Vampire Alert 2

James Lyon, author of Kiss of the Butterfly, has kindly reported more information on the subject of my previous post, cf. his comments to that post, while the story of the purported 'vampire alert' has spread to various media, including a tabloid in my own country, B.T.

The gist of the matter still seems elusive, but here is a video from the vicinity of Zarozje.


According to the Associated Press:

'Richard Sugg, a lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the UK's University of Durham and an expert on the vampire legends, said the fear could be very real. Stress can bring on nightmares, which makes people's feelings of dread even worse.

"The tourists think it is fun — and the Serbian locals think it's terrifying," he said.'

Sugg is the author of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians and is currently writing Faces of the Vampire: from Holy Terror to Sexual Taboo.

Wanbires on the front page

According to this weekly newspaper from March 1732, the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI found the news of the so-called 'Wanbieren', or Bloodsuckers, so curious and important, that the reports should be sent to the universities for evaluation. As we know, a lot was written on the subject over the next months and years, making the vampire a household name.

Bitten by vampires

Now you can find (and if you read Danish, you can read it as well) the newspaper article online that I referred to recently.

...so sie Vampyri nennen...

The Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung is the oldest newspaper in existence. Originally published in 1703 under the name Wienerisches Diarium, it continues to this day. On July 21 1725, the Diarium published a copy of a manuscript from the Gradisker Distrikt in Hungary, actually the North Western part of Serbia. The text is Frombald's original account of the Peter Plogojowitz vampire case, and this is probably the first time the word vampire is published in print: '...so sie Vampyri nennen...', i.e. in a latinized form.

The Austrian National Library has digitalized various issues of the Diarium, including the July 21 1725 edition, so we can all enjoy reading this vampire document in its contemporary context of other news, including lists of marriages and deaths in and around Vienna.

The editors of the Leipziger Zeitung found the document so interesting that they copied it, thereby bringing it to the attention of Michael Ranft who was inspired to write the first edition of his book on the mastication of the dead.