VAMPYRISM.
Horrible nature of the Superstition of Vampyrism--Persons attacked
by Vampyres become Vampyres themselves--Signs by which a Vampyre
was known--Origin of one of the signs--Effect attributed to
Excommunication in the Greek church--Story of an excommunicated
Greek--Calmet’s theory of the origin of the Superstition
respecting Vampyres--St. Stanislas--Philinnium--The Strygis
supposed to have given the idea of the Vampyre--Capitulary of
Charlemagne--Remedy against attacks from the Demon--Anecdote of
an impudent Vampyre--Story of a Vampyre at Mycone--Prevalence of
Vampyrism in the north of Europe--Walachian mode of detecting
Vampyres.
Among the many superstitions which have terrified and degraded mankind,
that which has received the name of Vampyrism is, perhaps, the most
horrible and loathsome. The Vampyre, or Blood-sucker, has been
forcibly described as “a corporeal creature of blood and unquenchable
blood-thirst,--a ravenous corpse, who rises in body and soul from his
grave, for the sole purpose of glutting his sanguinary appetite with
the life-blood of those whose blood stagnates in his own veins. He is
endowed with an incorruptible frame to prey on the lives of his kindred
and his friends--he re-appears among them from the world of the tomb,
not to tell its secrets of joy or of woe, not to invite or to warn by
the testimony of his experience, but to appal and assassinate those
who were dearest to him on earth--and this, not for the gratification
of revenge or any _human_ feeling, which, however depraved, might
find something in common with human nature; but to banquet a monstrous
thirst, acquired in the tomb, and which, though he walks in human form
and human lineaments, has swallowed up every human motive in its brutal
ferocity.”
It is manifest that a being of this kind must be infinitely more
terrible than the common race of ghosts, spectres, and fiendish
visitants. But there was another circumstance which inexpressibly
heightened the horror excited by the dread of being attacked. Wasting
illness, closed by death, was not all that the victim had to endure. He
who was sucked by a Vampyre was doomed to become in his turn a member
of the hideous community, and to inflict on others, even on those who
were nearest and dearest to him, the same evils by which he had himself
suffered and perished.
When a grave was opened in order to search for one of these pests, to
put a stop to his career, the sanguinary offender was recognised by the
corpse being fresh and well preserved, the eyes open or half closed,
the face of a vermilion hue, the limbs flexible, the hair and nails
long, and the pulse beating.
The idea of this unchanged state of the corpse seems to have
originated from a superstition of the Greek church. It was believed
that excommunication, inflicted by the Greek priests, had the power
of preventing the lifeless remains of the excommunicated person from
sinking into decay. An instance of this effect being produced is
mentioned by Ricaut, in his History of the Greek Church. A young man,
of Milos, who had been put under the ecclesiastical ban, was buried
in a remote and unconsecrated ground. He became a Vampyre, or, as
the modern Greeks term it, a Vroucolaca. The corpse was disinterred,
and displayed all the signs of Vampyrism. The priests were about to
treat it as was usual in such cases; but the friends of the deceased
solicited and obtained a cessation of hostilities, till a messenger
could be sent to Constantinople, to pray for absolution from the
Patriarch. The corpse, meanwhile, was placed in the church, and masses
were daily and nightly said. One day, while the priest was reading the
service, a crash was heard from the coffin; the lid was opened, and the
body was found as entirely decayed as though it had been buried for
seven years. When the messenger arrived with the absolution, it was
ascertained that the Patriarch had affixed his signature to it at the
exact moment when the crash was heard in the coffin!
The superstition relative to Vampyres is supposed by Calmet to be
derived from ancient legends. The first of these legends is the story
of St. Stanislas raising a man, who had been dead three years, and
whom he called to life that he might give evidence, in the saint’s
behalf, in a court of justice. After having given his testimony, the
resuscitated man returned quietly to his grave. A second is to be found
in Phlegon de Mirabilibus, who relates that a girl of the name of
Philinnium, a native of Tralles, in Asia Minor, not only visited, ate,
and drank, with her lover, after her death, but even cohabited with
him. But in neither of these cases do we find a trace of the diabolical
malignity which characterizes the Vampyre. A more congenial origin may
perhaps be found in the Strygis, of which Ovid makes mention; and this
origin appears the more probable when we consider that, in the middle
ages, the Strygis had an established place among the demon tribe;
and, in the shape of suspected males and females, was often burnt,
among other sorcerers and magicians, by the Lombards and Germans.
There is extant a capitulary of Charlemagne, which shows how prevalent
the belief was in the existence of the Strygis, and how strong a
resemblance the fiend bore to the Vampyre of modern times. It enacts
that “if any person, deceived by the devil, shall believe, after the
manner of the Pagans, that any man or woman was a Strygis, or Stryx,
and was given to eat men, and for this cause should burn such person,
or should give such person’s flesh to be eaten, or should eat such
flesh, such man or woman should be capitally punished.”
From the capitulary it is clear, that eating the flesh of the
delinquent Stryx was supposed to be a remedy for the evils which the
demon inflicted. There is a somewhat similar circumstance connected
with the Vampyre, which strengthens the idea that it is a legitimate
descendant of the Stryx. In a French work, published nearly a century
and a half ago, is an account of the Upiers or Vampyres, which infested
Poland and Russia. “They appear,” says the author, “from midday to
midnight, and suck the blood of men and beasts in such abundance, that
it often issues again out of their mouth, nose and ears; and the corpse
sometimes is found swimming in the blood with which its cere-cloth is
filled. This Redivive, or Upier (or some demon in his form) rises from
the tombs, goes by night to hug and squeeze violently his relations
or friends, and sucks their blood, so as to weaken and exhaust them,
and at length occasion their death. This persecution is not confined
to a single person, but extends throughout the family, unless it is
arrested by cutting off the head, or opening the heart, of the Upier,
which they find in its cere-cloth, soft, flexible, tumid, and ruddy,
although long ago dead. A large quantity of blood commonly flows from
the body, _which some mix up with flour and make bread of it; and this
bread, when eaten, is found to preserve them from the vexation of the
spectre_.” It is singular, however, that though the Vampyre himself
might thus be rendered edible, he was imagined to communicate an
infectious quality to whatever he fed on; so that, if any one were
unlucky enough to eat the flesh of cattle which had been sucked, he
would, after death, be sure of becoming a member of the blood-sucking
fraternity.
In one part of his statement this author is incorrect. Vampyres were
not to be so easily got rid of as he imagined. Nothing short of burning
would, at least in a majority of cases, put an end to their diabolical
visitations. Some of them had the audacity to make a jest of driving
a stake through them. Of this class was a peasant, of the village of
Blow, in Bohemia, who had long been most mischievously active. “At last
they dug him up, and drove a stake through him, during which he had the
impudence to laugh and jeer at his executioners, and thank them for
giving him a stick to defend himself against the dogs. This procedure
did not answer at all. He became still more troublesome than ever. Then
they delivered him over to the hangman, who placed him in a cart, to
carry him out of the village and burn him. But in this new situation
he kicked and struggled like a man in a frenzy, and, when they again
drove stakes into him, uttered loud shrieks, and gave a large quantity
of fine healthy blood. At last they burnt him: and the village at the
moment ceased to be infested as before.”
The belief in Vampyrism prevailed in Greece, where, as we have already
stated, the demon was known by the name of Vroucolaca, or Broucocolas.
Tournefort relates an amusing story of one that wofully annoyed the
inhabitants of Mycone. Prayers, processions, stabbing with swords,
sprinklings of holy water, and even pouring it in large doses down
the throat of the refractory Vroucolaca, were all tried in vain.
An Albanian, who chanced to be at Mycone, objected to two of these
remedies. It was no wonder that the devil continued in, he said,
for how could he possibly come through the holy water! and as to the
swords, they were equally effectual in preventing his exit; for,
their handles being crosses, he was so much terrified that he dared
not pass them. To obviate the latter objection, he recommended that
Turkish scimetars should be used. The scimetars were accordingly put
in requisition, but the pertinacious devil still retained his hold
of the corpse, and played his pranks with as much vigour as ever. At
length, when all the respectable inhabitants were packing up, to take
flight to Syra or Tinos, an effectual mode of ousting the Vroucolaca
was fortunately suggested. The body was committed to the flames, on the
first of January, 1701, and the spirit, being thus forcibly ejected
from his abode, was rendered incapable of doing farther mischief. He,
however, left behind him a legacy of vexation to the Myconians; for,
as a punishment for having had doings with the evil one, a fine was
imposed upon them by the Turks, when they next visited the island to
receive the capitation tax.
But though Vampyrism was known in Greece, it was far more prevalent
in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Poland, Hungary, and Walachia. In those
countries it raged particularly from 1725 to 1735. There was scarcely
a village that was not said to be haunted by one of the blood-sucking
demons; and the greatest part of the population was a prey to terror.
The belief was not confined to the vulgar; all classes participated
in it; military and ecclesiastical commissions were appointed to
investigate the facts; and the press teemed with dissertations and
narratives from the pens of erudite individuals, whose learning was at
least equalled by their inveterate credulity.
In the mode which was employed by the Walachians for the detection of
Vampyres, there is a touch of the romantic. On a jet-black horse,
which had never approached the female, they mounted a young boy, and
made them pass up and down in the churchyard by all the graves; and
wherever the animal refused to proceed, they concluded that particular
grave to be inhabited by a Vampyre. “They then open it,” says the
narrator, “and find within it a corpse equally fat and fair as a man
who is quietly sleeping.” By cutting off the head, and filling up the
trench, all danger was removed, and those who had been attacked were
gradually restored to their strength and faculties.