From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth

242 Pages·2008·6.91 MB·English

by  Matthew Beresford

From
Demons
to
Dracula

`e Creation
of the Modern
Vampire Myth

matthew beresford

From Demons to Dracula

reaktion books

From
Demons
to
Dracula

`e Creation of the Modern
Vampire Myth

matthew beresford

For Holly

In Memory of Sophie Lancaser
(1986–2007)

Published by
Reaktion Books Ltd
33 Great Suxon Stret
London ec1v 0dx
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

Firs published 2008

Covright © Maxhew Beresford 2008

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
sysem, or transmixed, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocoving, recording or otherwise, wihout the prior
permission of the publishers.

Printed and bound in Great Briain
by cpi Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Briish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Beresford, Maxhew
From demons to Dracula : the creation of the modern vampire myth
1. Vampires
2. Vampires in lierature
3. Vampire films
I. Title
398.2’1

isbn-13: 978 1 86189 403 8

Introducion 7

1 `e Ancient World: Origns of the Vampire 19

2 `e Vampire in Prehisory: Early Ideas on
Death and Burial 31

3 Hisorical Roots: `e Vampire in the Middle Ages 41

4 Vampiric Haunts #1: Transylvania, Romania 53

5 `e Hisorical Dracula: Vlad iii T,epes¸ 77

6 From Myth to Realiy: `e Vampire of Folklore 99

7 A Fiend is Born: `e Vampire in Lierature 115
8 Vampiric Haunts #2: Whiby, North Yorkshire,
England 129

9 Phantasmagoria: `e Modern Vampire 140
10 Vampiric Haunts #3: Highgate Cemetery,
London, England 175
Conclusion: A Dark Reflecion of
Human Society? 193

Appendix 202
References
210
Select Bibliography 225
Websies and Media 228
Acknowledgements 229
Photo Acknowledgements 231
Index 232

Contents

‘Drink from me and live forever’, advertising poster for the film adaptation
of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.

Belief in vampires is well documented throughout history, from
the shores of Ancient Greece and Rome to the wind-swept
deserts of Ancient Egypt; from Babylonia and India in the East
to France and England in the West. There are vampires in
Norse mythology, in the plagues and witch trials of the Middle
Ages, in the seventeenth-century ‘Age of Reason’ and in the
Gothic literature of Victorian England. So, too, the vampire
appears in modern times, in the emerging Dark Arts of the
Occult, the ever-growing Goth movement and in psychopathic
‘vampiric’ cases of torture, murder and blood-drinking across
Europe. As recently as 2002 a South African government official
was murdered by a gang claiming that the government was col-
luding with vampires.1

Evidence of vampires is certainly plentiful, and yet it
remains unclear what the evidence points to; what constitutes a
vampire? The Collins Concise Dictionary offers ‘1. (in European
Folklore) a corpse that rises nightly from its grave to drink the
blood of living people, 2. A person who preys mercilessly upon

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Introducion

For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old
Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany all over, in France,
in India, even in the Chersonese; and in China, so far from us in
all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at this day.
Abraham Van Helsing in Dracula

If ever there was in the world a warranted and proven hisory, it is
that of vampires: nothing is lacking, official reports, tesimonials of
persons of sanding, of surgeons, of clernman, of judges; the judicial
evidence is all-embracing.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

others’; whereas the Encyclopaedia Britannica suggests that ‘the
persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, suicides, and
those who come to a violent end or have been cursed by their
parents or by the Church’. In the modern West the vampire
takes the form of a somewhat aristocratic and seductive male,
complete with cape and fangs, and with the ability to transform
himself into a bat. This picture is, though, just a partial story; a
reflection of the Victorian imagination, encapsulating all the
charm and intrigue of high society with the added machinations
of the underworld and an impression of the delightful debauch-
ery that undoubtedly went on behind closed doors. To dissect
this image is to uncover the real horror of the vampire, an evil
that has tortured the human imagination for thousands of years.
For, as Christopher Frayling suggests, the vampire ‘is as old as
the world’.2

The term ‘vampire’ first entered the English language in
1732, and came from the translation from German of the story
of Arnold Paole, the first documented vampire case (discussed
in detail in chapter Five). The etymology of the word suggests
a transition through various languages. There are different sug-
gestions of its origins, but the most likely contender is upir or
upyr from the Slavic language, which in turn may have derived
from earlier terms such as the Turkish uber, meaning ‘witch’.
This does seem quite feasible given the links between vam-
pires and witches in East European countries. ‘Vampire’ is,
however, merely the English variant of a much wider collection
of terms denoting variants of the mythical being: in Romania
the terms moroi, strigoi and pricolici are used; in Macedonia and
parts of Greece vrykolakas; in Serbia dhampir and in Croatia
pijavica. There are many more across the world. These terms
and phrases often describe totally different beings. In the West,
Romania is deemed by many to be the home of the vampire
and yet Romanians themselves believe there are no vampires
there at all; rather, as Dr Duncan Light agrees, they believe

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that Romania is the home of supernatural beings such as the
aforementioned strigoi.
It is not just people who can become vampires either as,
according to various superstitions, objects such as agricultural
tools or other inanimate objects can turn into vampires if left
outside on the eve of a full moon. The ethnologist Tatomir

9

Leaving for a witches’ sabbat (after a painting by Teniers).

Vukanovi´c (1907–1997) even went so far as suggesting that
certain types of fruit, namely watermelon and pumpkin, could
become vampires. Vukanovi´c ’s accounts of the Serbian gypsies
explain why this could be so:

The belief in vampires of plant origin occurs among Gs.
[gypsies] who belong to the Mosl. [Muslim] Faith in
Kosovo-Metohija. According to them there are only two
plants which are regarded as likely to turn into vampires:
pumpkins of every kind and water-melons. And the
change takes place when they are ‘fighting one another’.
In Podrima and Prizrenski Podgor they consider trans-
formation occurs if vegetables have been kept for more
than ten days: then the gathered pumpkins stir all by
themselves and make a sound like ‘brrrl, brrrl, brrrl!’ and
begin to shake themselves. It is also believed that some-
times a trace of blood can be seen on the pumpkin, and
the Gs. then say it has become a vampire.3

Although the possibility of tools or vegetables turning into
vampires seems beyond the limits of credulity, it is these deep-
rooted superstitions that have given rise to the modern vampire
myths. In reality, is this belief any less likely than people return-
ing from the dead or transforming into bats? If Christians can
believe that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, then is
the idea of vampiric resurrections really so preposterous?
There are many reasons why the vampire has remained in
our conscious thought over time, but the one common element
to almost all cases of vampirism is fear. Fear is an important fac-
tor in the survival of the vampire because, although the vampire
has taken various forms in history, it is difficult to pinpoint one
dominant form; fear is the main unifying feature, and therefore
can be said to provide the key to the vampire’s existence. One
might say that fear of the vampire’s existence is more important

10

than its actual existence; ‘Whether or not the demonic creature
of our worst fears existed in fact, if we only looked into ourselves
– and into our society – we should find the demon already there.’4

The fear within society, then, has led to a whole number of
ways in which to prevent or defeat the vampire, from apotropaics
such as garlic, holy water and rosary beads to power symbols such
as the cross or, in some cases, crossroads. The practice of burying
suspected vampires with crosses or at the junctions of crossroads
is prevalent throughout Europe. Even as far back as the Roman
period there is evidence of the dead being buried at crossroads;
the reason for this, it is thought, is that if dead criminals or social
outcasts were to come back to life, they would be confused by
the abundance of paths, and thus be unable to find their way
back to their village or town and cause further horror.
Recent work on the historical and cultural origins of the vam-
pire suggests that:

Our fears can make fantastic stories seem true.
Humanity has often believed that we share our world
with good or evil spirits, fabulous beings and strange
creatures, sometimes helpful, sometimes menacing and
vengeful. For centuries pain and illness were thought to
be caused by evil spirits, which could be summoned by
a witch or wizard (beliefs that still exist in some parts of
the world). Fear of death, and of the souls of the depart-
ed being ‘trapped’ on earth, was at the origin of burial
rituals. When these were not respected and something
went wrong, the dead would not find peace and would
come back to punish the living.5

It is these early ideas on death and ritual practices that
allowed the creation of the vampire. Fundamental prehistoric
rites such as excarnation (the de-fleshing of the body) and
mum mification opened the gateway to the spirit world that,

11

once opened, would prove difficult to close. From ancient times
to the present day, the world has been haunted by spirits, spec-
tres, ghosts and monstrous beings. Whether these are real or
imagined is irrelevant; it is the belief in them that enables their
power over us. In many religions, to believe in good or God is to
believe in evil or the Devil, and to deny this would be to upset
the equilibrium of power. It has been suggested that the belief
and superstitions of the Rroma Gypsies can be compared to
other, heretical forms of Christianity, as ‘the binary outlook on
the world, including the opposition between pure and impure, is
to be found, when relating to the supernatural, in a Manichaeist
type of faith, not unlike the Persian dualism, in which both the
powers of good, represented by God, and those of Evil, repre-
sented by the Devil, are complementary and equally necessary
for the harmony of the world’.6

12

‘A vampire rises
from the grave…’
in an eighteenth-
century illustration.

One has only to look at the monuments of the Neolithic
period for evidence of belief in the spiritual world; it is sug-
gested that cairns, for example, were placed on top of a grave to
prevent the soul from escaping, thus allowing the spirit to roam
free, and that grave goods were included with burials so the de -
ceased could use them in the afterlife. In many cultures, such as
those of Russia, Romania and other Balkan states, it is believed
that the soul cannot be released from the flesh until the corpse
has lain in the grave for some months; this is a point that is evi-
dent in the practice of excarnation in the prehistoric period.
Although the idea of vampires, or entities with vampiric
qualities, can be traced back through time, it is not until the
eighteenth century that any notable obsession with vampires
can be witnessed, and it may be this fact that leads many vam-
pire works to concentrate on this period onwards and, to some
degree, to neglect what came before. Exactly what caused this
phenomenon is difficult to fathom, but the course of the vam-
pire was changed forever from the eighteenth century, and it is
difficult to see significant changes in the vampiric being that
emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or to
imagine its changing into any other form in the future, a notion
supported by the processes of modern technology, television
and the internet. The vast numbers of books, plays, films and
television programmes that incorporate the vampire in all man-
ner of ways, from the nineteenth-century literature of Dracula
and Carmilla to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, from
the early horror films starring Christopher Lee and Bela
Lugosi to modern offerings such as Blade and Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, and even to more lighthearted figures such as the Count
in Sesame Street or the cartoon vampire duck Count Duckula,
have all transpired to fix, possibly forever, the image of the
vampire in modern times. The vampire is such a well-known
figure at present that it is difficult to imagine a time when this
was not the case.

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