VAMPIRE. According to bom Calmet'e ' Dissertation stir los Vampires,' the vampire is a dead man, who returns in body and soul from the other world, and wanders about the earth, doing every kind of mischief to the living. Generally he sucks the blood of persons asleep, and thus causes their death. Those who are destroyed in this way become vampires. The only manner of getting rid of such un welcome visitors is, according to the same author, to disinter their bodies, to pierce them with a stake cut from n green tree, to cut elf their heads, and to burn their hearts.
The belief that the dead sometimes return to this world, in order to annoy the living, was prevalent in very early times. Eastern nation have a similar superstition about malicious ghosts, called " golds," tte. The belief in these apparitions was not destroyed by the introduction of Christianity, but retrained, like many other superstitions bequeathed by paganism, in full force during the middle ages. Time laws of Charlemagne (' Capitularinm pro I'artibus Saxonire ') contaiu certain enactments respecting apparitions called Strip or Manta (this last word signifies a shapeless being). This circumstance proves the generality of this belief during that period.
Tho advance of civilisation in modern times was unable to destroy a superstition founded upon a feeling by which the great mass of man kind is so frequently actuated—fear ; and many authors wrote books on the subject. Besides Dom Calmat, whom we have quoted, we may mention—Philip Iterius, an author of the 17th century ; Michael Rauft, who published in the last century a treatise De Masticatiomme ortuorum in Tumults; Ferdinand von Scherz, In Magia I'osthutua,' Olmtitz, 1706, &c.
The superstition about the vampires is chiefly prevalent in some parts of Eastern Europe. These apparitions are known in Poland under the name of " Upior ;" in the Ukraine, " Upeer ;" in Russia, " Googooka ;" in Hungary, Sonia, Greece, &o., " Vroucolackas," " Vardoulacka," "Broncolucka," &e.
Of all those countries, Hungary and Its dependencies may bo con sidered as the principal seat of vampirism, and little more than a century has elapsed since all Europe was filled with reports about the exploits of vampires in Hungary and Servia. It was during the five
years from 1730 to 1735 that vampirism reached ita height. It was so general, that Louie XV. of Franco commissioned his ambassador at Vienna, the Duo do Richelieu, personally to ascertain, in Hungary and other Austrian dominions, the reality of vampirism. The French diplomatist denied in his report to the king the existence of tho vampires, and ho informed him at the same time that the anecdotes about them were inserted in the contemporary records of the Austrian tribunals. This superstition gained ground so much that the chief periodicals of that time contain accounts of cases of vampirism in Hungary; such as, for instance, the Mercure Historique et I'olitique,' for October, 1736, pp. 403, 411; and the Dutch paper, 'Le Glaneur,' No. ix., for 1733.
A great number of anecdotes, many of which had been officially registered, are related by contemporary writers; some of them even described the manners and customs of those vampires; as for instance, that lying in their graves they suck and chew their winding-sheets, and that it was therefore necessary to place under their chins a piece of green turf in order that they might not be able to reach the sheets with their teeth, and to bind their hands, that they might not turn about in their coffin'. Many believe that the vampires, notwithstand ing all the means used to destroy their bodies, will resume their shape, and recommence their mischievous wanderings as soon as the rays of moonlight fall on their graves. This superstition is chiefly pre valent In Greece, and the tale of 'The Vampire,' written by Dr. Polidori, was founded upon it.
It may bo supposed that the superstition about the vampire has derived considerable strength from eases where men, supposed to be dead, have been buried alive. Such cased hare happened in many countries, as has been shown by the altered position of the body in the coffin, spots of blood on the torn winding-sheets, bites on the hand's, and other marks of the struggle and despair before life became extinct. It is probable that such signs have been sometimes interpre ted as the :narks of vampirism.