Vampires of Czech Republic

Last week I wasn’t feeling well, so I flaked out on Vampire Wednesday. I promised I’d make it up this week.

A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned he thought of Czech Republic when he thought of vampires. So today, we will look at all the vampires from the area I could find. Because Czech Republic was at one time Czechoslovakia, I’m including that too. We have 8 count them eight vampires today. (I won’t do The Count thing. I loved The Count!)
Are you ready? This is going to take awhile…

Upir
The Upir was believed to have two (yes 2) souls. The second soul was indicated by the corpse’s flexibility, open eyes, and (get this!!) Two curls in its hair. The upir was/is sometimes-called Nelapsi.

Nelapsi
the Nelapsi is similar to the upir. It has two souls but it also has two hearts. This vampire can destroy a whole village in one night. (I guess he has one hell of an appetite!) Nelapsi is incredibly fast and strong. He can kill a human with a single blow. It’s also believed to be a plague carrier. (Strange how those from times past thought vampires carried plagues but we think they can’t, or they can’t themselves get sick.) So how can someone kill a nelapsi? Place money, religious icons, or personal items in the coffin at the time of burial. Those who are suspected of becoming a nelapsi must have a complex ritual performed. A stake must be run through the heart. Carry the body head first to its grave. Be sure to add some Poppy seeds into the grave with the body.
If for some reason, you didn’t do this at the time of burial or an unsuspected person rises. He must be staked through both hearts with a stake made of Hawthorn (wink wink I wrote about Hawthorn already. Go check it out.) iron or oak.

Muroi
The Muroi pronounced ME-oy in Czechoslovakian vampire lore is a vampire spirit meaning fatal destiny. When an evil person dies, remove the heart from the corpse. This should make it harder for the corpse to rise. If you didn’t it will rise. It has a red face. It will prey on people from its village each night. It has a cry that will freeze a person with terror. Whoever hears the cry will be the next victim. Spirits rest in the grave by day. To find the vampires grave walk a stallion through the graveyard. The horse will refuse to walk over the vampire’s grave. With the body exhumed, you must place a nail through the heart and the skin between the thumb and index finger must be cut with iron scissors.

Mahr
The Mahr lives in the Carpathian Mountains. The area of Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and ending near the Danube River in Serbia. This species lives by consuming human souls! (Yes, souls not blood). It swoops down in the form of a moth and takes a bite or two before it flies off. The more it attacks one victim the easier it will be to keep attacking him/her. Eventually the prey is killed and the soul is consumed. There are two ways to kill a Mahr. First, drive a wooden stake through its heart.  –If you can kill it this way, all of the souls it has consumed will return to their bodies. Second, find where it hides during the day and expose it to sunlight. The sunrays will turn it to ash. It isn’t stated if this method will return the consumed souls.

Moravia
The Moravia is a Czechoslovakian revenant. It leaves its grave to search for blood in the NUDE! nightly. It can be laid permanently to rest if its burial shroud is destroyed. (I guess you have to burn it.)

Ogoljen
The Ogoljen (stripped bare) is a revenant from the Czech Republic. It rises from the grave to hunt for human blood. It keeps dirt from its gravesite in its navel. It can’t be destroyed, but you can capture it and bury it at a crossroads. That will keep it from ever rising again.

Poludnica
The Poludnica pronounced Poe-low-NICA meaning noon is from Slovenia. She is a vampire demon that looks like a beautiful tall woman. She wears white or is dressed in mourning clothes. She carries a scythe or shears. At harvest time right around Noon she will attack laborers who aren’t resting. She caused heatstroke or madness, if their lucky. She seduces the unlucky to a secluded place and drains them of their blood. If anyone happens to come by, she will break his or her arms and legs. If she comes across a field-worker, she’ll ask him hard questions. Once he can’t answer one she’ll chop of his head.  If you happened to see a Poludnica drop to the ground and be perfectly still until she leaves. She also attacks children wondering alone while the adults worked. A bundle of grain is usually decorated when harvest starts the offering keep Poludnica away. It’s burned after harvest.
My source states it is probably a tale told to keep the children behaving or allowing a worker to take a break.
The male version is called Polevoy. No word if he only attacks females.

Poludnitsi
The Poludnitsi pronounced pole-ah-NITS-ee , meaning noon wife, is a spirit vampire from Czechoslovakia. She preys on young first time mothers and their children. (I have reason to believe she is related to Poludnica, but I can’t confirm it.)

Photo Credits:

Upir:   http://corazondevampiro.blogspot.com/2008/05/razas-y-clanes-de-vampiros-upir.html
Mahr Vampire Moth:  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/topics/evolution/
Poludnica:   http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/333196514?paging_mode=0

My take on Vampire Evolution

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.