VAMPIRISM IN SERVIA AND BULGARIA
The document which gives the particulars of the following remarkable
story is signed by three regimental surgeons and formally countersigned
by the lieutenant-colonel and sub-lieutenant, and bears the date June
7th, 1732, with the address Meduegna, near Belgrade.
“In the spring of 1727 there returned from the Levant to the village of
Meduegna, near Belgrade, one Arnod Paole, who, in a few years’ military
service and varied adventure, had amassed enough to purchase a cottage
and an acre or two of land in his native place, where he gave out that
he meant to pass the remainder of his days. He kept his word. Arnod
had yet scarcely reached the prime of manhood; and though he must have
encountered the rough as well as the smooth of life, and have mingled
with many a wild and reckless companion, yet his natural good disposition
and honest principles had preserved him unscathed in the scenes he had
passed through. At all events, such were the thoughts expressed by his
neighbours as they discussed his return and settlement among them in
the stube of the village hof. Nor did the frank and open countenance of
Arnod, his obliging habits and steady conduct, argue their judgments
incorrect. Nevertheless, there was something occasionally noticeable in
his ways, a look and tone that betrayed inward disquiet. He would often
refuse to join his friends, or on some sudden plea abruptly quit their
society. And he still more unaccountably, and it seemed systematically,
avoided meeting his pretty neighbour, Nina, whose father occupied the
next farm to his own. At the age of seventeen Nina was as charming a
picture of youth, cheerfulness, innocence, and confidence as you could
have seen in all the world. You could not look into her limpid eye,
which steadily returned your gaze, without seeing to the bottom of the
pure and transparent spring of her thoughts. Why then did Arnod shrink
from meeting her? He was young; had a little property; had health and
industry; and he had told his friends he had formed no ties in other
lands. Why then did he avoid the fascination of the pretty Nina, who
seemed a being made to chase from any brow the clouds of gathering care?
But he did so, yet less and less resolutely, for he felt the charm of her
presence. Who could have done otherwise? And how long he resisted the
impulse of his fondness for the innocent girl who sought to cheer his
fits of depression!
“And they were to be united—were betrothed; yet still the anxious gloom
would fitfully overcast his countenance, even in the sunshine of those
hours.
“‘What is it, dear Arnod, that makes you sad? It cannot be on my account,
I know, for you were sad before you noticed me; and that, I think surely,
first made me notice you.’
“‘Nina,’ he answered, ‘I have done, I fear, a great wrong in trying to
gain your affections. Nina, I have a fixed impression that I shall not
live; yet, knowing this, I have selfishly made my existence necessary to
your happiness.’
“‘How strangely you talk, dear Arnod! Who in the village is stronger and
healthier than you? You feared no danger when you were a soldier. What
danger do you fear as a villager of Meduegna?’
“‘It haunts me, Nina.’
“‘But, Arnod, you were sad before you thought of me. Did you then fear to
die?’
“‘Oh, Nina, it is something worse than death.’ And his vigorous frame
shook with agony.
“‘Arnod, I conjure you, tell me.’
“‘It was in Cossova this fate befell me. Here you have hitherto escaped
the terrible scourge. But there they die, and the dead visit the living.
I experienced the first frightful visitation, and I fled; but not till I
had sought his grave and executed the dread expiation from the vampire.’
“Nina’s blood ran cold. She stood horror-stricken. But her young heart
soon mastered her first despair. With a touching voice she spoke: ‘Fear
not, dear Arnod; fear not now. I will be your shield, or I will die with
you!’
“And she encircled his neck with her gentle arms, and returning hope
shone, Iris-like, amid her falling tears. Afterwards they found a
reasonable ground for banishing or allaying their apprehension in the
lengthy time which had elapsed since Arnod left Cossova, during which
no fearful visitant had again approached him; and they fondly protested
_that_ gave them security.
“One day about a week after this conversation Arnod missed his footing
when on the top of a loaded hay-waggon, and fell from it to the ground.
He was picked up insensible, and carried home, where, after lingering a
short time, he died. His interment, as usual, followed immediately. His
fate was sad and premature. But what pencil could paint Nina’s grief?
“Twenty or thirty days after his decease, several in the neighbourhood
complained that they were haunted by the deceased Arnod; and what was
more to the purpose, four of them died. The evil looked at sceptically
was bad enough, but aggravated by the suggestions of superstition it
spread a panic through the whole district. To allay the popular terror,
and, if possible, to get at the root of the evil, a determination
was come to publicly to disinter the body of Arnod, with the view of
ascertaining whether he really was a vampire, and, in that event, of
treating him conformably. The day fixed for these proceedings was the
fortieth after his burial.
“It was on a grey morning in early August that the commission visited
the cemetery of Meduegna, which, surrounded with a wall of stone, lies
sheltered by the mountain that, rising in undulating green slopes,
irregularly planted with fruit-trees, ends in an abrupt craggy ridge,
covered with underwood. The graves were, for the most part, neatly
kept, with borders of box, or something like it, and flowers between,
and at the head of most, a small wooden cross, painted black, bearing
the name of the tenant. Here and there a stone had been raised. One of
terrible height, a single narrow slab, ornamented with grotesque Gothic
carvings, dominated over the rest. Near this lay the grave of Arnod
Paole, towards which the party moved. The work of throwing out the earth
was begun by the grey, careful old sexton, who lived in the Leichenhaus
beyond the great crucifix. Near the grave stood two military surgeons
or _feldscherers_ from Belgrade, and a drummer-boy, who held their
case of instruments. The boy looked on with keen interest; and when the
coffin was exposed and rather roughly drawn out of the grave, his pale
face and bright, intent eye showed how the scene moved him. The sexton
lifted the lid of the coffin; the body had become inclined to one side.
Then, turning it straight: ‘Ha, ha! What? Your mouth not wiped since last
night’s work?’
“The spectators shuddered; the drummer-boy sank forward, fainting, and
upset the instrument case, scattering its contents; the senior surgeon,
infected with the horror of the scene, repressed a hasty exclamation.
They threw water on the drummer-boy and he recovered, but would not leave
the spot. Then they inspected the body of Arnod. It looked as if it had
not been dead a day. After handling it, the scarfskin came off, but below
were _new skin and new nails_! How could they have come there but from
this foul feeding? The case was clear enough: there lay before them the
thing they dreaded—the vampire! So, without more ado, they simply drove a
stake through poor Arnod’s chest, whereupon a quantity of blood gushed
forth, and the corpse uttered a dreadful groan.
“‘Murder! Murder!’ shrieked the drummer-boy, as he rushed wildly, with
convulsed gestures, from the scene.”
The body of Arnod was then burnt to ashes, which were returned to the
grave. The authorities further staked and burnt the bodies of the four
others who were supposed to have been infected by Arnod. No mention
is made of the state in which they were found. The adoption of these
decisive measures failed, however, entirely to extinguish the evil, which
continued still to hang about the village. About five years afterwards
it had again become very rife, and many died through it; whereupon the
authorities determined to make another and a complete clearance of the
vampire in the cemetery, and with that object they had all the graves,
to which suspicion attached, opened, and their contents officially
anatomised, and the following are abridgments of the medical reports:—
1. A woman of the name of Stana, twenty years of age, who had died three
months before, of a three days’ illness following her confinement.
She had before her death avowed that she had _anointed_ herself with
the blood of a vampire, to liberate herself from his persecution.
Nevertheless she had died. Her body was entirely free from decomposition.
On opening it the chest was found filled with recently effused blood, and
the bowels had exactly the appearance of sound health. The skin and nails
of her hands and feet were loose and came off, but underneath were new
skin and nails.
2. A woman of the name of Miliza, who had died at the end of a three
months’ illness. The body had been buried ninety and odd days. In the
chest was liquid blood. The viscera were as in the former instance.
The body was declared by a heyduk, who recognised it, to be in better
condition and fatter than it had been in the woman’s legitimate lifetime.
3. The body of a child eight years old, that had likewise been buried
ninety days; it was in the vampire condition.
4. The son of a heyduk, named Milloc, sixteen years old. The body
had lain in the grave nine weeks. He had died after three days’
indisposition, and was in the condition of a vampire.
5. Joachim, likewise the son of a heyduk, seventeen years old. He had
died after three days’ illness; had been buried eight weeks and some
days; was found in the vampire state.
6. A man of the name of Rusha, who had died of an illness of ten days’
duration and had been six weeks buried, in whom likewise fresh blood was
found in the chest.
7. The body of a girl ten years of age who had died two months before. It
was likewise in the vampire state, perfectly undecomposed, with blood in
the chest.
8. The body of the wife of one Hadnuck, buried seven weeks before; and
that of her infant eight weeks old, buried only twenty-one days. They
were both in a state of decomposition, though buried in the same ground
and closely adjoining the others.
9. A servant, by name Rhade, twenty-three years of age; he had died after
an illness of three months’ duration, and the body had been buried five
weeks. It was in a state of decomposition.
10. The body of the heyduk Stanco, sixty years of age, who had died six
weeks previously. There was much blood and other fluid in the chest and
abdomen, and the body was in a vampire condition.
11. Millac, a heyduk, twenty-five years old. The body had been in the
earth six weeks. It was also in the vampire condition.
12. Stanjoika, the wife of a heyduk, twenty years old; had died after an
illness of three days, and had been buried eighteen. The countenance was
florid. There was blood in the chest and in the heart. The viscera were
perfectly sound, the skin remarkably flush.
The vampire tradition in its original loathsomeness, however, is to be
found only in the Bulgarian provinces, whither the knowledge of the
superstition was first imported from Dalmatia and Albania. In the former
country the vampire is known by the name of _wukodlak_.
St Clair and Brophy, in their work on Bulgaria, state that in Bulgaria
the vampire is no longer a dead body possessed by a demon, but a soul
in revolt against the inevitable principle of corporeal death. He is
detected by a hole in the tombstone which is placed over his grave, which
hole is filled up by the medicine man with dirt mixed with poisonous
herbs.
Vampirism is claimed to be hereditary as well as epidemic and endemic,
and vampires are also stated to be capable of exercising considerable
physical force. Stories are told of men who have had their jaws broken,
as well as their limbs, as the result of their struggles with vampires.
About 1863 there was a local epidemic of vampirism in one of the
villages of Bulgaria, when the place became so infested by them that the
inhabitants were forced to assemble together in two or three houses,
burn candles at night, and watch by turns in order to avoid the assaults
made by the Obours, who lit up the streets with their sparkles. Some of
the most enterprising of these threw their shadows on the walls of the
rooms where the peasants were assembled through fear, while others howled
and shrieked and swore outside the door, entered the abandoned houses,
spat blood on the floors, turned everything topsy-turvy, and smeared
everything, even the pictures of the saints, with cow-dung, until an
old lady, suspected of witchcraft, discovered and laid the troublesome
spirit, and afterwards the village was free.
When the Bulgarian vampire has finished his forty days’ apprenticeship to
the world of shadows, he rises from the tomb in bodily form, and is able
to pass himself off as a human being living in the natural manner.
In Slavonic countries the vampire is said to be possessed of only one
nostril, but is credited with possessing a sharp point at the end of his
tongue, like the sting of a bee.
In Bulgaria one method of abolishing the vampire is said to be by
bottling him. The sorcerer, armed with the picture of some saint, lies
in ambush until he sees the vampire pass, when he pursues him with his
picture. The vampire takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house,
but his persecutor follows him up with the talisman, driving him away
from all shelter in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in
which is placed some favourite food of the vampire. Having no other
alternative, he enters this prison, and is immediately fastened down
with a cork on the interior of which is a fragment of an eikon or
holy picture. The bottle is then thrown into the fire and the vampire
disappears for ever.
In Bulgaria the vampire does not invariably seem to have the thirst for
human blood, unless there happens to be a shortage in his human food—a
distinction which marks him from the species found in other countries.