CHAPTER III
THE TRAITS AND PRACTICE OF VAMPIRISM
IT was generally supposed that all suicides might after death become vampires; and this was easily extended to those who met with any violent or sudden death. Mr. Lawson tells us that there persists a tradition in Maina, where the Vendetta is still maintained, that a man whose murder has not been avenged is liable to become a vrykolakas.[1] The Mainotes who derive their name from the place Maina, near Cape Taenaron (Matapan), even yet preserve many of the customs and characteristics of their ancestors, and historically are known to be of a more pure Greek descent than the inhabitants of any other district. Indeed, the peninsula which thrusts into the sea the headland of Taenaron has both social and religious customs of its own. The population is distributed into small villages, while here and there a white fortress will denote the residence of a chief. A traveller writing in 1858, remarks: "The Maina country is wild and beautiful, singularly well cultivated, considering the difficulties to be surmounted, and producing crops that put to shade the rich plains of Argos and Arcadia; whilst the interesting mountain people exercise the highland virtues of hospitality and independance to an extent unknown in the low countries." It has been said that the last traveller who saw Maina while retaining some remains of its primitive cateran glories was Lord Carnarvon, who in 1839 explored the Morea and has left us an extraordinarily interesting account of his journey.
The population of this district continued the worship of the Pagan deities for full five hundred years after the rest of the Roman Empire had embraced Christianity, and they were not finally converted until the reign of the vigorous Emperor Basil I, 867-886. Gibbon described them as "a domestic and perhaps original race, who, in some degree, might derive their blood from the much-injured Helotes."[2] And even yet
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they boast of their descent from the ancient Spartans, whilst the histories of Leonidas and Lycurgus, who figure partly as saints and partly as gallant brigands, are still retold round the winter fireside. The whole district, including Kaka Voulia (the Land of Evil Counsel), is formed by the hummocks and escarpments of Mount Taygetos, and, with the exception of a long strip of coast line, which the Venetians called Bassa Maina, it is steep and hilly and for the most part barren. The conquest of the Morea was completed by Mahomet II in 1456-1460, but Maina could never be thoroughly subdued, and its inhabitants remained as entirely independent as were the Highlanders before Culloden.
As has been remarked, ancient traditions still persevere, and among these customs not the least obstinate is the Vendetta. A man who has been murdered is unable to rest in his grave until he has been avenged. Accordingly he issues forth as a vampire, thirsting for the blood of his enemy. In order to bring about his physical dissolution and to secure his repose it is necessary for the next of kin to slay the murderer, or at least some near relative of the murderer. Unless this is done the man upon whom the duty of avenging blood devolves is banned by the curse of the dead, and if so be that he is himself cut off before he can satify the desires of the deceased, the curse will yet cling to him even in death, and he too must become a vampire. It should be remarked that this view of blood-guilt is found in the Attic dramatists, and is in fact the mainspring of the whole story of Orestes. In the tragedy of this name by Euripides, Tyndareus, the father of Clytemnestra, remonstrates very reasonably, and indeed unanswerably with Orestes. But the hero replies and argues that if he has not avenged his father
Had not his hate's Erinyes haunted me?[3]
Again in the Choephoroe of Aeschylus Orestes pursues the same idea saying that unless he avenges his father, a stern duty which has devolved upon him, lie will be punished in turn by the avengers of his father's wrongs. It may be remarked that in Maina to-day no recourse must be had to law for such cases, nor must the injured person satisfy himself by calling upon the aid of the police. To do this were incredibly base, the subterfuge of a recreant and a craven. Even if it be a life's whole work a man is expected, either secretly
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or by an open attack, to slay the murderer of his relative, and he is highly applauded when he has accomplished this pious deed. It must be appreciated that he is regarded as herein directed and inspired by the dead man who returns from his grave as a vampire craving for blood. Even if no other motive or incentive prevailed, in spite of natural shrinking and may be even cowardice, a man would undoubtedly prefer to shed blood for blood, especially when this might be done in secrecy or by craft, rather than run the terrible risk of himself becoming a vampire, finding no rest in the grave, but returning to haunt and persecute even those who were most dear to him, an unclean thing accursed. of God, a foul goblin of dread most hateful to man.
So great is the horror which the act of suicide, although considered admirable in the decadence of Greece and Rome, inspires in every man of sane mind that it, is not at all surprising it should be deemed that the unfortunate wretches who have destroyed themselves become vampires after death. According to the Zoroastrian creed, suicide is a most fearful crime, and is classed among the marg-arzan, the abominable offences. Aristotle in his Ethics, V, xv, terms suicide a sin against the State, and as Cicero tells us Pythagoras forbade men to depart from their guard or sentry-go in life without an order from their commanding-officer, who is God. "Uetatque Pythagoras iniussu imperatoris, id est, dei, de praesidio et statione uitae decedere." (De Senectute, XX, 73). The highest pagan argument against suicide will be found in Plato's Phaedo (61E-62E), but it is drowned in the mighty voice of the great Saint of Hippo, which peals in no unwavering tones down the centuries: "For if it be not lawful for a private man to kill any man, however guilty, unless the law have granted a special allowance for it, theft surely whosoever kills himself is guilty of homicide: and so much the more guilty doth that killing of himself make himself, by how much the more guiltless he was in that cause for which he killed himself. For if the act of Judas be worthily detested, and yet the Truth saith, that by hanging of himself, he did rather augment than expiate the guilt of his wicked treachery, because his despair of God's mercy in his damnable repentance, left no place in his soul for saving repentance; how much more ought he to
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forbear from being cause of his own death, that hath no guilt in him worthy of such a punishment as death; for Judas in hanging himself, hanged but a wicked man and died guilty, not only of Christ's death, but of his own also; adding the wickedness of being his own death, to that other wickedness of his, for which he died." (De Ciuitate Dei, I, xvii.)
It may be well very briefly to present the teaching of the Church concerning positive and direct suicide. If done without God's permission this always constitutes a grave injustice towards Him. To destroy a thing is in effect to dispose of it as an absolute master and to act with regard to it as one who has full and independent dominion over it. But God has reserved to Himself dominion over life. Man cannot create life, and he does not possess this full and absolute right over his own life. Consequently suicide must be reckoned as an attempt against the dominion and right of ownership of the Author of life. To this injustice is super-added a serious offence against the charity owed by man to himself, since by self-murder he deprives himself of the greatest good in his possession. Moreover this sin may be aggravated by other circumstances, such as an offence against conjugal, paternal, or filial duty; an offence against justice or charity; if by taking his own life a man eludes existing obligations of justice or acts of charity which he could and should perform. That suicide is unlawful is the general teaching of Holy Scripture which condemns the act as a most terrible crime, and to arouse the horror of all against Holy Church denies the suicide the rites of Christian burial. Again, suicide is directly opposed to the most natural and powerful tendency of all created things, and especially of intelligent man, the preservation of life. Indeed very large numbers of physicians, moralists, and jurists lay it down as a general rule that suicide is always due to dementia, so great is the horror which this atrocious deed inspires in every man of sane mind. As a generalization this may be admitted to be true, for it is impossible to think that those who have the calm and right use of their reason should deliberately destroy themselves, and the conditions which are necessary to incur the full culpability of an act can only in exceptional instances be conceived of as being present in the case of a suicide. Sabetti inquires: "Quaenam ad peccatum mortale
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requirantur?" And his answer is given as follows: "Tria necessario requiruntur, scilicet materia grauis uel in se, uel ob circumstantias; aduertentia plena ad malitiam grauem actus; consensus plenus uoluntatis in præuaricationem. Itaque,
Requiritur 1°. materia grauis, secus non posset haberi lex obligans sub graui.
Requiritur 2°. plena aduertentia mentis, secus non habebitur plena deliberatio.
Requiritur 3°. plenus consensus uoluntatis, quia nisi peccator cum pleno consensu plenaque deliberatione obiectum peccati Deo præferat, et sic finem suum ultimum in creatura constituat, nequit dici a Deo totaliter recedere. Insuper a bonitate diuina prorsus alienum est, hominem æternæ damnationi addicere siue propter transgressionem leuem siue propter actum non perfecte liberum et uoluntarium.--Cf. S. Alphons, nn. 5, 6 et 53."[5]
The Christian Middle Ages were free from the terrible tendency of suicide, but with the loss of Faith it re-appeared, and Masaryk in his study Der Selbstmord als sociale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation (Vienna, 1881), considered it to be the special evil of these later days. Sad to relate self-destruction has fearfully increased since the Great War, but it may perhaps be mitigatingly advanced that the reason of the world tottered almost to eternal delirium during the chaos and welter of blood, and the balance is not recovered yet.
It is true that among certain nations there appears to be an indifference to human life, nay, a contempt of death itself, which often takes the most extravagant and the most outrageous forms. The Goths, the heathen Vandals, and Norse savages not only approved but sought suicide and violent death. It is, of course, only among the utterly benighted that it is possible for such abominable ideas to obtain. For example, there existed among a tribe of robbers in Southern India customs of the utmost ferocity. Such practices as the following certainly prevailed during the eighteenth century, but they have no doubt, long since been happily suppressed. If two persons had quarrelled, sometimes for the most trifling reasons, a man would kill himself merely in order to be revenged on his adversary. He believed that
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his ghost would be able to return and harry the surviver , or at least that some dire retribution must fall on the head of his enemy who drove him to such extreme measures.[6] Again, custom required that if a man committed suicide, letting it be known that it was on this account, the person with whom he had had the difference that led to this abominable act must immediately follow his example.[7]
Lord Avebury's statement:[8] "It is said that in China, if a rich man is condemned to death, he can sometimes purchase a willing substitute at a very small expense," has been traversed and Professor Parker would not commit himself any further than by saying: "It is popularly stated that substitutes can be bought for Taels fifty, and most certainly this statement is more than true, so far as the price of human life is concerned; but it is quite another question whether the gaolers and judges can always be bribed."[9] Dr. W. T. A. Barber, who had been a missionary in China, relates that he had known very large numbers of persons who committed suicide out of spite against some one else, "the idea being, first, the trouble given by minions of the law to the survivor; second that the dead would gain a vantage ground by becoming a ghost, and thus able to plague his enemy in the flesh."[10]
It is not surprising to learn that in ancient times, before the advent of Christianity, among such savage people as the Celts and the Thracians suicide was not only common but treated with the most appalling lightness and even flippancy. Thus Athenæus, speaking of the banquets of the Thracians, quotes from Seleueus as follows: "And Seleueus says, 'that some of the Thracians at their drinking parties play the game of hanging; and fix a round noose to some high place, exactly beneath which they place a stone which is easily turned round when any one stands upon it; and then they cast lots, and he who draws the lot, holding a sickle in his hand, stands upon the stone, and puts his neck into the halter; and then another person comes and raises the stone, and the man who is suspended, when the stone moves from under him, if he is not quick enough in cutting the rope with his sickle, is killed and the rest laugh, thinking his death good sport.'"[11]
Upon the authority of the famous Stoic philosopher, Posidonius, Athenæus tells us of similar brutalities which took place among the Celts. He writes: "But Posidonius,[12] in the
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third, and also in the twentieth book of his Histories, says 'The Celtæ sometimes have single combats at their entertainments. For being collected in arms, they go through the exercise, and make feints at, and sometimes they even go so far as to wound one another. And being irritated by this, if the bystanders do not stop them, they will proceed even to kill one another. But in olden times,' he continues, 'there was a custom that a hind quarter of pork was put on the table, and the bravest man took it; and if any one else laid claim to it, then the two rose up to fight, till one of them was slain. And other men in the theatre having received some silver or gold money, and some even for a number of earthen vessels full of wine, having taken pledges that the gifts promised shall really be given, and having distributed them among their nearest connexions, have laid themselves down on doors with their faces upwards, and then allowed some bystander to cut their throats with a sword.'
"And Euphorion the Chalcidian, in his Historical Memorials, writes as follows: 'But among the Romans it is common for five minæ[13] to be offered to any one who chooses to take it, to allow his head to be cut off with an axe, so that his heirs might receive the reward: and very often many have returned their names as willingly, so that there has been a regular contest between them as to who had the best right to be beaten to death.'"[14] These atrocious examples serve to show us something of the evil and the corruption of which Christianity cleansed the pagan world, although it is to be feared that the battle is not yet won, since it is a notorious and deplorable fact that at the hour of such a crisis as the Great War the respect due to human life became cheapened in men's eyes, with the consequence that murder and deeds of violence once more broke out in every direction showing that savage instincts were dominated indeed, but in many cases not wholly eradicated. It does not require a keen perception to see the direct agency of the devil here, and these atrocities which bred so callous and cruel a spirit are by no means altogether unconnected with the recrudescence of necromancy and black magic which foul arts once more grew green and were almost openly pursued on every side.
The belief that a man has not complete dominion over his own life and that it is unlawful for him to take it is certainly a
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feeling naturally implanted in the human breast, and it was only when nations were entirely barbarian or had became decadent and corrupt that the notion of suicide was held up as noble and even heroic. Whatever certain among the later Greeks may have practised and taught, in earlier days, as we have seen, the act of suicide was regarded as a dark and presumptuous deed. They truly felt that there was in it something of ἀσέβεια,[15] something of that ὕβρις which so surely stirred the wrath of heaven and inevitably called down righteous vengeance. Indeed the evil and malice of suicide did not end with death but continued beyond the grave. The umbra of a man who had slain himself was dreaded and feared. So in ancient Athens it was the custom to cut off the hand of a suicide and to cremate it or at least to bury it far from his body, the object of such mutilation being to prevent his ghost from attacking the living.[16]
Similar beliefs exist among native African tribes. Thus the Wajagga of East Africa dread the spectres of suicides. When a man has hanged himself a certain complicated ceremonial becomes imperative. They take the rope from his neck and suspend a goat in the noose, after which the animal is swiftly slain. The idea seems that hereby the phantom will be in some way appeased, and he will not be so likely to tempt human beings to follow his evil example.[17]
The Baganda of Central Africa have an even greater horror of the ghosts of suicides, and the most elaborate precautions are invariably taken to protect themselves against these dangerous visitors. The body of a man who has destroyed himself is removed as far from all human habitation as possible, to waste land or to a cross-road, and there is utterly consumed with fire. Next the wood of the house in which the horrid deed has been done is burned to ashes and scattered to the winds; whilst if the man has hanged himself upon a tree this is hewn to the ground and committed to the flames, trunk, roots, branches and all. Even this is hardly deemed to be sufficient. Curiously enough there is a lurking idea that the ghost of a suicide may survive after the cremation of the body, so horrible is this crime felt to be and so irradicated the taint that this terrible deed establishes. This is extremely significant since the cases in which cremation, a complete purgation and destruction by fire, cannot obliterate guilt and
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destroy the evil infection are indeed exceptional, and it might be no easy task to find a parallel instance. However, the Baganda when passing by the spot where the body of a suicide has been burned always take good care to pelt it with sticks and clods of earth to prevent the ghost from catching them. Although these places in particular are dangerous to the last degree, there are other graves that may be haunted by phantoms, which as they have no bodies are not strictly vampires, but which certainly belong to the vampire family. Such are those remote places where persons who have been accused of black magic and who failed to satisfy the ritual ordeals have been burned to death, as also those spots where persons of evil and atrocious life have been cremated or interred.[18] The Maraves, a tribe of South Africa, who also burned witches alive, whenever they had occasion to pass the place of doom, pelted it with stones, and it is said that in some instances of spots considered particularly ill-omened a regular cairn or tumulus of loose stones has arisen." In Madagascar too, certain solitary graves bear an exceedingly ill-repute, so that the chance traveller with averted face throws stones at them or large lumps of earth in order to prevent the ghost following in his tracks and seizing on him.[20] It must be remarked, and this is very important, that the sticks and stones, or heavy clods of earth with which a grave is pelted are not meant merely as a symbolical insult and expression of righteous indignation, but are actually missiles which will strike and hurt the being who haunts the spot of interment. So since the haunter can be struck and injured by these very material objects,--the heavier they are the better,--he must himself possess a certain concrete substantiality, and inasmuch as objects make an impression upon him he must exist under some kind of physical condition. Doubtless the exact idea is not very clearly defined in the minds of those who are so careful to pelt the grave, yet if stones will not merely ward off an attack from the haunter, but when in the course of time they become piled up into a small cairn they serve to keep the deceased in his place, that is to say in the grave, there must be some sort of material entity which can be so materially frustrated and obstructed. Here then we have the essential and complete vampire.
It is recorded by a traveller about the middle of the last
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century that when he was journeying in company with two Mussulmans from Sidon to Tyre, as he drew near the latter city he noticed a great pile of stones by the wayside, whereupon his companions began to pick up all the loose pebbles that came to hand and discharged them violently at the heap at the same time uttering the most fearful imprecations. When they had passed and were at some little distance they explained that a notorious brigand, whose hands were stained with the hideous cruelties and innocent blood, had been slain there, and buried on the spot half a century before. The stones they threw and their curses were directed against this villain. It might be thought in this case that the missiles were a mark of loathing and contempt, but it seems far more probable that they were intended to serve a very utilitarian purpose, that is actually to keep off the wretch who would still be haunting the pit into which his body had been cast fifty years since.[21]
It even appears that in many parts of Syria when brigands are killed by the highway, or vagrom murderers are dispatched in the open country side beyond the walls of a city the body is left to rot unburied where it lies, and after a while it is merely covered over with a heap of stones; moreover everyone who passes by is bound to quoit a stone or stick to add to the pile under the penalty of incurring some dreadful misfortune. It is supposed that heaven will horribly curse the person who fails to throw his flinty tribute as he goes.[22]
It is not only among rude African tribes and in the East that the graves of persons who have led cruel and anti-social lives, particularly the spots where suicides have been buried, are thus places of execration and fear, but in Pomerania and in West Prussia, not to instance many other districts, the spots where persons who have wrought their own destruction happen to be interred are regarded as unlucky in the highest degree, and there is no more malevolent and harmful spectre than the suicide's ghost. A man who has destroyed himself must not defile God's acre, in no wise may he be buried in the churchyard but at the place where the desperate deed was done, and everybody who passes by will cast a stone on the spot unless he wishes the ghost of the suicide to plague him nightly and to give him no rest until he is driven to the same dreadful fate. It is said that, as in Africa piles of sticks
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and stones accumulate to a great size, so similar cairns rise upon these haunted spots in the more remote districts along the cold shores washed by the Baltic Sea.
It is not surprising to find that in a country such as Russia, which through the ages has so often tottered to madness and of late years fallen into stark lunacy, during the seventeenth century an epidemic of suicide raged. It persisted, indeed, at spasmodic intervals throughout the eighteenth and even the nineteenth centuries, but it was somewhat earlier than this that the troubles of that luckless nation blazed out in furious frenzy. As when the year 1000 approached a fearful apocalyptic mania inflamed many parts of Europe, and men imagining that the world was about to come to an end, that almost any hour, any moment the Angel's clarion would blare, heaven and earth shrivel like some parching scroll and the Judge be set on His awful throne, in their hundreds deserted cities and homes to wander abroad preaching fevered repentance and the most extravagent forms of penance, or else in frantic despair abandoned themselves to debauchery and violence, so in Russia some mad visionary who proclaimed that the crack of doom was appointed for the year 1666[23] set the whole country aflame with terror. In many parts, men ceased to labour in the fields, relinquished their businesses and all social intercourse, barricaded themselves in their houses behind closed windows and fast-barred doors, awaiting the end with the gloomiest forebodings. As might have been expected, great numbers completely lost their senses and scores of dangerous lunatics not only infested the highroad but even invaded villages and towns preaching that the only way to escape the wrath to come was to prevent the final day by self-destruction. They were, moreover, very willing and eager to help those who shrank from so severe a test, and before long red murder was rife in every direction. Their services, however, were not required as frequently as might have been supposed for the delirium spread with such alarming rapidity that not merely households but whole communities eagerly devoted themselves to death. If in some paroxysm of wild hysteria a man had declared his intention of becoming a martyr, for so these poor wretches were deemed, the pious duty devolved upon his friends and relations of seeing that he scrupulously fulfilled his vow. Should he
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wish to change his mind or in any way seek to escape his fate he was pursued and saved in spite of himself by being put to death in the most atrocious torments. A veritable reign of terror ensued, and northern Russia seemed well-nigh depopulated. It were superfluous to enter into the horrible details, but it may suffice to say that at first starvation was the usual method by which these maniacs committed suicide. In the forest of Vetlouga, one fanatic at huge expense actually built a tower without doors and windows, into the body of which persons were lowered through a trap in the roof. But this was too long a process; it gave space for reflection and with the pangs of hunger reason resumed her sway. Those within yelled to be released, but all in vain. To shouts and clamour succeeded groans and fainter lamentations, until as the days passed all was still. Another remedy was found and presently the method which was preferred and which was officially prescribed as safer and more pleasing to God was immolation by fire. Accordingly, the missionaries of this horrible impiety proclaimed safety through the flame; as the prophet Elias had ascended to heaven in a blazing chariot, so the deluded wretches were taught they would ascend to a glorious and delightful eternity from the midst of the conflagration. Hundreds and even thousands perished in huge holocausts. Whole areas were strictly enclosed, the candidates took their places therein and the compound having been previously drenched with pitch, bitumen, and inflammable oils torches were applied at many points. If any overcome by agony escaped with scorched and blackened limbs they were caught and hurled back into the heart of the pyre. These immolations generally took place during the dark winter season and from midnight until the faint streaks of dawn the red glow of these horrid furnaces could be seen in every direction. For hundreds of verstas the land became a veritable Tophet. As the morning broke, hordes of wolves attracted by the stench of roasting flesh assembled to pull trunks and limbs from the embers; a dark cloud of suffocating smoke, greasy with human fat that fouled both ground and houses, hung low in the sky, and ere many days were past the plague was stalking abroad with fatal voracity. It was not until the most vigorous measures had been taken that these terrible practices could be checked, and it seems that the
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venom of the madness persisted long and late, for as recently as 1860, fifteen persons in the district of Olonetz committed suicide by fire, whilst during the winter of 1896-1897, twenty-four religious fanatics buried themselves alive in a pit near Tiraspol.[24] The monk, Falaley, constantly preached that death was man's only means of salvation and that he must have done with this life of sin. One night under his influence, eighty-four persons congregated near the river Perevozinka and began to pray. Many of them were already half-crazed through excessive fasting, and they almost covered themselves with brambles and brushwood to which fire was to be set at a given signal. A woman, taking alarm at the thought of so horrible a death, escaped and informed the authorities. When the police arrived the fanatics shrieked that Antichrist was approaching, and setting fire to the pile most perished in the flames. A few who were rescued received sentences of imprisonment and deportation, but a fanatic called Souchkoff, managed to escape and continued to preach the gospel of death. Maddened by his doctrine in one locality alone, sixty families resolved to commit suicide at a certain moment, and a peasant, named Petroff, entering a neighbour's house cut down his wife and children with a hatchet. In a barn hard by, a dozen men with their wives had assembled and amid hymns of triumph they laid their heads upon an improvised block to be hacked off by Petroff. In another hut a woman and three children were dispatched at their own earnest request. At length when he was weary, Petroff himself kneeled down and was slain by Souchkoff. Between 1860 and 1870, a maniac named Chadkin, proclaimed that Antichrist was here, and all most follow him to the forests and there die of hunger. A large number assembled and his most devoted followers saw to it that nobody could escape. After a few days the sufferings of the crowds were fearful and the place rang with their screams and groans. Nevertheless Chadkin and his apostles did not waver. When some poor creature, frantic with agony, managed to break away and informed the police, the devotees at once began to kill all who had gathered together, and by the time the authorities had arrived in the utmost haste there were found but three survivors.
Buddhist monks in China are often recorded to have
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sought their Nirvana through an act of self -immolation by fire, and it is said that every year among the lamaresais of Tien-tai, in the province of Tai-chow, some half-a-dozen bonzes thus devote themselves to death. These unfortunate persons believe that their voluntary destruction crowns the monastery with honours and blessing, they are aware that they will be worshipped after their suicide, and they suppose that they will become the divinities of the district and possess the power to protect the whole neighbourhood, to grant fair weather and lucky seasons, a bounteous harvest and all prosperity. Such public incinerations are conducted with great ceremony, and take place upon a major festival which is bound to attract crowds of pilgrims and reverent suppliants to the spot.[25] It is said that among the Eskimo of Bering Strait a sorcerer has been known to burn himself alive, fully believing that thus he will return to life as a shaman with much greater powers and a far fuller knowledge of magic than he had hitherto enjoyed.[26] It may be remembered that even such low motives as vanity and a craving for mere notoriety have proved an incentive sufficiently powerful to induce men to seek a dramatic, if painful death by fire. Thus the charlatan Peregrinus after a career of the most braggart ostentation courted undying fame by self-immolation upon a pyre at the Olympic festival, which extraordinary performance attracted throngs not only of sensible persons who despised and mocked him but of encomiasts and apologists who regarded him as at the least a hero, if not something nearly approaching to deity.[27] It can hardly be argued that higher motives inspired Empedocles if the account preserved by Diogenes Laertius[28] to which Horace[29] makes reference be true, namely that hoping by a sudden disappearance he might be accounted a god, the philosopher flung himself into the crater of Mount Aetna, but that the suicide was revealed owing to the fact that the volcano almost immediately after threw up one of his sandals, and thus betrayed the manner of his death.
Josephus states that the Jews used not to bury the bodies of those who had destroyed themselves until after sunset. In Scotland it is still thought that the body of a suicide will not fall to dust until the time when he should have died in the order of nature,[30] and it is very generally held that a such
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a one must be buried with the grave facing north and south. This belief also existed in England and there are graves facing north and south to be seen at Cowden (Kent) and Bergholt (Suffolk), which are locally said to be those of persons who have destroyed themselves, for it is almost universally declared that Christian burial should be with the head in west, looking eastward[31]. As is well-known, in England until the time of George IV, it was the general practice to bury suicides at the cross-roads, where a stake was driven through the body. In the year 1823, it was enacted that the body of a suicide should be buried privately between the hours of nine o'clock and twelve at night with no religious ceremony. In 1882, this law was altered, and the body may now be committed to the earth at any time and with such rites or prayers those in charge of the funeral think fit or may be able to procure. In certain country places it is still supposed that the spirit of the last person buried in a graveyard has to keep watch lest any suicide should be interred there. One explanation of the reason why persons who had taken their own lives should be buried at the cross-roads was that the ghosts of murdered persons were supposed to walk until the bodies had been recovered and committed to the churchyard with Christian rites, and since this was impossible in the case of suicides, a stake was driven through them when deposited at the cross-roads in order to keep the ghost from wandering abroad.[32] It is certain that the idea here is the same as that of driving a stake through the vampire, for sometimes this precaution was taken in the case of persons who might perchance become vampires, an operation performed not as an indignity but as a preventitive. Burchard of Worms tells us: "Cum aliquis, femina parere debit, et non potest, in ipso dolore si mortem obierit, in ipso sepulchro matrem cum infante palo in terram transfigunt." And again: "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres instinctu diaboli facere solent, cum aliquis infans sine baptismo mortuus fuerit, tollunt cadauer paruuli, et ponunt in aliquo secreto loco, et palo corpusculum transfigunt, dicentes, si sic non fecissent, quod infantulus surgeret et multos laedere posset." The reason for the selected spot of the suicide's grave being a cross-road is further explained by the belief that when the ghost or the body issues from the grave and finds that there
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are four paths stretching in as many directions he will be puzzled to know which way to take and will stand debating until dawn compels him to return to the earth, but woe betide the unhappy being who happens to pass by when he is lingering there perplexed and confused. Accordingly after sunset, every sensible person will avoid all crossroads since there are no localities more certainly and more fearfully haunted and disturbed. It will readily be remembered that the Romans were far more precise than we used to be in their definition of cross-roads and employed no less than three terms, biuium when the road branched into two, triuium when the road forked into three, and quadriuium when the intersection of the ways gave four arms. The prophet Ezechiel tells us that Esarhaddon took his stand in biuio when he wished to divine: "Stetit enim rex Babylonis in biuio, in capite duarum uiarum, diuinationem quaerens, commiscens sagittas: interrogauit idola, exta consuluit." (xxi, 21.) "For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he enquired of the idols, and consulted entrails." Triuia is the common name given to Diana, when as Hecate she was invoked at the crossways. Chariclides Comicus in Meineke's Comicorum Fragmenta, IV, p. 556, has τριοδῖτας, and invokes: Ἑκάτη τριοδῖτι, τρίμορφε, τριπρόσωπε.
Varro, De Lingua Latina, VII, 16, writes "Titanis Triuia, Diana est, ab eo dicta Triuia, quod in triuio ponitur fere in oppodis Graecis, uel quod luna dicitur esse, quae in caelo tribus uiis mouetur in altitudinem et latitudinem et longitudinem." Macrobius, Saturnalia, I, ix, notes: "Dianae uero ut Triuiae uiarum omnium iidem tribuunt potestatem."
In Wales it was said that witches slept by day under any boulder that might be at a cross-road, and when dusk had fallen they crept forth to steal little children and feast upon their flesh. The gallows was often erected at the cross-roads, and here the criminal hung in chains, and nourished by his rotting flesh the mandrake grew. Many are the superstitions which cluster around the mandrake or mandragora--"the semi-human" as Columella (De re rustica, x, 19) calls it. It was the plant of fertility, the plant of magical virtue and occult power. In Germany it bears the name of the Little Gallows Man, and it was believed that when a murderer or
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thief was hanged and his semen or urine fell to the ground there grew up the mandrake. In England the same superstition prevailed, and in his pasquil A Character of an Ugly Woman or a Hue and Cry after Beauty, 1678, the Duke of Buckingham wrote: "Imprimis, as to her Descent, some Heralds derive her Pedigree from that of the Scotch Barnacles, and say, that she dropt from some teeming Gallows, or sprung up like Mandrakes from the S--- of some gibbitid Raggamuffian." No one must dare uproot the mandrake for it moans and shrieks so fearfully that the digger will die with the yells ringing in his ears. A dog is taken and round his tail is tied a string, one end of which is attached to the plant. A man whose ears are fast stopped with wax and wool, tempts the dog away with some dainty. As the animal tugs at the cord the mandrake will be pulled from the ground, but the poor beast will fall dead at the horrid scream it gives. But there has been secured a talisman, nay, more a familiar.
Even in the mythology of Ceylon the cross-roads play an ominous part. Thus in the Yakkun Nattanawa, which is defined by its translator, John Callaway, as "a Cingalese poem descriptive of the Ceylon system of demonology," it is said of the Black She-Devil: "Thou female Devil, who acceptest the offerings at the place where three ways meet, thou causest the people to be sick by looking upon them at the place where four ways join together." The devil Maha-Sohon watches "to drink the blood of the elephant in the place where the two and three roads meet together." Maha-Sohon is the devil of the tombs, "therefore go not in the roads by night: if you do so you must not expect to escape with your life." Another devil, Oddy, stands where three ways meet, watching, and hot for mischief. Again the Devil of the Victim "watches and looks upon the people, and causes them to be sick at the place where three roads meet, and where four ways meet."
Ralstan[33] says that it is a common Russian belief that at cross-roads, or in the neighbourhood of cemeteries, an animated corpse often lurks watching for some unwary traveller whom it may be able to strangle and devour, eagerly quaffing the warm blood from his veins. In Cornwall to-day cross-roads are most carefully avoided after night-fall,[34] but this may be because it is commonly accepted that at the cross-roads
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witches from all the world over assemble for their sabbat. It seems more likely that these particular spots are avoided because of the vampires, for Henry Boguet tells us: "Les Sorciers tienne~t leurs sabbats indiffereme~t en tons lieux."[35] Bernhard Ragner says that if you go to a cross-road between eleven o'clock and midnight on Christmas eve and listen, you will hear what most concerns you for the coming year.[38] It may be pointed out that this is the one night throughout the year when strange wonders happen. It is then that the thorn that sprang at Glastonbury from the Sacred Crown which the holy old man, S. Joseph of Arimathea, brought with him from Palestine, when Avalon was still an island, bourgeons into fragrant blossoms. The Cornish miners seem to hear the sound of singing choirs that arise from submerged churches by the shore, and others said that bells, beneath the ground where villages had been, upon that eve yearly ring a glad peal. At midnight the oxen, the cattle, and all the beasts kneel and adore, as they adored in the stable-cave at Bethlehem. No evil thing hath power, and as the Officer in Hamlet[37] tells us:
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
In certain districts of East Prussia on Christmas Eve candles are kept burning all night in the houses and no window is shuttered. It is supposed that the spirits of the dead will return in friendly-wise and the opportunity is given to them to warm themselves, so that on future occasions when they haunt the villages with more malicious intent they may remember those who are kind to them Christmas after Christmas and spare those houses from molestation and injury.[38]
Not only are those who die excommunicate, that is to say solemnly and officially cursed by the Church, liable to become vampires, but more, those who die under any kind of such ban, especially if it be the malison of a parent, or if it be a man who has perjured himself in a grave matter and called down upon his own head damnation and all manner of evil should
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what he asseverate be untrue. The belief in the fearful power of a curse, especially the curse of a father or a mother, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully adjured, works out its vengeance through the whole stock of kith and kin, involving in misfortunes and destruction, innocent and guilty alike, finds supreme illustration in the masterpieces of Greek tragedy. It is the mighty theme of the trilogy of the Oresteia, for from the very outset of the Agamemnon there is a brooding and oppressive sense of multitudinous crimes, of sins done long years ago which have swelled and accumulated their guilt like some black cloud of transgressions about to burst over the doomed race in a welter of tragedy and blood. The evil wrought by Thyestes, the crimes of his grandsire Tantalus, the atrocious banquet of Atreus, have yet to be expiated in misery, in anguish and affliction. When the weird Trojan woman approaches the threshold she scents the carnage of the shambles and horrors manifold, and as the pang of inspiration thrills her she shrieks aloud: "The Furies are in this house; blood-surfeited, but not assuaged, they hold perpetual revel here. It is the crime of Atreus and of Thyestes which they hunt, and woe will follow woe."
τὴν γὰρ στέγην τήνδ᾽ οὔποτ᾽ ἐκλείπει χορος
σύμφθογγος οὐκ εὔφωνος?<συπ?>·? οὐ γὰρ εῦ᾽ λέγει,
καὶ μὴν πεπωκώς γ᾽, ὡς θραδσύνεσθαι πλέον,
βρότειον αῖ?!μα κῶμος ἐν δόμοις μένει,
δύσπεμπτος ἔξω, συγγόνων Ἐρινύων·
Sophocles also no less fearfully shows us the tale of Oedipus and his children, the legend of the house of Laius, whose family was as equally famous among the Greeks as the stock of Atreus for its overwhelming disasters, the bitter fruit of an undying curse which destroyed the whole race. Laius, the son of Labdacus, had wrought a mighty evil. Lusting after the beauty of Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, with violence he raped the lad who belonged to another, and thus had sinned the sin of ὕβρις since he both betrayed another's love and used brute force in doing so.[39] For this crime his whole progeny was involved in destruction. He married Jocasta, the sister of Creon of Thebes, and the oracle warned him that his son should kill him. When a boy was born to the royal pair they cruelly exposed their child, a helpless infant, to the
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wild beasts on Mount Cithaeron, but the will of heaven is not frustrated by the impotence of man. Many years after as King Laius is riding privately in his chariot attended by only five servants they meet a young man upon the road. The king bids him make way, commanding him in rough and insolent terms. A quarrel arises. The stranger, a stalwart warrior, strikes down the master and certain of the servants, but one escapes and fled away for his life. Presently Oedipus solves the riddle of the monstrous Sphinx, when the Thebans, in gratitude, since their old monarch has been slain by robbers on the highway elect him to rule over them, giving him the lady Jocasta to wife. He governs the state in great prosperity, and four children are born to him, two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles; two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. It is the calm before the storm; a fearful plague afflicts the city, and when the divine Phoebus Apollo is consulted he answers that the murderer of Laius must be driven from the land. The old prophet, Teiresias, the mystic whose converse is in heaven, but who yet in his stern pride still retains much of humanity, is asked to rede the enigma. He answers with deep sighs and groans, seeking to be led home again, until goaded by the impatience and hot temper of the king he flashes forth the truth. But it is not immediately recognized, and Oedipus begins formally to inquire into the circumstances of the death of his predecessor. Detail is heaped upon detail and at last the horrible revelation forces itself upon his soul. Mad with terror, Jocasta hangs herself within her bed-chamber, and Oedipus tearing from her dress the buckles and clasps of gold strikes out his eyes that are unworthy to look upon the golden light of day. One moment a king, the next a beggar, red with parricide, polluted with the fires of incest, accursed of God and man, in the bitterness of utter dereliction he must go forth desolate and alone. He dare not even bid farewell to his sons and daughters for they are the children of doom, seed of that admixture too fearful to be named. In the next play, the Oedipus Coloneus, we find him many years afterwards, a mysterious figure set apart by heaven in awful loneliness. He is waiting in a place of peculiar sanctity, the reverent groves of the Semnai Theai, the holy goddesses of divine retribution, waiting for his silent passage to the shadowy world. And even here the evil ambitions of his sons would
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fain disturb him at the end. But he is far removed from the strife and passion of this world, and when young Polyneices, fair, false and fickle, endeavours to enlist his father's sympathies the lad receives the awful answer: "Dry were your eyes, hard as stone your heart, dumb your lips, when I went forth from Thebes friendless and alone. Here then is your reward: before the Walls of Thebes you shall perish, pierced by your brother's hand, and there your brother shall die slain by you." This terrible imprecation is only too terribly fulfilled, and defying the laws of King Creon, who would have the curse-polluted ghosts of the brothers seek for rest in vain even in Hades, Antigone meets her doom. Nor does Creon, the respectable Creon, weak and spiteful, impotent, yet a tyrant, escape scathless. His malice is sharply punished, owing to his own folly and cruelty he loses both wife and son, for he has forgotten that great truth which S. Thomas enunciated, that "reason is the first principle of all human works,"[40] and "the secular power is subject to the spiritual even as the body is subject to the soul." So owing to his impiety he is left without child to carry on his name, bereaved of all, broken and collapsed, piteously confessing himself--μάταιον ἄνδρα--feckless and foolish old man.
It has seemed worth while thus very briefly and inadequately to review these two great themes of Greek tragedy, since in both instances they set forth in detail the terrible and relentless working of a curse, which it may be said has something of that divine vengeance that visits "the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation." And so something of this old Greek doctrine was very true, for who can foresee the end of the working of a curse? Even to-day there are places and there are properties in England which owing to deeds of blood and violence in their acquisition entail some dire misfortune upon all who seek to enjoy and possess them. Such a place is the ruined Abbey of Glastonbury, and of many another house--Tintern, Newstead, Cowdray, Waverley, Barlings, Croxton, Dureford--the tale is true. De male quaesita non gaudet tertius haeres, says the old adage, and it is well known that lands wrested from the Church will not descend in due course owing to a failure of heirs. Such a case has come under my own observation, and Aubrey in his Miscellanies cites Hinton Charterhouse
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on Mendip and Butleigh, near Glastonbury as never having passed to the third generation. So did Cromwell's generals and adherents transmit a troubled inheritance to their descendants. Fairfax House, Putney, had its haunted chamber which was never used.
It must be remembered that a solemn curse is not merely an expletive or an imprecatory exclamation, perhaps quite meaningless, but it is far more than this; it is significant and operative. The malediction is conceived as having a certain efficacious power, and it may be noted that this force if rightly launched does not seem to exhaust itself. No more terrible fate could be imagined than for a man to become a vampire, and this was the inevitable consequence if he were not cleared of a merited malison. The old proverb says:
Curses are like young chicken
And still come home to roost.[41]
This adage is terribly exemplified in the vampire who is supposed when he returns from his grave first to attack those who on earth have been his nearest and dearest. Of all curses the parental malediction is most dreaded, and curiously enough in Macedonia, Mr. Abbott tells us that a godfather is regarded with even greater respect than the actual parents and his "malediction is dreaded even more than that of a Bishop."[42] At the present day in Greece many of the usual imprecations definitely refer to the fact that the person so cursed will become a vampire after death. Such imprecations as the following are in common use. "May the earth not receive him," (Νὰ μήν τον δεχτῃ᾽ ἡ γῆς) "May the ground not consume him" (Νὰ μήν τον φάλῃ τὸ χῶμα) "May the earth not digest thee" (Ἡ γῆ νὰ μή δε χυνέψῃ): "May the black earth spew thee up" (Ἡ μαύρη γῆ νά σ᾽ ἀναξεράσῃ) "Mayest thou remain incorrupt," (Να μείνῃς ἄλωμτος); "May the earth not loose thee" which is to say may the body not decompose (Νὰ μή σε λυώσῃ ἡ γἠ); "May the ground reject thee" (Νά σε βλάλῃ τὸ χῶμα); "Mayest thou a become in the grave like rigid wood" (Κουτοῦκι νὰ βλῃ᾽ς); "May the ground reject him wholly" (Τὸ χῶμα ᾽ξεράς᾽ τόνε), which last phrase is the most terrible of all since it is nothing other than an unspeakably impious parody of the prayer which is uttered by the mourners at every Greek funeral Ὁθεὸς ᾽χωρές᾽ τόνε, "May God forgive him."
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Since even the curse uttered by a man in moments of anger and impatience may have such terrible effects, in Greece it is necessary that there should be some expedient which may dissipate and dispel the forces to which these words have given an impetus capable of producing the most serious and horrible results. Accordingly at a Greek death-bed there is carried out a certain ritual to attain this end. A vessel of water is brought to the bedside and he throws into it a handful of salt, and when this is dissolved the sick man sprinkles with the lymph all those who are present saying: "As this salt dissolves so may my curses dissolve"; ὡς λυώνει τ᾽ἀλάτι, νὰ λυὡσουν ᾑ κατάραισ μου. This ceremony absolves all persons whom he may have cursed in his lifetime from the evil of a ban which after death he would no longer be able to revoke. The relations and friends then solemnly forgive the dying man for ought that he may have done against them and all present declare that they bear no grudge nor anger in their hearts. It is said that if the passage be a difficult one it is supposed that somebody whom the sick man has injured has not forgiven him. If it can be guessed who this may be, he is if possible, brought to the bed-side to declare his forgiveness of any injury he may have suffered. If, however, he be dead a portion of the cerements must be sought and burned to ashes in the bed-chamber of the dying person, who is fumigated with the smoke. These elaborate precautions and the extraordinary care which is taken, for it must often be a matter of very great difficulty either to secure the attendance of the living individual or to get hold of a portion of the necessary shroud, serve to show what immense importance the modern Greek attaches to the absolution from a curse, and what horror the thought of a vampire inspires.
It is obvious that those who die unbaptized or apostate will be liable to become vampires after death, and throughout the south of Europe there still persist large numbers of ceremonies and superstitions connected with a christening whose object it is to secure the child a long, happy and healthy life.
In England as in many other countries it is thought lucky to be born on one of the great church festivals, especially if it be a Sunday. In certain districts of Yorkshire even to-day it is commonly said that "Sunday children are secure from
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the malice of evil spirits."[43] Again a child born on a Saturday, although he may have "to work hard for his living" is considered to enjoy occult powers, to have the faculty of second sight, to be able to see ghosts and phantoms, and indeed to be so attuned to the supernatural that he can never be harmed even by the vampire. It is very probable that as Saturday is the seventh day of the week those born upon this day are considered as akin to a seventh son, who was so popularly believed to possess extraordinary powers of healing and the like. The old English rhyme is well known, and perhaps the following is one of the most usual forms:
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is sour and grum,
Thursday's child has welcome home,
Friday's child is free in giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living.
And the child that is born on Christmas Day
Is great, and good, and fair, and gay.
Although, as we have said, in England it is considered am omen of a happy life to be born upon some festival the exact opposite is the case in Slav countries.[44] In Greece, particularly, nothing could be more disastrous, and of all seasons Christmas Day is the most unlucky. In many districts it is accounted a terrible thing for any child to be born at any time between Christmas and the Epiphany; such babies are called ἑορτοπιάσματα or "feast-blasted," and after death they will assuredly become vampires. Even during life such a child is a Callicantzaros.
The Callicantzaros is one of the most extraordinary and most horrible of all the creatures of popular superstition. Leone Allacci says that they only appear and have power during the week from Christmas to New Year's Day,[45] but other authorities extend this time until Twelfth Night. During the rest of the year it is vaguely supposed that they sojourn in some mysterious Hades or under-world. Local traditions differ as to whether they are actually demons or whether they are human. Allacci, who certainly inclines to the latter view, says that children born in the octave of Christmas are liable to be seized with a terrible mania, that they rush to and fro with the most amazing speed, that their nails grow to a
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terrible length like the talons of a bird of prey whilst their hands become as crooked claws. If they meet any person on the highway they seize him and put the question: "Tow or lead?" If he answer: "Tow" he may escape unharmed, but if he be inadvertent enough to reply: "Lead," they grip him with terrible force, mangle him with their talons and often tear him to pieces, devouring him wholemeal.[46] During the seventeenth century this belief so strongly prevailed that the most cruel precautions were taken in the case of children who might be suspected to be liable to become Callicantzari, since the soles of their feet were exposed to a fire until the nails were singed and so their claws clipped, and even to-day in parts of Greece these practices prevail in a highly modified form, for among the Ægean islanders it is said that the small Callicantzari are particularly prone to attack and devour their own brothers and sisters, which is another strong link with the tradition of the vampire who, as we have noted before, seeks the destruction of his own kin.[47]
It is difficult to convey any idea of the popular notions concerning the appearance of a Callicantzaros, as almost every local account differs from others in almost every particular. For the most part they are considered to be very gaunt[48] and of enormous strength. On the other hand there are some who are dwarfed and stunted. The larger variety generally appear as ineffably hideous monsters with black distorted faces, eyes glaring red like fire, huge ears such as those of a donkey, great gaping mouths furnished with a slobbering scarlet tongue and sharp gleaming teeth, from which streams their fetid breath in horrid gusts. Again the pigmy Callicantzaros may appear in the shape of a child, but in this case it is usually deformed in some grotesque and painful manner. On the other hand they are sometimes harmless hobgoblins, full of mischief maybe, but objects of laughter rather than fear, though they may play many a naughty and tiresome trick not unlike the kobold and the leprechaun. A hundred tales are told of their pranks, but it is the more gruesome and the fiercer monsters with whom we are mainly concerned since it is from their ranks that the vampire is recruited, for most of them become vampires after death (a fact which seems to point to their human origin), and not infrequently they are supposed to indulge their vampirish
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fancies during life. It will be noticed that in the various accounts of the Callicantzari there exist many contradictions, and we must bear in mind that such diversities are often due to the original conception of these creatures, whether they are regarded as demons or monsters who are suffered to plague the countryside for a certain number of days during the Christmas season, or whether they are regarded as human beings afflicted with a terrible curse, the victims of a most horrible possession, doomed never to rest not even in the grave.
Near akin to the latter conception is the werewolf, who may be regarded as a man or woman, who either of his or her own will through black magic is able to change into the form of a wolf, or who in classical times was believed to be so changed owing to the vengeance of the gods; and in later days was believed to be so changed owing to the enchantment of a witch or some manner of diabolic possession. Moreover, a werewolf may be a person who without any actual metamorphosis is obsessed with all the savage passions and ferocity of a wolf, so that he will attack human beings in the same way as the actual wild animal.
It may be asked, is it possible that a person should be so transformed? Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, the learned authors of the supremely authoritative Malleus Maleficarum, in discussing the question distinctly answer "No, it is not possible." They allow that by horrid charms and spells a certain subjective delusion or glamour may be caused, so that by the evil art of a sorcerer a man may appear to himself and to all others who gaze upon him to be a wolf, or indeed another kind of animal, but there cannot be any actual physical change of a man into an animal. This glamour or ocular illusion is sometimes known as "sight-shifting," a convenient correlative to the accepted term "shape-shifting" which is conceived of as an objective fact. Moreover, in his De Ciuitate Dei, XVIII, 18, S. Augustine says: "Nor can the devils create anything (whatever shows of theirs produce these doubts) but only cast a changed shape over that which God has made, altering only in show. Nor do I think the devil can form any soul or body into bestial or brutal members, and essences; but they have an unspeakable way of transporting man's phantasy in a bodily shape, unto other senses (this though it be not corporal, yet seems to carry itself in corporal
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forms through all these things) while the bodies of the men thus affected lie in another place, being alive, but yet in an ecstasy far more deep than any sleep. Now this phantasy may appear unto other senses in a bodily shape, and a man may seem to himself to be such an one as he often thinks himself to be in his dream, and to bear burdens, which if they be true burdens indeed, the devils bear them, to delude men's eyes with the appearance of true burdens, and false shapes." We must bear in mind that these explanations come from the highest authority, one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, and will, I think, very fairly cover most of the cases of the werewolf.
In early days it was recognized that a werewolf might be a person who was afflicted with a horrible mania, and Marcellus Sidetes, who lived in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, circa A.D. 117-161, wrote Περὶ λυκανθρώπου, a long medical poem in Greek hexameter verse, consisting of forty-two books, of which only a couple of fragments remain. He says that Lycanthropy is a disease, a kind of insanity or mania when the patient was afflicted with hideous appetites, the ferocity, and other qualities of a wolf. He further tells us that men are attacked with this madness chiefly in the beginning of the year, and become most furious in February; retiring for the night to lone cemeteries and living precisely in the manner of ravening wolves.
Under Lycanthropia, Burton[49] notes as follows: "Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls Cucubuth, others Lupinam Insaniam, or Wolf-Madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. Aetius (Lib. 6, cap. 11) and Paulus (Lib. 3, cap. 16) call it a kind of melancholy; but I should rather refer it to madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it whether there be any such disease. Donat ab Altomari (Cap. 9, Art med.) saith, that he saw two of them in his time: Wierus (De praestig. Daemonum, 1, 3, cap. 21) tells a story of such a one at Padua, 1541, that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a wolf.
He hath another instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear; Forrestus (Obseruat. lib. 10, de morbis cerebri, cap. 15) confirms as much by many examples; one amongst the rest of which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer, in Holland, a poor
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husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in churchyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look . . . this malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, and is now-a-days frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to Heurnius (Cap. de Man.). Schernitzius will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid most part all day, and go abroad in the night, barking, howling, at graves and deserts; they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, very dry and pale (Ulcerata crura, sitis ipsis adest immodica, pallidi, lingua sicca) saith Altomarus (Cap. 9, Art. Hydrophobia); he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a brief cure of them." It is remarkable that most of these features are found in the vampire, especially the unquenchable thirst, "sitis immodica" which is emphasized by the famous physician Antonio Donato Altomari, who was one of the most learned autho
