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.

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