The Bloodthirsty Birth of the Sanguineous Slurpers

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n                                       September 29^th isnMichaelmas, the Western Christian feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, one ofnthe four quarter days of the year and often taken to be the first day ofnAutumn; Michael is one of the four principal archangels, the others beingnGabriel, Raphael and Uriel, but different traditions also name other archangelsnin addition to these. One of these, Samael (also called Samil or Sammael) isnregarded as both good and bad, in Talmudic tradition he is seen as the Angel ofnDeath, and sometimes called Satan. 

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nOne legend tells how when God made Adam, henalso made a wife for him from the same earth; her name was Lilith. Lilithnrefused to submit to Adam as they were both made at the same time from the samenmaterial and eventually left him, going to live instead with Samael, andnrefusing God’s command to return to the Garden of Eden. Adam went to God, whoncaused him to fall into a deep sleep and took one of Adam’s ribs, from which henformed a ‘second wife’, Eve. Samael came to Eve in the guise of a serpent and persuadednher to eat the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and then she gotnAdam to do the same. As God had forbidden them to eat the fruit, he cast themnout of the Garden and into the world, where they were mortal, subject tonillness, pain and death. 

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nSamael came again to Eve and seduced her, making hernpregnant with the first human to be born, Cain. Adam and Eve had a son of theirnown, Abel, and one day, thinking that God favoured Abel more than himself, Cainnslew Abel. For this first murder, Cain was cursed by God and sent out into thenwilderness East of Eden, bearing on him the Mark of Cain, a sign from God thatnHe would punish anyone who killed Cain. Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, whonwould be the father of all mankind. Lilith and Samael gave birth to demonnchildren, the Lilin, but because Lilith had refused to return to Adam innEden, God punished her by killing one hundred of her children every day. Innrevenge, Lilith killed a hundred newborns every night, boys up to eight daysnold and girls up to twenty, unless they wore an amulet around their neckninscribed with the names of the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof. 

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nIn thenlegends of the Sumerians and Akkadians, going back beyond 700 BCE, Lilith andnthe Lilin were night demons, who came to men and women as they slept,ndisturbing their dreams and making love to them. The legend carried on innsubsequent civilizations, with the Babylonians and the Assyrians, where theynwere the lilitû, becoming the shedim of the Jews, and the AncientnGreek Lamia. 

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nThe night-stalking, child-eating demon then passed intonRoman mythology and the legends of the Middle Ages, where she continued tonhaunt the dreams of men, feeding on their blood, as had Cain, her son, who hadndied in Noah’s Flood. 

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nIn 1734, a work called Travels of Three EnglishnGentlemen was written, describing a journey made through Europe, and innCarniola (now in modern Slovenia), they describe how, on Michaelmas Day, theninhabitants gathered cherries. Later, these Three Gentlemen, record a Carniolannlegend, 

nThis is the first recorded use ofnthe word ‘vampire’ (or ‘vampyre’) in the English language,nappearing in Volume 4 of the Harleian Miscellany in 1744. The BaronnValvasor mentioned in the passage is Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, a Carniolannscientist and nobleman, who wrote a fifteen-volume The Glory of the Duchy ofnCarniola published in 1689, in which he records the story of Jure Grando, anKringan (now in Croatia) peasant who died in 1656. 

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nAfter his death, Grandonhaunted Kringa for sixteen years as a štrigon or vampire, who knocked onnhouse doors where, soon after, someone would die. He called on his widow andnsexually assaulted her. Eventually, some villagers exhumed Grando’s corpse,nwhich was said to be smiling and perfectly preserved. They tried to drive anhawthorn stake into its heart but it would not pierce the skin. Prayers ofnexorcism were said and then one villager, Stipan Milašić, sawed the head offnthe body, which screamed and bled until the grave was filled. Peace returned tonKringa after the vampire was vanquished. This is the first report of a vampirenin European literature. Our Three English Gentlemen also note that in Poland,nthe demons are called Upier and Upierzyca (male and female).nSimilar words occur in other European languages, upyr in Russian,nUkrainian and Belarussian, upir in Czech and Slovak, vampir innCroatian and Dutch, and vampyr in Danish and Swedish. As knowledge ofnthe Balkan and Slavic countries became wider, other vampire stories spreadnacross Europe; Arnold Paole, Peter Plogojowitz and Ruža Vlajna were all Serbiannvampires who were variously investigated in the eighteenth century. 

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nIn 1819,nJohn Polidori published The Vampyr, the first vampire novel in English,nsparking a craze for vampire stories that has barely slowed since. In the book,nthe aristocratic Lord Ruthven (based, in part at least, on Lord Byron), newlynarrived in London society, makes the acquaintance of the young Aubrey and thentwo travel to Rome, where Ruthven attempts to seduce the daughter of one ofnAubrey’s circle, causing Aubrey to abandon him. He goes to Greece, where henfalls in love with Ianthe, an innocent inn-keeper’s daughter, who tells himnlocal tales of the vampires and their nocturnal orgies.   

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nReturning late one evening, Aubrey hears anscream and goes to investigate in a nearby hut, where an unknown assailantnknocks him insensible. He is roused by villagers and sees Ianthe lying dead,nthe victim of a vampire. Lord Ruthven arrives in Athens, and on hearing thentale rushes to Aubrey’s sickbed. As he recovers, they make plans to travelntogether in Greece but as they do, they are attacked by bandits and Ruthven isnshot in the shoulder. As he lies dying, he makes Aubrey promise not to mentionnanything about him or his death to anyone for a year and a day. Aubrey swearsnhe will and Ruthven dies, whereupon Aubrey returns to London alone. One day,nwhilst out in society with his sister, he is shocked to see Ruthven apparentlynlive and well, who whispers to him, ‘Remember your oath.’ 

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nAubrey has a nervousnbreakdown and is haunted by visions of Ruthven, but as the months pass hisnconditions improve and his sanity returns, until one day his sister visits himnand he notices a locket around her neck. In it is a portrait of Ruthven, whichnhe crushes underfoot, only to be told that his sister is betrothed to Ruthven.nBound by his oath, Aubrey cannot reveal Ruthven’s secret, but begs his sisternon bended knee not to marry Ruthven. Convinced that his madness has returned,nhe is confined to his room, and his warnings go unheeded. He writes a letternand bribes a servant to deliver it but it is handed over to the doctorsninstead, as further proof of his madness. 

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nOn the morning of the wedding, onenyear after Ruthven’s ‘death’, Aubrey escapes and confronts Ruthven, who againnwhispers ‘Remember your oath’, adding that he has already seduced the sister,nwho will be ruined if he continues to oppose the wedding. Aubrey collapses andnis carried back to his rooms, and the wedding takes place. As midnightnapproaches, Aubrey rouses and tells his guardians the full story, then dies.nThe guardians rush to the honeymooner’s hotel where they find Ruthven gone andnhis bride, drained of blood, lying dead in bed, a victim of the Vampyre. 

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nIt isnnot, it must be said, a masterpiece of literary fiction but nonetheless itnstarted a fashion for all-things vampire. A very popular tale was Varney thenVampire, a penny-dreadful serial that ran to over 600,000 words, as wasnSheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire Carmilla, but the ultimatenincarnation was Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1895), which followed Polidori’snlead in personifying the vampire as a sophisticated aristocrat. 

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nOur fascinationnwith the vampire continues (Buffy – could you please do something aboutnEdward Cullen?), with works of variable literary and artistic quality publishednalmost weekly, but if I might point you one, if you have not already read it –nTerry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum.

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nCarpe Jugulum

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