Obsolescit nempe vivus omnis inter mortuos

Quid stupetis, qui relictum me colore cernitis?
Obsolescit nempe vivus omnis inter mortuos.

The words of Asmundus (Asmund), when he returns from the grave of Asuithus (Asvith) in the Gesta Danorum (Deeds of the Danes), here in an English translation from 1884:

Why do you stand aghast, you who see me colourless?
For every living man fades once he is among the dead.

The tale of Asmund and Asvith is often recounted in books about vampires. Here the original Latin text can be found. The illustration below of Asmund being drawn out of Asvith's grave is one of many drawings by Louis Moe that accompanied a popular Danish translation of Saxo's chronicle originally published in 1898.

Maison hantée

I referred to this French web site, Maison hantée, in my last post, and there's also an interview Jean Marigny, and more material on vampires. In French, of course...

Lecouteux on poltergeists

I haven't been aware of this recent book by Claude Lecouteux, professor at Sorbonne and author of several books on medieval revenants and one on vampires (Histoire des vampires: Autopsie d'un mythe, 1999, also available in a German translation): La maison hantée: Histoire des Poltergeists. It was published by Editions IMAGO in September last year, and is available from various French bookstores on the internet for € 19. I suppose the format and contents are probably similar to those of the book on vampires. It's a shame that so few of his works are available in English.

There is an interview with Lecouteux (in French) here or in audio.

German revenants

Peter Kremer, author of the magnificent and highly original study Draculas Vettern: Deutschlands vergessene Vampire (PeKaDe Verlag, 2006) (Dracula's Cousins: The forgotten vampires of Germany), informs me that he is currently working on completing the book, now using the title Draculas Vettern: Totenfurcht und Wiedergängerglaube in Deutschland (Dracula's Cousins: Fear of the dead and revenant belief in Germany). He has kindly allowed me to take a look at a draft of the book that is now well over 400 pages long, including new source material that Kremer has uncovered, and I look forward to study it. Kremer expects the new edition to be available by early summer. Certainly good news for those of us interested in the history of revenants and vampires!

Blood and Belief

I just read a review in a Danish newspaper of Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians (University of California Press, 2007) by David Biale, Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish History at the University of California. The reviewer claims that around 1840 at the same time as new rumours concerning alleged Jewish ritual murders circulated in East Europe, people got fascinated by 'another bloodsucker': the vampire. It's claimed that Hermann Strack's Das Blut im Glauben und Aberglauben der Menschheit (1891; a scan of the 1900 edition is available for download here) particularly uncovers folklore about vampires, although in fact vampires are only briefly dealt with in the book, and then the reviewer writes (in my translation):

'The fear of vampires and Jews surprisingly have a lot in common: both allegedly have a deviant physiology, defy ordinary national limits, are seen as hypererotic and seductive creatures, are assumed to have supernatural abilities and to be accomplices of the devil, and then, of course, they both suck blood. In 1897, at the height of the new accusations of Jewish ritual murders of Christians, Bram Stoker's Dracula was published. Once again the horrifying concepts must be understood as urban legends that reveal a deep insecurity among the populace.'

Well, once again we are faced with conclusions concerning vampires that mix up fictional vampires with historical vampires. The original - historical - vampires and revenants certainly have very little in common with those described in the review, and, as readers of my blog will know, the fascination with vampires started in the 1730'ies, not in the 1840'ies.

As far as I can see from the excerpt available at Amazon, Biale does write a bit about vampires, but as I haven't had the opportunity to browse through a copy of the book, I can't say if it's the reviewer who has misunderstood Biale, or if Biale misinterpretes the history of vampires. As we know, this is unfortunately frequently the case.

E-book

I just happened to notice this e-book called Untote und Vampirismus - Mythos und Realität (Undead and vampirism - Myth and Reality) written by Ferdinand Heisig. I don't know anything about the author, but obviously this is a pretty short 'hauptseminararbeit' published last year by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. At just 13 pages I find that Euro 4,99 may not be worth the contents, but there's an excerpt on the web site. And, of course, the book is in German.

Wir Maria Theresia

Some time ago I was asked if I knew of any web site containing Maria Theresa's announcements concerning magia posthuma. I found a site that contains an excerpt of one here, but this might be an opportunity to copy this text in toto:

Wir Maria Theresia etc., liebe Getreue etc.

Wir haben eine zeitlang müßfällig wahrnehmen müssen, daß nicht allein Verschiedene von unseren Landes Innwohneren in ihrer Leichtglaubigkeit so weith gehen, daß Sie dasjenige, was Ihnen ein Traum, oder Einbildung vorstellet, oder durch andere betrügerische Leute vorgespiegelt wird, für Gespenste und Hexerey halten, nicht minder denen für Besessen sich ausgebenden Leüthen, alßoglich den Glauben beymessen, sondern daß sie auch in dieser ihrer Leichtglaubigkeit offtmahls von einigen mit Vorurtheil eingenohmenen Geistlichen gestärcket worden, wie dann letzthin in unserem Marggraffthum Mähren die Sache so weith getrieben worden, daß von der Geistlichkeit verschiedene Cörper unter dem Vorwand, daß sie mit der sogenannten magia posthuma behafftet gewesen, aus dem Freüdhof ausgegraben, und einige davon verbrennet worden, wo doch hiernächst bey der erfolgten Untersuchung sich nichts anderst, als was natürlich ware, befunden hat. Wie zumahlen aber hierunter mehrentheils Aberglauben und Betrug stecken, und wie dergleichen sündliche Müßbräuche in unseren Staaten künfftighin keinesweegs zu gestatten, sondern vielmehr mit denen empfindlichsten Straffen anzusehen gemeynet seyn, alß ist under gnädigster Befehl, daß künftig in allen derley Sachen von der Geistlichkeit ohne Concurrenz des Politici nichts vorgenohmen, sondern allemahl, wann ein solcher Casus eines Gespenstes, Hexerey, Schatz-Graben, oder eines angeblich vom Teüffel Besessenen vorkommen sollte, derselbe der politischen Instanz soforth angezeiget, mithin von dieser mit Beyziehung eines vernünfftigen Physici die Sache untersuchet, und eingesehen werden solle, ob, und was für Betrug darunter verborgen, und wie sodann die Betrüger zu Bestraffen seyn werden. Ihr werdet solchemnach diese unsere allerhöchste Anordnung nicht allein dorten, wo ihr es nöthig erachtet, kundmachen, sondern dieselbe auch vornehmlich denen geistlichen Ordinariis mit dem Beysatz intimiren, daß sie ihren untergebenden Consistoriis und Geistlichen diesfalls die erforderliche Pastoral-Instruction ertheilen, und sie dadurch von ihren Vorurtheilen, mit welchen einige behafftet seyn könnten, ableiten, als auch vor allen dahin anweisen sollen, in vorbesagten Fällen allemahl die Sach denen pollitischen Stellen anzuzeigen, und die genaue Untersuchung vorgehen zu lassen, worüber sodann de casu in casum der Bericht Uns zu erstatten seyn wird.
Hieran beschiehet etc. und Wir verbleiben.

Geben Wienn den 1. Martij 1755.

www.magiaposthuma.com

So, to follow up on yesterday's post, now you can visit this blog by typing both www.magiaposthuma.com and magiaposthuma.com. And you can use this new e-mail address as well.

magiaposthuma.com

From now on you will be able to access this blog by simply typing magiaposthuma.com. I am still working on the technical issues, but the magiaposthuma.com works now!

Greek and Roman "restless" dead

Anyone interested in ancient Greek and Roman source material concerning revenants and apparitions should consider getting hold of Daniel Ogden's Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook published by Oxford Univ. Press in 2002.


It's a pretty comprehensive compilation of source material translated into English, including a chapter on Ghosts. Here the "restless" dead are divided into four overlapping categories which will more or less be familiar from the folklore of revenants from later eras:

Aoroi (from αωροσ, untimely). Ogden: "Those cheated of their full stint of life bitterly stayed back to haunt the land of the living of which they had been deprived. In theory anyone who died of anything other than of natural causes in old age could generate a ghost restless quo aoros, although as a class aoroi tended to be conceptualized primarily as the ghosts of children or babies."

Bi(ai)othanatoi (from βιαιος and θανατος, violent and death). Ogden: "These included the battle-dead and executed criminals, although murder victims and suicides provided the bitterest ghosts in this class."

Agamoi (from αγαμος, unmarried). Ogden: "Both male and female ghosts could be assigned this category, although the female ones were regarded as particularly bitter, insofar as marriage and the motherhood consequent upon it were a woman's defining rights in antiquity."

Ataphoi (from αταφος, unburied). Ogden: "Whatever the circumstances of death, a ghost could not achieve rest without the due funeral rights. These were importantly distinct from the mere insertion of the corpse into a hole in the ground, and indeed the concealment of a dead body in precisely this way is often presented as the chief obstacle to the peace of its soul."