Vampire legends that refuse to die

Last week the Daily Mail informed us that the notorious Serbian vampire Sava Savanović was reportedly on the loose again after the old mill he haunts in Zarožje, Bajina Bašta, had collapsed.
Savanović isn't well known outside his own country – I only know of him as a pre-Dracula, 19th century literary character – but according to the Mail the local council has advised people to use the traditional repellents of garlic and crucifixes, just in case.
A piece in the Austrian Times pre-dates the Mail's, and may be the conduit westwards. If so, it's a curious echo of the vampire motif's first journey into English in the 1720s and '30s, courtesy of the Austrian Empire's military successes against the Turkish Empire in the Balkans. A series of reports arrived from the new territories asking how to deal with unusual local customs – customs that included, under some circumstances, the mutilation of corpses.
The two most cited cases of vampirism from this time were the stories of Arnod Paole and Peter Plogojowicz. The "vampire" Paole and his numerous victims were even the subject of a bestselling leaflet at the Leipzig book fair of 1732.
After Paole's death, four villagers were reported to have died by his actions. All five were disinterred and examined. The main criterion which the villagers seemed to apply to diagnose vampirism was lack of decomposition: liquid blood in the vessels and viscera, blood around the mouth where the vampire had "fed", flushed complexions, plump bodies and so forth.
Peter Plojogowitz had died the year before Paole, and it was through the report into his case by an Imperial civil servant, Provisor Frombald, that the word "vampire" first made its way out of its homeland and into a Viennese newspaper.
The villagers of Kisilova (in modern Serbia) had asked the local civil servant for permission to exhume Plojogowitz after there had been a spate of deaths preceded by short illnesses. He and a priest served as witnesses, and attested that Plojogowicz and his "victims" had failed to decompose in the way they would have expected.
So we can discern two distinctive themes in these vampire legends that help a great deal when it comes to formulating a rational explanation for such beliefs: death during epidemics, and failure to decompose in the predicted manner.
Even literary vampires are pale and consumptive, and tuberculosis certainly fuelled the mythology. But there was not necessarily just one identifiable pathogen or disease: clusters of generic premature deaths could set off vampire panics too. Paole's putative victims included two women who died of postpartum complications, their babies, and an old woman who probably died of old age.
With regard to the "failure to decompose" aspect of vampire folklore, it's useful to turn to an account by a travelling French botanist, Pitton de Tournefort, who observed a "vampire" examination on Mykonos in 1700. To de Tournefort the corpse was clearly putrefied, but the locals interpreted the warmth of putrefaction as life, decomposing sludge as liquid blood, and incense smoke as a spirit emanating from the body. "I am certain that if we had not ourselves been actually present, these folk would have maintained that there was no stench of corruption," he complained.
de Tournefort believed the villagers' perceptions to have been "an epidemical disorder of the brain, as dangerous as mania or sheer lunacy". With two opposite interpretations of the same event – the locals' and De Tournefort's - we see how a person's intellectual world view can inform their perceptions.
In fact, the characteristics that could be mistaken for failure to decompose are not particularly unusual. Blood coagulates but liquefies again in some corpses. Gases in the abdomen increase in pressure as the putrefaction advances, forcing the lungs upwards and sometimes ejecting decomposing tissue from the mouth and nostrils.
Bloating from postmortem bacterial gases accounts for bodies looking plump and healthy, and also for the kind of "audible groan" that some corpses – including Paole - gave as stakes were driven through their hearts.
Rigor mortis passes, and the suppleness of many supposed vampires attracted comment.
Body parts that were sometimes thought to have been eaten by vampires in mass graves during epidemics were those parts that would decompose first anyway, such as entrails and finger ends.
In a peculiar twist, a Balkan/Greek type folkoric practice in response to consumption (tuberculosis) seems to have crossed the Atlantic to the US via an unknown route. On Rhode Island in the late 19th century, the hearts of corpses were sometimes removed and burned, and the ashes fed to people near death.
It's easy to laugh at how daft our ancestors were, but we can look up the particulars of decomposition on the internet, and historical peoples did not routinely observe rotting corpses, for the very good reason that they are sources of contagion.
"Vampires" were often disliked in life, making them all the more suitable as scapegoats, providing communities with rituals and a means of feeling powerful in the face of insurmountable events. Given that people have hanged witches, burned heretics and tortured foreigners, perhaps we should applaud the vampire believers for only mutilating their scapegoats after they were dead.
Just as evolution shapes all species in the mould of their environments, it seems that the vampire has gone from scapegoat to tourist attraction. The Savanović myth was already prominent among the area's attractions though it seems that the tourism organisation "Valijevo For You" may have given the vampire too much prominence for the comfort of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
A villager poses with a garland of garlic and a wooden stake in Zarožje near the Serbian town of Bajina Bašta. Photograph: Darko Vojinovic/AP The fallout seems to have been good for business. A recently created website and Twitter account confirm the impression that the Daily Mail's story is not so much a reflection of Balkan backwardness as a very successful PR campaign.
Deborah Hyde is editor of The Skeptic magazine and writes about superstition, religion and belief at Jourdemayne. She would like to thank @notjarvis, who helped track down web instances of this story
 http://www.guardiannews.com/uk-home

Why vampires? Book looks at science behind monsters

Nov 8 (Reuters) - The suave and sensitive Edward Cullen of "Twilight" may be the norm for vampires these days, but fictional monsters such as Dracula originally sprang from the fear of inexplicable diseases and the mysteries of death in the natural world.
So argues science journalist Matt Kaplan in "Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters," an examination of monsters around the world and throughout history - the science behind their origins, and why they matter to us even now.
"When our kids ask for monster stories around the campfire, they are behaving in a way that is not dissimilar to lion cubs," Kaplan said in an email.
"Lion cubs play fight so they can test out their skills in a safe place where nobody is going to get maimed or killed. Monster stories serve a similar purpose, they allow us to face our worst fears without the risks that are normally associated with them."
Some are simple. The Kraken tales of mammoth monster squid, along with the Leviathan of the Bible, are most likely based upon the existence of real creatures such as whales.
The terrifying Medusa of Greek myths, with her hair made of snakes and a gaze that could turn things to stone, may have been distantly connected to the idea of fossils for ancient people, with the snakes in her hair an example of pure fear.
Though mentions of vampire-like creatures exist as early as ancient Greece, it took hundreds of years for tales of the creatures to gradually evolve into the haunting undead of more recent history.
Accounts of people found in their graves with blood on their lips and their stomachs seemingly full, as if they had just eaten, may be explained by simple decay, with gas buildup throughout the body sometimes pushing blood up from the lungs. Elongated canine teeth and fingernails was due to skin shrinking after death and pulling away, making both more prominent.
Later, greater awareness of contagious diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis - which could cause people who came in contact with the ill person to also sicken and die - further contributed to the myth. This was especially true due to incubation periods that weren't understood at the time, making it unclear how the diseases were being spread.
"One death would follow another in a dominolike progression," writes Kaplan. "In a morbid sense, these patients were literally killing their friends and relatives, but from their deathbeds rather than the hereafter."
But vampires have now undergone a radical transformation, a process that began with the publication of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" but has speeded up in recent years.
"If tuberculosis, influenza, rabies and bloated bodies are the human experiences from which Dracula came, how have we now ended up with the kind, honorable and handsome Edward Cullen?" Kaplan said.
For one thing, modern science has uncovered the mechanism of various diseases, which remain a fear but now appear as their true selves, as in stories such as "The Andromeda Strain."
Vampires have also become increasingly charming, transforming their original monster nature into something else.
"In a world where the seemingly most virtuous individuals all too often fall prey to vice, public interest in good souls battling their own bestial natures is higher than ever, and vampires provide exploration of this," Kaplan added.
In the future, fears are likely to focus on things like genetic manipulation - think Jurassic Park - and also from technology, with worries about what computers might do with true artificial intelligence looming large.
"What I find most interesting here is that these monsters really require human participation in their creation," he said, noting the popularity of films like "Avatar" and "Planet of the Apes," where monsters are the heroes and the humans, monsters.
Why are we so comfortable with feeling elated as inhuman beasts rip apart people? I think a long, hard look in the mirror can provide a lot of answers," he said. (Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by)
 http://www.reuters.com/

Council Issues Vampire Alert

 

Sales of garlic are booming in western Serbia after the local council issued a public health warning that a vampire was on the loose.

The warning came after an old ruined mill said to once have been the home of the country's most famous monster in the form of vampire Sava Savanovic collapsed.

Sava Savanovic was said to have lived in the old watermill on the Rogacica river, at Zarozje village in the municipality of Bajina Basta where he drank the blood of anybody that came to mill their grain.

The watermill was bought by the local Jagodic family, and they were too scared to use it as a mill – but discovered it was a goldmine when they started advertising for tourists to come and visit it – always during the day.

But the family were worried about carrying out building work on the mill because they were scared they might disturb the vampire or unleash his wrath if his home was messed around with – and now the property has collapsed through lack of repair.

But for locals it has sparked rumours that the vampire is now free once again.

Local mayor Miodrag Vujetic admitted: "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people. We are all frightened."

He added that it was all very well for people who didn't live in the area to laugh at their fears but he said nobody in the region was in any doubt that vampires do exist.

He confirmed that the local council had advised all villagers to put garlic on their doors and windows to protect them from the vampire as it was well known they can't stand the smell.

He added: "We have also reminded them to put a Holy cross in every room in the house."

Villagers who cashed in catering to tourists fascinated by the legend of Sava Savanovic say they now wish they had left the place well alone. Austrian Times
 http://austriantimes.at/home

Supernatural Beings Consuming the Blood or Flesh of the Living

Vampire Ancient Beliefs

Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries.

Today we would associate these entities with vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire did not exist; blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the Devil was considered synonymous with the vampire.

Almost every nation has associated blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, or in some cases a deity. In India, for example, tales of vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, have been compiled in the Baital Pachisi; a prominent story in the Kathasaritsagara tells of King Vikramāditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one.

Pishacha, the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes. The Ancient Indian goddess Kali, with fangs and a garland of corpses or skulls, was also intimately linked with the drinking of blood. In ancient Egypt, the goddess Sekhmet drank blood.

The Persians were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated pottery shards.

Ancient Babylonia and Assyria had tales of the mythical Lilitu, synonymous with and giving rise to Lilith and her daughters the Lilu from Hebrew demonology. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies.

However, the Jewish counterparts were said to feast on both men and women, as well as newborns. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology described the Empusae, the Lamia, and the striges. Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively.

Empusa was the daughter of the goddess Hecate and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood. The Lamia preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood, as did the gelloudes or Gello.

Like the Lamia, the striges feasted on children, but also preyed on young men. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds in general, and were later incorporated into Roman mythology as strix, a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.



https://sites.google.com/site/paranormalzonex/