Vampires - Facts and fiction behind
vampire stories
The word "vampire," aside from its current slang significance,
suggests superstition, ghosts, werewolves, hobgoblins, purely
fabulous monsters, fiction tales of so-called "mystery and
horror" based on highly wrought literary imagination rather
than any shred of fact.
In these weird tales the vampire is sometimes a huge bat,
sometimes a beautiful woman, sometimes, as in the case of
Count Dracula, a man with a mania for sucking human life-blood.
Dracula is the classic type of fictional human vampire.
He was created by Bram Stoker, a British writer of horror
stories, and instantly became the literary rage all over
the world. The Count's popularity has lasted twenty years;
he is now the hero of a play based on Stoker's book, adapted
by the American journalist, John Balderstori, and enjoying
runs in York City and London. Women frequently faint at
the matinee performances.
It seems now proved beyond any possibility of scientific
doubt that such sinister and dangerous creatures, both bat
and human, actually exist. Only a few weeks ago from mysterious
Haiti, but from the quite modernized town Of Aux Cayes in
that tropical West Indian island, where American Marine
officers in motor cars pass every day, came the authenticated
confession of a coppery-haired, handsome mulatto woman,
by name Anastasie Dieudonne, that she had for several months
been draining the blood from her nine-year old niece.
The child, once healthy and robust, had begun to fade away.
Neighbors and relatives thought she had some wasting disease.
Physicians, including those of the American clinic at Trouin,
could find nothing wrong with her. Then an old black native
doctor was called into conference. "She is the victim,"
he said, "of a vampire, or a loup garon. The life-blood
is being secretly sucked from her body. If the monster is
not discovered, she will die." "Bosh!" said many of the
natives, who are not very superstitious in a modernized
town like Aux Cayes. It looked like, bosh, indeed, when
the old man carefully went over the girl's entire body and
found not even a pinch-prick. But he was not satisfied and
made a second examination. This time he discovered, a small,
clean, unhealed incision hidden on the middle of her great
toe. Anastasie Dieudonne subsequently confessed that she
had been giving the girl a stupefying vegetable drug and
then sucking her blood. She was, of course, an unbalanced
creature, driven to this dreadful practice by an uncontrollable
urge. She was literally, in actual fact, a human vampire.
That there are and have been other human vampires, in both
high and low walks of life, and in circumstances much more
terrible and dramatic than the case in Haiti, will presently
be shown.
With reference to bat vampires, Dr. August Kronheit of the
German Academy of Science, and member of a number of leading
American societies, has made an elaborate study of them
in South America.
He discovered that the true vampire is a montrous blackish-brown
bat, with a wing-spread of about two feet, with razor-sharp
teeth and a hideous snout like a pig. It flies chiefly in
the late hours of the night, attacking sleeping horses,
other animals and human beings. It lives almost entirely
by sucking blood.
Dr Kronheit cites the specific case of a young girl in Bolivia,
who was sleeping during the Summer on the unscreened porch
of her father's house. By merest accident the father, who
was planning a hunting trip next day, went out on the porch,
just as dawn was lighting the sky, to observe the weather.
He saw the huge bat crouching against his daughter's bare
shoulder, and with horror recognized it for what it was.
He seized it and crushed it to death with his hands. It
was then discovered that the vampire had sucked almost a
pint of blood from the girl.
These true accounts of the vampire need frighten no reader
in the continent of North America. The true vampire bat
is confined exclusively to tropical countries, and never
comes even so far north as Florida. The bats of the United
States are harmless and, in many cases, useful. The useful
ones live on insects; others by sucking the juice from fruit
on trees. In the United States there is a large bat with
a wingspread of more than fourteen inches, which is sometimes
called "vampire," but which is known to science under the
name of "false vampire," because it sucks only the juices
of fruits.
But the existence of the real blood-sucking bats in tropical
countries has been conclusively proved by science. One reason
why people m general have hesitated to believe in them and
regarded them as fictitious is that it has been difficult
to understand, in common sense, why victims do not awaken
when the vampire fastens upon them. Those who did believe
in them invented the fantastic explanation that some insidious,
sleep-producing poison was first injected from the bat's
fangs into the victim's body. The true explanation is simpler.
The upper front teeth of the vampire are flat, thin, unpointed
and razorsharp. The vampire, properly speaking, neither
bites nor sinks fangs like a needle into its victim. Instead,
it delicately shaves off a thin portion of the skin, not
deep, and the wound is practically painless. Then it applies
its lips only to the spot, which is little more than an
abrasion, and by suction alone keeps up a constant flow
of blood.
Human vampires, on the other hand, are demented or semi-insane
people who have a mania for drinking human blood. Recent
investigations both current and historical, have shown that
it is not so rare an occurrence as one might suppose.
The most completely authenticated case in history, since
it is a part of actual old court record, is that of the
beautiful Countess Bathori, who lived in Hungary about three
hundred years ago. The complete minutes of the trial, her
final confession, the testimony of her servants, the record
of the conviction and the amazing punishment inflicted on
her by the law-all still exist.
She was rich and owned a castle on the edge of the Carpathian
Mountains, which had a mysterious and evil reputation in
the neighborhood. For many years the peasants believed that
she practiced magic, and was, in league, like Faust, with
the devil. They did not dream, however, of the even more
dreadful secret that the castle actually hid, for what occurred
there, over and over again, was more terrifying than anything
in the Bluebeard stories or the horror tales of Poe.
Over a period of several years a number of young and pretty
peasant girls and boys had disappeared from the neighborhood
and had never been heard from again. For a long time it
was supposed that they had been carried off by bandits from
the mountains. But finally suspicion was directed toward
the already mysterious castle of the Countess Bathori, and
after an investigation a company of the King's Guard appeared
suddenly one night with search warrants from the Emperor,
placed the Countess under arrest and thoroughly searched
the castle.
In an underground dungeon they found six of the missing
children, emaciated, but still alive, chained so that they
could not kill themselves, which they would all too willingly
have done to escape the slower death they were suffering.
The bones of several others who had finally died were found
in an oubliette. The Countess herself, under subsequent
threats of legal torture, confessed that each night she
went to the dungeon, opened a vein in the arm of one of
the prisoners, drank quantities of blood, and also bathed
her face and shoulders in it. She believed, in her mad,
magical superstition, that this would keep her always young
and beautiful. As a matter of fact, the records say, she
had a marvelously smooth and lovely skin, a complexion like
"snow and roses." It was a cruel period, and Hungary in
those days was a cruel country. Instead of executing the
Countess Bathori, the judges sentenced her, making the punishment
fit the crime, to have the skin flayed from her face and
neck. So her face became an object frightful to look upon
instead of beautiful, as it had once been.
The most famous case of a modern human vampire attested
by the courts and legal record is that of Fritz Haarman,
in Hanover, Germany, who was executed after the World War.
He was a true vampire, scientifically speaking. He lured
no less than twenty-seven youths into his home and drank
their blood.
The existence of such living human monsters as Anastasie
Dieudonne in Haiti, Fritz Haarman in Germany and the Countess
Bathori in Hungary is believed to be the basis for the legends
concerning a third type of vampire which exists only in
superstition and folklore. That is the vampire ghost, the
dead man or woman, who periodically emerges from the grave
to feed upon the blood of a living person. A whole literature
has been built up around these folklore legends, and there
are thousands of hair-raising stories. The best of them
all, perhaps, is the "Succubus" by Balzac, which was illustrated
by Gustave Dore. The most famous of them is probably "Dracula,"
with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Ollalla," a blood-curdling
story, as runner-up.
These stories, common to the peasantry of all European countries,
tell how, when the vampire's grave is opened, the body,
no matter how long dead, is found to be still fresh and
rosy. To put a stop to the ravages of the supposed vampire,
the people go solemnly to the cemetery, open the grave and
drive a stake through the heart. Then the grave is closed
again and boiling oil and vinegar are poured upon it.
This story appeared in The Zanesville Signal on November
20, 1927 under the title "New Facts about Vampires: Winged
and Human."
Did Our Ancestors Consume Corpses to Cure Disease?
Bella Lugosi beware! it’s Bell versus Bella. Folklorist
Michael E. Bell suggests that our local ancestors unearthed
loved ones in a desperate effort to cure tuberculosis. This
New England tour of vampire sites focuses on his native
Rhode Island, but includes a recently discovered New Hampshire
case as well.
Interview with a REAL Vampire Stalker
Our exclusive interview with the author of "Food for the
Dead: On the Trail of New England Vampires". Author and
folklorist Michael E. Bell, who has a Ph.D. in folklore,
has been consultant to the Rhode Island Historical Preservation
& Heritage Commission since 1980. SeacoastNH.com editor
J. Dennis Robinson interviewed the vampire stalker and filed
this eerie report.
SEACOASTNH.com
Your study offers a wholly new definition of vampires, far
from the familiar Hollywood lexicon. What exactly did our
New England ancestors do with the exhumed bodies of their
relatives and why?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
When consumption (which is what people used to call tuberculosis
that settled in the lungs) took hold in a family, some people
in the outlying areas of New England would open the graves
of their deceased relatives, looking for signs that they
considered out of the ordinary -- such as liquid or "fresh"
blood in the heart. The heart would be cut from the body
and burned to ashes. Often the ashes were administered,
in water or some medicine, to sick family members. The belief
supporting these practices seemed to be that there was some
sort of evil, perhaps a demon, residing in one of the bodies
that was draining the life from others in the family.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Is this really vampirism, or something else entirely?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
The procedures are identical to those practiced in Eastern
Europe, particularly Romania. In New England, the people
involved never referred to their relatives as vampires.
Most of them probably had never even heard of vampires.
It was outsiders who recognized the practice as vampirism
and labeled it so.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
You're from Rhode Island, home of Mercy Brown. Is that the
story that got you started?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
Yes, it was a descendent of the Brown family who shared
his family's story with me that got me following the vampire
trail. His story was that people in the family were dying
of some mysterious disease and nothing that they tried could
stop it from spreading. So the remaining men of the family
got together and decided they had to go to the cemetery
and exhume the body of Mercy, the last to die. When they
uncovered her, they saw that she had turned over in the
grave, and they found fresh blood in her heart. They cut
out her heart and burned it on a nearby rock and fed the
ashes to her sick brother, Edwin. Although Edwin died two
months later, no one else became ill. So the family believed
that had taken care of the problem.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
And what did you find nearby in New Hampshire?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
A Freewill Baptist Minister who kept a journal from 1810
to 1865 described an exhumation he had witnessed in 1810
in Barnstead, New Hampshire. A man named Denitt was dying
of consumption, so people in the community went to the graveyard
and dug up the body of his dead daughter, Janey Denitt.
In this case, they "had a desire to see if anything had
grown upon her stomach," according to the journal entry,
"but found nothing as they supposed they should." The next
day, the minister, Rev. Place, went to Loudon where the
people told him of a similar incident that had occurred
among the Shakers several years earlier.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Can you tell us what conclusions 20 years of vampire stalking
research have led you to?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
I believe that this practice was probably much more prevalent
and widespread than we might think. The few cases I've found
are just the tip of the iceberg. I think that this practice
reveals how people deal with looming death that is considered
untimely or premature -- they will not accept it without
putting up a fight. If the medical profession says, "I can't
help you," then people will look elsewhere for an answer.
And folklore always has an answer. It may not be an effective
answer, but in the end, even a wrong answer is better than
none. Doing something beats doing nothing.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
We're immersed in popular vampire fiction from Bram Stoker
to Anne Rice and Stephen King. We have Buffy the Vampire
Slayer in prime time, even "The Count" on Sesame Street
and Count Chocula cereal for kids. Why this popular fascination
with the legends of blood-sucking humans?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
Death has always been the great human mystery. It seems
that we humans are the only organism that is aware of our
utlimate earthly fate, which is, of course, death. The enigma
of death attracts our attention, and any creature that apparently
cheats the grim reaper, such as the undead vampire, will
be endlessly fascinating. The Hollywood vampire has the
added appear of being romantic, even sexy, as well as being
all-powerful and immortal. What could be more appealing
that?
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Aren't you a little concerned about the cult of "believers"
who seem to take the vampire and other fictions seriously?
Or as a folklorist, do you see their of acceptance of stories
beyond science as a healthy thing?
MICHAEL E. BELL: It's hard to know how seriously some folks
take their vampires. I think most of us have fun with vampires,
and that's OK as long we keep our sense of rationality and
logic. When people start actually drinking other peoples'
blood or exhuming corpses in cemeteries, things have gone
beyond reason. Life (and death) holds many mysteries and
it is natural and healthy for us to wonder and speculate,
and even to believe things that we cannot know or prove.
But if acting on those beliefs puts us and others in real
danger, it's time to step back and reconsider.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
As a professional researcher and scholar, your approach
is scientific. But how do academics respond to your choice
of topic?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
My fellow folklorists don't have a problem with one of their
colleagues interpreting vampire traditions. Actually, the
subject of vampires and other "revenants" -- those who return
from the dead -- is pretty mainstream folklore material.
But I think scholars from other disciplines, such as history,
often see such topics as frivolous and tend to dismiss a
book like mine without bothering to actually open it up
and read it. Even scholars have a hard time breaking through
the Count Dracula/Bela Lugosi stereotype. If academics take
the trouble to look closely, they may be pleasantly surprised
at what can learned about humanity by examining peoples'
authentic folk practices.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
By offering an historical rationale for vampirism, don't
you also annoy the legend-mongers, who accept the fictional
view? Are they disappointed or angered by your factual debunking
of popular legends?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
Sometimes, after I've discussed this vampire tradition,
a person will express disappointment that I've destroyed
his or her image of vampires. I'm no longer apologetic about
this because the fictional vampire is really such a thin,
watery figure when compared to the rich and varied vampires
of folklore and history. The real vampires are much more
frightening, in my opinion.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
More frightening? How so?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
I guess, fundamentally, it's because what you DON'T see
is more threatening than what you do see. When we have an
image of evil, we can objectify it and find a way to deal
with it. But the New England vampires were never said to
leave their graves. They killed their kin while still lying,
apparently dead, inside their coffins. How can you escape
from something like that? That thought always sends a chill
down my spine.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Point taken. The idea of exhuming one's own relative and
cutting out the heart of the corpse seems beyond imagination
today, especially with our modern sterile funeral techniques.
You really think this practice was common among our New
England ancestors?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
As I mentioned earlier, I think that there is a definite
cultural pattern that was more prevalent than we might think
-- or might want to think. In my view, the New England vampire
tradition was basically a folk medical practice -- a desperate,
final hope to save the lives of people who were loved, but
whom medical science had deemed were doomed to die. Would
someone relish the thought of mutilating the bodies of his
wife and children? Of course not. So, they must have been
driven to the brink of despair. They were just like us.
What they lacked was the knowledge and understanding of
how to treat tuberculosis.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Aren't you really telling us about folk medicine? Is there
any evidence.that these ghoulish practices worked, or provided
some relief to the.afflicted?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
You know, research has shown that even when disease is untreated,
many people survive. So it was with this practice -- some
people lived afterwards and others died. I think the actual
healing took place in the family and community. Even if
the patient died, there was closure and a sense that everything
that could have been done to stop the disease was done.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Both your research and the vampire legends seem to focus
ultimately on human fear -- and the lengths we will go to
quell it. The current anthrax scare, for example, gives
us just a hint of how we might respond as a society to a
deadly invisible disease. Our ancestors used legends and
folklore to explain away their fears, but what happens to
a scientific society that believes there is a rational answer
to everything?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
We go out and buy gas masks, antibiotics and bioterrorist
kits --even though the experts tell us that these things
will not prevent us from getting anthrax. Just because we
have science to explain what anthrax is and how it works,
doesn't make us any more intelligent or logical than our
ancestors who dug up the bodies of their relatives. And
wearing a gas mask is probably just as effective as consuming
the ashes of a burned heart.
SEACOASTNH.COM:
Where from here? Will you take this show on the road, or
do you have another project in the works?
MICHAEL E. BELL:
As far as I'm concerned, there are many vampire trails still
not followed or completed. I have a feeling that I will
be collecting more examples, and perhaps filling in information
on some of the sketchy cases I've already found. I have
other projects, from documenting the folklife of the shellfishing
industry of Narragansett Bay to interpreting African-American
voodoo practices, but, as it has been for the past 20 years,
the New England vampire tradition will still attract my
attention and hold my interest..
The vampire myth is widespread, and
details vary from place to place. Here's a handy list, courtesy
of Cecil Adams' The Straight Dope:
--- clip and save ---
VAMPIRE DISPOSAL METHODS, BY COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
SPECIES COUNTRY APPROVED METHOD OF DISPOSAL
Sampiro Albania Stake through heart
Nachtzehrer Bavaria Place coin in mouth, decapitate with ax
Ogoljen Bohemia Bury at crossroads
Krvoijac Bulgaria Chain to grave with wild roses
Kathakano Crete Boil head in vinegar
Brukulaco Greece Cut off and burn head
Vampir Hungary Stake through heart, nail through temple
Dearg-dul Ireland Pile stones on grave
Vryolakas Macedonia Pour boiling oil on, drive nail through navel
Upier Poland Bury face downwards
Gierach Prussia Put poppy seeds in grave
Strigoiul Rumania Remove heart, cut in two; garlic in mouth,
nail in head
Vlkoslak Serbia Cut off toes, drive nail through neck
Neuntoter Saxony Lemon in mouth
Vampiro Spain No known remedy
--- clip and save ---
Keep a copy of this in your wallet
(I do). When confronted with a suspected vampire, ask to
see his passport (if it shows a birthdate in the eighteenth
century, so much the better). Cross reference the place
of birth with the chart. Wait until the daylight, when the
vampire is dormant, and take him out with the suggested
method. BEFORE STARTING THIS OR ANY OTHER VAMPIRE ERADICATION
PROGRAM, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR.
Did Our Ancestors Consume Corpses to Cure Disease? 
