There are several other methods of arranging the vampirism-prone
corpse that you didn't mention, and I don't have a list handy. If I
recall, they involve several nails driven into various parts of the
body, filling the mouth with various purifying substances (often
accompanied by decapitation), and soaking the corpse in or rubbing it
with various purifying substances. Purifying substances could include
salt, holy water, garlic, other spices, ashes (especially from holy
woods), and lemon juice. Burning and boiling, frequently combined with
other techniques, were also prescribed.
Miscellaneous
- Rome interpreted corporeal incorruptibility as a reward for sanctity
- Dhampirs are sons of vampires in Yugoslavia & the Balkans who
(for a fee) would chase down their alleged vampire fathers and kill
them for local villagers
- Black is the European colour or mourning but it is white in China and yellow in ancient Egypt
- Vampire bats are found ONLY in Mexico and Central and South
America; usually feed on cattle but have attacked humans. Vampire
bats were discovered and so named by CORTES in Mexico. The bat is
the only mammal that can fly. Real name of the vampire bat is
DESMODUS ROTUNDUS. These little guys bite and lick the spot
where the blood comes out; they do not (as it were) "suck."
- Many Vampires prey (at least at first) on family & loved ones usually violating a taboo
- Thanatos/eros: Psychiatry says vampirism is a kind of
expression of taboos of incest, necrophilia and oral and sadistic
sexual desires
- Polish & Russian vamps are out from noon to midnight and in
Russia a vamp is the child of a witch and a werewolf
- In Greece Vampires have blues eyes; in Poland they have sharp,
pointed tongues
- Vampires are said to have hairy palms (just as Wer-wolves)
- Tradition says that GARLIC sprang up where Satan placed his
left foot as he departed from Paradise after the temptation and the
Fall
- In ancient Babylonia and Assyria it was thought that blood
baths would cure leprosy
- Coffins were thought to be used originally to keep animals from digging
up corpses
- In vampire fiction we get the occurrence of the "native earth"
theory of behaviour (ie) a vampire must return to the earth for
certain periods of time.
- In Southern France & Greece all revenants
must remain in their graves on SATURDAYS (always a good day for
vampire killing) and in Serbo-Croatia this is extended so that
anyone born on a Saturday can kill a vampire but the vampire cannot
kill them. Pursuant to this, there is a saying in Yugoslavia among
Moslem gypsies that "a vampire can be seen by a twin brother or
sister born on a Saturday, who wear their drawers and shirts inside
out."
- In Serbia, vampires can turn themselves into butterflies
- Dogs are the hereditary enemies of vampires, probably
because members of the dog family eviscerate their prey first if
they can -- especially the heart, liver and lungs
- The big vampire mania in Europe is from 1723-1735
- It was thought that the devil came to take the skin off the
corpse & inflated it
Explanations
- Dr Herbert Mayo (1851) On the Truths Contained in Popular
Superstitions offered all kinds of explanations for vamps. Mayo is
excerpted in Clive Leatherdale's The Origins Of Dracula which Stoker probably
read.
- Sometimes homeless beggars would sleep in tombs and sneak
out a night in search of food
- There was No embalming until 100 years ago, hence comatose people were
often buried alive. When dug up (to put another corpse in the grave)the corpses showed
"signs" of life. Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive; there was a
mass hysteria about this in the 19th century and many people were buried with devices and
gadgets such as pipes which ran from the coffin up to fresh air on the surface.
- Dr Frantz Hartmann in his book Buried Alive (1895) recorded
700 incidents of premature burial in his neighbourhood alone.
- The Vampiric Taboo comes from Leviticus (XVII:14): "For it [blood]
is the life
of all flesh, the blood of it is the life thereof, therefore I said
unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not eat the blood of no
manner of flesh ... whosoever eatheth it shall be cut off..."
- Necrophiliacs were thought to be vampires
- Aristocrat's disease (teeth & gum disease &
photosensitivity as well as hair and nails glowing fluorescently)
is called Porphyria
- Necrophagism (eating corpses)
- Necrosadism (mutilation of corpses to induce sexual
excitement)
- Darwin thought that vampire bats (only one variety ...
some eat fruit, some eat insects, some eat fruits) soothed their
victims by fanning their wings
- See: Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and
Reality New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. [GR/830/B35/1988].
- In most cultures decomposition is seen as the key to
pacification of the corpse (ie making it inert)
- (Male) corpses have erections caused from bloating and
decomposition of sexual organs
- Corpses can swell up to twice their size
- Corpses can grow new skin; pathologists call this "skin slippage"
- Decaying bodies produce great amounts of flammable gas
(especially methane) hence when they burn they tend to "blow up" in
a spectacular fashion.
- Burning bodies can glow when burned because of a luminous bacteria
(ie photobacterium fischeri) can cause the glow
- Cremation was NOT an effective way to dispose of a corpse because
any part of the body touching the ground didn't burn, and even if burning
"enhancers" such as animal fat or butter (we would use gasoline
today) are thrown on to the corpse ... only the outside gets charred
Putrefaction leads to
- Greenish colour over internals & abdomen
- Discolouration (pink or dark)
- Blisters
- Escape of blood-stained fluid through
nostrils & mouth (as the body swells, pressure is put on the lungs &
blood and other liquids are forced out the mouth & nose)
- Abdominal distension
- Maggots
- Shedding of nails (and extension due to
recession of skin lines) & loss of hair
- Face unrecognizable (12-18 hours after death
the methane gas builds-up so that facial
features no longer recognizable)
- Bursting open of abdomen and thoracic
cavities
- "Skin slippage" ... skin underneath is not
"new" skin but simply raw-looking
Folklore:
- Why Garlic? In Medieval times doctors thought that plague
was caused by bad air (corruption of the air) hence "to fight fire
with fire" as it were, garlic was used to fight disease -- along
with other strong smelling things like incense, perfume, cow dung,
human faeces and Juniper
A Vampire By Any Other Name
- Africa: The Loango and in Ashantiland the Asanbosam
- Assyria: Ekimmu (EKIMINU) a malignant spirit (half ghost
half vampire) haunts its victims and sometimes attacks them;
caused by no proper burial
- Babylonia: Lilitu (in Hebrew Lilith or Adam's first wife in
Talmudic lore); she becomes a succubus attacked infants and children
and bringing erotic dreams to me. The Talmud itslef does not mention preying on children;
that was added later.
- Brazil: The Jaracaca which attacks only young mothers with babies
- Bulgaria: The Obour has only 1 nostril and a pointed tongue
- China: The P'O which has greenish white hair, claws cruel eyes.
Caused by a cat jumping over a corpse. Vampires take
possession of a human body but unlike European ones, Chinese
vampires have never been human at any time; they are called Ch'Iang Shih
(sometimes Ch'Iing Shuh)
- Crete: Vampires are called Katalkanas
- Denmark: Mara is a female vampire
- Greece: Vrukalakos and anyone with red hair is suspect;
also a Lamia which has the head & breast of female & the body of serpent.
It has the same function as Lilith. Some sources say in Greece Lamia is not a
vampire but a ghoul ... as is a Empusa.
- The Roman version of Lamia is Strix (the plural is Strigae) and
in Italian it's Strega (which now means "witch").
- Germany: The Alp which sucks blood and the nipples of victims.
There is also the Mara or Mora which is a succubus who straddles
sleeping men causing horrible nightmares
- Hungary: Pamgri or Vampir
- Ireland: The Druids spoke of Dearg-Duls
- India: The Baitol which is a vampire but it possesses corpses
- Malaysia: The Langsuitis a woman who wears a gown, has long nails
and long jet black hair to her ankles and she has a hole the back
of her neck which she uses to suck the blood from children. To
cure her, stuff the hole with as much hair as it will hold and
cut her nails.
- You become a Langsuir if you die in childbirth. To prevent her from
becoming one, stuff the mouth with glass beads, put eggs under her armpits and
pierce her hands with needles. Can also become one from shock on hearing of the death
of a child
- Malaysia: The Pennanggalan (sometimes spelled Penaggalan or
known as Pontianak -- an old repulsive hag who can a separate her
head from her body and fly around with her entrails flapping
around. There is another critter called a Polong which is the size of a joint
on little finger, hence a kinds of dwarfish vampire!
- Portugal: The Bruxsa is actually a cucubuth (a critter that
is both a Wer-Wolf and a Vampire) that attacks travellers & their own (the Bruxsa's own)
children
- Romania: The Nosferat is a stillborn illegitimate child of
two people who are similarly illegitimate. It can shape change
(any variety of animals and can be male or female). When it appears to a bridegroom
it brings sterility
- Russia: Viesczy are said to gnaw their own hands & feet
while in its grave in the daytime; also Upir and Oupyr. Here,
a vampire is the child of a witch and a werewolf.
- Scotland: Baobham are groups of beautiful girls who
drain blood from victims
Cases:
Vampire Epedemics:
- For 400 years after Vlad the story of Vlad was a "best seller"
in print especially in the German language but Dracula stories also
abounded in Hungarian, Romanian Greek and Turkish
- Eastern Europe was aflame with a vampire scare at the
beginning of the 18th century: Chios (1708); Belgrade (1725 and
1732); Serbia (1825); Hungary (1832); Danzig (1855)
- The early vampire craze kicked off with The Story of Peter
Pogojowitz in 1725; he was just a peasant who died and was
thought to be a vampire so they had to exhume the body
- In France in 1746, Dom Agustin Calmet published a treatise on
ghosts and vampires (he was a Benedictine Monk)
Personalities: (In)Famous Vampires
Excerpted and abridged from Montahue Summer's The vampire, His Kith & Kin
which is just an excellent read!
Gilles de Rais (aka de Retz):
He was a French national hero fighting with Joan Of Arc. After
the death of Joan and the crowing of the Dauphin, he went weird and
tortured children (mainly boys ... 200 of them). He would order
his servants to stab them in the jugular vein so their blood would
shoot all over him and whilst they bled to death he'd masturbate
over them. He was accused of sitting on
the bowels of a boy and drinking his blood while the boy lay
bleeding to death and accused of sodomy. Brought to trial in 1440
and written about in Joris Karl Huysmans' novel La-Bas (1891)
Vlad the Impaler:
- Vlad's father is Vlad Dracul (Vlad the devil) and was made
a member of The Order Of the Dragon in Nuremburg in February 1431.
Membership in the order meant an oath to fight the Turks (forever)
and yet the whole Dracula family flirted with the Turks as well as
killing them. Vlad father killed December 1447 by
henchmen of John Hunyadi .. a lose relative NOT prone to flirting
with the Turks
- Prince Vlad Tepes the 5th of
Wallachia (1431-1476 ... age 46 he was beheaded) born in the
Translyvanian town of Sighisoara, otherwise known as Schassburg
- Nickname Vlad; other name "Voevod" or warlord
or warrior prince (as opposed to a prince who rules by inherited
right)
- Tepes (pronounced tzae-paesh) means "spike" in Romanian; (I am grateful to Ioana Timariu for this
amendment).
- Vlad signed his name "DRAKULYA" (seems he couldn't
spell!!!)
- the city of Bistrita is starting point for anyone interested
in following this story by real travel
- in 1453 Constantinople falls to the Turks (during
Crusades) Vlad is Greek Orthodox (but also ties to Rome)
- Dracula's actual castle is near Arefu but there is
apparently a second one near Poenari
- Of all the variant sources of Dracula the German ones (says
Summers) are the most reliable in part because they are the oldest
(15th century). The oldest MS was written in low German in 1462
(during Vlad's own life). They were written by a Saxon
mon named Brother Jacob who fled the country for his life. There
is also a Russian MS written in 2486 and the general truth of these
MSS is confirmed by Papal documents sent to Rome in 1475
- The Vatican (apparently) still has some secret reports on
Vlad sent to Pope Pius II in Rome
- Dracule was also chronicled by the following chronicles:
- Chalkokondyles
- Sphrantzes
- Doukos
- Critoboulos of Imbros
- There is some etymological confusion over the meaning of Dracula.
- Little devil
- Son of the devil
- Dragon
- What is now Romania used to be 3 states: Transylvania,
Moldavia, Wallachia ... Transylvania has always been considered a
somewhat separate cultural entity because it is tucked behind the
Carpathian Alps. All were under the Roman empire at one time.
- The Dracule stories or episodes fall into 9 (these 9 are the only ones
that are common in all 3 MSS variants -- German, Slavonic &
Romanian). Initial versions and [] are composites based basically
on the Russian version. {} is the Romanian variants.
- Foreign Ambassadors
When visiting ambassadors from Turkey neglected
to remove their turbans in his presence[**said they could not
because it was their custom always to wear them**] he had their
turbans nailed to their heads with small iron nails and
sent them home that way
- The Nobleman with the Keen Sense of Smell
In the Russian story a servant gags at the stench of
impaled bodies at an outdoor banquet Dracula is having. Dracula often
dined amidst the dying people whose deaths he had ordered.
Dracula has the complaining servant impaled a few feet above the rest so
he won't smell anything
- Two Monks
Two Roman Catholic monks were in Dracula's court where
all kinds of people were impaled. Dracula separated the 2 monks and
asked the first what he thought: the 1st monk said that Dracula had
made martyrs of these people and was doing wrong. 2nd monk said
they must have done something wrong and Dracula was punishing them
justly. The 1st monk got impaled and the 2nd was given 50 ducats
of gold and a free escort to the Hungarian border. A Greek monk
was constantly belittling a poor Romanian priest over theological
and other matters and belittling Romanians in general: Dracula
invites both to his court (neither knows of the
other. Dracula asked the Greek monk what he thought of him; the Greek monk was
a sycophant and lied and was executed. A Romanian priest is asked
same questions and says some people are unhappy under Vlad's reign
cause their problems have increased and others (he says) are happy.
Vlad is delighted at his honesty and promotes him the court
confessor}
- Lazy Woman
Once Dracula saw a man on the street with a dirty and
ragged shirt. Dracula asked if he had a wife and the man says yes. Dracula
sees that she is healthy and has plenty of flax and calls her lazy
so he has both her hands cut off and has her body impaled {he
procured a new wife for the man and showed her what happened to her
lazy predecessor as a warning; the new wife was definitely not lazy}
- Dracula's Mistress
Not in Russian versions. {Dracula's mistress sees Vlad is unhappy
and tries to cheer him up by saying she is pregnant. He says
don't lie (she is now afraid of being caught in the lie so tries to
maintain she REALLY is ie how would he know. He opens her entrails to see
and sees nothing and as she lies dying says see, I knew you could not be
pregnant}.
- The Florentine Merchant
A travelling merchant lost 160 ducats while staying at an
Inn and went to Prince Dracula to explain. Dracula proclaimed
that this was no way to treat a guest. He told the town either to find
the thief or he'd destroy the whole town. He also demanded
that the townspeople replace the ducats BUT that ONE
EXTRA (ie: 161 ducats) be returned. The Foreigner reported the extra
ducat to Dracula, thereby saving himself from certain impalement
for Dracula was testing his and honesty. The thief was found, and,
of course, impaled. Dracula asked the Merchant to leave his gold there.
- The Golden Cup
Dracula had a golden cup placed near the fountain in
a deserted square of Targoviste. The cup was left there for people
to drink from. NO ONE ever dared steal it.
- Dracula's Treasure
Buried in iron barrels at the bottom of a river and all
the artisan who made and hid the treasure were killed
- Burning the Sick & the Poor
Dracula invited beggars [the sick & the poor] to dinner and then
locked the room from then outside and set in on fire claiming that
he was "eliminating inferior stock." In another version he came in to
talk to them while they were eating and asked if they wanted to be
without any more cares in the world, by which they
assumed he intended to give them gifts. The beggars were apparently lazy
and openly said so and Dracula thought that because they lived off
the sweat of others they were thieves... he invited all beggars in
the land to free clothes and free food .. they got drunk and died
in the fire.
- Unfaithful wives and promiscuous women were punished by Dracule by
cutting off their sex organs, skinning them alive and exposing them
in public with their skin hanging from a nearby pole
- Dracule is famous also for cutting off limbs, strangling, blinding,
boiling and burning his victims
- Dracule learned impaling from the Turks (he was captured by them in
1442 and led in chains to Adrianople where he was eventually
released). Dracula's imprisonment by the Turks happened when he
was no more than 15 years old and included physical and moral
abuse. He had to swear an oath never to attack the Turks
- He was also put in jail for 12 years by the King of
Wallachia and after he died the new king let Dracula out provided
he swore an oath to abandon Greek Orthodoxy and become Roman
Catholic
- Then there is a story that when Vlad was a boy he mutilated
and impaled small birds (viz Renfield in Dracula)
- Impalement victim had legs pulled by horses onto a stake
... which was rounded at the end and oiled so as NOT to cause
immediate death
- Dracula may or may not have been a cannibal (ie werewolf)
but he most certainly forced others into it ... often forcing
mothers to eat their babies
- Dracule always left cadavers to rot
- The (in)famous Vlad banquet amidst impaled people in concentric circles
with those of highest rank at the centre was April 6, 1459 in the
city of Brasov
- Impalement could be top down, bottom up or through the
navel
- Most impalings done only between 1459 and 1461
- In a battle in 1456 he impaled 20,000 Turks at once
witnessed by Mohammed II outside Targoviste (Vlad's capital).
Impalements were spread out over 2 square miles
- Dracule was a (sort of) hero in Romania because he made the
streets so "safe" that you could leave a purse in the middle of the
road and no one would pick it up.
- In 1458 Vlad builds the citadel at Bucharest
- Vlad had an effeminate brother named "Radu the Handsome" his son was
"Mihnea the bad"
- Vlad actually reigned 3 times :
1) briefly in 1448
2) 1456-
1462 and 3) for 2 months in 1476
- Vlad died in 1476 near Bucharest; only the Russian MS says
that in a battle against the Turks Dracula had disguised himself as
a Turk and as victory was near he got excited, ran to the top of a
hill to see it all, was (understandably) mistaken for a Turk and
killed by his own men
- Some of Vlad's (equally as) brutal contemporaries were
1) Spider King Louis XI (1423-1483)
2) Ludovico Sforza "The Moor" (1452-1508)
3) The Borgia Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503)
4) Sigismondo Malatesta (1417-1468)
5) Cezare Borgia (1476-1507)
- Dracula spent more years in prison than he did on the
throne
- Dracule surrounded himself with bishops, abbots and priests BOTH
Greek Orthodox and Roman
- Vlad's wife commits suicide rather than be led into
captivity by the Turks (this was during the 3rd campaign) ... she
may have jumped prematurely being afraid Vlad would lose the battle
- Vlad's tomb discovered accidentally in 1922 by a young
Romanian student named Constantin C. Giurescu in the village of
Strejnicu
- Vlad's "tomb" opened in 1931 but it was empty except for 1)
a badly deteriorated skeleton 2) a white porcelain crown (some
accounts ie. Summers says a golden crown) with blue stones (like
one which he had been given in his lifetime) 3) fragments of a
faded red silk garment with a ring sewn on the sleeve 4) a necklace
with the serpent motif on it (the serpent
was associated with the order of the dragon) -- all of the contents
of Dracula's grave "mysteriously disappeared" from the History
Museum of Bucharest where they were deposited
- somewhere hidden (so they say) are the famous "Dracula
Rabbit skins" in which he rewarded peasants for saving his life by
offering them land or $$. They took the land and he drew up
documents for them on 5 rabbit skins, giving them 20,000 acres.
It's said by the locals that the descendants of those peasants
still have the skins hidden somewhere
- on his 2nd campaign Dracula's son fell in battle but
he(Dracule) was too hardened to pick him up or help him. And it turns
out the boy lived and was raised by shepherds near Arefu. 12 years
later the peasant returned Vlad's son (Drac was now in power) and
Dracula rewards the peasant with huge tracts of lands
For more on Vlad, go to Beverley Richardson's The Vampire's Vault
Elizabeth of Bathory
- Was born 1560 (Hungarian) married to Count Ferencz Nadasdy (who
was always away at war) on May 8, 1575
- Some say her mother was a lesbian; some say Elizabeth was too
- Elizabeth murdered over 650 girls for her "beauty baths" which she
"discovered" after she struck a servant one day and the servant's
blood dropped on her hand. She felth that human blood seemed to make her skin
soft and supple
- Her manservant, Thurko, (sometimes written Thorko)
introduced her to witchcraft.
- She had no children for the first 10 years of her marriage
but then had 3 boys and 1 girl
- Her husband died in 1604; other accounts say in 1600
- Castle Csejthe (her home in the Northwest of Hungary) gets
turned into a torture chamber. Young girls were lured to the castle
on pretence of $$$ and employment ("service) by accomplices
(two "witches," Dorottya Szentes & Darvula)
- One day a servant girl who was combing her hair
accidentally pulled her hair and when Elizabeth slapped her some
blood spurted on to her hand which she subsequently became
convinced that the skin became more supple and smooth
- Countess also used an iron maiden for extracting blood
- One of her victims escaped and went to King Mathias II
of Hungary who commissioned an inquiry. Her castle is raided on
Dec 30, 1610
- All were brought to trial in January/February 1611 in Bitcse
- After the trial all her accomplices (including nurse Iilona
Joo) were tortured, beheaded & then cremated (some accounts also
say burned alive)
- Iilona Joo and Dorottya Szentes also had their fingers torn
out individually and were then burned alive
- Johanes Vjvary testified that 37 girls were tortured and
killed and Ilona Joo said 40 were tortured and killed
- Because of her eminence she was imprisoned (rather than executed and sealed
in a room by a stone mason in her castle. Food was slipped through a tiny
slot. She died 3 years later
- The Bathories were tied to Vlad's family (one Steven
Bathory had helped Vlad out in some battles)
- a film of this ... Countess Dracula (1971) starring Ingrid
Pitt; Daughters Of Darkness (1970) and Ritual Of Blood (1973)
- also she appears as one of the tales in Immoral Tales
(1974) directed by Polish director Walerian Borowczyk
Sergeant Francois Berterand
- Was known as the vampire and was a soldier with a taste for
graveyards and inhabitants. He was caught in in the act in 1849 and spent 1 year
in prison for lycanthropy and necrophilia.
Pre Dracula & Contemporary (1897) Vampire Literature
- William Of Newburgh and William of Malmsbury are 2
Anglo-Saxon vampire encounters and there is Anglo saxon poem
called The Vampyre of the Fens
- Ossenfelder Der Vampire (1748)
- Burgher Lenore (1773; translated by Sir Walter Scott in
1796 or 1794).