What I have said with regard to the phantasms of dogs--namely, the
difficulty, practically the impossibility, of deciding whether the
manifestation is due to an elemental or to a spirit of the dead--holds
good in the case of "pig" as well as every other kind of bestial
phenomenon.
The phantasm in the shape of a horse I am inclined to attribute to the
once actually material horse and not to elementals.
With regard to phantom birds--and there are innumerable cases of occult
bird phenomena--I fancy it is otherwise, and that the majority of bird
hauntings are caused either by the spirits of dead people, or by vicious
forms of elementals.
Though one hears of few cases of occult bestialities in the shape of
tigers, lions, or any other wild animal--saving bears and wolves,
phantasms of which appear to be common--I nevertheless believe, from
hearsay evidence, that they are to be met with in certain of the jungles
and deserts in the East, and that for the most part they are the
phantasms of the dead animals themselves, still hankering to be
cruel--still hankering to kill.
CHAPTER VII
VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC.
_Vampires_
According to a work by Jos. Ennemoser, entitled _The Phantom World_,
Hungary was at one time full of vampires. Between the river Theiss and
Transylvania, were (and still are, I believe) a people called Heyducs,
who were much pestered with this particularly noxious kind of phantasm.
About 1732, a Heyduc called Arnauld Paul was crushed to death by a
waggon. Thirty days after his burial a great number of people began to
die, and it was then remembered that Paul had said he was tormented by a
vampire. A consultation was held and it was decided to exhume him. On
digging up his body, it was found to be red all over and literally
bursting with blood, some of which had forced a passage out and wetted
his winding sheet. Moreover, his hair, nails, and beard had grown
considerably. These being sure signs that the corpse was possessed by a
vampire, the local bailie was fetched and the usual proceedings for the
expulsion of the undesirable phantasm began. A stake, sharply pointed at
one end, was handed to the bailie, who, raising it above his head,
drove it with all his might into the heart of the corpse. There then
issued from the body the most fearful screams, whereupon it was at once
thrown into a fire that had been specially prepared for it, and burned
to ashes. But, though this was the end of that particular vampire, it
was by no means the end of the hauntings; for the deaths, far from
decreasing in number, continued in rapid succession, and no less than
seventeen people in the village died within a period of three months.
The question now arose as to which of the other bodies in the cemetery
were "possessed," it being very evident that more than one vampire lay
buried there. Whilst the matter was at the height of discussion, the
solution to the problem was brought about thus. A girl, of the name of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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