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.