Arcadia Discussion Zone

Archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with iron rods to keep them from turning into the undead ... Bulgaria's national history museum chief Bozhidar Dimitrov said: 'These two skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century.' According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried. People believed the rod would also pin them down in their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorising the living, the historian explained. According to Mr Dimitrov over 100 buried people whose corpses were stabbed to prevent them from becoming vampires have been discovered across Bulgaria over the years.

"VAMPIRE" PICTURE: Exorcism Skull Found in Italy...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... raves.html

The Story of Abhartach - the original Irish vampire

In County Derry in Northern Ireland, there is a small townland named 'Slaghtaverty' which in Irish means ' Abhartach's Tomb'. When I was working in this rural area recently on a community history project, the locals told me the story of how the townland got it's name, how the legend inspired Bram Stoker to create 'Dracula' and how strange events continue to happen in the vicinity of the large stone tomb that stands there.

Abhartach (pronounced Av-ar-chack), so the story goes, was an evil ruler in the area, a stunted man but a powerful magician. He terrorized all the people for miles around, until they wished him dead. But as none of his subjects had the courage to kill the magical man themselves they got a warrior from a neighbouring area to do it. This warrior, called Cathain, duly killed Abhartach and buried him upright as was traditional for a Celtic chief at this time.

However, the next day Abhartach appeared once more among his people, this time demanding a sacrifice of blood from the wrists of his subjects. He had become one of, what was called in Irish, the marbh beo - the living dead. Three times Cathain killed and buried Abhartach and three times he rose from his grave seeking blood from his people. Until the people, in their desperation, turned to a Christian saint who lived in the area and asked him how they could be rid of this evil undead creature forever.

Cathain was instructed by the saint to kill Abhartach once more but this time to do it with a sword made of yew wood, to bury him upside down, with a large stone on top and then to plant thorn trees around the grave. This Cathain did and Avartach has never been seen again, though his grave still stands in a field in the townland of Slaghtaverty, covered in an enormous stone slab, a lonely thorn tree growing beside it.

...this Irish vampire dates back to pre-Celtic days.

The story of the Dearg-due begins quite tragically:

Once there was a fair maiden named Dearg-due who was so beautiful that she was known throughout the country. She could have married any man that she wanted, but fell in love with a local peasant. This was unacceptable to her father, who forced her into an arranged marriage with a wealthy man to secure the financial future of his family. This
new husband treated Dearg-due quite badly and she eventually committed suicide. She was buried in a small churchyard, supposedly located near Strongbow's Tree, in the village of Waterford. One night, to avenge her fate, Dearg-due rose from the grave and lured her father and
husband to their deaths.

It is believed that Dearg-due rises from the grave to seduce men and lure them to their deaths by draining their blood. She is always in the form of a beautiful woman. Legend differs on how often she rises from the grave: some say she returns with every full moon, others a few times a year, while others say she rises but once a year on the anniversary of her death. Most versions of the Dearg-due story claim that she can transform into a bat-like creature, while the other versions make no mention of shapeshifting.

Some legends say she does not drink blood, but sucks out the life force, until they slowly withered and died.

Those who back the argument that "Dracula" is based upon the Dearg-due, argue that Stoker had never travelled to Eastern Europe, so he would only know the beliefs of the areas from travellers. They go on to say that "Dracula" was written during Ireland's great "Celtic Revival". They believe that Stoker took the name "Dracula" from Dreach-Fhoula, pronounced droc'ola, and means "bad or tainted blood". The Du'n Dreach-Fhoula or the Castle of the Blood Visage is supposed to be a fortress guarding the pass in the Magillycuddy reeks in Kerry and is believed to be inhabited by blood-drinking fairies.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent seven years researching European folklore and stories of vampires, being most influenced by Emily Gerard's 1885 essay "Transylvania Superstitions".

Despite being the most well-known vampire novel, Dracula was not the first. It was preceded and partly inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 "Carmilla", about a lesbian vampire who preys on a lonely young woman, and by Varney the Vampire, a lengthy penny dreadful serial from the mid-Victorian period by James Malcolm Rymer. The image of a vampire portrayed as an aristocratic man, like the character of Dracula, was created by John Polidori in "The Vampyre" (1819), during the summer spent with Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley, her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron in 1816. The Lyceum Theatre, where Stoker worked between 1878 and 1898, was headed by the actor-manager Henry Irving, who was Stoker's real-life inspiration for Dracula's mannerisms and who Stoker hoped would play Dracula in a stage version. Although Irving never did agree to do a stage version, Dracula's dramatic sweeping gestures and gentlemanly mannerisms drew their living embodiment from Irving.

The Dead Un-Dead was one of Stoker's original titles for Dracula, and up until a few weeks before publication, the manuscript was titled simply The Un-Dead. Stoker's Notes for Dracula show that the name of the count was originally "Count Wampyr", but while doing research, Stoker became intrigued by the name "Dracula", after reading William Wilkinson's book Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Political Observations Relative to Them (London 1820) which he found in the Whitby Library, and consulted a number of times during visits to Whitby in the 1890s. The name Dracula was the patronym (Drăculea) of the descendants of Vlad II of Wallachia, who took the name "Dracul" after being invested in the Order of the Dragon in 1431. In the Romanian language, the word dracul (Romanian drac "dragon" + -ul "the") can mean either "the dragon" or, especially in the present day, "the devil".

The connection of the name "Dracula" with vampirism was made by Bram Stoker, who probably found the name of his Count Dracula character in William Wilkinson's book, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: with various Political Observations Relating to Them. It is known that Stoker made notes about this book. It is also suggested that Stoker may have heard of Vlad through his friend, Hungarian professor Ármin Vámbéry, from Budapest. The fact that character Dr. Abraham Van Helsing states in the 1897 novel that the source of his knowledge about Count Dracula is his friend Arminius appears to support this hypothesis, although there is no evidence that Stoker and Vambéry (they met twice) ever talked about Wallachian history.

Referring to a letter from his friend Arminius, van Helsing comments:

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, pp 145)

This encourages the reader to identify the Vampire Count with the Voivode Dracula first mentioned by him, the one betrayed by his own brother: Vlad III Dracula betrayed by his brother Radu the Handsome. But as noted by the Dutch author Hans Corneel de Roos, in Chapter 25, Van Helsing and Mina drop this rudimentary connection and instead describe the Count's personal past as that of "that other of his race" who lived "in a later age". This way, Stoker avoided that his main character could be unambiguously linked to a historical person who could be traced in any history book.

His novel was the first lengthy book I read in my grade school days. A bit tough at times for a 10 year old, but my teacher was impressed.

Abhartach's grave is now known as Slaghtaverty Dolmen, and is locally referred to as "The Giant’s Grave". It comprises a large rock and two smaller rocks under a hawthorn.
In 1997, attempts were made to clear the land; in conformity with folklore, workmen who attempted to cut down the thorn tree arching across Abhartach’s grave allegedly had their chain saw malfunction three times. While attempting to lift the great stone, a steel chain snapped, cutting the hand of one of the labourers, and ominously, allowing blood to soak into the ground. Mr Curran himself suffered “a severe and inexplicable fall” after visiting the site.

Slaghtaverty Dolmen
I drove northward to Garvagh. After obtaining directions in town, I headed back out and took the right turn south of town for the B64 towards Dungiven. As instructed I turned immediately left after this and followed the road until I came to a left turn directly after the farmhouse gables. The road was signed Slaghtaverty Lane.
I continued up this road looking for a *dolmen*, but couldn’t see anything.

“I’m looking for Slaghtaverty Dolmen,” I said to a nearby farmer.
“The Giant’s Grave?” he asked.
“That could well be it.”
“It’s back that way, in a field beside a farmhouse with a green roof. You’ll see a lone tree in a field down below.”

I thanked him and headed back.
Sure enough, there was a lone hawthorn tree in the middle of the field.
All day long the sun had been shining. As I climbed the gate and headed across the field to the tree, a thick blanket of cloud rolled eerily over and blocked the sunlight. The field turned from vivid green to dark and gloomy. The wind suddenly picked
up and a scattered herd of bulls stopped what they were doing, gathered together and began walking towards me. A wave of unease came over me as I stood beside the tree.

According to /Sacred Ireland/, this is the burial place of an evil dwarf who terrorized the local people with his magical powers and enchanted music. He was killed by Finn McCool and buried upside down besidethis tree. A large rock with two smaller ones beside it lay on the ground under the tree, probably the remains of the dolmen.
A circle of red mud surrounded its trunk, the exact diameter of the tree.
The grass had stopped growing here. I shivered as I looked on. I’m not superstitious, but there really was something sinister about the place.
As I took photos the bulls approached and fairly soon I found myself flanked on
three sides by them, my only opening towards the gate. Two black bulls stood under the tree staring at me with their small, baleful eyes. The one nearest the tree suddenly began snorting and scraping its foot along the ground.
It was time for me to leave. I made a hasty exit, closely followed by my four legged foes.
Evil dwarf 1, Ian 0.

In July 1816 "incessant rainfall" during that "wet, ungenial summer" forced Mary Shelley, John William Polidori, and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest to see who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Lord Byron to write "A Fragment", which Polidori later stole and rewrote as The Vampyre — a precursor to Dracula. In addition, Lord Byron was inspired to write a poem, Darkness, at the same time.

The story has its genesis in the summer of 1816, the Year Without a Summer, when Europe and parts of North America underwent a severe climate abnormality. Lord Byron and his young physician John Polidori were staying at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva and were visited by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Claire Clairmont. Kept indoors by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to telling fantastical tales, and then writing their own. Fueled by ghost stories such as the Fantasmagoriana, William Beckford's Vathek and quantities of laudanum, Mary Shelley, in collaboration with Percy Bysshe Shelley, produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's, Fragment of a Novel (1816), also known as "A Fragment" and "The Burial: A Fragment", and in "two or three idle mornings" produced "The Vampyre".

...they propose a contest to write their own; Mary has a waking dream several nights later of a student trying to impart a "spark of life" to "the thing he had put together."

The novel was published anonymously eleven months later, to wide acclaim and curiosity. When Mary Shelley stepped forward, many were so doubtful of such a wild tale springing almost fully-formed from a first-time, teenaged, female author that they attributed the book to her husband. Her dream-story only contributed to the view that the novel was itself a freak. The longer story of the novel's origins -- the story of Mary Godwin/Shelley's first twenty years -- contains such a trail of miscreation, abandonment, alienation and ghostly pursuit that it might have been more surprising had she written a book on any other theme.

"fueled by quantities of laudanum" .... so no wonder, this is seriously strong stuff.