Vampire Books Online / Vampirism in Servia - The Cincinnati daily star - 1876

In Servia, as in most Slavonic countries, exists a popular belief in vampires, dead folk who quit their graves at night to torment the living. The signs by which the vampire is known are the preservation of the body for a long time after it should have decayed, the fluidity of the blood, and the suppleness of the limbs. Prosper Mérimée, in the course of his travels, was the witness of a case of alleged vampirism, which he describes as follows.

In 1816 he was traveling on foot in Vargaraz and chanced to stop at the little village of Varboska. The host was one Vick Rogionovich, well-to-do for the region, a good fellow and sufficiently drunken. His wife was yet young, and ami his daughter, a girl of sixteen, charming. I would have remained with him several days in order to study the ruins in the neighborhood, but he would not rent me a room, insisting that I should be his guest, and as this involved holding my own with him at the wine after dinner, the relation was not particularly pleasant.

One evening the woman had left us about an hour, and to avoid being compelled to drink I was singing to my guest, when we were startled by the most fearful cries from the weeping apartment, which, as is the custom of the country, was occupied by the same household in common. Arming our ears, we hurried thither, and beheld a sight—the mother, pale and frightened, binding her still more pallid daughter, who lay stretched out on her straw bed as if dead. The woman was shrieking without pause: "A vampire! A vampire! My poor child is dead!"

With great difficulty we restored Khava to consciousness; she had, she said, seen the window opened, and a man, clad in ashes and wrapped in a winding sheet, had flung himself upon her, bitten her, and strived to strangle her. She was only able to shriek aloud when the spectre fled, and she swooned away, but one fancied that she had recognized in its features those of a villager named Wiecznany, dead about a ten-night prior. There were a few red spots on her throat, but I did not know whether it might be a natural mark or the result of the bite of an insect during the girl's nightmare. The father rejected the conjecture sternly; the girl wept piteously, wringing her hands and rocking to and fro, repeating: "Alas! to die so young and under such a wedding kiss!" while the mother loaded me with reproaches, declaring that she had herself seen the vampire and known it to be Wiecznany. It was therefore considered prudent to be silent. All the amulets in the village were soon hung around the mother's neck, and her father took an oath that next day he would disinter the corpse of Wiecznany and burn it. Thus the night passed in an excitement that nothing could allay.

At daybreak the next morning the whole village went out, the men armed with muskets or hangers, the women bearing heated irons, and children gnawing at knives. With cries of rage against the dead man they all repaired to the graveyard; it was, with great difficulty, that I could find a position where I could witness the ceremony of exhumation. It was as if all strove to take part in it; each interfered with the other, and not a few serious wounds would have been inflicted by pick or gimlet had not the elders entered two men only to complete the work. At the moment that the shroud was unrolled, a horrible cry fairly raised my hair on end. It proceeded from a woman by my side: "It is a vampire!" she shrieked; "the works have not eaten it!" and her words were taken up by a hundred mouths. Twenty musket beams shattered the head of the corpse to fragments, while the father and relatives of Khava hacked the body savagely with their long knives, and the women dipped linen clothes in the blood that oozed from all the wounds to apply to Khava’s sore throat. The body was dragged from the grave and firmly tied to the trunk of a small tree just cut down and prepared, then drawn to the house of Rogionovich, where a pile of faggots and straw had been erected. Fire was set to it, and the body tossed into the flames, while the people yelling madly danced around the pyre. The unassailable spectacle from me hurtling flesh so opposed me to take part in the bowie.

The house was crowded with visitors, the men all puffing at their pipes, the women all slamming at one another, and overwhelming with questions the sick girl, who sat pale and stupefied, the blood-soaked bandages round her neck forming a ghastly contrast with her white, half-naked shoulders. Little by little the crowd diminished till we were left alone. Khava grew more and more uneasy as night-time on, and insisted that someone should watch by her bedside constantly. Her parents were worn out with fatigue and excitement; I rotated my services as nurse, and they were gratefully accepted.

Never the nights spent by the bedside of this unfortunate girl. The creaking of a board, the very murmur of the wind, made her start and shudder. She could not fall into a doze without seeing visions of horror, and from time to time would waken with a fearful start and a cry of anguish. She had one horrible dream, and the village gossips had succeeded in completing the ruin of her mind by narrating to her all the frightful stories about vampires that they could remember or invent. Once she fell her eyes to mine and would say to me, "For God’s sake do not sleep! Take my rosary in one hand and your sabre in the other, and watch over me!" Nor would she sleep save with her two hands locked around my arm, looked so tightly that the convulsive grip of her fingers would leave livid impressions in my flesh. Nothing could distract her mind; she was abjectly afraid of death and believed that she must certainly perish. In a few days she became shockingly thin; her lips were colorless and livid; her great white eyes seemed even larger and more brilliant; she was a pitiable sight to see. I tried to impress her imagination by feigning to behave as she wished, but, unhappily, as I had at first derided her credulity, I could not easily gain her confidence. I told her, however, that I would fight against evil spirits, and if she desired it, I would pronounce a spell. At first her natural sensibility and gentleness would not permit her to allow me to draw the wrath of heaven on myself, but finally the fear of death overcame her scruples and she implored me to try my spell. I pronounced loudly and solemnly some lines of a recipe as an invocation; then after rubbing her neck, pretended to draw 'them' up, concealed between my fingers, and informed her gravely that I had removed the source of her illness and that she was saved. With a sad smile, she said: "You have deceived me! You said that stone in its little casket would protect me." I was not a magician; this was my ruse and her hope that it would do good. From that moment, she grew worse rapidly.

On the night before her death she said to me, "It is my own fault. My lover (and she named one of the young men of the village) wished me to elope with him, but I would not and relied on him to bring me a silver chain. He went to Marcaska to buy me one, and it was then that the vampire came. After all, if I had not been at the house, it might have killed my mother, so perhaps it is for the best." Next day she made her father promise himself to cut her throat and open her veins after her death, that she might not also become a vampire; she would have no other hand but his to commit upon her corpse these necessary atrocities. Then embracing her mother, she desired her to take a rosary to the tomb of a local hermit or saint, there to sanctify it, then to bring it back to her. I could not fail to admire this peasant's thoughtfulness in using such a pretext to keep her mother from witnessing her dying agonies.

She took an amulet from her neck and gave it to me. "Keep it," she said, "and may it do you more good than it has done me." She then received the same devoutly. Shortly thereafter her breathing became more difficult, and her eyes glazed. She tottered to her father’s arm and made an effort to cast herself upon his breast; then ceased to live. Her sickness had lasted eleven days.

A few hours later I had left the village, heartily consoling myself to the devil, vampires, and all who believe in them.