The Vampire: A Casebook

The Vampire in Roumania

AGNES MURGOCI The Vampire In Roumania Nowhere in the world is the vampire more prevalent than in Romania. Although other eastern European countries may contest this dubious honor, certainly the Romanian vampire has been described in great detail. Ofthe many accounts ofthe presence ofthe vampire in Romania, there seems to be consensus that one ofthe very best is that penned by Agnes Murgoci, who read apaper on the subject at a meeting ofthe English Folklore Society in May of1927. That paperformed the basis ofher essay "The Vampire in Roumania, "which continues to be citedby almost allserious scholars studying the vampire. It is noteworthy for its raw data extrapolatedfrom the author's intimate knowledge ofRomanian sources. Her translations oflegends, for example, make such data accessible to those who cannot read Romanian. For other considerations ofthe Romanian vampire, see Elias Weslowski, "Die Vampirsage im rumdnischen Volksglauben, " Zeitschrift fur osterreichische Volkskunde 16 (1910): 209-216; Dorothy Nixon, "Vampire Lore and Alleged Cases: The 'Undead' as Believed in by East Europeans in General and Romanians in Particular," Miorita 6 (1979): 14-28; Adrien Cremene, La Mythologie du vampire en Roumanie (Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1981); and Harry A. Senn, W ere-Wolf and Vampire in Romania (Boulder: East European Quarterly, 1982). The folklore of vampires is of special interest from the light it throws on primitive ideas about body and soul, and about the relation of the body and soul after death. In Russia, Roumania, and the Balkan states there is an idea-sometimes vague, sometimes fairly definite-that the soul does not finally leave the body and enter into Paradise until forty days after death. It is supposed that it may even linger for years, and when this is the case decomposition is delayed. In Roumania, bodies are disinterred at an interval of three years after death in the case of a child, of four or five years in the case of young folk, and ofseven years in the case ofelderly people. Ifdecomposition is not then complete, it is supposed that the corpse is a vampire; if it is complete, Reprinted from Folklore 37 (1926): 320-349. 12 The Vampire in Roumania and the bones are white and clean, it is a sign that the soul has entered into eternal rest. The bones are washed in water and wine and put in clean linen, a religious service is held, and they are reinterred. In Bukovina and the surrounding districts there was an orgy of burials and reburials in the years 1919 and 1920, for not only were people dying of epidemics and hardships, but also the people who had died in the early years of the war had to be disinterred. It is now considered to be exceptional that a spirit should reanimate its body and walk as a vampire, but, in a vampire story quoted below, it is said that they were once as common as blades of grass. It would seem that the most primitive phase of the vampire belief was that all departed spirits wished evil to those left, and that special means had to be taken in all cases to prevent their return. The most typical vampire is therefore the reanimated corpse. We may call this the dead-vampire type. People destined to become vampires after death may be able in life to send out their souls, and even their bodies, to wander at crossroads with reanimated corpses. This type may be called the live-vampire type. It merges into the ordinary witch or wizard, who can meet other witches or wizards either in the body or as a spirit. A third type ofvampire is the varcolac, which eats the sun and moon during eclipses. A typical vampire of the reanimated-corpse type may have the attributes of a lover, as in Scott's William and Helen. The zmeu may also be such a lover. The strigele (sing. striga) are not really vampires, but are sometimes confused with them. They are spirits either ofliving witches, which these send out as a little light, or of dead witches who can find no resting place. These strigele come together in uneven numbers, seven or nine. They meet on rocky mountains, and dance and say: Nup, Cuisnup, In casa eu ustoroi nu rna duc. [Nup, Cuisnup, I won't enter any house where there is garlic.] They are seen as little points of light floating in the air. Their dances are exquisitely beautiful. Seven or nine lights start in a line, and...