Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-05-17
hltscfIlaneous.
VAMPIRES.

lying IN your Ded at night, thinking OF nothing
but sleep, when you see, by the faint light that
is in your bed-chamber, a shape entering at the
door, and gliding towards you with. a long sigh,
as of the wind across the open fields when dark
ness has fallen upon them, The thing moves
along the air as if by the mere act of volition
and it has human yisage and figure. The eyes
stare wildly from the head the hair is brist-
ling; the flesh is lvid the mouth is bloody.
/ You lie stiIl--like one under the influence Of
the night-mare-and the thing floats slowly over
you. Presently you fall into dead sleep or
swoon, retaining, up to the latest moment Oh
cdHacieasnpss, tho fixed and CLASSY stare Of The
lphaEfssa When y;a zssalss IN sso moss'ngg
lyon think il Is all dream, until you perceive a
small blue, deadly looking spot on your chest
near the heart; and the truth flashes on you.
You say nothing of the matter to your friends
but you know you arc a doomed man-and you
know rightly. For every night comes the terri.
BILE Shape to your bedside, with a face that
seems horrfed at itself and sucks your life-blood
in your sleep. You feel it is useless to endeav-
our to avoid the visitation, by changing your
room or your locality; you are under sort of
cloud of fate.
Day after day you grow paler and moro Ian
guild your face becomes livid, your eyes leaden
your cheeks hollow. Your friends advise you
to seek medical aid-to take change of air--to
amuse your mind; but you are too we'll aware
that it is all in vain, You therefore keep your
fearful secretssto YOURSELF and pine, and droop,
and languish, till you die. When you are dead
(if you will be 50 kind as to suppose yourself
in that prcdlcament,) the most horrible part of
the business commences. You are then your
self forced to become Vampire, and to create
fresh victims who, as they die, add to the phan-
tom stock
The belief in Vampires appears to have boen
most prevalent in the southeast of Europe, and
to have had its origin there. Modern Greece
was its cradle and among the Hungarians,
Poles, Wallachians, and other Sclavonio races
bordering on Greece, have been its chief mani
festations. The early Christians of the Greek
Church believed that the bodies of all the Latin
Christians buried in Greece were unable to de-
cay, because of their accommodation from that
fold of which the Emperor of Russia now claims
to be the sovereign Pope and supreme Shepherd.
The Latins, Of course, in their turn, regarded
these peculiar mummies as nothing less than
saints but the orthodox Greeks conceived that
the dead body was animated by demon who
caused it to arise from grave every night and
conduct itself after the fashion of huge mos
queto. These dreadful beings were called Bru-
colacs and, according to some accounts, were
not merely manufactured from the dead bodies
of hertics. but from those of all wicked people
who have died impenitent, They would appear
in divers places in their natural forms; would
run a muck indiscriminately at whomsocver
they met like wild Malay; would injure some
and kill others outright; would occasionally
for change, do some one good service but
would, for the most part, 80 conduct themselves
that nothing could possibly be more aggravating
or unpleasant. Father Richard, French Jes
uit of the seventeenth century who went as
missionary to the Archipelago, and who left lis
an account of the Island of Santerini, or Saint
Irene, the Thera of the ancisnts, discourses
largely on the subject of Brucolacs. He says,
that when the prosecutions of the Vampires be-
came intolerable, the graves of the offending
parties are opened, when the bodies are found
entire and uncorrupted that they are then Gu
up into little bits, particularly the heart and
that, after this, the apparitions are seen NJ
more, and the body decays.
The word Brucolac, we are told, is derived
from two modern Greek words, signifying
respectively, mud" and "a ditch" because
the graves of the Vampires were general,
found full of mud. Voltaire, in the article OF
Vampires in Ills Philosophical Dictionary give
similar accoun1of the spectres. He observe
in his exquisite, bantering style: These dcac
Greeks enter houses, and suck the blood of littl
children eating the suppers of the fathers ant
mothers, drinking their. wine, and breaking al
their furniture. They can be brought to reasol
only by being burnt-when they are caught
, but tho preeaution must be taken not to resor
to this measure until the heart has been tori
out, as that must be consumed apart from tn
body" What weight of meaning and impli
ed satire is there in that phrase, They can
brought to reason only by being burnt F."
is a comment upon natural history.
Plerrie Daniel Huet French writer of Ana
who died in seventeen hundred and twenty one
says, that it is certain that the idea of Yam
pyres, whether true or false, is very ancient, an
that the classical authors are full of it, He re
marks, thai when the ancicnts had murders
any ono in treacherous manner, they cut o.
his feet, hands, nose and ears, and hung then
round his neck or under his arm pits concey
ing that by these means they deprived their vic
tim of the power of taking vengeance. Hue
adds, that proof Of this may be found in tn
Greek Scholia of Sophocles and that it wa
after this fashion that Menelaus treated Delphi
BEEN discovered by Kneas in the Internal region
M the above state. lie also lneutions the stor
of Hermotimns of Clazomcne, whose soul has
power of detaching itself from its body, for tn
sake of wandering through distant countries
and looking into the secrets of futurity Durin
one of these spiritual journeys his enemies POI
suaded his wife to have his body burned an
his soul, upon the next return, finding its hab
tation not forthcoming, withdrew for ever aftel
According to Suetonius, the body of Caligull
, who had been violently murdered, was but pa
8 tally burned and specifically buried. In col
! seuuance of this the hnnse in In which ha hs