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This podcast is about the book Vampires and Vampirism by Dudley Wright. It explores the history and cultural significance of the vampire myth across various societies, spanning centuries and continents. The text delves into historical accounts and folklore surrounding vampire beliefs, examining the origins of the myth and its evolution through different cultures. Wright presents diverse interpretations and practices associated with vampires, from ancient Babylonia and Assyria to more recent European and Australian accounts, emphasizing the persistence of this belief across time and space. He also delves into the theological and scientific perspectives on vampirism, considering explanations ranging from excommunication and demonic possession to the potential for “astral” projection and the phenomena of catalepsy and suspended animation. The purpose of the text is to provide a comprehensive overview of the vampire myth, its cultural roots, and the various attempts to understand and combat this perceived threat.
[Joe]
Hey everyone and welcome. Ready for a deep dive into something truly fascinating? We’re tackling vampire lore today.
And you know what? It’s more than just spooky stories.
[Tammy]
It really is. It gets deep. It’s like these stories, they’re a window into our collective fears and desires.
[Joe]
100 percent. And we’re lucky to have get this a 1915 book called Vampires and Vampirism by Dudley Wright. It’s chock full of vampire beliefs from all over the world.
[Tammy]
Oh, wow. I can already tell this is going to be good. So what’s the plan?
Where do we even start with something as massive as, you know, all of vampire lore?
[Joe]
Well, we’re on a quest to figure out what makes a vampire tick, you know, without getting bitten ourselves. Seriously, though, this book is packed with juicy details.
[Tammy]
Okay, I’m hooked already. Lay some vampire knowledge on me.
[Joe]
All right. So how do we even define a vampire? They’re this weird mix of living and dead all at once, right?
[Tammy]
Hey, it’s a paradox. And the book dives right into that, quoting an author named Skauffern. He actually says, the best definition I can give of a vampire is a living, mischievous and murderous dead body.
A living dead body.
[Joe]
Whoa. Talk about a mouthful.
[Tammy]
Right. And he even goes on to say the words are idle, contradictory, incomprehensible, but so are vampires.
[Joe]
Okay. So it’s like trying to describe a dream, right? You know it when you see it, but explaining it as a whole other story.
But beyond that living dead thing, what makes someone or something turn into a vampire in the first place? Did they ever figure that out?
[Tammy]
Well, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, wizards could become vampires and let’s see, suicides. Oh, and even people who were cursed by the church.
[Joe]
So basically anyone who died under like suspicious circumstances or challenged the church.
[Tammy]
Certain deaths could just disrupt the natural order of things, you know? And let me tell you, there were a lot of rituals to prevent a dead body from coming back as a vampire.
[Joe]
Stakes through the heart, I bet. I’ve heard about that one, but was it always like super violent?
[Tammy]
Well, there was the classic stick through the heart, sure. But then there was burning the body, using thorns, all sorts of things. They even thought a simple animal leaping over a corpse could make it a vampire.
[Joe]
Whoa, really? An animal? Like what, a squirrel?
Yeah. That’s kind of a lot of pressure on a little squirrel. It’s kind of sad when you think about it.
Like imagine being terrified of your grandma coming back as a vampire, you know?
[Tammy]
It really makes you think about how different people saw death back then. And get this, vampires weren’t always these blood sucking monsters we think of today. Like in ancient Greece, they believed in restless spirits that just needed sustenance.
[Joe]
Oh, interesting. So not necessarily out for blood, more like cosmically hangry.
[Tammy]
Exactly. There’s a story about the ghost of the Virgin Gelo haunting a Grecian island searching for, well, let’s just say she needed a little pick me up.
[Joe]
Okay. So not your typical bloodthirsty monster then. More like trying to settle some unfinished business.
I kind of feel bad for the ghost now.
[Tammy]
It’s almost tragic. But then the Greek church came along and the idea of excommunication added a whole new layer to vampire lore.
[Joe]
Wait, hold on. Excommunication. How does getting kicked out of the church turn you into a vampire?
Now this I got to hear.
[Tammy]
So they believed if you were excommunicated, your body wouldn’t decompose after death and your spirit stuck and unable to find peace would need sustenance, often blood, from the living.
[Joe]
Oh, wow. So it’s like being trapped in your own decaying body with an insatiable hunger. That’s intense.
But wasn’t incorruptibility like a sign of holiness in some cases? Talk about a mixed message.
[Tammy]
It is. The book even talks about a sultan who was skeptical about the power of excommunication. So the patriarch, he was like, oh yeah, watch this.
[Joe]
Oh, I have a bad feeling about this.
[Tammy]
They dug up this excommunicated woman’s body and guess what? It was perfectly preserved. But then when the patriarch absolved her, they said they heard bones rattling as her body finally started to decompose.
[Joe]
No way. That’s crazy. Talk about a power move.
[Tammy]
Right. And the sultan, he was speechless. He even supposedly said, of assurity, the Christian religion is true.
But anyway, you want to hear about how they used to identify vampires? They’d use, get this, a boy and a black horse.
[Joe]
A boy and a horse. Now that sounds interesting. Tell me more.
Okay. A boy and a horse walk into a graveyard. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, but go on.
[Tammy]
Not a joke, but definitely a strange image, right? So they’d have this young boy riding a black horse and not just any horse, one that had never tripped or stumbled in its life.
[Joe]
Okay. So a very sure-footed horse. I’m guessing this is important.
[Tammy]
Oh yeah. It’s crucial. They’d ride through the cemetery and if the horse refused to pass over a certain grave, boom, that’s where they thought a vampire was buried.
[Joe]
Wow. That’s both eerie and surprisingly specific. What did they think the horse was sensing?
Vampire vibes.
[Tammy]
Right. It’s like they thought the horse could smell death or maybe even evil. But anyway, let’s talk about those vampire prevention methods.
[Joe]
Yes. Tell me they’re more interesting than a horse taking a detour.
[Tammy]
Oh, some of them were pretty out there. I mean, you had your basic stake through the heart, of course, but then there was burning the straw the body was laid on.
[Joe]
Okay. That makes sense. Get rid of anything that might have vampire germs.
What else?
[Tammy]
They even used thorns to trap the vampire in its grave.
[Joe]
Thorns? Seriously? Was this like a vampire’s worst nightmare, getting snagged on a rose bush?
[Tammy]
It sounds funny now, right? But picture it, a thorny branch all tangled up in the burial shroud. The idea was to keep the vampire from rising.
[Joe]
Ah, like a natural vampire fence. Clever.
[Tammy]
Right. But it gets even wilder. Some people went for the more extreme measures.
[Joe]
More extreme than thorns. Okay, lay it on me.
[Tammy]
Decapitation, burning the entire body. And get this, the book talks about a Bulgarian method of bottling a vampire.
[Joe]
Bottling? Now that sounds like something out of a weird dream. Wait, how do you even bottle a vampire?
[Tammy]
Okay. So they would use a picture of a saint to lure the vampire into this bottle.
[Joe]
Okay. A holy honey trap.
[Tammy]
Exactly. The bottle was also filled with food, naturally. So once the vampire was inside, they would trap it with a cork, which was also decorated with a holy image, and then they’d burn the whole thing.
[Joe]
Talk about overkill. But were these vampire anxieties mostly an Eastern European thing? What about good old Britain?
Did they have any vampire problems over there?
[Tammy]
Absolutely. They weren’t immune to a good vampire scare. In the 12th century, a historian named William of Newbury, he wrote about a vampire terrorizing a town in Buckingham.
[Joe]
A 12th century vampire. That’s going way back. So what did they do?
Horseback divination?
[Tammy]
Yes.
[Joe]
Thorns? Nope.
[Tammy]
They went straight for the burn. They torched the spectral sucker.
[Joe]
Classic. When in doubt, burn it out, right? Any other noteworthy British vampire encounters?
[Tammy]
Oh yeah, there’s this one about a priest who was obsessed with hunting vampires. He was even nicknamed Hundeprest.
[Joe]
Hundeprest. What does that even mean? It means dog priest.
Dog priest. That’s an interesting nickname. What did he do?
Sniff out vampires.
[Tammy]
You know, the book doesn’t say, but here’s the irony. After he died, people started saying H.E. became a vampire. They said his ghost haunted Melrose Abbey.
Wow.
[Joe]
Talk about a haunting twist. So from vampire hunter to hunted, it’s kind of a tragic story when you think about it. But seriously, when did people finally stop freaking out about vampires?
[Tammy]
You’d think these stories would have died out by like the 19th century, right? But they actually persisted well into the 20th century. There’s a story about a castle in Austria that was burned to the ground because people thought there was a vampire living in it.
[Joe]
Wait, seriously? In the 20th century? Okay, I need details.
This is wild.
[Tammy]
So they thought this castle was haunted by a countess named Elga. They said her portrait had this unsettling effect on anyone who looked at it.
[Joe]
A haunted portrait.
[Tammy]
Creepy.
[Joe]
And to make matters worse, people who stayed in the castle would tell all these eerie stories about strange noises and like cold spots.
[Tammy]
So basically a recipe for a good old fashioned haunting. But still, to burn down an entire castle, that’s commitment.
[Joe]
Right. And you know, it just goes to show how deeply ingrained these fears were, even in the 20th century.
[Tammy]
It’s fascinating, right? It’s like no matter how much we like to think we’ve progressed, those primal fears about death and the unknown, they never really go away. But it wasn’t just Europe, right?
Weren’t there vampire myths all over the world? Absolutely. The book talks about vampire beliefs in India, Australia, even China.
It’s a global phenomenon.
[Joe]
OK, spill the tea. What kind of vampire tales were they spinning in other parts of the world?
[Tammy]
Well, in India, there’s this creature called the Pananglam. It’s this monstrous vampire that preys on, get this, children and women during childbirth.
[Joe]
Whoa, that’s dark.
[Tammy]
And in Australia, they believed that evil spirits could actually steal bodies, like not possess them, but actually take them over completely.
[Joe]
That’s even worse. I don’t even know what I’d do if someone told me that. That’s creepy on a whole other level.
[Tammy]
Right. And in China, they had stories of headless corpses found completely drained of blood. They said their vengeful spirits would come back to haunt the living.
[Joe]
So no matter where you go in the world, it seems like there’s always been this primal fear of the dead coming back. But did anyone ever try to explain these vampire myths, like scientifically?
[Tammy]
Some did. The book talks about this German term, Scheindhad. It means apparent death.
[Joe]
Apparent death. Like they just look dead, but they were actually- Exactly.
[Tammy]
It’s kind of like the idea of suspended animation, you know, where the body seems lifeless, but is actually still alive in a way.
[Joe]
So basically, they were trying to find a real world explanation for something that seemed supernatural. Fascinating.
[Tammy]
Right. And then you had groups like the Theosophists and the Spiritists. They were all about the astral body, that part of you that lives on after death.
They thought the astral body could become a vampire.
[Joe]
So instead of a physical explanation, they were going for a spiritual one. It’s amazing how these stories, no matter how bizarre they seem, always have some kind of deeper meaning. But why vampires?
I mean, out of all the mythical creatures, what is it about vampires that continues to fascinate us, even today? Why do we keep coming back to these stories, even though they kind of freak us out?
[Tammy]
It’s a good question. Right. I mean, we’re simultaneously terrified of and fascinated by these creatures.
Why is that?
[Joe]
It’s true, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve come a long way from those early vampire myths, but there’s still something about them that just gets under our skin.
[Tammy]
It’s like they tap into something primal, you know, something deep within the human psyche.
[Joe]
Totally. Like, what is it about this idea of a creature that lives forever, that thrives on what should destroy us? What makes that so alluring?
[Tammy]
Right. It’s like they represent a kind of freedom that we, as mortals, can only dream of. Freedom from rules, from limitations, even from death itself.
[Joe]
And maybe a little freedom from consequences, too, let’s be honest.
[Tammy]
Well, there’s definitely that element of danger, right? That sense that they operate outside the boundaries of morality, which, of course, is part of what makes them so terrifying.
[Joe]
Totally. But there’s also this, like, seductive quality to that danger, isn’t there? This idea that maybe, just maybe, we could tempt fate, bend the rules and get away with it.
[Tammy]
It’s that classic push and pull, right? The fear mixed with fascination. And honestly, that’s what makes these stories so enduring.
[Joe]
It’s like we’re both repelled and drawn to the darkness they represent. And let’s be real, modern vampire stories really play up that duality.
[Tammy]
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we’ve gone from fearing vampires to, in some cases, downright romanticizing them.
[Joe]
Think about it. Sparkly vampires, brooding vampires, vampires who sparkle, A&D brood. We’ve seen it all.
[Tammy]
It’s true. And it makes you wonder, what does that say about us? Have we become desensitized to the darkness?
Or are we just more willing to embrace it these days?
[Joe]
Maybe a little bit of both. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think these stories, they give us a way to explore the darker impulses we all have without actually, you know, becoming a vampire ourselves.
[Tammy]
It’s a safe way to confront our fears, our desires, all those things we keep hidden in the shadows.
[Joe]
Exactly. And maybe by confronting them, we’ve learned to accept those parts of ourselves, to integrate them into who we are.
[Tammy]
It’s like therapy, but with fangs.
[Joe]
Exactly. But okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground here. We’ve talked about ancient beliefs, modern interpretations, vampire hunting, priests, bottled vampires.
It’s been quite a journey.
[Tammy]
It really has. It’s amazing how these stories, even though they come from different cultures and time periods, all share this common thread of fear and fascination with the unknown. Right.
[Joe]
And ultimately, I think that’s what makes them so compelling. They remind us that we’re all connected by these shared Hume-y experiences, these primal fears and desires.
[Tammy]
Absolutely. And as much as we like to think we’ve evolved past these ancient superstitions, there’s still something about a good vampire story that just speaks to us on a visceral level.
[Joe]
One hundred percent.
[Tammy]
Yeah.
[Joe]
So as we wrap up this deep dive into the world of vampires, I hope our listeners will walk away with a newfound appreciation for the power of these stories, for the truths they reveal about ourselves and the world around us.
[Tammy]
Hear, hear. And who knows, maybe even a little inspired to embrace their own inner darkness. Just, you know, maybe lay off the whole blood drinking thing.
Yeah.
[Joe]
Agreed. Stick to garlic bread, folks. It’s tastier and far less messy.
Until next time, happy exploring.
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