In 1672 there dwelt in the market town of Kring, in the Archduchy of Krain, a man named George Grando, who died, and was buried by Father George, a monk of St Paul, who, on returning to the widow’s house, saw Grando sitting behind the door. The monk and the neighbours fled. Soon stories began to circulate of a dark figure being seen to go about the streets by night, stopping now and then to tap at the door of a house, but never to wait for an answer. In a little while people began to die mysteriously in Kring, and it was noticed that the deaths occurred in the houses at which the spectred figure had tapped its signal. The widow Grando also complained that she was tormented by the spirit of her husband, who night after night threw her into a deep sleep with the object of sucking her blood. The Supan, or chief magistrate, of Kring decided to take the usual steps to ascertain whether Grando was a vampire. He called together some of the neighbours, fortified them with a plentiful supply of spirituous liquor, and they sallied off with torches and a crucifix. Grando’s grave was opened, and the body was found to be perfectly sound and not decomposed, the mouth being opened with a pleasant smile, and there was a rosy flush on the cheeks. The whole party were seized with terror and hurried back to Kring, with the exception of the Supan. The second visit was made in company with a priest, and the party also took a heavy stick of hawthorn sharpened to a point. The grave and body were found to be exactly as they had been left. The priest kneeled down solemnly and held the crucifix aloft: “O vampire, look at this,” he said; “here is Jesus Christ who loosed us from the pains of hell and died for us upon the tree!” He went on to address the corpse, when it was seen that great tears were rolling down the vampire’s cheeks. A hawthorn stake was brought forward, and as often as they strove to drive it through the body the sharpened wood rebounded, and it was not until one of the number sprang into the grave and cut off the vampire’s head that the evil spirit departed with a loud shriek and a contortion of the limbs. Similar stories to this were continually being circulated from the borders of Hungary to the Baltic. At one time the spectre of a village herdsman near Kodom, in Bavaria, began to appear to several inhabitants of the place, and either in consequence of their fright or from some other cause, every person who had seen the apparition died during the week afterwards. Driven to despair, the peasants disinterred the corpse and pinned it to the ground with a long stake. The same night he appeared again, plunging people into convulsions of fright, and suffocated several of them. Then the village authorities handed the body over to the executioner, who caused it to be carried into a field adjoining the cemetery, where it was burned. The corpse howled like a madman, kicking and tearing as if it had been alive.