From: ygoland@edison.seas.ucla.edu (The Jester)
Newsgroups: alt.vampyres
Subject: Re: Actual accounts...
Date: 13 Sep 92 10:35:05 GMT
Organization: The Hacker Conference

People have been asking for 'Actual Accounts', I posted this a week
or so ago but no one seemed to care, of course circulation of this
group has increased 15 fold since this posting, my how things grow,
so here goes again. This is long and its complete and if your
looking for ACTUAL information I doubt you will find better in such
a compact format, its filled with examples, letters, and REFERENCES,
none of which (if I remember correctly) is younger than the 1800's.
				The Jester

The following is an entry from "Encyclopaedia of Occultism" by Lewis
Spence originally publish in 1920 and later republished in 1960 (the
edition I have). I have NO idea if this book can still be purchased,
I happened upon it at Moe's, a used book store in Berkeley. I
thought this was particularly appropriate for this group and so
typed it up. (Hey I type 80 wpm, it didn't take too long).
I find the following particularly interesting because it doesn't
portray vampires in any way we are used to. Rather they are shown as
blood sucking creatures without any particular weakness or strength.
They are people who suck blood and once properly identified seem
easily destroyed.
Please note that there are probably lots o'spelling and such errors
in here. If you want to go after a reference made here you and upon
doing so find you can not track it down, you might wish to contact
me in order to check the spelling. I have tried to be especially
careful in spelling foreign names and have taken great pains with
the references at the end of this article in order to ensure their
correctness.
					The Jester

VAMPIRE:(Russian Vampir, South Russian upuir, probably from the root
pi, to drink, with the prefix va, or av.) A dead person who returns
in spirit form from the grave for the purpose of destroying and
sucking the blood of living persons, or a living sorcerer who takes
a special form for the same purpose. The conception of the vampire
is rifest among Slavonic peoples, and especially in the Balkan
countyries, and in Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, and in
these territories from 1730-35 there was a well-marked epidemic of
vampirism, but it is by no means confined to them. In White Russia
and the Ukraine it is believed that vampires are generally wizards
or sorcerers, but in Bulgaria and Serbia it is thought that any
corpse over which a cat or a dog jumps or over which a bird has
flown is liable to become a vampire. In Greece (q.v.) a vampire is
known as a broncolaia or bourkabokos, which has been identified with
the Slavonic name for "werewolf" (q.v.), vlkodiah, or vukohiak. The
vampire, too, is often supposed to steal the heart of his victim and
to roast it over a slow fire, thus causing interminable amorous
longings.

MARKS OF VAMPIRISM.-Vampirism is epidemic in character. Where one
instance is discovered it is almost invariably followed by several
others. This is accounted for by the circumstance that it is
believed that the victim of a vampire pines and dies and becomes in
turn a vampire himself after death, and so duly infects others. On
the disinterment of a suspected vampire various well-known signs are
looked for by experienced persons. Thus, if several holes about the
breadth of a man's finger, are observed in the soil above the grave
the vampire character of its occupant may be suspected. On
unearthing the corpse it is usually found with wide-open eyes, ruddy
and life-like complexion and lips and a general appearance of
freshness, and showing no signs of corruption. It may also be found
that the hair and nails have grown as in life. On the throat two
small livid marks may be looked for. The coffin is also very often
full of blood, the body has a swollen and gorged appearance, and the
shroud is frequently half-devoured. The blood contained in the veins
of the corpse is found on examination to be in a fluid condition as
in life, and the limbs are pliant and flexible and have none of the
rigidity of death.

EXAMPLES OF VAMPIRISM-Many well-authenticated, examples of vampirism
exist. Charles Ferdinand de Schertz in his work Magia Posthuma
printed at Olmutz in 1706 relates several stories of apparitions of
this sort, and particularises the mischief done by them. One, among
others, is of a herdsman of the village of Blow near the town of
Kadam in Bohemia, who appeared for a considerable length of time,
and visited several persons, who all died within eight days. At
last, the inhabitants of Blow dug up the herdsman's body, and fixed
it in the ground with a stake driven through it. The man, even in
his condition, laughed at the people that were employed about him,
and told them they were very obliging to furnish him with a stick
with which to defend himself from the dogs. The same night he
extricated himself from the stake, frightened several persons by
appearing to them, and occasioned the death of many more than he had
hitherto done. He was then delivered into the hands of the hang-man,
who put him into a cart, in order to burn him without the town. As
they went along, the carcass shrieked in the most hideous manner,
and threw about its arms and legs, as if it had been alive; and upon
being again run through with a stake, it gave a loud cry, and a
great quantity of fresh, florid blood issued from the wound. At
last, the body was burned to ashes, and this execution put a final
stop to the spectre's appearing and infecting the village.
Calmet in his Dissertation on Vampires appended to his Dissertation
upon Apparitions (English translation, 1759), gives several well
authenticated instance of vampirism as follows:-
"It is now about fifteen years since a solider, who was quartered in
the house of a Haidamack peasant, upon the frontiers of Hungary, saw,
as he was at the table with his landlord, a stranger come in and sit
down by them. The master of the house and the rest of the company
were strangely terrified, but the soldier knew not what to make of
it. The next day the peasant died, and, upon the soldier's enquiring
into the meaning of it, he was told that it was his landlord's
father, who had been dead and buried above ten years, that came and
sat down at the table, and gave his son notice of his death.
"The soldier soon propagated the story through his regiment, and by
this means it reached the general officers, who commissioned the
Count de Cabreras, a captain in Alandetti's regiment of foot, to
make an exact enquiry into the fact. The count, attended by several
officers, a surgeon, and a notary, came to the house, and took the
deposition of all the family, who unanimously swore that the spectre
was the landlord's father, and that all the soldier had said was
strictly true. The same was also attested by all the inhabitants of
the village.
"In consequence of this the body of the spectre was dug up, and
found to be in the same state as if it had been but just dead, the
blood like that of a living person. The Count de Cabreras ordered
its head to be cut off, and the corpse to be buried again. He then
proceeded to take depositions against other spectres of the same
sort, and particularly against a man who had been dead above thirty
years, and had made his appearance three several times in his own
home at meal-time. At his first visit he fastened upon the neck of
his own brother, and sucked his blood; at his second, he had treated
one of his children in the same manner; and the third time, he
fastened upon a servant of the family, and all three died upon the
spot.
"Upon this evidence, the count gave orders that he should be dug up,
and being found, like the first, with his blood in a fluid state, as
if he had been alive, a great nail was drove through his temples,
and he was buried again. The count ordered a third to be burnt, who
had been dead above sixteen years, and was found guilty of murdering
two of his own children by sucking their blood. The commissioner
then made his report to the general officers, who sent a deputation
to the emperor's court for further directions; and the emperor
dispatched an order for a court, consisting of officers, lawyers,
physicians, chirurgeons [An archaic term for surgeon-The Jester],
and some divines, to go and enquire into the cause of these
extraordinary events, upon the spot.
"The gentleman who acquainted me with all these particulars, had
them from the Count de Cabreras himself, at Fribourg in Brisgau, in
the year 1730."
Other instances alluded to by Calmet are as follows :-
"In the part of Hungary, known in Latin by the name of Oppida
Heidonum, on the other side of the Tibiscus, vulgarly called the
Teyss; that is, between that part of this river which waters the
happy country of Tockay, and the frontiers of Transylvania, the
people named Heydukes have a notion that there are dead persons,
called by them vampires, which suck the blood of the living, so as
to make them fall away visibly to skin and bones, while the
carcasses themselves, like leeches, are filled with blood to such a
degree that it comes out at all the apertures of their body. This
notion has lately been confirmed by several facts, which I think we
cannot doubt the truth of, considering the witnesses who attest
them. Some of the most considerable of these facts I shall now
relate.
"About five years ago, an Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, an inhabitant
of Medreiga, was killed by a cart full of hay that fell upon him.
About thrity days after his death, four persons died suddenly, with
all the symptoms usually attending those who are killed by vampires.
It was then remembered that this Arnold Paul had frequently told a
story of having been tormented by a Turkish vampire, in the
neighbourhood of Cassova, upon the borders of Turkish Servia (for
the notion is that those who have been passive vampires in their
life-time become active ones after death; or, in other words, that
those who have had their blood sucked become suckers in their turn)
but that he had been cured by eating some of the earth upon the
vampire's grave, and by rubbing himself with blood. The precaution,
however, did not hinder him from being guilty himself after his
death; for, upon digging up his corpse forty days after his burial,
he was found to have all the marks of an arch-vampire. His body was
fresh and ruddy, his hair, beard, and nails were grown, and his
veins were full of fluid blood, which ran from all parts of his body
upon the shroud that he was buried in. The hadnagy, or bailiff of
the village, who was present at the digging up of the corpse, and
was very expert in the whole business of vampirism, ordered a sharp
stake to be drove quite through the body of the deceased, and to let
it pass through his heart, which was attended with a hideous cry
from the carcass, as if it had been alive. The ceremony being
performed, they cut off the head, and burnt the body to ashes. After
this, they proceeded in the same manner with the four other persons
that died of vampirism, lest they also should be troublesome. But
all these executions could not hinder their dreadful prodigy from
appearing against last year, at the distance of five years from its
first breaking out. In the space of three months, seventeen persons
of different ages and sexes died of vampirism, some without any
previous illness, and others after languishing two or three days.
Among others, it was said, a girl named Stanoska, daughter of the
Heyduke Jotuitzo, went to bed in perfect health, but awoke in the
middle of the night, trembling, and crying out that the son of the
Heyduke Millo, who died about nine weeks before, had almost
strangled her while she was asleep. From that time she fell into a
languishing state, and died at three days' end. Her evidence against
millo's son was looked upon as a proof of his being a vampire, and,
upon digging up his body, he was found to be such.
"At a consultation of the principal inhabitants of the place,
attended by physicians and chirurgeons, it was considered how it was
possible that the plague of vampirism should break out afreash,
after the precautions that had been taken some years before: and, at
last, it was found out that the original offender, Arnold Paul, had
not only destroyed the four persons mentioned above, but had killed
several beasts, which the late vampires, and particularly the son of
millo, had fed upon. Upon this foundation a resolution was taken to
dig up all persons that had died within a certain time. Out of the
forty were found seventeen, with all the evident tokens of
vampirism; and they had all stakes drove through their hearts, their
heads cut off, their bodies burnt, and their ashes thrown into the
river.
"All these several enquiries and the executions were carried on with
all the forms of law, and attested by several officers who were in
garrison in that country, by the chirurgeon-majors of the regiments,
and be the principal inhabitants of the place. The original papers
were all sent, in January last, to the Imperial council of war at
Vienna, which had issued out a commission to several officers, to
enquire into the truth of the fact."

METHODS OF EXTIRPATION.-The commonest methods of the extirpation of
vampires are-(a) beheading the suspected corpse; (b) taking out the
heart; (c) impaling the corpse with a white-thorn stake (in Russia
an aspen), and (d) burning it. Sometimes more than one or all of
these precautions is taken. Instances are on record where the graves
of as many as thirty or forty persons have been disturbed during the
course of an epidemic of vampirism and their occupants impaled or
beheaded. Persons who dread the visits or attacks of a vampire sleep
with a wreath made of garlic round the neck, as the esculent is
supposed to be especially obnoxious to the vampire. When impaled the
vampire is usually said to emit a dreadful cry, but it has been
pointed out that the gas from the intestines may be forced through
the throat by the entry of the stake into the body, and that this
may account for the sound. The method of discovering a vampire's
grave in Serbia is to place a virgin boy upon a coal-black stallion
which has never served a mare and marking the spot where he will not
pass. As officer quartered in Wallachia wrote to Calmet as follows,
giving him an instance of this method:-
"At the time when we were quartered at Temeswar in Wallachia, there
died of this disorder two dragoons of the company in which I was
cornet, and several more who had it would have died also, if the
corporal of the company had not put a stop to it, by applying a
remedy commonly made use of in that country. It is a very singular
kind, and, though infallibly to be depended on, I have never met
with it in any Dispensatory.
"They pick out a boy, whom they judge to be too young to have lost
his maidenhead, and mount him bare upon a coal-black stone-horse,
which has never leaped a mare. The virgin-pair is led about the
church-yard, and across all the graves, and wherever the animal
stops, and refuses to go on, in spite of all the whipping they can
give him, they conclude they have discovered a vampire. Upon opening
the grave, they find a carcass as fleshy and fair as if the person
were only in a slumber. The next step is to cut off his head with a
spade, and there issues from the wound such a quantity of fresh and
florid blood, that one would swear they had cut the throat of a man
in full health and vigour. They then fill up the pit, and it may be
depended on that the disorder will cease, and that all who were ill
of it will gradually get strength, like people that recover slowly
after a long illness. Accordingly this happened to our troopers, who
were attacked with the distemper. I was at the time commanding
officer of the troop, the captain and lieutenant being absent, and
was extremely angry at the corporal for having made this experiment
without me. It was at great difficulty that I prevailed with myself
not to reward him with a good cudgel, a thing of which the officers
of the emperor's service are usually very liberal. I would not, for
the world, have been absent upon this occasion, but there was now no
remedy."
A bulgarian belief is that a wizard or sorcerer may entrap a vampire
by placing in a bottle some food for which the vampire has a
partiality, and on his entry in the shape of fluff or straw, sealing
up the flask and throwing it into the fire.

SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF VAMPIRISM.-The English custom of piercing
suicide's bodies with a stake would appear to be a survival of the
belief in vampirism. Such demons are also to be seen in Polynesian
tii, the Malayan hantu penyardin, a dog-headed water-demon, and the
kephn of the Karens, which under the form of a wizard's head and
stomach devours human souls. Tylor considers vampires to be "causes
conceived in spiritual form to account for specific facts of wasting
disease." Afanasief regards them as thunder-gods and spirits of the
storm who during winter slumber in their cloud-coffins to rise again
in spring and draw moisture from the clouds. But this theory will
scarcely recommend itself to anyone with even a slight knowledge of
mythological science. Calmet's difficulty in believing in vampires
was that he could not understand how a spririt could leave its grave
and return thence with ponderable matter in the form of blood,
leaving no traces showing that the surface of the earth above the
grave had been stirred. But this view might be combated by the
theory of the precipitation of matter.

LITERATURE.-De Schertz, Magia Posthuma, Olmutz, 1706; Calmet, A
Dissertation on Apparitions (Eng. Trans.), 1759; Ennemoser, History
of Magic; Herenberg, Philosophicoe et Christianoe Cogitationes de
Vampires, 1733; Mercure Galant, 1693 and 1694; Ranfft, De
Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis, Leipsic, 1728; Rehrius, De
Masticatione Mortuorum 1679; Herz, Der Werwolf, Stuttgart, 1862;
Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, 1872, Russian Folk Tales,
1873; Mannhardt, Ueber Vampirismus, in Vol. IV. of Zeitschrift fur
Deutsche Mythologie.
-- 
			The Jester
"You can lead a herring to water, but you have to walk really fast,
or he'll die."-Stolen from my Evil Mistress (TM)
               NWILSON@MIAVX1.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU