CHAPTER I
THE ORIGINS OF THE VAMPIRE
THROUGHOUT the whole vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. Around the vampire have clustered the most sombre superstitions, for he is a thing which belongs to no world at all; he is not a demon, for the devils have a purely spiritual nature, they are beings without any body, angels, as is said in S. Matthew xxv. 41, "the devil and his angels."[1] And although S. Gregory writes of the word Angel, "nomen est officii, non naturae,"--the designation is that of an office not of a nature, it is clear that all angels were in the beginning created good in order to act as the divine messengers (ἄγγελοι), and that afterwards the fallen angels lapsed from their original state. The authoritative teaching of the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III in 1215, dogmatically lays down: "Diabolus enim et alii daemones a Deo quidem natura creati sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali." And it is also said, Job iv. 18: "Ecce qui seruiunt ei, non sunt stabiles, et in Angelis suis reperit prauitatem." (Behold they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness.)
John Heinrich Zopfius in his Dissertatio de Uampiris Seruiensibus, Halle, 1733, says: "Vampires issue forth from their graves in the night, attack people sleeping quietly in their beds, suck out all their blood from their bodies and destroy them. They beset men, women and children alike, sparing neither age nor sex. Those who are under the fatal malignity of their influence complain of suffocation and a total deficiency of spirits, after which they soon expire. Some
p. 2
who, when at the point of death, have been asked if they can tell what is causing their decease, reply that such and such persons, lately dead, have arisen from the tomb to torment and torture them." Scoffern in his Stray Leaves of Science and Folk Lore writes: "The best definition I can give of a vampire is a living, mischievous and murderous dead body. A living dead body! The words are idle, contradictory, incomprehensible, but so are Vampires." Horst, Schriften und Hypothesen über die Vampyren, (Zauberbibliothek, III) defines a Vampire as "a dead body which continues to live in the grave; which it leaves, however, by night, for the purpose of sucking the blood of the living, whereby it is nourished and preserved in good condition, instead of becoming decomposed like other dead bodies."
A demon has no body, although for purposes of his own he may energize, assume, or seem to assume a body, but it is not his real and proper body.[2] So the vampire is not strictly a demon, although his foul lust and horrid propensities be truly demoniacal and of hell.
Neither may the vampire be called a ghost or phantom, strictly speaking, for an apparition is intangible, as the Latin poet tells us:
Par leuibus uentis uolucrique simillima somno.[3]
And upon that first Easter night when Jesus stood in the midst of His disciples and they were troubled and frightened, supposing they had seen a spirit, He said: "Uidete manus meas, et pedes, quia ego ipse sum: palpate, et uidete: quia spiritus carnem, et ossa non habet, sicut ne uidetis habere." (See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as you see me to have.)[4]
There are, it is true, upon record some few instances when persons have been able to grasp, or have been grasped by and felt the touch of, a ghost, but these phenomena must be admitted as exceptions altogether, if indeed, they are not to be explained in some other way, as for example, owing to the information of a body by some spirit or familiar under very rare and abnormal conditions.
In the case of the very extraordinary and horrible hauntings of the old Darlington and Stockton Station, Mr. James Durham, the night-watchman, when one winter evening in the porter's cellar was surprised by the entry of a stranger
p. 3
followed by a large black retriever. This visitor without uttering a word dealt him a blow and he had the impression of a violent concussion. Naturally he struck back with his fist which seemed however to pass through the figure and his knuckles were grazed against the wall beyond. None the less the man uttered an unearthly squeak at which the dog gripped Mr. Durham in the calf of the leg causing considerable pain. In a moment the stranger had called off the retriever by a curious click of the tongue, and both man and animal hurried into the coal-house whence there was no outlet. A moment later upon examination neither was to be seen. It was afterwards discovered that many years before an official who was invariably accompanied by a large black dog had committed suicide upon the premises, if not in the very cellar, where at least his dead body had been laid. The full account with the formal attestation dated 9th December, 1890, may be read in W. T. Stead's Real Ghost Stories, reprint, Grant Richards, 1897, Chapter XI, pp. 210-214.
Major C. G. MacGregor of Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland, gives an account of a house in the north of Scotland which was haunted by an old lady, who resided there for very many years and died shortly after the beginning of the nineteenth century. Several persons who slept in the room were sensibly pushed and even smartly slapped upon the face. He himself on feeling a blow upon the left shoulder in the middle of the night turned quickly and reaching out grasped a human hand, warm, soft, and plump. Holding it tight he felt the wrist and arm which appeared clothed in a sleeve and lace cuff. At the elbow all trace ceased, and in his astonishment he released the hand. When a light was struck nobody could be seen in the room.
In a case which occurred at a cottage in Girvan, South Ayrshire, a young woman lost her brother, a fisher, owing to the swamping of his boat in a storm, When the body was recovered it was found that the right hand was missing. This occasioned the poor girl extraordinary sorrow, but some few nights later when she was undressing, preparatory to bed, she suddenly uttered a piercing shriek which immediately brought the other inmates of the house to her room. She declared that she had felt a violent blow dealt with an open hand upon her shoulder. The place was examined,
p. 4
and distinctly marked in livid bruises there was seen the impression of a man's right hand.
Andrew Lang in his Dreams and Ghosts (new edition, 1897), relates the story of "The Ghost that Bit," which might seem to have been a vampire, but which actually cannot be so classed since vampires have a body and their craving for blood is to obtain sustenance for their body. The narrative is originally to be found in Notes and Queries, 3rd September 1864, and the correspondent asserts that he took it "almost verbatim from the lips of the lady" concerned, a person of tried veracity. Emma S------ was asleep one morning in her room at a large house near Cannock Chase. It was a fine August day in 1840, but although she had bidden her maid call her at an early hour she was surprised to hear a sharp knocking upon her door about 3.30. In spite of her answer the taps continued, and suddenly the curtains of her bed were slightly drawn, when to her amaze she saw the face of an aunt by marriage looking through upon her. Half unconsciously she threw out her hand, and immediately one of her thumbs was sensibly premed by the teeth of the apparition. Forthwith she arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where not a creature was stirring. Her father upon coming down rallied her a little upon being about at cockcrow and inquired the cause. When she informed him he determined that later in the day he would pay a visit to his sister-in-law who dwelt at no great distance. This he did, only to discover that she had unexpectedly died at about 3.30 that morning. She had not been in any way ailing, and the shook was fearfully sudden. On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had been bitten in the last agony.
The disturbances at the Lamb hostelry, Lawford's Gate, Bristol, which aroused something more than local interest in the years 1761-62, were not improbably due to witchcraft and caused by the persecutions of a woman who trafficked in occultism of the lowest order, although on the other hand they may have been poltergeist manifestations. The two little girls, Molly and Debby Giles, who were the subjects of these phenomena, were often severely bitten and pinched. The impressions of eighteen or twenty teeth were seen upon their arms, the marks being clammy with saliva and warm spittle, "and the children were roaring out for the pain of the
p. 5
pinches and bites." On one occasion whilst an observer was talking to Dobby Giles she cried out that she was bitten in the neck when there suddenly appeared "the mark of teeth, about eighteen, and wet with spittle." That the child should have nipped herself was wholly impossible, and nobody was near her save Mr. Henry Durbin who recorded these events, and whose account was first printed in 1800, the year after his death, since he did not wish his notes to be given to the public during his lifetime. On 2nd January, 1762, Mr. Durbin notes: "Dobby cried the hand was about her sister's throat, and I saw the flesh at the side of her throat pushed in, whitish as if done with fingers, though I saw none. Her face grew red and blackish presently, as if she was strangled, but without any convulsion or contraction of the muscles." Thursday, 7th January, 1762, we have: "Dobby was bitten most and with deeper impressions than Molly. The impression of the teeth on their arms formed an oval, which measured two inches in length." All this certainly looks as if sorcery were at work. It may be remembered that in Salem during the epidemic of witchcraft the afflicted persons were tormented "by Biting, Pinching, Strangling, etc." When Goodwife Corey was on trial, "it was observed several times, that if she did but bite her under lip in time of examination, the Persons afflicted were bitten on their arms and Wrists, and produced the Marks before the Magistrates, Minister, and others."
In The Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Vol. I., 1927, will be found an account of the phenomena connected with Eleonore Zügun, a young Rumanian peasant girl, who in the autumn of 1926, when only thirteen years old was brought to London by the Countess Wassilko-Serecki, in order that the manifestations might be investigated at "The National Laboratory of Psychical Research," Queensberry Place, South Kensington. The child was said to be persecuted by some invisible force or agent, which she knew as Dracu, Anglice the Devil. There were many extraordinary happenings and she was continually being scratched and bitten by this unseen intelligence. It must suffice to give but two or three instances of the very many "biting phenomena." On the afternoon of Monday, 4th October, 1926, Captain Neil Gow an investigator in his report, notes:
p. 6
"3.20. Eleonore cried out. Showed marks on back of left hand like teeth-marks which afterwards developed into deep weals. . . . 4.12. Eleonore was just raising a cup of tea to her lips, but suddently gave a cry and put the cup down hastily: there was a mark on her right hand similar to that caused by a bite. Both rows of teeth were indicated." Of the same incident, Mr. Clapham Palmer, an investigator who was also present writes: "Eleonore was in the act of raising the cup to her lips when she suddenly gave a little cry of pain, put down her cup and rolled up her sleeve. On her forearm I then saw what appeared to be the marks of teeth indented deeply in the flesh, as if she or someone had fiercely bitten her arm. The marks turned from red to white and finally took the form of white raised weals. They gradually faded but were still noticeable after an hour or so." Such bitings not infrequent occurred, and photographs have been taken of the marks.
It were an interesting question to discuss the cause of these indentations and no doubt it is sufficiently remarkable, but however that may be such inquiry were impertinent here, for it is clearly not vampirism, nor indeed cognate thereto. The object of the Vampire is to suck blood, and in these cases if blood was ever drawn it was more in the nature of a scratch or slight dental puncture, there was no effusion. Again the agent who inflicted these bites was not sufficiently material to be visible, at any rate he was able to remain unseen. The true vampire is corporeal.
The vampire has a body, and it is his own body. He is neither dead nor alive; but living in death. He is an abnormality; the androgyne in the phantom world; a pariah among the fiends.
Even the Pagan poet taught his hearers and his readers that death was a sweet guerdon of repose, a blessed oblivion after the toil and struggle of life. There are few things more beautiful and there are few things more sad than the songs of our modern Pagans who console their aching hearts with the wistful vision of eternal sleep. Although perhaps they themselves know it not, their delicate but despairing melancholy is an heritage from the weary yet tuneful singers of the last days of Hellas, souls for whom there was no dawn of hope in the sky. But we have a certain knowledge and a fairer surety
p. 7
for "now Christ is risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep." Yet Gray, half Greek, seems to promise to his rustics and his hinds as their richest reward after life of swink and toil dear forgetfulness and eternal sleep. Swinburne was glad:
That no life lives for ever
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
. . . . .
Only the eternal sleep
In an eternal night.
Emily Brontë lusted for mere oblivion:
Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity.
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
Flecker in utter despair wails out:
I know dead men are deaf, and cannot hear
The singing of a thousand nightingales . . .
I know dead men are blind and cannot see
The friend that shuts in horror their big eyes,
And they are witless--
Even more beautifully than the poets have sung, a weaver of exquisite prose has written: "Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time." Poor sorry souls! How arid, how empty are such aspirations when we think of the ardent glowing phrase of the Little Flower: "Je veux passer mon ciel à faire du bien sur la terre!" And "Even in the bosom of the Beatific Vision the Angels watch over us. No, I shall never be able to take any rest until the end of the world. But when the Angel shall have said 'Time is no more,' then I shall rest, then I shall be able to rejoice, since the number of the elect will be complete."
So we see that even for those who take the most pagan, the most despairing, the most erroneous views, the ideal is oblivion and rest. How fearful a destiny then is that of the vampire who has no rest in the grave, but whose doom it is to come forth
p. 8
and prey upon the living. In the first place it may briefly be inquired how the belief in vampirism originated, and here it is not impertinent to remark that the careful investigations in connexion with psychic phenomena which have been so fruitful of recent years, and even modern scientific discovery, have proved the essential truth of many an ancient record and old superstition, which were until yesterday dismissed by the level-headed as the wildest sensationalism of melodramatic romance. The origins of a belief in vampirism, although, of course, very shadowy, unformed and unrelated, may probably be said to go back to the earliest times when primitive man observed the mysterious relations between soul and body. The division of an individual into these two parts must have been suggested to man by his observation, however crude and rough, of the phenomenon of unconsciousness, as exhibited in sleep and more particularly in death. He cannot but have speculated concerning that something, the loss of which withdraws man for ever from the living and waking world. He was bound to ask himself if there was any continuance in any circumstances at present veiled from, and unknown to, him of that life and that personality which had obviously passed elsewhere. The question was an eternal one, and it was, moreover, a personal one which concerned him most intimately, since it related to an experience he could not expect to escape. It was clear to him before long that the process called death was merely a passage to another world, and naturally enough he pictured that world as being very like the one he knew, only man would there enjoy extended powers over the forces with which he waged such ceaseless war for the mastery during his period on earth. It might be that the world was not so very far away, and it was not to be supposed that persons who had passed over would lose their interest in and affection for those who for a little while had been left behind. Relations must not be forgotten just because they did not happen to be visibly present, any more than to-day we forget one of the family who has gone on a voyage for a week or a month or a year. Naturally those whose age and position during their lifetime had entitled them to deference and respect must be treated with the same consideration, nay, with even more ample honours since their authority had become mysteriously greater and they would be
p. 9
more active to punish any disrespect or neglect. Hence as a family venerated the father of the house both in life and after death, which was the germ of ancestral worship, so the tribe would venerate the great men, the chieftains and the heroes, whose exploits had won so much not only for their own particular houses, but for the whole clan. The Shilluk, a tribe who dwell upon the western bank of the White Nile, and who are governed by a single king, still maintain the worship of Nyakang, the hero who founded the dynasty and settled this people in their present territory. Nyakang is conceived as having been a man, although he did not actually die but vanished from sight. Yet he is not altogether divine, for the great god of the Shilluk, the creator of mankind and the world, Juok, is without form, invisible and omnipresent. He is far greater than and far above Nyakang, and he reigns in those highest heavens where neither the prayers of man can reach his ears, nor can he smell the sweet savour of sacrifice.
Not only Nyakang, but each of the Shilluk kings after death is worshipped, and the grave of the monarch becomes a sanctuary, so that throughout the villages there are many shrines tended by certain old men and old women, where a ritual which is practically identical in each separate place is elaborately conducted. Indeed, the principal element in the religion of the Shilluk may be said to be the veneration of their dead kings.[5]
Other African tribes also worship their dead kings. The Baganda, whose country Uganda lies at the actual source of the Nile, think of their dead kings as being equal to the gods, and the temples of the deceased monarchs are built and maintained with the utmost care. Formerly when a king died hundreds of men were killed so that their spirits might attend upon the spirit of their master, and what is very significant as showing that these people believe the king and his ghostly followers could return in forms sufficiently corporeal to perform the very material function of eating is that on certain solemn days at earliest dawn the sacred tomtom is beaten at the temple gates and crowds of worshippers bring baskets of food for the dead king and his followers lest being hungry he should become angered and punish the whole tribe.[6]
In Kiziba, which lies on the western side of the Lake Victoria Nyanza, the religion of the natives consists of the worship
p. 10
of their dead kings, although there is a supreme god Rugada, who created the world, man and beasts, but even their hierarchs know little about him and he receives no sacrifice, the business of the priests being to act as intermediaries between the people and the dead monarchs.[7]
So the Bantu. tribes of Northern Rhodesia acknowledge a supreme deity, Leza, whose power is manifested in the storm, in the torrential rain clouds, in the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning, but to whom there is no direct access by prayer or by sacrifice. The gods, then, whom these tribes worship are sharply divided into two classes, the spirits of departed chiefs, who are publicly venerated by the whole tribe, and the spirits of relations who are privately honoured by a family, whose head performs the sacerdotal functions upon these occasions. "Among the Awemba there is no special shrine for these purely family spirits, who are worshipped inside the hut, and to whom family sacrifices of a sheep, a goat, or a fowl is made, the spirit receiving the blood spilt upon the ground, while all the members of the family partake of the flesh together. For a religious Wemba man the cult of the spirit of his nearest relations (of his grandparents, or of his deceased father, mother, elder brother or maternal uncle) is considered quite sufficient. Out of these spirit relatives a man will worship one whom he considers as a special familiar, for various reasons. For instance, the diviner may have told him that his last illness was caused because he had not respected the spirit of his uncle; accordingly he will be careful in the future to adopt his uncle as his tutelary spirit. As a mark of such respect he may devote a cow or a goat to one of the spirits of his ancestors."[8] This custom is very significant, and two points should be especially noted. The first is that the deceased, or the spirit of the deceased, is not merely propitiated by, but partakes of, blood, which is spilt for his benefit. Secondly, the deceased, if not duly honoured, can cause illness, and therefore is capable of exercising a certain vengeful or malevolent power. The essential conception that underlies these customs is not so very far removed from the tradition of a vampire who craves to suck blood and causes sickness through his malignancy.
Very similar ideas prevail among the Herero, a Bantu tribe of German South-West Africa, who believe that Ndjambi p. 11 Karunga, the great good god who dwells in heaven above is far too remote to be accessible, wherefore he neither receives nor requires worship and offerings. "It is their ancestors (Ovakuru) whom they must fear; it is they who are angry and can bring danger and misfortune on a man . . . it is in order to win and keep their favour, to avert their displeasure and wrath, in short to propitiate them, that the Herero bring their many offerings; they do so not out of gratitude, but out of fear, not out of love, but out of terror."[9] The Rev. G. Viehe, a missionary among the tribe writes: "The religious customs and ceremonies of the Ovaherero are all rooted in the presumption that the deceased continue to live, and that they have a great influence on earth, and exercise power over the life and death of man."[10]
The religion of the Ovambo, another Bantu tribe of German South-West Africa, runs on practically the same lines. The supreme being, Kalunga, the creator, desires neither adoration nor fear. The whole religion is the worship, or rather the propitiation, of the spirits of the dead. Every man at death leaves behind him a phantom form which continues a certain kind of life (not very clearly defined) upon earth, and this spirit has power over the living. Especially may it cause various kinds of sickness. The spirits of private persons can only exert their influence over the members of their own families; the souls of chiefs and great warriors have a much wider scope, they can influence the whole clan for weal or woe; they can even to some extent control the powers of nature and ensure a bountiful corn-crop by their careful provision of rain, since under their kindly direction there shall be neither too little nor too great an abundance. Moreover, they can ward off disease, but if on the other hand they be offended they can visit the tribe with pestilence and famine. It may be particularly noted that among the Ovambo the phantoms of dead magicians are dreaded and feared in no ordinary manner. The only way to prevent the increase of these dangerous spirit folk is by depriving the body of its limbs, a precaution which must be taken immediately after death. So it is customary to sever the arms and legs from the trunk and to cut the tongue out of the mouth, in order that the spirit may have no power either of movement or of speech, since the mutilation of the corpse has rendered a ghost, who would
p. 12
assuredly be both powerful and truculent, inoperative and incapable.[11] It will later be seen that the mutilation, the cutting off of the head, and especially the driving of a stake through the body with other dismemberments, were resorted to as the most effective means, short of complete cremation, of dealing with a vampire, whilst according to Theosophists only those become vampires who have during their lifetime been adepts in black magic, and Miss Jessie Adelaide Middleton says that the people who become vampires are witches, wizards and suicides.[12]
Canon Callaway has recorded some very interesting details of Amatongo or Ancestor Worship among the Zulus.[13] A native account runs as follows: "The black people do not worship all Amatongo indifferently, that is, all the dead of their tribes. Speaking generally, the head of each house is worshipped by the children of that house; for they do not know the ancients who are dead, nor their laud-giving names, nor their names. But their father whom they knew is the head by whom they begin and end in their prayer, for they know him best, and his love for his children; they remember his kindness to them whilst he was living, they compare his treatment of them whilst he was living, support themselves by it and say, 'He will still treat us in the same way now he is dead. We do not know why he should regard others besides us; he will regard us only.' So it is then although they worship the many Amatongo of their tribe, making a great fence around them for their protection; yet their father is far before all others when they worship the Amatongo. Their father is a great treasure to them even when he is dead." It would appear that among the Zulus the spirits of those who are recently deceased, especially the fathers and mothers of families, are most generally venerated and revered. As is natural, the spirits of the remoter dead are forgotten, for time passes and their memory perishes when those who knew them and sang their praises follow them into the world beyond. As we have remarked, in nearly every case we find recognized the existence of a supreme being, who is certainly a high spiritual power that had never been a man, and the homage paid to whom (in those very rare instances[14] where such worship is conceived of as desirable or even possible) differs entirely from the cult of the dead, be they family ancestors
p. 13
or some line of ancient kings. There are, of course, many other gods in the African pantheon, and although the natives will not allow that these were ever men, and indeed sharply differentiate in ritual practice their worship from the cult of the spirits and phantoms, yet in nearly all cases it is to be suspected, and in many cases it is certain, that these gods were heroes of old whose legend instead of becoming faint with years and dying away grew more and more splendid until the monarch or the warrior passed into pure deity. A similar process holds forth in heathen religions the wide world over. and with regard to the Baganda polytheism the Rev. J. Roscoe remarks "The principal gods appear to have been at one time human beings, noted for their skill and bravery, who were afterwards deified by the people and invested with supernatural powers."[13]
It is said that the Caffres believe that men of evil life after death may return during the night in coporeal form and attack the living, often wounding and killing them. It seems that these revenants are much attracted by blood which enables them more easily to effect their purpose, and even a few red drops will help to vitalize their bodies. So a Caffre has the greatest horror of blood, and will never allow even a spot fallen from a bleeding nose or a cut to lie uncovered, but should it stain the ground it must be instantly hidden with earth, and if it splotch upon their bodies they must purify themselves from the pollution with elaborate lustral ceremonies.[16] Throughout the whole of West Africa indeed the natives are careful to stamp out any blood of theirs which happens to have fallen to the ground, and if a cloth or a piece of wood should be marked thereby these articles are most carefully burned.[17] They openly admit that the reason for this is lest a drop of blood might come into the hands of a magician who would make evil use of it, or else it might be caught up by a bad spirit and would then enable him to form a tangible body. The same fear of sorcery prevails in New Guinea, where the natives if they have been wounded will most carefully collect the bandages and destroy them by burning or casting them far into the sea, a circumstance which has not infrequently been recorded by missionaries and travellers.[18]
There are, indeed, few if any peoples who have not realized the mysterious significance attached to blood, and examples
p. 14
of this belief are to be found in the history of every clime. It is expressed by the Chinese writers on medicine[19]; it was held by the Arabs[20], and it is prominent among the traditions of the Romans.[21] Even with regard to animals the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or rather actually was the blood. So we have the divine command, Leviticus xvii. 10-14: "Homo quilibet de domo Israel, et de aduenis qui peregrinantur inter eos, si comederit sanguinem, obfirmabo faciem meam contra animam illius, et dispertam eam de populo suo. Quia anima carnis in sanguine est: et ego dedi illum uobis, ut super altare in eo expietis pro animabus uestris, et sanguis pro animae piaculo sit. Idcirco dixi filiis Israel: Omnis anima ex uobis non comedet sanguinem, nec ex aduenis, qui peregrinantur apud uos. Homo quicumque ex filiis Israel, et de aduenis, qui peregrinantur apud uos, si uenatione atque aucupio ceperit feram uel auem, quibus esci licitum est, fundat sanguinem eius, et operiat illum terra. Anima enim omnis carnis in sanguine est: unde dixi filiis Israel: Sanguinem uniuersae carnis non comedetis, quia anima carnis in sanguine est: et quicumque comederit illum, interibit." (If any man whosoever of the house of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among them, eat blood I will set my face against his soul, and will cut him off from among his people: Because the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you, that you may make atonement with it upon the altar for your souls, and the blood may be for an expiation for the soul. Therefore I have said to the children of Israel: No soul of you, nor of the strangers that sojourn among you, shall eat blood. Any man whatsoever of the children of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among you, if by hunting or by fowling, he take a wild beast or a bird, which is lawful to eat, let him pour out its blood, and cover it with earth. For the life of all flesh is in the blood: therefore I said to the children of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any flesh at all, because the life of the flesh is in the blood, and whosoever eateth it, shall be cut off.)[22] The Hebrew word which is translated "life"[23] in this passage and particularly in the phrase "Because the life of the flesh is in the blood," also signifies "Soul," and the Revised Version has a marginal note: "Heb. soul." Since then the very essence of life, and even more, the spirit or the soul in some mysterious way lies in the blood we have
p. 15
a complete explanation why the vampire should seek to vitalize and rejuvenate his own dead body by draining the blood from the veins of his victims.
It will be remembered that in a famous necromantic passage in the Odyssey[24], when Ulysses calls up the ghosts from the underworld, in order that they may recover the power of speech, he has to dig deep a trench and therein pour the blood of sacrifice, black rams, and it is only after they have quaffed their fill of this precious liquor that the phantoms may converse with him and enjoy something of their human powers and mortal faculties.
Among the many references to funereal customs and the rites of mourning in Holy Writ there is one which has a very distinct bearing upon this belief that blood might benefit the deceased. The prophet Jeremias in fortelling the utter ruin of the Jews and the complete desolation of their land says: "Et morientur grandes, et parui in terra ista: non sepelientur neque plangentur, et non se incident, neque caluitium fiet pro eis."[25] (Both the great and little shall die in this land; they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.) And again the same prophet tells us that after the Jews had been carried away in captivity of Babylon: "Uenerunt uiri de Sichem et de Silo, et de Samaria octoginta uiri: rasi barba, et scissis uestibus et squallentes: et munera, et thus habebant in manu, ut offerrent in domo Domini."[26] The word "squallentes" which the Douai Version renders "mourning" is translated by the Authorised Version as "having cut themselves" and the same rendering is given in the Revised Version. These customs of shaving part of the head and the beard which is referred to in the words "nor make themselves bald for them" and more particularly the practice of cutting or wounding the body in token of mourning were strictly forbidden as savouring of heathenish abuse. Thus in Leviticus xix. 28, we read: "Et super mortuo non incidetis carnem uestrum, neque figuras aliquas, aut stigmata facietis uobis. Ego Dominus." (You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks: I am the Lord.) And again (xxi. 5) the same command with regard to mourning is enforced: "Non radent caput, nec barbam, neque in carnibus suis facient incisuras." (Neither shall
p. 16
they shave their head, nor their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh.) S. Jerome, however, tells us that the custom persisted. For he says in his Commentary on Jeremias, xvi. 6, which may be dated 415-420:[27] "Mos hic fuit apud ueteres, et usque hodie in quibusdam permanet Iudaeorum, ut in luctibus incidant lacertos, et caluitium faciant, quod Iob fecisse legimus."[28] And yet these observances had been, as we saw, most sternly forbidden, nay, and that most emphatically and more than once. Thus in Deuteronomy they are sternly reprobated as smacking of the grossest superstition: "Non comedetis cum sanguine. Non augurabimini, nec obseruabitis somnia. Neque in rotundum attondebitis comam: nec radetis barbam. Et super mortuo non incidetis carnem uestram, neque figuras aliquas, aut stigmata facietis uobis. Ego Dominus." (You shall not eat with blood. You shall not divine nor observe dreams. Nor shall you cut your hair round-wise: nor shave your beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks: I am the Lord.) "Filii estote Domini Dei uestri: non uos incidetis, nec facietis, caluitium super mortuo. Quoniam populus sanctus es Domino Deo tuo: et te elegit ut sis ei in populum peculiarem de cunctis gentibus, quae sunt super terram." (Be ye children of the Lord your God: you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness for the dead; because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God: and he chose thee to be his peculiar people of all nations that are upon the earth.)
Presumably these two customs were thus sternly prohibited as largely borrowed by the Jews from the Pagan people around them, who might indeed as having no hope make such extravagant and even indecent exhibition of their mourning for the departed, but which practices would at the least be highly unbecoming in the chosen people of Jehovah. Assuredly, even if they go no deeper, these observances are tainted with such savagery and seem so degrading that it is not surprising to find ordinances among other peoples, for instance the code of Solon at Athens, forbidding mourners to wound and scratch their faces and persons. The laws of the Ten Tables also which were largely based on this earlier legislation do not permit women to tear and disfigure their faces during the funeral rites. These two customs, shaving the head and
p. 17
lacerating the face, are found the whole world over at all times and among all races. The former hardly concerns us here, but it is interesting to inquire into the idea which lay at the root of this "cuttings in the flesh for the dead." This practice existed in antiquity among the Assyrians, the Arabs, the Scythians and such peoples as the Moabites, the Philistines, and the Phoenicians.[29] Jordanes tells us that Attila was lamented, "not with womanly wailing, empty coronach and tears, but with the blood of warriors and strong men."[31] Among many African tribes, among the Polynesians of Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands and the whole Pacific Archipelago; among the Aborigines of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania; among the Patagonians; among the Indians of California and North America; as. among very many other races, mourning for the dead is always accompanied by the laceration of the body until blood freely flows, and it is even not unknown for relatives of the deceased to inflict terrible mutilations upon themselves, and he who is most pitiless and most barbarous is esteemed to show the greater honour and respect to the departed. The important point lies in the fact, that blood must be shed, and this appears to constitute some covenant with the dead, so that by freely bestowing what he requires they prevent him from returning to deprive them of it forcibly and in the most terrifying circumstances. If they are not willing to feed him with their blood he will come back and take it from them, so naturally it is believed to be far better to give without demur and gain the protection of the ghost, rather than to refuse what the phantom will inevitably seize upon in vengeance and in wrath.
Many Australian tribes considered blood to be the best remedy for a sick and weakly person, and there is, of course, no small modicum of truth in the idea when we consider the scientific transfusion of blood as is practised in certain cases by doctors at the present time, a remedy of which there are many examples in the middle ages and in later medicine.[31] Bonney, the Australian traveller, tells us that among certain tribes on the Darling River in New South Wales, "a very sick or weak person is fed upon blood which the male friends provide, taken from their bodies in the way already described"[32] that is to say by opening a vein of the forearm and allowing the blood to run into a wooden bowl or some similar vessel. "It
p. 18
is generally taken in a raw state by the invalid, who lifts it to his mouth like jelly between his fingers and thumb." It must be remembered that the Aborigines firmly believe in the existence of the soul after death, and since blood during the life proves the most helpful and sustaining nourishment it will communicate the same vitalizing qualities if bestowed upon one who has passed beyond, for they do not entertain the idea that death is any great severance and separation.
This certainly gives us a clue to the belief underlying the practice of scratching the body and shedding blood upon the occasion of a death, and there can be no doubt that, although possibly the meaning was obscured and these lacerations came to evince nothing more than a proof of sorrow at the bereavment, yet fundamentally the blood was offered by mourners for the refreshment of the departed to supply him with strength and vigour under his new conditions.[33] These practices, then, involved a propitiation of the dead; further, a certain intimate communication with the dead, and assuredly bear a necromantic character, and have more than a touch of vampirism, the essence of which consists in the belief that the dead man is able to sustain a semi-life by preying upon the vitality, that is to say, by drinking the blood of the living. Accordingly we are fully able to understand why these customs, heathenish and worse, were so uncompromisingly denounced and forbidden in the Mosaic legislation. It was no mere prohibition of indecorous lamentations tinged with Paganism, but it went something deeper, for such observances are not free from the horrid superstition of black magic and the feeding of the vampire till he suck his full of hot salt blood and be gorged and replete like some demon leech.
The word Vampire (also vampyre) is from the Magyar vampir, a word of Slavonic origin occuring in the same form in Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, and Bulgarian with such variants as Bulgarian, vapir, vepir; Ruthenian vepyr, vopyr, opyr; Russian upir, upyr; South Russian upuir; Polish upier. Miklosich[34] suggests the Turkish uber, witch, as a possible source. Another derivation, which is less probable is from the root Pi--to drink, with the prefix va, or av. From the root Pi--come the Greek πίνω I drink, some tenses of which are formed from the root Po--, such as a perfect πέπωκα[35]; a future passive ποθήσομαι[36]; to which must be added the perfect infinitive
p. 19
[paragraph continues] πεπόσθαι[36] which occurs in Theognis.[37] Hence we have the Aeolic πώνω, and also probably ποταμός, properly perhaps of fresh, drinkable water πότιμον ὕδωρ.[38]
The Sanskrit is pâ, pî, pi-bâmi (bibo); pâ-nam (potus) pâ-tra (poculum); Latin po-tus, po-to, po-culum, etc., with which are connected bibo and its many forms and compounds (root--bi-); Slavonic, pi-tî (bibere); Lithuanian, po-ta (ebriositas), and a vast number of other variants.
Ralston must certainly be quoted in this connexion, although it should be borne in mind that he is a little out of date in some details. The Songs of the Russian People from which (p. 410) I cite the following passage was published early in 1872. Of Vampires he writes: "The name itself has never been satisfactorily explained. In its form of vampir [South Russian upuir, anciently upir], it has been compared with the Lithuanian wempti = to drink, and wempti, wampiti = to growl, to mutter, and it has been derived from a root pi [to drink] with the prefix u = av, va. If this derivation is correct, the characteristic of the vampire is a kind of blood-drunkenness. In accordance with this idea the Croatians called the vampire pijauica; the Servians say of a man whose face is coloured by constant drinking, that he is 'blood-red as a vampire'; and both the Servians and the Slovaks term a hard drinker a Vlkodlak. The Slovenes and Kashubes call the vampire vieszey, a name akin to that borne by the witch in our own language as well as in Russian. The Poles name him upior or upir, the latter being his designation among the Czekhs also." The Istrian vampire is strigon, and among the Wallachians there is a vampire called murony. In Greece there are some local names for the vampire, (Cyprus), σαρκωμένος, "the one who has put on flesh"; (Tenos), ἀναικαθούμενος, "he who sits up in his grave" in Cythnos, ἄλυτος "incorrupt"; in Cythera, ἀνάρραχο, λάμπασμα, and λάμπαστρο, three words of which I can suggest no satisfactory explanation and which ever so great an authority on Greece as Mr. J. C. Lawson finds unintelligible. Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (I, p. 212) and more particularly Pashley, Travels in Crete (II, p. 207), mention a term used in Rhodes and generally in Crete, καταχανος, the derivation of which is uncertain. Pashley thinks it may have meant a "destroyer," but Mr. Lawson connects it with Kara and the root χαν-, I gape or yawn, in
p. 20
allusion to the gaping mouth of the vampire, os hians, dentes candidi, says Leone Allacci.
St. Clair and Brophy in their Twelve Years' Study of the Eastern Question in Bulgaria, 1877, have a note (p. 29, n. 1): "The pure Bulgarians call this being [the Vampire] by the genuine Slavonic name of Upior, the Gagaous (or Bulgarians of mixed race) by that of Obour, which is Turkish; in Dalmatia it is known as Wrikodlaki, which appears to be merely a corruption of the Romaic βρυκόλαξ."
The word vampir, vampyr, is apparently unknown in Greece proper and the general modem term is βρυκόλακας, which may be transliterated as vrykolakas (plural vrykolakes). Tozer gives the Turkish name as vurkolak, and Hahn records that amongst some of the Albanians βουρβολάκ-ου is used of the restless dead. It is true that in parts of Macedonia where the Greek population is in constant touch with Slavonic neighbours, especially in Melenik in the North-East, a form βάμπυρασ or βόμπυρασ has been adopted," and is there used as a synonym of vrykolakas in its ordinary Greek sense, but strangely enough with this one exception throughout the whole of Greece and the Greek islands the form "Vampire" does not appear. Coraes denies the Slavonic origin of the word vrykolakas, and he seeks to connect a local variant βορβόλακασ with a hypothetical ancient word μορμόλυξ[40] alleged to be the equivalent of μορμολύκη which is used by the geographer Strabo, and μορμολυκεία used by Arrianus of Nicomedia in his Διατριβαὶ Ἐπικτήτου[41] and the more usual μορμολυκεῖον[42] found in Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazuasae (417):
εῖ᾽τα δια τοῦτον ταῖσ γυναικωνίτισιν
σφραγῖδας ὲπιβάλλουσιν ἤδη καὶ μοχλούς,
τηρο̃ῦντεσ ἡμᾶσ, καὶ προσέτι Μολοττικοὺς
τρέφουσι, μορμολυκε̑ῖα τοῖσ μοιχοῖς, κύνασ·
The word occurs again in Plato, Phaedo[43]: "τοῦτον ὁῦν πειρώμεθα πείθειν μὴ δεδίεναι τὸν θάνατον ὥσπερ τὰ μορμολύκεια". It is, of course, a derivation and diminutive of Mormo (Μορμώ), a hobgoblin, or worse, a ghoul of hideous appearance. The theory is patriotic and ingenious, but Bernard Schmidt and all other authorities agree that it is entirely erroneous and the modern Greek word vrykolakas must undoubtedly be identified with a word which is common
p. 21
to the whole Slavonic group of languages. This word Slovenian volkodlak, vukodlak, vulkodlak, is a compound form of which the first half means "wolf," whilst the second half has been identified, although the actual relation is not quite demonstrable, with blaka, which in Old Slavonic, New Slavonic, and Serbian signifies the "hair" of a cow or a horse or a horse's mane.[44] Yet whatsoever the analytical signification of the compound may precisely be, the synthesis in the actual employment of all Slavonic tongues, save one, is the equivalent of the English "werewolf"; Scotch "warwulf"; German "Werwolf" and French "loup-garou." The one language in which this word does not bear this interpretation is the Serbian, for here it signifies "a vampire."[45] But it should be remarked in this connexion that the Slavonic peoples, and especially the Serbians believe that a man who has been a werewolf in his life will become a vampire after death, and so the two are very closely related.[46] It was even thought in some districts, especially Elis[47] that those who had eaten the flesh of a sheep killed by a wolf might become vampires after death.[48] However, it must be remembered that although the superstitions of the werewolf and the vampire in many respects agree, and in more than one point are indeed precisely similar, there is, especially in Slavonic tradition, a very great distinction, for the Slavonic vampire is precisely defined and it is the incorrupt and re-animated dead body which returns from its grave, otherwise it cannot be said strictly to be a vampire. As we shall have occasion to observe it were, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that the conception of the vampire proper is peculiar to Slavonic peoples, and especially found in the Balkan countries, in Greece, in Russia, in Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. There are, of course, many variants, both Western and Oriental; and other countries have tales of vampires which exactly fit the Slavonic norm, but outside the districts we have specified the appearances of the vampire are rare, whilst in his own domain even now he holds horrid sway, and people fear not so much the ghost as the return of the dead body floridly turgescent and foully swollen with blood, endued with some abominable and devilish life.
In Danish and Swedish we have vampyr; the Dutch is vampir; the French le vampire; Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
p. 22
vampiro; modem Latin, vampyrus.[49] The Oxford English Dictionary thus defines vampire: "A preternatural being of a malignant nature (in the original unusual form of the belief an animated Corpse), supposed to seek nourishment and do harm by sucking the blood of sleeping persons; a man or woman abnormally endowed with similar habits." The first example which has been traced of the use of the word in literature seems to be that which occurs in The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, written about 1734, which was printed in Vol. IV. of the Harleian Miscellany, 1745, where the following passage occurs: "We must not omit Observing here, that our Landlord [at Laubach] seems to pay some regard to what Baron Valvasor has related of the Vampyres, said to infest some Parts of this Country. These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of deceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the Living, and thereby destroy them." The word and the idea soon became quite familiar, and in his Citizen of the World (1760-2) Oliver Goldsmith writes in every-day phrase: "From a meal he advances to a surfeit, and at last sucks blood like a vampire."
Johnson, edited by Latham, 1870, has: "Vampire. Pretended demon, said to delight in sucking human blood, and to animate the bodies of dead persons, which, when dug up, are said to be found florid and full of blood." A quotation is given from Forman's Observations on the Revolution in 1688, 1741, which shows that so early the word had acquired its metaphorical sense: "These are the vampires of the publick and riflers of the kingdom." David Mallet in his Zephyr, or the Stratagem, has:
Can Russia, can the Hungarian vampire
With whom call in the hordes and empire,
Can four such powers, who one assail
Deserve our praise should they prevail?
A few travellers and learned authors had written of vampires in the seventeenth century. Thus we have the famous De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus of Leone Allacci,[51] published at Cologne in 1645; there are some detailed accounts in the Relation de ce qui s'est passé a Sant-Erini Isle de l'Archipel[51] by Father François Richard, a Jesuit
p. 23
priest of the island of Santorini (Thera), whose work was published at Paris in 1657; Paul Ricaut, sometime English Consul at Smyrna in his The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches Anno Christi, 1678, 8vo, London, 1679,[52] mentions the tradition with a very striking example, but he does not actually use the word vampire. In 1679 Philip[53] Rohr published at Leipzig his thesis De Masticatione Mortuorum, which in the eighteenth century was followed by a number of academic treatises, such as the Dissertatio de Hominibus post mortem Sanguisugis, uulgo dictis Vampyren, by John Christopher Rohl and John Hertel, Leipzig, 17 32; the Dissertatio de cadaueribus sanguisugis of John Christian Stock, published at Jena in the same year; the Dissertatio de Uampyris Seruiensibus of John Heinrich Zopfius and Charles Francis van Dalen which appeared in the following year; all of which in some sense paved the way for John Christian Harenberg's Von Vampyren.[54]
In 1744 was published at Naples "presso i fratelli Raimondi" the famous Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri of Gioseppe Davanzati, Archbishop of Trani. This book had already widely circulated in manuscript--"la sua Dissertazione sopra i Vampiri s'era sparsa per tutta l'Italia benchè manoscritta," says the anonymous biographer--and a copy had even been presented to the Holy Father, the learned Benedict XIV, who in a letter of 12th January, 1743, graciously thanked the author with generous compliment upon his work. "L'abbiamo subito letta con piacere, e nel medesimo Tempo ammirata si per la dottrina, che per la vasta erudizione, di cui ella è fornita"; wrote the Pope. It will not then be unfitting here to supply some brief notice--of the Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri, which although it ran into a second edition, "Napoli. M.DCC.LXXXIX. Presso Filippo Raimondi," in England seems almost entirely unknown since strangely enough even the British Museum Library lacks a copy. We would premise that as the good Archbishop's arguments and conclusions are philosophical it is quite allowable for us, whilst fully recognizing his scholarship and skill in handling his points, not to accept these but rather to maintain the contrary.
Gioseppe Davanzati was born at Bari on 29th August, 1665. After having commenced his studies at the Jesuit p. 24 College in his native town, he passed at the age of fifteen to the University of Naples. Already had he resolved to seek the priesthood, and after a course of three years, his parents being now dead, he entered the University of Bologna, when he greatly distinguished himself in Science and Mathematics. Some few years were next spent in travelling, during which period he made his headquarters at Paris, "essendo molto innamorato delle maniere, e de'costumi de' Francesi." Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland were visited in turn, and we are told that he repeatedly expressed his wish to cross over to England, "nobil sede dell 'Arti e delle Scienze" but that by some accident his desire was again and again frustrated. Early in the reign of Clement XI, (1700-1721) he was recalled to Italy, and having been raised to the priesthood by the Bishop of Montemartino (Salerno) he was appointed Treasurer of the famous Sanctuary of S. Nicholas at Bari. His genius speedily attracted attention, and before long he was sent by the Pope as Legate Extraordinary to the Emperor Charles VI, to Vienna, a difficult and important mission which he discharged so admirably well that upon his return he was rewarded with the Archbishopric of Trani and other honours. This noble prelate remained high in favour with the successors of Clement XI, Innocent XIII (1721-1724), Benedict XIII (1724-1730), and Clement XII (1730-1740), and when on the death of this latter Pontiff Cardinal Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini was elected and took the title of Benedict XIV an old and intimate friend of his own was sitting in the chair of S. Peter. Although five and seventy years of age, Archbishop Davanzati journeyed to Rome to kiss the feet of the new Pope by whom he was welcomed with the utmost kindness and every mark of distinction. Upon the death of Monsignor Crispi, Archbishop of Ferrara, the Supreme Pontiff on 2nd August, 1746, preconized Gioseppe Davanzati as Patriarch of Alexandria, a dignity vacant by the aforesaid prelate's decease. Early in February, 1755, Archbishop Davanzati contracted a severe chill which turned to inflammation of the lungs. Upon the night of the sixteenth of that month, having been fortified with the Sacraments of the Church be slept peacefully away, being aged 89 years, 5 months, and 16 days.
The Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri owed its first suggestion
p. 25
to the various discussions which were held at Rome during the years 1738-39 in the apartments of Cardinal Schrattembach, Bishop of Olmütz, and which arose from the official reports of vampirism submitted to him by the chapter of his diocese. The cardinal sought the advice and co-operation of various learned members of the Sacred College and other prelates of high repute for experience and sagacity. Amongst these was Davanzati who frankly confesses that until the Cardinal consulted him and explained the whole business at length he had no idea at all what a vampire might be. Davanzati commences his work by relating various well-known and authenticated cases of vampires, especially those which had recently occurred in Germany during the years 1720-1739. He shows a good knowledge of the literature of the subject, and decides that the phenomena cannot enter into the category of apparitions and ghosts but must be explained in a very different way, He finds that with but few exceptions both ancient and modern philosophers seem ignorant of vampirism, which he justly argues with pertinent references to the Malleus Maleficarum and to Delrio must be diabolical in origin be it an illusion or no. He next considers at some length in several chapters of great interest the extent of the demon's power. Chapter XIII discusses "Della forza della Fantasia," and in Chapter XIV be argues "Che le apparizioni de'fantasmi, e dell' ombre de' Morti, di cui fanno menzione gli Storici, non siano altro che effetto di fantasia." Here we take leave to join issue with him, and to-day it will very generally be agreed that his line of argument is at least perilous. Nor can we accept "Che l'apparizione de' Vampiri non sia altro che paro effetto di Fantasia." The truth lies something deeper than that as Leone Allacci so well knew. Yet with all its faults and limitations the Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri is deserving of careful consideration for there is much that is well presented, much that is of value, although in the light of fuller investigations and clearer knowledge the author's conclusion cannot be securely maintained.
Even better known than the volume of Davanzati is the Dissertations sur les Apparitions des Anges, des Démons et des Esprits, et sur les Revenants et Vampires de Hongrie, de Bohême, de Moravie, et de Silésie, published at Paris,
p. 26
chez Debure l'ainé, 2 vols., 12mo, 1746.[55] The work was frequently reprinted, and translated into English 1759; into German 1752; second edition 1757-8. In its day it exercised a very great influence, and as it is still constantly referred to, it may not be impertinent to give a brief account of the eminent authority, its author.
Dom Augustin Calmet, who is so famous as a biblical exegetist, was born at Ménil-la-Horgne, near Commercy, Lorraine, on 26th February, 1672; and died at the Abbey of Senones, near Saint-Dié, 25th October, 1757. He was educated by the monks of the Benedictine Priory of Breuil, and in 1688 he joined this learned order in the abbey of St. Mansuy at Toul, being professed in the following year, and ordained 17th March, 1696. At the Abbey of Moyen-Moutier, where he taught philosophy and theology, he soon engaged the help of the whole community to gather the material for his vast work on the Bible. The first volume of this huge commentary appeared at Paris in 1707, Commentaire littéral sur tous les livres de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament; and the last of the twenty-three quarto volumes was published only in 1716. Several most important reprints were issued throughout the eighteenth century, including two Latin versions, the one by F. Vecelli which came from houses at Venice and Frankfort, six volumes folio, 1730; the other by Mansi, Lucca, 9 vols., folio, 1730-1738 of which version there are at least two subsequent editions It is impossible that in some small points so encyclopædic a work should not be open to criticism, but its merits are permanent and the erudition truly amazing. Yet this was only one of many learned treatises which Dom Calmet published on Biblical subjects, and so greatly was their value esteemed that his dissertations were rapidly translated into Latin and the principal modern European languages. When we add to these his historical and philosophical writings the output of this great scholar is well-nigh incredible. So remarkable a man could not fail to hold high honours in his own Congregation, and it was only at his earnest prayer that Pope Benedict XIII refrained from compelling him to accept a mitre, since this Pontiff on more than one occasion expressed himself anxious to reward the merits and the learning of the Abbot of Senones.
To-day, perhaps the best known of Dom Calmet's works
p. 27
in his Traité sur les Apparitions des Esprits, et sur les Vampires, and in his preface he tells us the reasons which induced him to undertake this examination. One point which lie emphasizes must carefully be borne in mind and merits detailed consideration. Vampires, as we have seen, particularly infest Slavonic countries, and it does not appear that this species of apparition was well known in western Europe until towards the end of the seventeenth century. There undoubtedly were cases of vampirism, as will be recorded in their due order, and certain aspects of witchcraft have much in common with the vampire tradition, especially the exercise of that malign power whereby the witch caused her enemies to dwindle, peak and pine, draining them dry as hay. But this is not vampirism proper. The fuller knowledge of these horrors reached western Europe in detail during the eighteenth century, and it at once threw very considerable light upon unrelated cases that had been recorded from time to time, but which appeared isolated and belonging to no particular category. Writing in 1746, Dom Calmet, who had long studied the subject, remarks that certain events, certain movements, certain fanaticisms, certain phenomena, it may be in the physical or in the supernatural order, distinguish and characterise certain several centuries. He continues: "In this present age and for about sixty years past, we have been the hearers and the witnesses of a new series of extraordinary incidents and occurrences. Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, Poland, are the principal theatre of these happenings. For here we are told that dead men, men who have been dead for several months, I say, return from the tomb, are heard to speak, walk about, infest hamlets and villages, injure both men and animals, whose blood they drain thereby making them sick and ill, and at length actually causing death. Nor can men deliver themselves from these terrible visitations, nor secure themselves from these horrid attacks, unless they dig the corpses up from the graves, drive a sharp stake through these bodies, cut off the heads, tear out the hearts; or else they burn the bodies to ashes. The name given to these ghosts is Oupires, or Vampires, that is to say, blood-suckers, and the particulars which are related of them are so singular, so detailed, accompanied with circumstances so probable and so likely, as well as with the most weighty and well-attested legal deposition
p. 28
that it seems impossible not to subscribe to the belief which prevails in these countries that these Apparitions do actually come forth from their graves and that they are able to produce the terrible effects which are so widely and so positively attributed to them. . . . The Brucolaques (vrykolakes) of Greece and the Archipelago are Apparitions of quite a new kind." The author then says that he has solid reasons for treating the subject of Vampires, and especially for dealing with those who infest Hungary, Moravia, Silesia and Poland, although he well knows that he is laying himself open to damaging criticism on both sides. Many persons will accuse him of temerity and presumption for having dared to cast doubts upon certain details in these well-authenticated accounts, whilst others will attack him for having wasted his time in writing seriously on a subject which appears to them frivolous and inept. "Howbeit," he continues, "whatever line anyone may choose to adopt, it is to my mind useful and indeed necessary to investigate a question which seems to have an important bearing upon Religion. For if it be a truth that Vampires may actually thus return from their graves, then it becomes necessary to write in defence of, and to prove, this truth; if it be an error and an illusion, it follows in the interests of religion that those who credit it must be undeceived and that we should expose a groundless superstition, a fallacy, which may easily have very serious and very dangerous
