayers, clairvoyants, spell-breakers, or witches) that we visited in the triangle between Negotin, Bor, and Zajecar made quite similar assertions. They told us that they had received their abilities from God or that they did not know where their knowledge came from; it manifested itself suddenly or the laws came from above and they are the ones to administer them. All God’s plenipotentiaries provide similar explanations for their magic powers and present themselves as assistants of the Virgin Mary or Muma Paduri, the "Great Mother": "Fortune-telling is mine, healing belongs to Holy Mary, as her knowledge is greatest." They do not demand payment, and they help everyone who needs their services, which they offer until nightfall every day of the week except on Mondays, holidays, and saint’s days, the number of which exceeds those in Christianity by at least twice.

The Vlachs have preserved many magic customs that accompany the cults of birth, life, and death. There is no end of stories told among the people and among the Vlach witches; although such stories are steadily falling into oblivion, they are still the treasury of memories, beliefs, ceremonies, cults, and superstitions.

Radmila Novakovic from Vojvodani has been trembling, behaving strangely, and going into trances for thirty years. Among the Vlachs she is known as a rusalja, an undine, and twice a year—on Holy Trinity Day in summer and St. John’s Day in winter—many people come to visit her. On these days she displays exceptional abilities to read the past, foretell the future, and make contact with the dead.

People come to 77-year-old baba ("Grandmother") Stojanka from Stubik so she can protect them from evil forces; she visits their homes to draw all the bad from their houses and to protect them. She speaks about living vampires as if they are a common phenomenon in every village. Observing Baba Stojanka makes one think that she does not need the traditional handful of seeds for fortune telling and that she sees things without "great" rituals.

Baba ("Grandmother") Ljubinka, a poor pensioner from Metovnica, was the last person among the Vlach minority and among numerous Serbs to be persecuted as a witch. She was persecuted and humiliated because on August 12, 1998, on the day of Polake, the greatest Vlach holiday, she went to the river and performed a ritual she had learned from her ancestors, a religious ceremony originating from pre-Christian times. It is similar to those described on the Hittite plates from the tenth century B.C. The persecution of witches has since become history, and now people come from all Serbia to seek advice from the vracare, whom they find trustworthy and who are gaining in popularity every day.