Austrian Books Online

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Austrian National Library, now cooperates with Google Books in a joint venture called Austrian Books Online aiming at making the library's collection available online in digital format. 600.000 books are planned to be included in the online collection, and so far 100.000 are online.

Among the books is the Kronyka Czeska by Waclaw Hajekz Libocan aka Hagecius, one of the sources for two well-known tales concerning revenants: the shepherd from Blov and the 'witch' from Levin. Both were originally published in the Kronika Neplachov, but Hajekz embellished them in his chronicle. For more information about those revenant or vampire 'cases', follow the above links.

Martin Zeiller's original account of the revenant who left his shroud

Anyone interested in vampires and revenants will have noticed that certain tales or reports are repeated again and again in the literature, sometimes in a number of variations that may even be presented as occurring at different locations. One of these stories was mentioned in a post a couple of months on shrouds, but at the time I was unable to cite the original. I refer to the story of a revenant who left his shroud when leaving his grave, which was the inspiration for Goethe's Totentanz. It was, as far as I know, originally recounted in Martin Zeiller's comments to his German translation of Francois de Rosset's Les histoires tragiques de notre temps. I have recently had access to two editions of Zeiller's Theatrum tragicum, the earliest being the fourth edition published in Tübingen in 1634.

Commenting on the first story in Rosset's book, Zeiller adds a number of stories about the Devil's works, among them a few concerning spectres and apparitions of the dead. He notes that the learned have differing opinions on the nature of these apparitions, but that his concern is not to discuss whether they are indeed the deceased people or merely the Devil's deceit. His concern is but to a few of the stories of these apparitions. Among them are the omnipresent stories of the shepherd from Blov and the 'witch' from Levin as told by Wenzel Hajek in his Böhmische Chronica. Continuing from the last of these stories, Zeiller writes:

'Fast ein gleiche Geschicht has sich vor ettlichen Jaren zu Eywanschitz in Mähren (wie ish solche Anno 1617. und 18. zu unterschiedlichen malen von glaubwürdigen Burgern allda habe erzehlen hören / mir auch der Ort ist gewiesen) begeben / in deme / dem ansehen nach / ein ehrlicher Burger daselbst auff den Kirchhof in der Statt ist begraben worden / welcher stets bey der Nacht auffgestanden ist / und ettliche umbgebracht hat : seinen Sterbküttel liesse er allzeit bey dem Grab ligen / und wann er sich wider niderlegte / so zoge er den Sterbküttel wider an. Einsmals aber / da er also vom Grab hinweg gienge / und die Wächter auff dem Kirchenthurn solches ersahen / haben sie ihme den Sterbküttel unter dessen hinweg getragen : als er nun wider zum Grab kame / und seinen Küttel nicht fande / ruffte er den Wächtern / sie sollen ihme den Küttel geben / oder er wolle sie alle erwürgen : welches sie haben thun müssen : hernach aber wurde er vom Hängcker außgegraben / und zu Stucken zerhawen / da hörete das Ubel auff / und da er auß dem Grab genommen worden / sagte er : sie hätten es jetzt wol recht getroffen : sonsten / weil sein Weib auch gestorben / und zu ihme gelegt worden war / wolten sie beede die halbe Staat umbgebracht haben. Der Hängcker zoge ihm auß dem Maul einen langen grossen Schleyer / welchen er seinem Weib vom Kopff hinweg gessen hatte / den selben hat der Nachrichter dem beystehendem Volck gezeigt / und gesagt : schawet / wie der Schelm so geizig gewesen.'

So this is probably the oldest known version of this story which not only inspired Goethe, but also later on turned up in Le Fanu's Carmilla , as a story from Breslau and, probably, most notably in the 'vampire' story from Liebava in Moravia in Calmet's Traité. Zeiller's original does not differ much from the retelling in Der höllische Proteus which I quoted in my post on the subject, but portions of the story are left out or changed in various versions.

Zeiller travelled in various parts of the German territories. In 1650 he authored an interesting topographical work on Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, Topographia Bohemiae, Moraviae et Silesiae, which also contains information on Eywanschitz (today called Ivančice or Eibenschütz) and other locations of interest. Under Lewin/Levin, Zeiller once again tells the tale of the witch. He is, however, not certain that Hajek actually refers to the same Lewin, as the passage below shows.

A.D. 1344 according to Neplach

I recently posted the famous tale of the shepherd from Blov as it appeared in the Kronika Neplachova, but there is another well-known case of a revenant referred to in the same chronicle under the year 1344:

"A. d. MCCCXLIV Quedam mulier in Lewin mortua fuit et sepulta. Post sepulturam autem surgebat et multos iugulabat et post quemlibet saltabat. Et cum fuisset transfixa, fluebat sanguis sicud de animali vivo et devoraverat slogerium proprium plus quam medium, et cum extraheretur, totum fuit in sanguine. Et cum deberet cremari, non poterant ligna aliqualiter accendi nisi de tegulis ecclesie ad informacionem aliquarum vetularum. Postquam autem fuisset transfixa, adhuc semper surgebat; sed cum fuisset cremata, tunc totum malum conquievit."

In my translation this goes something like:

A.D. 1344 a certain woman died in Lewin and was buried. But after her burial she rose, killed many and ran after whomever she pleased. And when she was impaled, blood flowed as from a living animal. She had devoured more than half of her veil, and when it was pulled out, it was full of blood. When she was to be cremated, the wood could not be set afire unless it according to the belief of some old women was made of thatch from the church. But after she had been impaled, she once again rose at all times; but when she was cremated, then all evil ceased.

Like the story of the shepherd from Blov, the tale of of the woman from Lewin was retold by Wenceslaus Hagecius in his 16th century Böhmische Chronica with many interesting details somehow added (and again he also added a year to the date, see e.g. Claude Lecouteux: Die Geschichte der Vampire, p. 96-8). This version has been retold by various other authors, e.g. as here quoted by Dudley Wright in his Vampires and Vampirism (first published 1914):

"Again, in 1345, in the town of Lewin, a potter's wife, who was reputed to be a witch, died and owing to suspicions of her pact with Satan, was refused burial in consecrated ground and dumped into a ditch like a dog. The after-events proved that she was not a good Christian, for, instead of remaining quietly in her grave, such as it was, she roamed about in the form of divers unclean beasts, causing much terror and slaying sundry persons. Thereupon her body was exhumed, and it was found that she had chewed and swallowed one-half of her face-cloth, which on being pulled out of her throat showed stains of blood. A stake was driven through her breast, but this only seemed to make matters worse. She now walked abroad with the stake in her hand and killed quite a number of people with this formidable weapon. Her body was then taken up a second time and burned, whereupon she ceased from troubling. The efficacy of this post-mortem auto-da-fé was accepted as conclusive proof that her neighbours had neglected to perform their whole religious duty in not having burned her when she was alive, and they had been thus punished for their remissness." (p. 167-8)

I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to read Ernst Boehlich's 1928 paper on Die Hexe von Lewin, but I can mention that Karen Lambrecht in her 1994 paper on revenants and vampires identifies Lewin as Lewin Kłodzki which is situated in Southwestern Poland. I find this a bit surprising, as Lewin is otherwise referred to as being in Bohemia, and there is in fact a Lewin (Levin) in that part of the Czech Republic. Furthermore, if you read about Levin in the German Wikipedia, it is mentioned that it was well-known for its pottery in the 14th and 15th centuries, and in this connection the potter's wife who became a "vampire" is mentioned:

"Die Einwohner lebten von der Landwirtschaft und dem Handwerk. Besondere traditionen hatte die Lewiner Töpferei, deren erste Zunftprivilegien aus dem Jahre 1402 stammen sollen und deren Produkte als Lewiner Geschirr weit verbreitet waren. Von einer Töpfersfrau, die in der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts gelebt und bösen Zauber ausgeübt haben soll und zur Strafe zu einem Vampir wurde, berichtet eine alte Sage." (The inhabitants supported themselves by farming and craftmanship. The Lewin Pottery had particular traditions, which are supposed to originate from their first guild privileges from the year 1402, and there products where widely distributed as Lewin tableware. An old legend tells of a potter's wife, who lived in the middle of the 14th century and is claimed to have practised evil sorcery and as a punishment became a vampire.)