Vampire

Marks of Vampirism

Vampirism is said to be epidemic in character: where one instance is discovered it is almost invariably followed by several others. It is believed that the victim of a vampire pines away and dies and becomes in turn a vampire after death, and so duly infects others.

After the disinterment of a suspected vampire, various well-known signs are looked for by experienced persons. Thus, if several holes about the breadth of a man's finger are observed in the soil above the grave, the vampire character of its occupant may be suspected. The corpse is usually found with wide-open eyes, ruddy, life-like complexion and lips, a general appearance of freshness, and shows no signs of corruption.

It may also be found that the hair and nails have grown as in life. On the throat, two small livid marks may be observed. The coffin is also very often full of blood, the body has a swollen and gorged appearance, and the shroud is frequently half-devoured. The blood contained in the veins of the corpse is found, on examination, to be in a fluid condition as in life, and the limbs are pliant and have none of the rigidity of death.

Examples of Vampirism

Many tales of vampirism have been recorded. Charles Ferdinand de Schertz, in his work Magia Posthuma, printed at Olmutz in 1706, related several stories of apparitions of this sort.

One, among others, was of a herdsman of the village of Blow near the town of Kadam in Bohemia, who visited several persons who all died within eight days.

At last, the inhabitants of Blow dug up the herdsman's body and fixed it in the ground with a stake driven through it. The man, even in this condition, laughed at the action of the people about him and told them they were very obliging to furnish him with a stick with which to defend himself.

The same night, he extricated himself from the stake, frightened several persons by appearing to them, and caused the deaths of many more individuals. He was then delivered into the hands of the hangman, who put him into a cart in order to burn him outside the town. As they went along, the carcass shrieked in the most hideous manner and moved as if it were alive, and upon being again run through with a stake, it gave a loud cry, and a great quantity of fresh blood issued from the wound. At last, the body was burned to ashes.

Augustine Calmet, in his Dissertation on Vampires appended to his Dissertation upon the Apparitions of Angels, Demons, and Ghosts (English translation, 1759), gave several instances of vampirism:

"It is now about fifteen years since a soldier, who was quartered in the house of a Haidamack peasant, upon the frontiers of Hungary, saw, as he was at the table with his landlord, a stranger come in and sit down by them. The master of the house and the rest of the company were strangely terrified, but the soldier knew not what to make of it. The next day the peasant died, and, upon the soldier's enquiring into the meaning of it, he was told that it was his landlord's father who had been dead and buried above ten years that came and sat down at table, and gave his son notice of his death.

"The soldier soon propagated the story through his regiment, and by this means it reached the general officers, who commissioned the count de Cabreras … to make an exact enquiry into the fact. The count, attended by several officers, a surgeon, and a notary, came to the house, and took the deposition of all the family, who unanimously swore that the spectre was the landlord's father, and that all the soldier had said was strictly true. The same was also attested by all the inhabitants of the village.

"In consequence of this the body of the spectre was dug up, and found to be in the same state as if it has been but just dead…. The count de Cabreras ordered its head to be cut off, and the corpse to be buried again. He then proceeded to take depositions against other spectres of the same sort, and particularly against a man who had been dead above thirty years, and had made his appearance there several times in his own house at meal-time. At his first visit he had fastened upon the neck of his own brother, and sucked his blood; at his second, he had treated one of his children in the same manner; and the third time, he fastened upon a servant of the family, and all three died upon the spot.

"Upon this evidence, the count gave orders that he should be dug up, and being found, like the first, with his blood in a fluid state, as if he had been alive, a great nail was drove through his temples, and he was buried again. The count ordered a third to be burnt, who had been dead above sixteen years, and was found guilty of murdering two of his own children by sucking their blood.

"The gentleman who acquainted me with all these particulars, had them from the count de Cabreras himself, at Fribourg in Brisgau, in the year 1730."

Other cases alluded to by Calmet are as follows:

"In the part of Hungary … on the other side of the Tibiscus,… the people named Heydukes have a notion that there are dead persons, called by them vampires, which suck the blood of the living, so as to make them fall away visibly to skin and bones, while the carcasses themselves, like leeches, are filled with blood to such a degree that it comes out at all the apertures of their body. This notion has lately been confirmed by several facts.

"About five years ago, an Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, an inhabitant of Medreiga, was killed by a cart full of hay that fell upon him. About thirty days after his death, four persons died suddenly, with all the symptoms usually attending those who are killed by vampires. It was then remembered that this Arnold Paul had frequently told a story of his having been tormented by a Turkish vampire, in the neighbourhood of Cassova, upon the borders of Turkish Servia (for the notion is that those who have been passive vampires in their life-time become active ones after death; or, in other words, that those who have had their blood sucked become suckers in their turn) but that he had been cured by eating some of the earth upon the vampire's grave, and by rubbing himself with his blood. This precaution, however, did not hinder him from being guilty himself after his death; for, upon digging up his corpse forty days after his burial, he was found to have all the marks of an arch-vampire. His body was fresh and ruddy, his hair, beard, and nails were grown, and his veins were full of fluid blood, which ran from all parts of his body upon the shroud that he was buried in. The hadnagy, or bailiff of the village, who was present at the digging up of the corpse, and was very expert in the whole business of vampirism, ordered a sharp stake to be drove quite through the body of the deceased, and to let it pass through his heart, which is attended with a hideous cry from the carcass, as if it had been alive. This ceremony being performed, they cut off the head, and burnt the body to ashes. After this, they proceeded in the same manner with the four other persons that died of vampirism, lest they also should be troublesome. But all these executions could not hinder this dreadful prodigy from appearing again last year, at the distance of five years from its first breaking out. In the space of three months, seventeen persons of different ages and sexes died of vampirism, some without any previous illness, and others after languishing two or three days. Among others, it was said, that a girl, named Stanoska, … went to bed in perfect health, but awoke in the middle of the night, trembling, and crying out that the son of the Heyduke Millo, who died about nine weeks before, had almost strangled her while she was asleep. From that time she fell into a languishing state, and died at three days' end. Her evidence against Millo's son was looked upon as a proof of his being a vampire, and, upon digging up his body, he was found to be such.

"At the consultation of the principal inhabitants of the place, … it was considered how it was possible that the plague of vampirism should break out afresh, after the precautions that had been taken some years before: and, at last, it was found out that the original offender, Arnold Paul, had not only destroyed the four persons mentioned above, but had killed several beasts, which the late vampires, and particularly the son of Millo, had fed upon. Upon this foundation a resolution was taken to dig up all the persons that had died within a certain time. Out of forty were found seventeen, with all the evident tokens of vampirism; and they had all stakes drove through their hearts, their heads cut off, their bodies burnt, and their ashes thrown into the river."

Methods of Extirpation

The commonest methods of extirpation of vampires are beheading the suspected corpse, taking out the heart, impaling the corpse with a white-thorn stake (in Russia an aspen), and burning it. Sometimes more than one or all of these precautions is taken.

Instances are on record where the graves of as many as thirty or forty persons have been disturbed during the course of an epidemic of suspected vampirism and their occupants impaled or beheaded.

Persons who dread the visits or attacks of a vampire sleep with a wreath made of garlic round the neck, as garlic is supposed to be especially obnoxious to the vampire.

When impaled, the vampire is usually said to emit a dreadful cry, but it has been pointed out that intestinal gas may be forced through the throat by the entry of the stake into the body, and that this may account for the sound.

The method of discovering a vampire's grave in Serbia was to place a virgin boy upon a coal-black stallion which had never served a mare and to mark the spot that the horse refused to pass. An officer quartered in Wallachia wrote to Calmet, giving him an instance of this method.

A Bulgarian belief was that a wizard or sorcerer may entrap a vampire by placing some food for which the vampire has a partiality in a bottle. When the vampire enters in the shape of fluff, the sorcerer can seal up the flask and throw it into the fire.

Scientific Views of Vampirism

The British custom of piercing a suicide's body with a stake would appear to be a remnant of the belief in vampirism. Such beliefs were also to be seen in the Polynesian tii, the Malayan hantu penyardin (a dog-headed water demon), and the kephn of the Karens, which devoured human souls.

The English anthropologist E. B. Tylor considered vampires to be "causes conceived in spiritual form to account for specific facts of wasting disease." The Russian folklorist Alexander N. Afansyev regarded them as thunder gods and spirits of the storm, who sleep during winter in cloud coffins and rise again in spring.

Calmet's difficulty in accepting vampires was that he could not understand how a spirit could leave its grave and return there with matter in the form of blood, leaving no evidence that the surface of the earth above the grave had been stirred. But this view might be combated by the theory of the precipitation of matter.

In modern times, it is easy to understand how individuals in an unrecognized condition of cataleptic trance might have been prematurely buried alive and upon regaining consciousness have struggled to escape their horrible plight. Their bodies would have exhibited many of the signs associated with vampires.

It is now also generally known that some individuals suffer from a morbid fascination with human blood, and it would have been easy in the past to associate such unnatural appetite with vampirism. The infamous Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Transylvania (d. 1614) was reputed to have murdered nearly 700 young women in the belief that their blood would keep her young.

No doubt the observed activities of the various types of vampire bats (Desmodus Rufus, Didemus Yungi, Diphylla Caudata, Des-modus Rotunda) in sucking blood from cattle and horses have helped to spread legends of vampires. The vampire bat drinks 20 ccs of blood per day and has been known to attack human beings. It also spreads rabies, thus enhancing stories of a vampire plague.

Psychic Theories of Vampires

Some individuals seem to have the ability to draw some kind of psychic energy from others. Every stage performer or public speaker is aware of the rapport which exists between performer and audience, and many have become expert at gaining confidence and power through some instinctive techniques of centralizing and transforming psychic or nervous energy.

The common experience of out-of-the-body travel or astral projection has sometimes been associated with visits to other individuals, as well as contacts with frightening elementals on the astral plane. Some occultists appear to have mastered techniques by which they can astrally project, and visit their victims while asleep and drain their vitality from them.

During the nineteenth century, the French Spiritualist Z. J. Piérart attempted to reconcile the theory of premature burial with astral projection by those who died after being buried alive. He wrote:

"Poor dead cataleptics, buried as if really dead in cold and dry spots where morbid causes are incapable of effecting the destruction of their bodies, the astral spirit enveloping itself with a fluidic ethereal body, is prompted to quit the precincts of its tomb and to exercise on living bodies acts peculiar to physical life, especially that of nutrition, the result of which, by a mysterious link between soul and body which spiritualistic science will some day explain, is forwarded to the material body lying still within the tomb, and the latter is thus helped to perpetuate its vital existence."

Adolphe d'Assier, in his book Posthumous Humanity (1887), admitted that the body of the vampire may be dead but the spirit earthbound and obsessed with the idea that the physical body must be saved from dissolution. Consequently the dense astral body feeds on human victims and, by some mysterious process, conveys the blood into the tomb.

Both speculations furnish explanations of the attestation of numerous ancient chronicles that fresh blood was found in the exhumed and uncorrupted body of dead people suspected of vampirism.

Following the occult boom of the 1950s, Bram Stoker 's powerful but much neglected masterpiece Dracula was taken up again, examined by critics and found to be as full of vitality as during Stoker's own lifetime. Almost by contagion, it has generated a plethora of horror movies, plays, and other vampire thrillers.

In Britain, the Dracula Society, with its general interest in Gothic themes, pioneered tourist expeditions to Transylvania, and in Stoker's Ireland, a Bram Stoker Society was founded to honor a much neglected Irishman. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the most active organization was the Count Dracula Fan Club, headquartered in New York City. However, in 1999, the club announced its closing.

Much of the interest in vampires has also been carried by fan clubs that have grown out of television series. "Dark Shadows" fandom, from the 1960s, had retained its vitality for over 30 years and still attracts 400-600 members to its annual meeting. Another set of fan clubs sprung up from "Forever Knight," the series featuring a vampire policeman from Toronto. As the century ended, vampire fandom received an unexpected boost from the successful series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

In the 1990s, interest in vampires shifted largely to the Internet where thousands of sites cover all aspects of the vampire world. Over 2000 sites alone were devoted just to the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" show in 1999. Vampire Junction, formerly a fan magazine, was one of the first to make the transition to the Internet and emerged as one of the most complete guides to vampires.

Sources:

Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, & Death: Folklore & Reality. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.

Burton, Sir Richard. Vikram and the Vampire, or Tales of Hindu Devilry. London: Tilston & Edwards, 1832. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1969.

Calmet, Augustine. Dissertations Upon the Apparitions of Angels, Demons, and Ghosts, and Concerning … Vampires. Paris: De Burel'aine, 1746. Reprint, London, 1759.

——. The Phantom World; or, The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, & Co. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1850; Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1850.

De Schertz, Charles F. Magia Posthuma. Olmutz, 1706.

Dresser, Norine. American Vampires: Fans, Victims & Practitioners. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

Dundas, Alan. The Vampire: A Casebook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.

Ennemoser, Joseph. The History of Magic. 2 vols. 1854. Reprint, New York: University Books, 1970.

Frayling, Christopher, ed. Vampyres: From Lord Byron to Count Dracula. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.

Glut, Donald F. The Dracula Book. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975.

Harenburg, Johann C. Von Vampyren. N.p., 1739.

Hartmann, Franz. Premature Burial. London: Swann Sonnenschein, 1896.

Hertz, Wilhelm. Der Werwolf. Stuttgart, 1862.

Introvigne, Massimo. La stripe de Dracula: Indagine sul vampirismpo dall'antichita ai nostro giorni. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadari Editore, 1997.

Mackenzie, Andrew. Dracula Country. London: Arthur Barker, 1977.

Marigny, Jean. Vampires: Restless Creatures of the Night. New York: Abrams, 1994.

McNally, Raymond T. Dracula Was a Woman. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

McNally, Raymond T., and Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1972. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Mannhardt, W. Über Vampirismus. (see vol. 4 of Zeitschrift für Deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde) Göttingen, 1858.

Masters, Anthony. The Natural History of the Vampire. London: Ruper Hart-Davis, 1972; London: Mayflower 1974.

Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. 2nd edition. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999.

——. The Vampire Gallery. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1998.

——. Video Hound's Vampires on Video. Detroit, Visible Ink Press, 1996.

Miller, Elizabeth. Dracula: Sense and Nonsense. Westcliffe-on-Sea, UK: Desert Island Books, 1998.

——. Dracula: The Shade and the Shadow. Westcliffe-on-Sea, UK: Desert Island Books, 1998.

——. Reflection on Dracula: Ten Essays. White Rock, BC: Transylvanian Press, 1997.

Perkowski, Jan I., ed. Vampires of the Slavs. Cambridge, Mass.: Slavica Press, 1976.

Ralston, W. R. S. Russian Folk Tales. London: Smith, Elder, 1873.

——. The Songs of the Russian People. London, 1872. Reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1970.

Ranfft, Michael. De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis. Leipzig, 1728.

Rickles, Laurence A. The Vampire Lectures. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

Rohr, Philip. De Masticatione Mortuorum. N.p., 1679.

Ronay, Gabriel. The Dracula Myth. London: W. H. Auden, 1972; London: Pan 1975.

Roth, Phyllis A. Bram Stoker. Boston: Twayne, 1982.

Senf, Carol A. The Vampire in Nineteenth-Century English Literature. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1988.

Shepard, Leslie. The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories. New York: Citadel, 1977.

Summers, Montague. The Vampire, His Kith and Kin. London: Kegan, Paul, 1928; New York: University Books, 1960.

——. The Vampire in Europe. London: Kegan, Paul, 1929; New York: University Books, 1962.

Thompson, R. Campbell. The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia. 2 vols. London, 1903-04.

Underwood, Peter. The Vampire's Bedside Companion: The Amazing World of Vampires in Fact and Fiction. London: Leslie Frewin, 1972.

Wright, Dudley. The Book of Vampires. 2d ed. London, 1924; Causeway Books, 1973.

Zopfius, Johan Heinrich. Dissertatio de Vampiris Seruiensibus. Halle, 1733.