Vampires Through the Ages Read Online Free PDF Page B

members and relatives to continue its feeding frenzy. After those closest to it have succumbed to its appetites, it turns its attention to former neighbors or even livestock such as sheep or cattle.
    Male vampires in particular were said to have strong sexual cravings and often forced their advances on former wives, girlfriends, and other women. Finally, when it can find no more victims within its vicinity, it slowly climbs its way atop the church belfry at midnight and rings the bells so that all who hear the mournful peal will sicken and die. In this manner, revenants such as the Slovakian nelapsi were said to have decimated entire villages.
    Although when we think of the revenant draining the blood of its victims the common misconception is to envision those telltale puncture marks on the neck, the truth is that most were believed to drain their victim’s blood from the heart, stomach, nose, or from between the eyes. Revenants were also blamed for other mischief, including suffocating their victims, damaging their property, causing crops to wither and fail, or bringing bad luck to a household. Among the German and Polish Kashubians, the nachzehrer , or “afterwards devourer,” could cause a person’s death if its shadow simply fell upon them, while the mwere , the vampiric spirits of children who died before being baptized, were thought to cause nightmares. One of the most powerful weapons in the revenant’s arsenal was known as the evil eye. Belief held that the mere glance of a revenant could cause people to become ill, cursed, or waste away and die. Even inanimate objects were affected by their gaze, causing bread to turn stale, wine to sour, and tools to grow dull and rusty.
    Unlike the night demons that swept up from the east and preyed mostly on pregnant women and newborns, the European revenant seemed fixated on those who were closest to them in life; these usually meant immediate family members or others with similar ties. Although being a relation was often enough to become a victim of the undead, other reasons included not observing the proper burial customs of the deceased or somehow causing their death. In Gypsy folklore, being singled out by a mullo , meaning “one who is dead,” usually meant the victim kept the deceased’s possessions after burial rather than destroying them as was the Gypsy custom.
    According to most traditions, revenants could only travel about during the night and had to return to their earthly graves before the cock crowed and the sun rose above the horizon—or else they would risk a sort of forced catatonia and the vengeance of angry peasants. The rare exception to this rule is found among the Russians and Poles, who concluded that revenants could attack victims anytime from noon to midnight. It was also held that the creatures were allowed to work their evil any day of the week barring Saturday, which the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. On this holy day, even witches dared not hold their depraved Sabbaths and all the devil’s minions were excluded from conducting their dark business.
    Revenants were also thought to be more active during the months right before the feasts of St. George and St. Andrew, when the darkness of the nights lasted their longest and winter blanketed the land like a sort of death itself. Once set free from their tombs, besides general bloodsucking and other foul deeds, revenants were said to haunt deserted crossroads or churchyards, where they perched atop tombstones, rocking back and forth, shrieking in the night. At other times they congregated in remote forests and ruined castles plotting evil deeds together.
    The second type of vampire is distinct to the annals of the blood drinkers in that it is a living vampire. In some societies a person could be born a vampire or become one while they were still alive. Those who willingly chose to become a vampire rather than being born one were usually sorcerers or witches