Vampires (8 page)

Not only this, but there was a hole in the shroud around the skeleton’s mouth, which made it look as though she had been biting through it in an effort to escape. The archaeologists argued that the woman’s bodily fluids would have wet the shroud, causing it to sink into the cavity of the mouth and dissolve there. Putting the stone into the corpse’s mouth, it seems, was an act of exorcism designed to stop her rising from the grave and spreading her disease.

Interestingly, the archaeologists in this case also argued that, during times of plague, vampire legends spread more widely. This was because tombs, sepulchres, and mass graves were opened so frequently, gravediggers had the opportunity to see recently decomposing bodies, which normally did not happen – and it was also a good answer to why people were dying at such a rapid rate. Naturally enough, the discovery of the so-called ‘vampire corpses’ only spread further alarm at such times of pestilence.

 

Just as the myths about vampires' appearance and character developed through the centuries, so too did stories about their behaviour. The habits attributed to them differed according to the region or country where the variant of the legend arose.

In Bavaria, for example, vampires were said to sleep in their coffins with their thumbs crossed and one eye open. In other European countries, vampires were thought to stalk the streets wearing their shrouds, or the clothes they had been buried in. In Moravia, vampires were alleged to be naked when they made their attacks. Albanian vampires were always described as wearing high-heeled shoes, and legend had it that inside the heels of their shoes, they carried the soil of their native land.

Vampires were essentially undead spirits, and like other poltergeists, they might misbehave from time to time; throwing stones at roofs or windows, breaking or moving household objects, and pulling people's legs or arms as they slept. There were also stories that they pressed on sleeping individuals, perhaps trying to suffocate them. In some cultures, it was believed that a vampire could not enter a house unless it was invited in by the householder. However, once the vampire was let in, it might come and go as it pleased. For this reason, it was thought dangerous to let strangers into the house.

 

 

A widely held belief about vampires was that they brought plagues to cattle, sheep, and other livestock. When a communicable disease broke out in a community, it was often attributed to vampires. The fact that these mythical creatures came to life at night, and that people were often too frightened to go out and find out what they were doing, contributed to all sorts of fearful fantasies about what they got up to on their nightly wanderings. Thus the vampire myth gained credibility, and as late as the nineteenth century, communities in New England still believed vampires to be responsible for outbreaks of tuberculosis. In 1892 in Rhode Island, a 19-year-old girl called Mercy Brown, died and was buried. Two months later, suspected of being a vampire, she was dug up by her father, and the family doctor cut out her heart, and burned her to ashes.

 

 

Although the vampire was said to rise from the grave at night and return there in the morning, in early folklore there was no suggestion that it might be vulnerable to sunlight. Even in nineteenth century vampire literature, there was little mention of the notion that sunlight could kill a vampire. On the contrary, vampires were thought to move around like ordinary people during the daytime, their supernatural powers only coming upon them at night.

The idea that sunlight was harmful to vampires was an addition to the mythology that took place in the twentieth century, and went on to appear in comics, books, films, and on television. In these later stories, vampires might collapse or explode when hit by sunlight, the ‘scientific' explanation for this being that their neural pathways would fire randomly in their brains, causing them to experience extreme epileptic reactions, blinding them, and possibly setting them on fire. Obviously, this idea was appealing to film-makers and comic strip artists, but it had no real basis in the traditional mythology of vampirism.

 

 

Vampires were also said to be terrified of water. In some cultures, they were thought to be unable to cross over any stretch of water, such as walking over the river on a bridge, and for this reason, churchyards were often sited by ponds and rivers. Throwing water over a vampire, especially holy water that had been blessed by a priest, was believed, among Slavic communities, to have the power to destroy it, and this aspect of vampire mythology has continued through the centuries to the present day.

The vampire's fear of water has an interesting connection to hydrophobia, a sympton of rabies, in which sufferers experience intense terror of water as part of their madness. The explanation behind this connection may be that, in the past, people suffering from rabies as a result of being bitten by a bat or wolf exhibited insane behaviour, including fear of water, in the last stages of the disease, and for this reason they may have been deemed to have turned into a vampire – hence the idea that vampires hate water and may be destroyed by it.

In traditional folklore, fire and sunlight are other sources of fear for vampires. This is seemingly due to their pallid skin tone and love for darkness. Even a flame from a candle was believed to send them into a state of psychotic fear. Therefore it is not surprising that people believed that one of the most effective methods for killing a vampire was to burn their body to ashes. In most cases, the head and heart would be removed before the cremation took place. Traditional folklore stipulated that the body must be burned thoroughly, as vampires had a supernatural ability to heal themselves, and could come to life again if the job was not done properly.

 

 

Another odd characteristic of the vampire, as it appears in ancient folklore, was that it had a very sensitive sense of smell. For this reason, garlic was said to ward off vampires – they simply could not bear the smell. During church services, garlic would be handed out to ensure that no evil spirits were present. Garlic was also hung outside the doorways of houses, and used extensively in the kitchen, as it was thought to have strong purifying properties. The faith in the healing powers of garlic was so strong that ordinary people who had an aversion to garlic were thought of as highly suspect, and in some cases might even be persecuted as vampires themselves.

The vampire's sense of smell was so sensitive, it was thought, that it could detect the scent of a sleeping person's blood from a long way off, and make its way towards it using its nose as a guide. This idea, too, has some basis in the natural world, in that it may have been derived from observing the behaviour of animals. Many animals, including wolves, dogs, and certain species of bat, are able to sniff out a live animal or a corpse, follow its trail, and find it. Given that the vampire was conceived of as a creature which subsisted on the blood of live human beings, it is not surprising that people would imagine it to have a very refined sense of smell, and be able, like wolves and bats, to hunt down its victims.

In addition to its powerful sense of smell, the vampire was thought in some cultures to have enhanced vision, so that it could see and track victims in the dark, often from miles away. Once again, while this seems an entirely fanciful notion, it did have some basis of reality in nature. Owls, for example, have very strong night vision, allowing them to hunt in darkness.

Vampires were also thought to have a highly developed sense of hearing, rather like bats, whose sensitive ears help them to pinpoint their prey by means of echolocation. Vampire bats also have heat sensors, allowing them to sense blood near the surface of the victim's skin, and this may explain why in some versions of the legend, vampires can stalk their victims by means of infra-red heat sensors.

 

 

In some versions of the mythology, vampires are able to turn themselves into bats, wolves, or other animals at will. Vampires may also become foxes, rats, and moths, or transform themselves into vapours, allowing them to slip through cracks under a door or a window. They are also, in some legends, able to vanish, or to live side by side with human beings as invisible presences. According to some tales, as they grow older, they become stronger, and can reach a point where their strength is that of ten men. They may also be able to travel very fast, at superhuman speeds, that make it impossible to see them with the naked eye, or disappear from one place and appear in another.

Vampires are also said to be able to hypnotize their victims before attacking them. Their ability to do this depends on the victim's own strength of will. After the attack, vampires may hypnotize their victims to forget what happened.

Another bizarre feature of the vampire is their ability to withstand many forms of attack. They cannot be killed with knives, guns, or sticks. (An exception may be made if the gun is loaded with silver bullets, and in early times, a corpse might be shot through with a silver bullet to make sure the inhabitant was well and truly dead.) The only well-established way to eradicate vampires entirely, according to folklore, is to pierce them with a stake, cut out their hearts, cut off their heads, and burn their bodies to ashes. This is necessary because vampires, so we are told, regenerate themselves very quickly. If they are wounded, their injuries will heal overnight, and may do so even more quickly if they find a victim whose body they can drain entirely of blood.