Earlier this week we shared a little on how pop vampire culture got started in the USA. We mentioned how traveler historians—like Miss Lucy Garnett, writer and friend to Balkan peasants—became some of this country’s earliest vampire “experts” since they were the ones to hear vampire stories from locals IN vampire country. (There were also vampire stories which predate the Eastern European ones by centuries from “the Orient,” but you know how colonists can be.) Her book “The Women of Turkey and Their Folk-Lore,” published in 1890, documented some of the stories shared with her by mostly poor, highly isolated laborers and farmers in small villages across Greece, Turkey, and Croatia. One of her favorites, which she gave the superlative of “most thrilling,” is shared as follows:
“Once on a time the village of Kalikrati was haunted by a vampire, called ‘Katakhnas’ by the Cretans. The vampire destroyed both children and full-grown men, and desolated both that village and many others. They had buried him in the Church of St. George at Kalikrati, and in those times he was a man of note, and they had build an arch over his grave.
Now a certain shepherd, his mutual sknteknos, was tending his sheep and goats near the church, and on being caught in a [rain storm] he went to [the grave’s arch] for shelter. Afterward he determined to pass the night there, and after taking off his weapons he placed them crosswise by [the grave stone], which served him for a pillow, and, because of the sacred symbol they formed, the vampire was unable to leave his tomb.”
Editor’s Note: No idea what “sknteknos” means, it does not show up in any dictionary anywhere.
“During the night, as [the vampire] wished to go out again that he might destroy men, he said to the shepherd, ‘Get up hence, for I have some business to attend to.’ The shepherd answered him not, either the first, the second, or the third time, for he concluded that the man had become a vampire and that it was he who had done evil deeds. But when he spoke for a fourth time the shepherd replied, ‘I shall not get up hence, gossip, for I fear that you are no better than you should be, and may do me a mischief; but swear to me by your winding sheet that you will not hurt me and then I will get up.’ [The vampire] did not, however, pronounce that oath, but said other things. But finally, when the shepherd did not suffer him to get up, the vampire swore to him as he wished. On this he rose, and, on taking up his arms, the vampire came for, and, after greeting the shepherd said to him, ‘Gossip, you must not go away, but sit down here, for I have some business which i must go after. But I shall return within the hour, for I have something to say to you.’ So the shepherd waited for him.”
Editor’s Note: BUT WHY THO.
“And the vampire went a distance of about ten miles, where there was a couple recently married, and he destroyed them. On his return the shepherd saw that he was carrying some liver, and hands being wet with blood, and as he carried it he blew into it, just as the butcher does to increase the size of the liver. And he showed his gossip that it was cooked, as if it had been done on the fire. ‘Let us sit down, gossip, and eat,” said he. And the shepherd pretended to eat it, but only swallowed dry bread, and kept dropping the liver into his bosom. Therefore, when the hour of their separation arrived, the vampire said to the shepherd:
‘Gossip, this which you have seen you must not mention, for, if you do my twenty nails we be fixed in your children and yourself.’ Yet the shepherd lost no time, and gave information to the priests and others, who went to the tomb and found the vampire just as he had been buried, and all were satisfied that it was he who had done all the evil deed. So they collected a great deal of wood, and they cast him on it and burnt him. When When the body was half consumed the shepherd, too, came forward, in order that he might enjoy the ceremony. And the vampire spat, as it were, a single drop of blood which fell on his foot and it wasted away as if it had been burnt with fire. On this account they sifted even the ashes and found the little finger nail of the vampire, and burnt that, too.”
Editors Note: Keep in mind that at this place in time and history vampires didn’t look like Count Dracula. They looked like friends and relatives, but after a 6 month cocaine bender…thin, pale, tired, kind of off, not overtly “vampire-y.” Old European peasant stories had a real “invasion of the body snatchers” vibe, where they were scary because someone previously trustworthy or familiar was now a blood thirsty murderer.
We agree that this is a “thrilling” tale. If Miss Lucy Garnett were alive today, aware of the evolution of language and storytelling has undergone in the last 130 years, we think she would have told it like this to make the thrills more obvious:
Some shepherd’s at work shepherding when he gets caught in a storm. He runs to his recently dead neighbor’s grave because he knows the guy was rich and it has a fancy arch he can hide under. As he’s getting comfy he lays down his AR-15s like a crucifix and accidentally cockblocks his dead neighbor’s leaving his tomb to go for a stroll by doing so. The dead neighbor is like “lemme out,” and the shepherd is like “nah, bro, I think you’re a vampire.” So the vampire neighbor is like “cmon man we’re cool hey what about the Saints grabbing Adam Trautman,” and the shepherd is like “I KNOW RIGHT, COME ON OUT!” The vampire tells the shepherd to hang out under his arch while he runs to Brothers’ right quick for chips and soda. Then he heads down the hill, slaughters two newlyweds, comes back covered in blood NOT with chips and soda but carrying a liver that may-or-may-not belong to one of the newlyweds. Also he cooks it with FIRE MAGICK. Then he makes the shepherd hang out by the tomb and maybe eat a human liver with him, but the shepherd is weirded out and stuffs his liver munchies into his mancleavage. The vampire threatens to kill the shepherd’s whole family if he ever tells anyone about any of this. So the shepherd is finally like “fuck 100% of ALL of this,” and runs right down into town and tells eeeeeveryone plus the church pastor. They rounds some people up, grab wood, then go back and burn the vampire alive. As the vampire is burning alive the shepherd steps to the front row to be like “Yeah, that’s what you get for threatening my family,” and the vampire spits blood on his foot and the guy’s foot BURNS TO ASH IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.
Damn, Lucy. As one of our beloved Hottest Hell fans once said, “That’s some quality lore.”