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VAMPIRES IN MYTH AND HISTORY by Beverley RichardsonVampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around theworld. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair inChina to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of awinged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as thePenanggalang in Malaysia.However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film,are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated inthe far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the tradecaravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, includingHungary and Transylvania.Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, returnfrom death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern Europeanmyths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capeswith tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppyseeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seedsrather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film.Even among the Eastern European countries there is a large variety of vampires.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------SLAVIC VAMPIRES:The Slavic people including most east Europeans from Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia toPoland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the world. The Slavs came fromnorth of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Prior to 8th centuryAD they migrated north and west to where they are now.Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new homelands. Butthrough the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western RomanChurch were struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD,with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbians staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs,and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the development of vampire lore - the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were saints, while theOrthodox church believed they were vampires.The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th C as a result of conflict between pre-Christian paganism and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires
and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore.Causes of vampirism included: being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived oncertain days, irregular death, excommunication, improper burial rituals etc. Preventativemeasures included: placing a crucifix in the coffin, or blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, placingmillet or poppy seeds in the grave because vampires had a fascination with counting, or piercing the body with thorns or stakes.Evidence that a vampire was at work in the neighbourhood included: death of cattle,sheep, relatives, neighbours, exhumed bodies being in a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hair, or if the body was swelled up like a drum, or there was blood onthe mouth and if the corpse had a ruddy complexion.Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, holy water on the grave,exorcism.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------ROMANIA:Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires arevariants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.There are different types of strigoi: strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampiresafter death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or withStrigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies whichreturn to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours.A person born with a caul, tail, born out of wedlock, or one who died an unnatural death,or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire. As was the seventh child of the same sex in a family, the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt or was lookedat by a vampire, or a witch. And naturally, being bitten by vampire, meant certaincondemnation to a vampiric existence after death.The Vircolac which is sometimes mentioned in folklore was more closely related to amythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon and later became connected withwerewolves rather than vampires. The person afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into adog, pig, or wolf.The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threwthings around in the house. Vampires, along with witches, were believed to be mostactive on the Eve of St George's Day (April 22 Julian, May 4 Gregorian calendar), thenight when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St Georges Day is still
celebrated in Europe.A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse witha red face, or having one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found bydistributing garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it.Graves were often opened three years after death of a child, five years after the death of ayoung person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism.Measures to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, removing the caul from anewborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle,especially on St George's & St Andrew's days.To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the 19th century people were shooting a bullet throughthe coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixedwith water, and given to family members as a cure.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------GYPSIES AND VAMPIRES:Even today, Gypsies frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" in which the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carryinghis boxes of earth and guarding him.In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name fromthe early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westwardand settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romanylanguage.By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries hadspread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Draculawas born in 1431.Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, aswell as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to deadrelatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there isno death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. TheGypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary,Romania, and Slavic lands.The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta isthe soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies
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