VAMPIRES AND VAMPIRISM VAMPIRES AND VAMPIRISM BY DUDLEY WRIGHT LONDON WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, LIMITED 1914 PREFACE The awakened interest in supernormal phenomena which has taken place in recent years has included in its wake the absorbing subject of Vampirism. Yet there has not been any collection published of vampire stories which are common to all the five continents of the globe. The subject of vampirism is regarded more seriously to-day than it was even a decade since, and an attempt has been made in this volume to supply as far as possible all the instances which could be collected from the various countries. How far a certain amount of scientific truth may underlie even what may be regarded as the most extravagant stories must necessarily be, for the present, at any rate, an open question; but he would indeed be a bold man who would permit his scepticism as to the objective existence of vampires in the past or the possibility of vampirism in the future to extend to a categorical denial. If this collection of stories helps, even in a slight degree, to the elucidation of the problem, the book will not have been written in vain. DUDLEY WRIGHT. AUTHORS’ CLUB, 2 WHITEHALL COURT, S.W., _1st September, 1914_. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS POWER 20 III. THE VAMPIRE IN BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, AND GREECE 35 IV. VAMPIRISM IN GREAT AND GREATER BRITAIN 48 V. VAMPIRISM IN GERMANY AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES 66 VI. VAMPIRISM IN HUNGARY, BAVARIA, AND SILESIA 79 VII. VAMPIRISM IN SERVIA AND BULGARIA 95 VIII. VAMPIRE BELIEF IN RUSSIA 109 IX. MISCELLANEA 130 X. LIVING VAMPIRES 142 XI. THE VAMPIRE IN LITERATURE 150 XII. FACT OR FICTION? 161 BIBLIOGRAPHY 175 VAMPIRES AND VAMPIRISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY What is a vampire? The definition given in Webster’s _International Dictionary_ is: “A blood-sucking ghost or re-animated body of a dead person; a soul or re-animated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, causing their death.”