The Romi or previously called Romanian Gypsies believed shooting a bullet into the ground and penetrating the coffin in question would kill a vampire.
Bram Stocker used this myth in his novel Dracula but he added to it by making the bullet silver and calling it a “sacred bullet”.
You also know a sliver bullet is the only thing that can kill a werewolf
The most famous case of consumption was in 1892 in Rhode Island. Ms. Mercy Lena Brown.
The Brown family had already lost two members of the family. Mercy’s mother, Mary, and sister’ Mary Olive died of consumption in 1888. Her brother got sick in 1890 and in 1891 Mercy got sick. She died on January 17, 1892.
Mercy’s father George worried about his only son’s failing health. (he’d been sick for 2 years)
On March 17, 1892 George led a mob of fellow farmers and townsfolk to the Brown’s graves. George was convinced a vampire was the cause for all his family’s suffering.
When mercy’s mother and sister were exhumed the mob agreed their bodies had decomposed sufficiently. But Mercy’s body wasn’t, she’d been in a crypt for a few months, -until the ground thawed enough to bury her.
Her body was cut open. Her heart and liver were still full of blood. It was decided that Mercy was a vampire (although the term vampire wasn’t used at that time, she was undead).
Her heart was burned to ash then given to her ill brother in hopes it would cure him, or break the curse that Mercy had placed on him. It didn’t work, Edwin died two months later.
A newpaper article about Mercy Brown was found in Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula. It’s believed Stoker’s Lucy was based on Mercy Brown.
Computer difficulties don’t last forever.. (knock on wood) our awaited “The Light-Bearer Series” post is here.
Emily Guido’s Interview with the HOT MEN of the Castle Charmeine from The Light-Bearer Series
Emily: Ladies… I have been waiting for the interview for several days now. I didn’t know what to expect these gentlemen came in but I am pleasantly surprised to say the least… *swoon*…
Emily: Gentlemen Good Evening!
ALL: Good Evening.
Emily: Let me start out with a general question just to break the ice. Do all four of you live at the ‘Castle Charmeine’?
ALL: Yes.
The Castle Charmeine
Emily: Now, who originally owed Castle Charmeine?
Tabbruis: I think Dmitri should answer that one.
Dmitri (in a thick Romanian accent): Oh my… Well, you see my dear; I came to Romania a long time ago, millennia as a matter of fact. (Chuckling) I had many experiences there and some of the folks used to make up a scary bedtime story about me… the “Red Dragon” is what they called me. But then Tabbruis came and we began to share the Castle…
Emily: Excuse me? (Wide open eyes) What do you mean by “Red Dragon”?
Dmitri: Oh my… Well my dear that is “Dracul” to you and I.
Emily: Uh…Dracula?
Dmitri: Well my love if you think that, that’s fine with me… (and smiled with bright white teeth and long eye-teeth)
Dmitri
Emily: Oh! Well that’s okay… (a little scared… turning to Tabbruis now…) Tabbruis please tell me about you?
Tabbruis (in a slight European accent): I… well I am just a happy man now that I have Charmeine. She lights up my life. Before I was…
Thomas: He was alone but not totally happy?
Tabbruis: Yes, quite right, not totally happy?
Tabbruis
Emily: Well Thomas since you spoke up? How are you today?
Thomas: Yes, well… I’m fine. We are very busy at the Castle Charmeine. There are a lot of people there, and we constructing new rooms right now.
Neal (In a gruff African accent): My lover and husband, Hameal and I are constructing new additions to the Castle Charmeine… you three are trying not to get killed!
Tabbruis: That was Charmeine’s fault… she distracted me Neal.
Neal: That is no excuse for not paying attention; it was a power nail gun!
Neal
Neal and Hameal
Thomas
Emily (snickering): So I take it there was a mishap with a tool in the renovations?
Dmitri: Oh my… yes well, Tabbruis did not look where he was going and a nail shot Neal in the lower backside.
Thomas (laughing out loud): He shot him in the butt!
Dmitri: Oh my… yes but everything is fine. We, blood-hunters, heal very fast.
Tabbruis: Thank God for that!
Emily: So… on another subject… gentlemen, um tell me you are all so incredibly gorgeous, are all blood-hunters like you?
Dmitri: Oh my… well, I believe we are all classically handsome…
(giving a wink to EG… *she swoons*)
Tabbruis: Dmitri… I think she means that we are some sort of eye-candy for the ladies…
Dmitri: Oh my…
Thomas (Little squeak): I am… well yes ma’am… we are all… UGH!
Neal: Yes! I believe all blood-hunters are pretty good looking and incredibly gorgeous too!
Tabbruis: You would!!! Neal! (Rolling his eyes)
Emily: I’m getting something of an undercurrent to this question? Is there?
Dmitri: Oh well my love, we are all good-looking to the ladies… very much so.
Thomas: But we didn’t ask to be so good-looking… I guess it comes just natural?
Emily (fanning myself with my notebook): You all… I mean are all Blood-Hunters good-looking?
Tabbruis: Well women seem to be naturally attracted to us.
The MEN of the Castle Charmeine
Dmitri Thomas Tabbruis Neal
Emily (gets a drink of water… starting to get dizzy looking at these wowser men): How could women not be attracted?
Neal (gruffly): Don’t look!
Thomas: She is a human woman. She cannot help but be attracted. Neal, just because you are not attracted to her does not mean she cannot look.
Neal: Well, I am certainly no one’s eye candy!
Dmitri: Oh my…
Emily: Have you had women falling over you before?
Tabbruis: Many times… but I waited millennia for Charmeine, my love!
Thomas: I’ve… I’m taking the fifth on that!
Dmitri: Oh my!
Neal: Never, thank God!
Emily (pulling my hair up and taking a big gulp of water): Tabbruis, can you tell me your favorite past time at the Castle Charmeine?
Tabbruis: That’s easy, spoiling my love, Charmeine. We have two horses, Tristan and Isolde, which we ride and go down to our private beach. Tabbruis smiled in revelry.
Emily: Private beach?
Dmitri: The Castle Charmeine has a beach flanking its property on one side, so we ride out there every chance we get.
Neal: Yes, Tabbruis and Charmeine are out there quite a lot.
Tabbruis: I will have to admit that Charmeine and I love the beach. I just want her to happy. I love Charmeine so much…
Thomas, Dmitri and Neal: We know!!!
Emily: Well, on that thought, (wetting my lips down and fanning myself) I will end this lovely interview. It certainly has been fun interviewing the “HOT MEN FROM CASTLE CHARMEINE!”
In Eastern Europe, vampires were believed to be revived bodies of the dead. They lived close to the grave of the local graveyards.
Their Native Soil surrounded them. However, there never was a special mention of it. Nor was there a special mention in the early vampire stories.
Bram Stocker was the first to mention the need for native soil. Count Dracula was found various times lying in boxes of “his” native soil. He had 50 crates shipped to England and scattered around (all full of soil.) Abraham Van Helsing figures out Dracula needs the soil as a resting place. He destroys all but one crate by placing a Eucharistic wafer in them.
I find it strange that our literary history creates a large amount of our believes.
What do you think about Native soil? Do you think Vampires would need it?
Photo Credits:
http://www.screenjunkies.com/movies/genres-movies/horror-films/how-to-become-a-vampire/
http://thewallmachine.com/jDoLyy.html
The Undead Duo at Deadly Ever After have a wonderful post today about vampire myths.
Thank you for the shout out ladies. I really appreciate it.
So they have some really cool info about vampires, too much to comment about there so I will comment here.
The farther I get into the myths the funnier I think they are. A very strange thing I’ve noticed is, what we now have as myths isn’t always what was believed centuries ago. I’ve also noticed that they are all similar even though they are worlds away.
For example, we mostly agree that Vampires can’t father children. I remember reading somewhere a large group of people freaking out because Stephenie Meyer’s Edward fathered a child. A dead being can’t have children. It isn’t possible. They said. Most writers agree.
If we look at those old myths we find a few types of vampires can father children. Some women can even carry and deliver children. It was believed that these mothers would feed from the babies they birthed.
There were even special names for these hybrid children.. Dhampir, and Cambion come to me off the top of my head.
Some vampires were even able to be around in the daylight. Australia has it’s own little vampire creature. The Pink Vampire, he is harder to kill, may have to do with not dying in sunlight. Stoker’s Dracula, Lord Ruthven, Varney and Carmilla were all “Daywalkers.” Many old legends tell us that the suspected vampire led a normal life. That would have to mean he was out and about during the sunlight hours.
Nosferatu (an old black and white movie from the 1920s) was an attempt to bring Stoker’s Dracula to the big screen, Stoker’s widow refused to allow Hollywood the Dracula story so Hollywood got creative and mixed some things up. Now they could film and not get sued. In the novel Dracula dies at the hands of Harper and Quincy Morris -they cut his head off right before dawn. In Nosferatu, the vampire spends the night drinking from his victim. When he finally leaves it’s too late and he burns in the early morning rays.
Here’s something to think about, the Blut Aussauger from the Bosnia area, and the Rakshasas from India, must have prolonged exposure to the sun for it to die.
China’s Ch’ing Shih is a blind vampire creature. It’s powers come from the moon, so during the day or moonless nights it stays hidden underground.
The Poludnica of Slovenia attacks her victims at noon.
Now on to the blood. Old myths say vampires could drink the blood of animals: sheep, goats and cattle were the most common, but cats and dogs could do in the case of an emergency or if that was all that was easily available. Although again, we are told in the old myths (if you care to look) that vampires could eat normal food. That was how they could stay hidden. Some vampires prefer breast milk. The Jaracaca from Brazil for example, it’s believed he takes the shape of a snake. He finds a woman who is nursing and pushes her child out of the way, he nurses instead. If the child begins to cry, he’ll stick the tip of his tail in its mouth to quiet it.
Charlaine Harris’ idea of synthetic blood is brilliant. I love the idea, unfortunately that is a ways off. Unless vampires like the stuff scientists are still working on, Scientists still are happy with it yet.
If we are going to talk about survival of the fittest, I personally think that would also mean the smartest.
The Undead Duo bring us some interesting points about how a vampire in our world finding prey could be very hard to do and dangerous to his secret. There are so many people who are missing, (I would have to Google the numbers) that are never found. How many of these missing do the police and then others give up on finding? A lot!
A smart vampire could be the culprit. What about all the people who no one would miss: homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts. A smart vampire would watch carefully almost stalking his prey. He would know if someone had family that would know the prey was missing. If he/she attacked one of these “unloved” and disposed of the body in a way it wouldn’t be found. No one would know that person was missing. Brilliant!
Stephenie Meyer has a few evil vampires in the Bree Tanner novella, that are brilliant. They attack what most would call street scum and hide the bodies somewhere in the water. (My memory fails me exactly where it is.)
I really don’t want to get into this, but just go with me for a moment. Through out history vampires attacked children (smaller, and weaker. better prey). In our world thousands of children go missing, a lot are never found. ?Vampires?
I also find it strange that most of what is commonly believed about vampires has been brought to us by literature or movies. When a writer or a Vampirologist (I love that word) brings old myths to the table people freak out. That’s what was believed when vampires roamed about freely. Some are just plain funny, but who are we to say they are wrong?
Leave comments here or at Deadly Ever After I’ll be spending some time there today.
Mari Wells 