Bulgarian vampires

I have in my possession a Danish booklet from 1855 by B. Kneazjeskij called Bolgarernes Skikke og Overtro (The customs and superstition of the Bulgarians), translated from the Russian by E. M. Thorson. It is just 39 pages on weddings, births, funerary customs, and superstition. The latter chapter is of particular interest here as it describes various beings: Talasam, Samovid, Karakóndzjal, Vampire, Varkolak, Magésnitsa, Murá, Úrisnitsa, Tsjûma and Sípanitsa!

Vampires are described this way (in my translation):

In the bodies of those persons who have led a life full of sin, as e.g. robbers and the like, an unclean spirit finds an abode after their death, viz. they are transformed into vampires. The same is the case with the one over whose corpse, while it is still in the house of mourning, a cat jumps. To prevent this misfortune, the relatives of the deceased must keep a watch by turns by the body, until it is taken out of the house. After the course of forty days a vampire begins to walk about in the houses and suck the blood of children and at times even from the grown ups through their ears. As soon as it rumours that a vampire haunts, the Bulgarians stay the night several families together in one and the same room. Throughout the whole night two of the men alternately stand guard with a lit candle or dip in each hand, and if one of those asleep start snoring somewhat heavily or to moan while asleep, the guard immediately awakens everybody, and they set off to look for the vampire. In case there is the least suspicion that a deceased has been transformed into a vampire, the authorities and his relatives go to the cemetery, exhume the body, pour sour wine over it and drive a stake through it in the belief that they will thereby drive away the evil spirit that has taken its abode in it.

A footnote (written by the translator, one presumes) is added to the last sentence: According to other authors, such a corpse is finally cremated.

'Queen Gunhild'

Earlier this summer, Danish news reported, that 103.000 Danish kroner (approximately 20.000 dollars) have been allocated to preserve the bog body of a woman found in 1835 in Haraldskær bog near Vejle in Jutland, Denmark. The body which is popularly known as Queen Gunhild, because she was initially identified as this legendary Norwegian queen, will on this occasion be moved from the church in Vejle, Skt. Nicolai Kirke, where she has been on display since 1835, to a new museum building.

She is about 2.500 years old, as she has been dated to go back to about 490 BC, and I mention her here, because her body was found fastened to the ground by several twigs. There have been a few theories on how this was done, including that of a kind of impalement by a stake, but medical examinations has shown that she was only fastened around the knees and the arms. Of course, there is no conclusive evidence of why she was firmly fastened to the ground, but one explanation could be fear of the dead.


The illustration above, taken from a book published in 1929, suggests that something like a stake was used. However appealing this notion would be to the historian of vampires and Magia Posthuma, as mentioned above, forensic evidence has ruled out this possibility in the case of the Haraldskær woman.

English Wikipedia has an entry on the bog body from Haraldskær: Haraldskær Woman.

The illustration is from J. S. Møller: Fester og Højtider i gamle Dage I Fødsel - Bryllup - Død (P. Haase & søn, 1929).

Theories and Myths of Evil and Vampires

"This is a book about evil. More precisely, it is a book about human evil, and its central question is whether there can be a secular conception of evil, whether that idea can tell us anything about the human condition, explain anything about what human beings do, in the absence of its more familiar territory of the supernatural and the demonic. In seeking to understand human evil it asks the question whether evil exists at all, and one possible answer I take very seriously is that it does not."

Thus Phillip Cole of Middlesex University opens the first chapter of his 2006 book The Myth of Evil (Edinburg Univ. Press), and interestingly one of many themes in the book is vampirism, which is particularly dealt with (along with witchcraft) in the fourth chapter on Communities of Fear (pp. 77-94). As he writes, "The point of studying these historical events is to develop a political philosophy of evil, an awareness of how it has been used to marginalise and oppress. If we can make no philosophical or psychological sense of evil, it may be that this political sense is all there is." (p. 77)

Cole is inspired by what Rousseau wrote about vampires, or rather by what Christopher Frayling writes about Rousseau:

"The point he [Rousseau] made about them [vampires] was that however little so-called 'attested histories' instructed us about the status of vampires, they revealed much about the nature of authority in civilized society." (Vampires: Lord Byron to Count Dracula, p. 33)

Cole writes of the witch hunts and the vampire cases:

"I will suggest that we can draw general patterns about the nature of power in 'civilised' society from these two great panics in European history, and the most important element is the centrality of fear in constituting the identity of political communities. Rather than political communities forming themselves around shared identities, they are formed through the exploitation by political authorities of social fears and insecurities, by focusing those fears upon some threatening 'evil' figure - the vampire, the witch, the Jew, the migrant, the asylum seeker, the Gypsy, the 'Islamicist' terrorist - and claiming to protect the 'genuine' members from these deviant and dangerous threats. Political communities are constituted by an irrational horror of imaginary monsters. In this process, those who seek to hold or gain power do not only create the threatening figure, they also create the community itself, or a particular form of it, with themselves at its centre. The witch craze, the vampire epidemics, and, I will argue in the final chapter of this book, our present panics over such phenomena as immigration and terrorism are exactly parallel. What is especially terrifying about the vampire and the witch is their ambiguity - their ability to be among us without detection, and, in the case of the vampire, their ability to pass across borders undetected. They are the enemy within, and therefore, a source of intense fear and panic, which can be exploited in the pursuit of political power." (p. 81)


Whereas it is quite obvious that those fearing vampires usually went to the authorities to deal with actual cases of vampires and Magia Posthuma, the authorities generally neither instigated nor approved of the belief in vampires. This was the case with the Habsburg military surgeons, and this seems to have been the case with many cases of Magia Posthuma in e.g. Moravia and Silesia. That is, the notion that the authorities themselves deliberately sought to control or even suppress the populace by the belief in vampires and Magia Posthuma, is based on little or no historical evidence.

One proponent of this theory is Gabriel Ronay who in a chapter called Vampire Trials in his 1972 book The Dracula Myth wrote:

"The Inquistion, the Roman Church's instrument for dealing with schismatics and the like, was already in decline, the witch-hunt in the Protestant territories was slowly abating and heresy had lost much of the social dread attached to it. A vigorously pursued and dogmatically justified campaign against the widely feared vampires, however, offered a useful lever with which to re-establish the Catholic Church's dominant position and reassert its spiritual influence in the mixed border areas. With the motive clearly established, there can be little doubt as to whom the hunting down and prosecution of alleged un-dead vampires benefited. The psychological weapon furnished by the nature of the accusations was exploited to the maximum effect to belabour the Orthodox rite Church. The trials also provided a legal forum to discredit the fellow congregationalists of alleged vampires who, in the recorded cases in Hungary's southern border areas, were Slovenes, Serbs or other aliens." (p. 27)

Certainly, revenants played an important role in debates in e.g. the 17th century, but I find it hard to recognize Ronay's description of "a vigorously pursued and dogmatically justified campaign against the widely feared vampires" when reading material from e.g. the original vampire cases. The authorities generally regarded vampires as superstition and generally had no reason to encourage the belief, in fact, they tried to discourage it. Ronay's idea of a "campaign" is probably very appealing to the modern reader, because it is easy to grasp, but a theory should also be based on source material, and in my opinion it is hard to find documentation for Ronay's "campaign".

Cole is perhaps slightly more sophisticated and his analysis in some ways more interesting, but it is based on very little source material and even includes material on the fictional vampire! Regarding "the vampire phenomenon", he mentions that "historical scholarship here is much inferior to the work on the witch trials."(p. 86) And this lack of knowledge of the historical background is probably why his analysis of the vampire cases is not quite convincing.

Wickedness

I recently posted about the book Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil. The papers in that book were compiled from the contributions to a conference on vampires arranged in Budapest in May 2003. Since that annual conferences on a theme called Monsters and the Monstrous have been arranged. More information is available at the web site of this academic project, wickedness.net. Looking at the archives from the conferences it is obvious that not much has been said on the subject of this blog since the first conference in 2003. Later this month, on September 17-20, it is time for the 2007 conference, and at some time the program will probably be available on the web site. Peter Mario Kreuter, author of Der Vampirglaube in Südosteuropa, is a member of the steering group.

Coming attractions

I should perhaps mention that I have not forgotten that I have promised to write about David Keyworth's Troublesome Corpses, I just need to find an adequate amount of time to do so. Furthermore, I would like to mention that I hope to soon write a little about Peter Kremer's Dracula's Vettern: Deutschlands vergessene Vampire (Dracula's cousins: Germany's forgotten vampires), which is a miracle of a work that I have not yet finished digesting! And finally, I hope to be able to post more on von Schertz's Magia posthuma, so these are but some of the 'coming attractions' that should keep you visiting this blog every now and then! ☺

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.)

Année Dom Calmet 2007

Continuing from my last post, on October 25th this year it is actually 250 years since the death of Calmet. At Senones this is commemorated by a few activities, including a colloquium, which however seems to have very little emphasis on his interest in apparitions and revenants.

Wouldn't it be nice ...

... if someone published a critical and annotated edition of Augustin Calmet's Dissertations sur les apparitions? I mean, not only annotated like the otherwise remarkable recent German translation of the whole book published by Edition Roter Drache, which includes explanatory notes to the text, but annotated critically in the sense that Calmet's sources are pointed out, analyzed and discussed. Considering the influence this book has had, it would be very helpful for the future study of the text, and of course it would be even more useful if that someone also did some research into Calmet's work with the text. Does the correspondence that Calmet refers to still exist? How did Calmet carry out his search for material on revenants? Well, now I have mentioned what I think could be an interesting research and publishing project, and, of course, if I am just unaware of papers and books that cover some of the above ground, please let me know.

Vampire quiz

Here is a curious vampire quiz on Eighteenth century vampires that will test your knowledge on vampires. In fact, the questions are not as precise and correct as one would like them to be, but go and see how well you are versed in vampire history.

Internet resources II: Zedler's Universal-Lexicon

To finally continue pointing out interesting internet resources on Magia Posthuma and related subjects (here is my first post on the subject), I would like to mention the online edition of Johann Heinrich Zedler's famous Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon which was published in 64 volumes in Leipzig between 1732 and 1750. The encyclopedia gives an interesting insight into many things that have a bearing on our subject of Magia Posthuma, vampires and other revenants. In fact, there is no entry on Magia posthuma, but there are several other kinds of Magia listed and explained: Magia Adamica, Magia artificialis, Magia dæmonica, Magia diabolica, Magia directa etc. Evidently this makes it possible to get some understanding of what was understand by Magia.


We can also read about the geography of Hungary (Ungarn), where the (changing) borders are listed along with the a list of areas that were originally ('in the days of old') part of Hungary: 'Siebenbürgen, Wallachey, Bulgarien, Thracien und Romanien, Servien, Bosnien, Dalmatien, Croatien und Sclavonien' (Transylvania, Wallachia, Bulgaria, Thracia, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia). In this 'old' sense of the name Hungary, the Serbian vampire cases can be attributed to Hungary, whereas it has often been pointed out that some of the vampires referred to as 'Hungarian' were not located in contemporary or modern Hungary.

And, of course, there are the long entries on vampires (Vampyren) and the mastication of the dead (Schmatzen der Toden), which according to the Zedler are closely related, although of Greek origin. Vampires are defined as ‘Todte menschliche Cörper, welche aus den Gräbern hervor spazieren, den Lebendigen das Blut aussaugen, und sie dadurch umbringen sollen.’ (Dead human bodies, which walk out of the graves and suck the blood of the living, thereby killing them). Both vampire cases from Serbia (Kisiljevo 1725 and Medvedja 1731-2) are described in detail, and various aspects of Greek Orthodox faith, Valvasor's mention of vampires/revenants etc. are related and discussed. There is even a rather detailed list of many of the 18th century works on vampires, so it is really a rather nice review that sums up a lot of what one might say about vampires in Leipzig some 10-15 years after the great vampire debate of 1732.

Furthermore, one can read a detailed bibliography of Michael Ranft (here called Ranfft), and there is the short entry on von Schertz which was shown in a previous post. In short, this is a wonderful source of information for anyone interested in the knowledge of 18th century.

Connoisseuers of the gothic will probably find it intriguing that the editor of the two first volumes of the Universal-Lexicon was Jacob August Franckenstein (1689-1733), and may consequently be interested in reading the entry about the ancient family Franckenstein or Frankenstein in volume 9.

On a more modern note, Jutta Nowosadtko who was mentioned in my previous post, has been involved in a project researching and writing about the Zedler lexicon, Zedleriana.