Tag Archives: vampire

Ukategorisert

The Casket Girls of New Orleans: Vampires, Mystery, and a French Colonial Haunting

5 Comments
Advertisements

Pale and with blood shot eyes, a group of mysterious women set their foot on Louisiana ground for the first time. Shipped from France, they were the promised girls for the colonial men to be their wives. Who were the Casket Girls? Just innocent women far away from home, or blood thirsty vampires?

In a city saturated with ghost stories, voodoo queens, and haunted mansions, few legends hold as eerie a grip on New Orleans folklore as that of Les Filles à la Cassette — the Casket Girls. Even today, the colonial mail order brides of Louisiana suffer from inaccurate memories and dark legends and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from USA

Their tale, with its whiff of vampirism, colonial intrigue, and the restless dead, is as much a part of the French Quarter’s haunted past as the foggy alleys and crumbling tombs of St. Louis Cemetery. And like all great New Orleans ghost stories, it begins with a boat ride and ends with a coffin.

The Casket Girls: The Les Filles à la Cassette as they were originally called, were a group of women shipped to the colonies in order to marry and grow the colony of New France. They got their name from their little trunks they carried all their belonging in. Years later, the supernatural rumors surrounding these women, doesn’t seem to be letting go.

Daughters of the King or the Women Without a Future

The Casket Girls were a group of mail order brides sent from the old country to New France to populate the colonies, severely lacking European females. It was not the first time the country had sent a shipment of women for this purpose. In the early 18th century, when New Orleans was a young, swampy French colony teeming with soldiers, fortune-seekers, and rogues, women were in short supply. In a move both practical and ominous, the French government arranged for young, virtuous women from convents and orphanages to be shipped to Louisiana to marry settlers and help “civilize” the rough colony.

It was not only to get the men a wife, but a white and European wife, because, as Commissary Jean-Baptiste Dubois Duclos said: “[i]f no French women come to Louisiana, the colony would become a colony of mulastres” (people of mixed race).

The Governor of Louisiana hoped for something like the Filles du Roi of Quebec in New France and Jamestown, that had young gentlewomen volunteering to go to colonies to marry the men in exchange for a dowry by the king. These were seen as proper brides and a welcome addition to creating a new world in the colonies. At first at least, and they too would later be remembered as prostitutes by many. Although much needed, the much needed brides are remembered through a thin veil of misogyny and sexism.

The Pelican Girls Comes to Louisiana

When the southern part of North America started to form as a colony, they needed brides for the frontier men here as well. The first shipments to the French colony in Biloxi in Mississippi on the Pelican in 1704. This was the capital of the French owned North America called La Louisiane. Coming on a boat known as Pelican, the woman was later known as: The Pelican Girls. The women there had been chosen for their virtue and piety. 

The King’s Daughters: The Arrival of the French Girls at Quebec, 1667. This is the type of group they were hoping to get with The Casket Girls.

Their voyage over the Atlantic held them chained together in the ship’s hold and some never made it across and died of yellow fever. After six months at sea where they stopped at Havana for supplies, twenty three women with their nun chaperones arrived. The women were accompanied by three gray nuns called soeurs grises from the charity hospital La Salpêtrière in Paris. 

The women, seeing the harsh conditions and lack of comfort felt tricked and tried to leave. Dirty shacks as houses, deer skin over the windows as curtains and men that were never home. Many of them returned to France, some were denied and forced to marry. In the end, no one wanted to come to Louisiana. They rebelled and refused to cooperate in what was known as the Petticoat Rebellion. 

Comfort Women: Engraved by Pierre Dupin ( 1690-1751 ) after Antoine Watteau, this Departure for the Islands represents the deportation of the “comfort women” to America, to whom the legend ironically invites in these terms: “Come on, we must leave without being asked, Darlings,…”

After the women started to demand a decent living, the French men changed their perspective on them, thinking the women difficult because of their demands. They thought about sending a different set of women. For the next shipments to the colonies, the government went to darker places to pick out the brides. 

A Strange Cargo from France

Then there was the Casket Girls, and there is little documentation that they ever did exist, at least as to how they are remembered in legend. 

258 women were shipped from France to Louisiana between 1719 to 1721. 80 of them came over on La Baleine in 1721 to Mobile bay in Alabama. 29 of them were orphanages, 35 were from poor houses and 194 were convicted criminals from La Force prison. French officials called them “women without futures.” Some of the womens families had even sent them there themselves to be rid of them.

Cassette: 17th century chest, similar to what the Casket Girls must have been carrying. // Source: Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History.

These young women, the youngest a 12 year old former sex worker in Paris, arrived from France carrying small rectangles that were rather coffin-shaped luggage trunks called cassettes, meant to hold their modest belongings — linens, and clothes, caps, chemise, stockings. Over time, the word cassette became casquette and was translated from French to casket. 

Mail order Brides: In 1713 a group of 12 women arrived. They were described as ugly and poor with no linen, clothes or beauty vallet The Casket Girls. Rumours circulated that the captain had raped all of them during their voyage. Only three of them married, and that the future mail order bride should be more beautiful than pretty. Image depicting Women coming to Quebec in 1667, in order to be married to the French Canadian farmers. Jean Talon, intendant of New France, and François de Montmorency-Laval, bishop of Quebec, are waiting for the arrival of the women.

To the lonely, desperate colonists, these girls seemed heaven-sent at first, but then, fear and suspicion crept up on them. As the shipment started to give them other than the “virtuous” like the Pelican Girls, the treatment of them also worsened. To the officials in Louisiana, they were appalled by the backstory of the women they had been sent. 

Many complained about their behavior and some men even refused to marry them, although most of The Casket Girls were married within six months of stepping off the ships. Some of the women were also forced to marry. To the more superstitious locals, they seemed to bring with them something… unnatural.

The Casket Girls have later in legends been described as looking more dead than alive when they stepped off the boat. Pale from the lack of sunlight and emancipated after the long months at sea. In the harsh sun, their skin burned quickly and blistered. 

The Vampire Rumors Take Root

Soon after the arrival of the Casket Girls, strange happenings reportedly plagued the colony. Having been picked out from prisons, there was certainly an uptick in crime and prostitution from the little female population. 

Illness swept through the settlements, livestock died under mysterious circumstances, and tales of bloodless corpses began to make the rounds. Was it the humid and harsh environment of Louisiana, or something darker? Legend spoke of bodies found with their throat ripped open and drained of  blood. 

The Vampires at the Old Ursuline Convent

The most persistent version of the story of The Casket Girls claims that the cassettes were taken to the Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter of New Orleans, still an outpost of the colony. The building is still on Chartres Street and is the oldest in the Mississippi Valley. On the first floor, there was an orphanage with classrooms and an infirmary, and the nuns lived on the second floor. On the third floor there was an attic and a couple of living quarters for those in need. 

Ursuline Nuns: Sister Marie-de-Jesus, “Arrival of the Ursulines and the Sisters of Charity in New France,” Painted in 1928. Photo from the Virtual Museum of Canada. This nun order was the first nun order to set their foot and work on the New France colony.

The Ursuline Order came from Rouen in France, to the marshy frontier of New Orleans, or Nouvelle Orleans as it was then. They were said to chaperone a shipment of The Casket Girls when they arrived, but the order has denied their involvement with the mail order brides. 

In 1728, a group of Casket Girls arrived from France. They were taken to the convent for safekeeping until they could find suitable husbands to them, but soon, rumors started to form. Strange sounds were heard at night — rustlings, scratching, and sighs that no mortal throat could make.

The Sealed Attic Mystery

Perhaps the creepiest element of the legend involves the convent’s attic The Casket Girls were said to have been placed in. Some of the nuns were suspicious of the casket-like trunks they traveled in (here the lore has enlarged the trunks). Their suspicion grew when the strange deaths kept happening around the convent. When the nun checked them, the coffins were empty. Some say that the Casket Girls smuggled the vampires to the crescent city of New Orleans in the trunks or that they themselves were the vampires, sleeping in their coffins when the sun was out. 

Local lore insists that after unnerving occurrences and when the nuns discovered that the brides were actually vampires, the nuns moved the cassettes — and possibly something else — to the third-floor attic and sealed the shutters tight with silver nails blessed by the Pope himself to keep them trapped. 800 of these nails to be exact. How the Pope heard about this and sent them from the Vatican is never mentioned though. 

More Than Vampires Haunting the Convent: In addition to stories about the Casket Girls, there are also stories about ghosts of soldiers from the War of 1812 haunting the former convent as it was used as a hospital then. Ghost children from the time as an orphanage are heard laughing and playing in the garden. Later, bones from children were dug up on the property. // Source

To this day, it’s said the shutters on the attic’s windows remain closed and secured, even through the fiercest hurricanes. Some claim that attempts to open them have been met with bad luck, death, or worse. Occasionally claim to see pale faces or flickering figures at the darkened windows, said to be the spirit of The Casket Girls or perhaps the starved vampires they turned out to be.

And when tourists pass by the convent at night, many report a lingering sense of being watched — or of catching fleeting movement from the sealed windows above or hearing their footsteps from the third floor, following them through the building. 

The Undead Legacy of the Casket Girls

In the legends, the caskets are often told to fit the girls themselves, being shipped in lockdown. In truth, these trunks they were named after were small so that the women could carry them themselves. The legend of the Ursuline Convent mostly talks about them arriving in 1728, however, historical records claim that only Ursuline nuns came over to New Orleans that year and that the Casket Girls came as mentioned earlier. New Orleans wasn’t founded as a city until 1718-1721. Some even argue that there were no Casket Girls in New Orleans at all. 

In addition, the convent building we see today wasn’t even finished until 1752-1753. So where did the legends come from? Is it simply something made up in the 20th century after the meaning of the words transformed over time? There are, after all, no sources found for the casket girls being vampires until then. 

Some speculate that them being vampires, were something that came from the Anne Rice novels about vampires in New Orleans. 

But the legend is far from dead. There is also a persistent rumor that a group of ghost hunters did some investigation to the legend in the 70s. They turned up dead the next morning, and all the footage they got from their investigation was destroyed and the evidence for the lingering casket girls having anything to do with it, erased. 

New Orleans, a city forever teetering between life and death, has a knack for breathing unholy life into its own legends. Whether born from coincidence, homesick imaginations, or darker forces, the tale of the Casket Girls has never truly been laid to rest.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

The Casket Girls – Women & the American Story

Lonely Colonist Seeks Wife: The Forgotten History of America’s First Mail Order Brides

The History of the Casket Girls of New Orleans 

French ‘Casket Girls’ Were Forced Into the New World to ‘Tame’ the Male Settlers | The Vintage News

Ukategorisert

The Curious Legend of Dracula’s Bride: The Tale of Sarah Ellen Roberts

2 Comments
Advertisements

In the shadowy annals of vampire lore, where myths and reality intertwine, one woman’s haunting tale stands out— Sarah Ellen Roberts, an unassuming woman from Blackburn, England, who would become immortalized as Dracula’s Bride in the unlikeliest of places: Pisco, Peru.

In the long, eerie catalog of vampire lore — from the misted Carpathians to the cobbled streets of Whitby — few tales are quite as strange, or as oddly international, as that of Sarah Ellen Roberts, a woman born in Blackburn, England in 1872, who died in obscurity yet rose to legend as Dracula’s Bride in Peru. 

On June 9 in 1993, her 80th death anniversary was in Pisco, Peru where she is buried. The locals feared she would return for her vengeance. Pregnant women fled the town, hundreds of anti-vampire kits were sold and street vendors were selling t-shirts and keyrings as television and radio broadcasted it all live. They were all fearing and awaiting the return of Dracula’s bride. 

The Life and Sinister Reputation of Sarah Ellen Roberts

Not much is historically documented about Sarah Ellen’s early life in Blackburn. She was born Sarah Ellen Gargett and was born March 6 in 1872 in Burnley. She was one of four children of the coachman, William Gargett and Catherine Abbott.

She grew up in Blackburn, England and married John Pryce Roberts in St. John’s Church in 1892, both working as weavers, raising their two sons, Frank and William born in 1892 and 93 on Bolton Road in Blackburn. 

Sara Roberts: Before Sarah became a vampire legend, it seems like she lived a normal working class life in England. Here, a weaver working a mechanical loom in Home mill at the end of 19th century.

Seemingly a humble and innocent life, so how in the world did she end up buried in Peru with a reputation of being a vampire?

John had a brother who left to work as a manager at Nab-lane in a weaving mill in Lima, Peru in 1901. He must have been successful as he traveled first class back. John himself went to Peru at least two times in 1912 and 1913. He brought Sarah with him and left their children in England with Sarah’s aunt, Lily Gargett. But Sarah would never return to England the last trip they took. 

On the 9th of June in 1913 she died of unknown cause in Pisco, Peru, 200 km south of Lima. Her obituary in the Northern Daily Telegraph simply read: 

On the 9th inst., at Pisco, Peru, Sarah Ellen, the beloved wife of John P. Roberts (formerly of 25 Isherwood-street, Blackburn.) In her 42nd year. Deeply regretted.

John Roberts returned to England and ended his day as a weaver, opening a grocer’s shop he ran until his death in October 1925. 

The Legends Of Sarah

As mentioned, little is known about her life except the skeleton we can read about through wedding dates in the church register or the census records. but what lingers in local memory is the rumor that she dabbled in the dark arts. Accusations of witchcraft, murder, and even vampirism followed her like a shadow. Folklore claims she was suspected of being one of the undead — a creature cursed to drain the life from others in order to sustain her own. In Victorian England, where superstition clung tight even as the Industrial Revolution steamed ahead, such rumors could be a death sentence.

According to the rumors, Sarah was sentenced to death in East Lancashire after the accusations of her being a witch, vampire and murderer. Legend has it that, in 1913, she was chained, nailed inside a lead-lined coffin, and left to die. And as she died, she vowed to return for revenge.  

England, it is said, refused her burial — no hallowed ground would accept the restless corpse of a vampire. Desperate to find his wife a final resting place, John allegedly wandered the globe for four years with her corpse, encountering refusal after refusal from fearful communities in all of Europe as well as Chile and Argentina. A sailor told him to go to Peru as “everyone knows Peru is the land of witches.”. It wasn’t until he reached Pisco, a small port town in Peru, that he found a people willing — or perhaps sufficiently unaware — to allow her burial. There he bought a tomb for five pound and laid his wife to rest. 

Thus, Sarah Ellen was laid to rest in Cementerio General de Pisco, far from the foggy moors of England. But death would not be the end of her story

The Night of Dread and Disappointment

As midnight approached on 9th June 1993, nearly one thousand people gathered around Sarah Ellen’s grave. The date of her resurrection had been from Cuban talk show host, Cristina Saralegui on her program, a self proclaimed vampire specialist. 

Cristina Show 1992 Intro: Was this how the world was introduced to the legend of Sarah?

Some came out of morbid curiosity, others driven by genuine dread. As mentioned, pregnant women fled the town as they were afraid that her spirit would be reborn as their child.

The crowd included witch doctors and spiritualists, eager to ward off whatever horror might claw its way from the earth.

The grave was doused with holy water and protective rites were performed, sprinkling flower petals as well as blood on her grave, welcoming her back. Local shamans chanted, crosses were brandished, and prayers filled the night air thick with incense and anticipation as people had armed themselves with crucifixes, holy water, stakes and garlic. Midnight struck, and… nothing.

Source

The grave remained undisturbed. No spectral figure emerged. No pallid hand tore through the soil. The townsfolk, some relieved, others a little disappointed, slowly dispersed into the night and the broadcasters packed up their equipment with little to report on.

Local witch doctors claimed victory over evil; skeptics chalked it up to superstition’s last gasp. In 2007, a massive earthquake hit Peru that killed hundreds and destroyed a lot of the city, including the cemetery that her grave was. Her grave was undamaged and people speculated that this was a sign that she really held powers, even in her grave. Even today, some believe the rituals merely postponed the inevitable, and that Sarah Ellen Roberts still waits.

Source

An Enduring Enigma

Fact and fiction blur at the edges of Sarah Ellen’s tale. Historical records of her existence are scant, and little in England officially documents the accusations against her. There were also versions of the legend where she was one of the three “brides of Dracula”, together with the sisters Andrea and Erica. They were executed in Blackburn and buried by John Roberts in Mexico and Hungary or Panama, as the legend varies. This thing comes from the Cuban TV personality. The question is: was the tale even a thing in Peru before this broadcast?

According to this variation, she and her sisters had gone to Transylvania and met Dracula himself who had seduced her and made her his lover, biting her and making her a vampire. 

Another tale was that she gave birth to a son as soon as she arrived in Peru and died six days later. After this, stories about a pale foreign woman were seen in town as she fed on the blood of animals and young children. This creature was known as the Vampira de Inglaterra. 

Yet in Peru, her grave remains real, and her legend persists.

Over the years, her story has appeared in Peruvian newspapers, paranormal documentaries, and folklore anthologies.

Final Thoughts from the Crypt

In the grand pantheon of vampire legends, Sarah Ellen Roberts stands out not for bloody deeds or midnight prowls, but for the sheer, gothic absurdity of her story: an accused vampire from industrial England buried in coastal Peru, with an apocalyptic prophecy attached for good measure.

Historians have several times debunked the story, although tourism still thrives on it. If it was so that she was convicted for witchcraft, there would only be a prison sentence as well as more press like the last woman convicted for witchcraft in the UK made. 

Read More: Spiritualism and the Occult: The History of Ectoplasm and Gooey Ghosts

What happened when she died? Was it a traveling man with his wife in a coffin, trying to get her back to England that gave rise to the myths? Was it something that happened before she left for South America that gave a lingering impression on those who crossed her path?

Source

Her grandchildren were unaware of the vampire legends that existed about her until 1993 and that the legend had more with a 60% spike in tourism in the Pisco area after the incident. Some believe that she was no vampire at all, but a saint, leaving her flowers on her grave and asking for miracles today. 

And while she didn’t rise in 1993, one can’t help but wonder if perhaps — in true vampiric fashion — she’s just biding her time.

After all… some graves are better left unvisited.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Sarah Ellen – Latin Folktales 

Sarah Roberts (subject of vampire legend) – Wikipedia

Vampires – Sarah Ellen Roberts

 Sarah Ellen (1872-1913) – Find a Grave Memorial

‘Vampire’ haunting Peruvian village is unmasked… as a tragic British holidaymaker | Daily Mail Online

La leyenda de Sarah Ellen, la ‘mujer vampiro’ que aterrorizó Pisco y el misterio que oculta una tumba que nadie se atreve a abrir – Infobae

Sarah Hellen: el mito de la mujer vampiro que fue enterrada en Pisco Drácula | Respuestas | La República

Ukategorisert

The Vampire of Croglin Grange: The Mystery Behind the Legend

1 Comment
Advertisements

The Vampire of Croglin Grange was passed down as an actual true story told and published. But what was the truth behind this vampire story, and was there really any truth to it?

Tucked within the pastoral landscapes of Cumbria, England, the quiet village of Croglin once played host to one of Britain’s eeriest and most unsettling vampire legends — a story that has chilled listeners for well over a century. Known as The Vampire of Croglin Grange, this tale was first popularized in the 19th century, yet its setting and sinister details evoke much older European revenant lore.

Croglin is a quiet picturesque fellside village between the Pennines and the River Eden. Because of its proximity to the Scottish borders, the village was often raided by the Border Reivers in the 15th century. Though historians debate its authenticity, the story’s sinister atmosphere and eerie specifics have earned it a place among England’s most famous vampire legends.

The Account That Sparked the Legend

The legend was first widely shared by Augustus Hare in his 1896 book The Story of My Life, his autobiography. The story was related by a certain Captain Fisher. The Fisher family were long-time residents of the region, and presented it as a genuine family incident that took place in Cumberland around 14 miles south east of Carlisle and not far from the Scottish border. After moving down to Surrey, the Fishers had let the Grange out.

The Night the Vampire Came

According to Hare’s account, in the early 19th century, a brother and sister — Amelia, Edward, and Michael Cranswell — rented a remote country house known as Croglin Grange between 1875 and 1876. The house was charming but isolated, surrounded by open fields and ancient churchyards. Though Hare doesn’t name them in his story, later sources give their surname as Cranswell. And while Hare doesn’t give a date, it’s been assumed they occupied the house at some point in the 1870s, as this was when the Fishers moved out.

Read More: Check out The Vampire of Croglin Grange by Augustus Hare to read it as it was published for the entire story.. 

One particularly hot summer’s evening, the siblings retired to bed, leaving their windows open to the night air. As darkness settled, Amelia Cranswell lay in bed beneath the glow of a full moon when she noticed a pair of glittering eyes peering through her window. It was described as having a brown face and flaming eyes. Transfixed with horror, she watched as a thin, shriveled figure with unnaturally long fingers crept closer.

The creature deftly unlatched the window, slipped inside, and lunged at Amelia, biting into her neck and drawing blood. Paralyzed with terror, she managed to let out a blood-curdling scream as the creature fed. Her cries summoned Edward and Michael, who burst into the room and chased the attacker away — though not before seeing it flee toward the churchyard.

A Grim Pursuit

The next morning, the brothers searched the grounds but found no trace of the intruder. Fearing for their sister’s life, they insisted she travel to recover elsewhere and they went to Switzerland. Several months later, Amelia returned, and despite lingering fears, resumed life at Croglin Grange.

But on another moonlit night, the creature returned — this time, the brothers were ready. Michael and Edward, armed with pistols, pursued the shriveled, man-like figure across the moonlit fields to the old churchyard, where it disappeared into a crypt belonging to a long-dead local family.

The next day, accompanied by local villagers, the brothers opened the vault. Inside, they found a mummified, grotesque corpse — remarkably intact — with fresh blood on its lips. The body was swiftly burned or, in some versions, a stake was driven through its heart before it was incinerated, bringing an end to the terror that had plagued Croglin Grange.

Fact, Fiction, or Folklore?

Skeptics have long debated the historical accuracy of the Croglin Vampire story. Some argue it’s a Victorian gothic fiction piece cleverly presented as oral history. Others point out that while Croglin is a real place, no definitive records corroborate the events described by Augustus Hare.

The story was revisited in 1919 when Montague Summers republished it together with Varney the Vampire, saying it should be dismissed as folklore. He found no evidence that Croglin Grange ever existed. Most likely it was based on Croglin Low Hall even though there was no nearby chapel. 

Folklorists suggest that the tale fits within a wider tradition of revenant lore in northern England and Scotland — stories of the dead returning from their graves to drink the blood of the living, particularly during plague years. The creature’s withered, ancient appearance also aligns more with old European vampire myths than the suave, aristocratic blood-drinkers popularized by later gothic fiction.

Francis Clive-Ross gave some more insight in a 1963 article for the journal Tomorrow, Clive-Ross stated he’d discovered information that might lend some truth at least to the setting of Fisher’s tale. Clive-Ross found out that Croglin Low Hall had actually been known as Croglin Grange until the beginning of the 18th century and that it really used to be a chapel nearby. Croglin residents, however, told him that the incident hadn’t occurred in the 1870s, but rather way back in the 1680s.

As it turned out, the Fisher’s had actually been tenants back then, and it was the Towry family owning it and that the story most likely came from them. Some linked the bat-like creature from a local story of the grave of a local priest. Some speculate that what the woman actually saw was an owl, or perhaps an escaped monkey from the circus. Some even suggest that it is a story about the trauma from the Civil War, everything to not recognize the possibility of a vampiric creature stalking the locals. 

Even so, there is a window at Croglin Low Hall that is believed to be the window the vampire showed himself. It is now bricked up and festooned with a lucky horseshoe. As a protection, just in case. 

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Croglin Grange – Wikipedia

The Vampire of Croglin Grange – a Genuine & Ancient British Bloodsucker? – David Castleton Blog – The Serpent’s Pen

Ukategorisert

Jacques St. Germain: New Orleans’ Immortal Vampire Aristocrat

8 Comments
Advertisements

After jumping from a balcony in New Orleans, a woman claimed the host had tried to bite her. After searching his house, police found blood and bloodstained clothes from every time period. Who was this Jacques St. Germain, dubbed the Vampire of New Orleans? And what was the connection to a mysterious immortal aristocrat from Europe?

In a city overflowing with ghost stories, grisly murders, and old-world superstition, few legends endure like that of Jacques St. Germain, the mysterious 20th-century aristocrat believed by some to be an immortal vampire stalking the streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Read More: Check out all haunted stories from USA

His story intertwines with the rich, eerie folklore of the city — a place where fact and legend blur in the mist rising from ancient cobblestones. But before he became the legendary vampire of New Orleans, he was the immortal aristocrat of Europe who dined with kings and queens and watched empires rise and fall. 

French Quarter: A view of historic buildings in New Orleans, reminiscent of the eerie tales surrounding Jacques St. Germain, the city’s legendary vampire and the French Quarter where it is said he roams.

A Familiar, Yet Ageless Name of the Count of St. Germain

To understand how the vampire legend took root, we have to backtrack to the old country who the New Orleans vampire was thought to be. The origins of Jacques St. Germain’s legend trace back to an 18th-century European figure, The Count of St. Germain, a nobleman, alchemist, and alleged immortal who appeared in courts across Europe for decades without ever seeming to age. 

He really was a real man at the European royal courts, but his life and identity was a mystery, even to his peers. He ate at the dinner with kings and queens, philosophers like Voltaire, musicians like Mozart and historians like Casanova. Known for his dazzling charisma, impossible wealth, and claims of ancient wisdom, the Count of St. Germain vanished from records in the late 1700s — though some say he never died.

Count of St. Germain: This mysterious person is largely thought to be a prince of Transylvania, hiding his identity for political protection all his life. Although many speculations have been made, he still remains a mystery.

His background seems shrouded in mystery as well. He was born maybe in 1691 or in the early 1700s. Perhaps by then, he was already centuries old by then. He was perhaps from Spain, Italy or Poland, and his real name is not known as St. Germain’s refusal to give his true name, except maybe to the King of France, Louis the XV as he kept him close at his court. He knew many languages, was a skilled musician, chemist and alchemist. So much so that some believed that he had found the way to an immortal life. 

The renowned historian Giacomo Girolamo Casanova wrote of St. Germain in his memoir: “This extraordinary man, intended by nature to be the king of impostors and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds, professing himself capable of forming, out of ten or twelve small diamonds, one large one of the finest water without any loss of weight. All this, he said, was a mere trifle to him. Notwithstanding his boastings, his bare-faced lies, and his manifold eccentricities, I cannot say I thought him offensive. In spite of my knowledge of what he was and in spite of my own feelings, I thought him an astonishing man as he was always astonishing me.”

At the Royal Court: The Count of St. Germain knew a lot of the inner circle at the royal court in France. Here, pictured a reading of Voltaire’s L’Orphelin de la Chine (a tragedy about Ghengis Khan and his sons, published in 1755), in the salon of Madame Geoffrin

Already then he claimed to be centuries old and sold women liquids that supposedly would make them younger and stop the aging process. He would not be seen eating anything, but only drinking this mysterious tea. He claimed to have had conversations with Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and been present at countless historical milestones like the council of Nicea and the wedding in Cana when he turned water into wine. He was also rumored to be involved in helping Catherine the Great seize the throne, being employed by the French King although speculations about him being a spy were ever present. 

The Transylvanian Prince Theory: Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II (1676–1735) was a Hungarian nobleman who played a significant role for independence from Habsburg rule. Despite his efforts, the uprising ultimately failed, leading Rákóczi into exile in France. Some speculate that Count of st. Germain was one of his sons with a hidden identity for his protection.

At a party at the manor of Madame de Pompadour, who was the mistress of the king of France in 1760, Countess von Gregory approached him. She thought he was the son of a man she had known in 1710, but discovered that it was the same man, and he hadn’t aged a bit. A French ambassador from Venice called Rameau testified that he had known St. Germain in 1710 and that he had still looked like a man in his fifties.

In a letter from Horace Walpole, the 4th Earl of Oxford, he describes Comte St. Germain with: “An odd man, who goes by the name of Comte St. Germain. He had been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name.  He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople, a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain.”

In 1779 he moved to Germany and spent time with Prince Karl of Hesse-Kassel. He said he was 88 years old and the son of Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania, who had lost his throne. Some have claimed him to be his youngest son born in Bohemia and that his parents were Prince Franz-Leopold Ragoczy, of Transylvania and Princess Charlotte Amalia of Hesse-Wahnfried.  Then he was placed as an infant under the care of the last Medici family, Gian Gastone. 

According to records, he died February 27 in 1784, but there were sightings of him long before he reached New Orleans. But did he really die? According to more than one source, he kept appearing throughout different times, never aging at all. 

The Active Afterlife of the Count of St. Germain

Some would even venture that Comte de St. Germain was not his first life, and that he had been alive long before the 1700s, perhaps even since the time of Christ. Historian and philosopher Voltair allegedly said about him: “He is a man who knows everything and who never dies.”

In 1785 he was known to reside in Germany, befriending Anton Mesmer, the pioneer hypnotist and it was said that he had given Mesmer the ideas of it. He was also chosen as the Freemasonry representative for the annual 1785 convention. in their own records.

He went back to France after the taking of Bastille and was a counsel to Comtesse d’Adhémar who last saw him in 1822, not looking a day older. She wrote in 1821: “I have seen Saint-Germain again, each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen [Antoinette] was murdered, on the 18th of Brumaire, on the day following the death of the Duke d’Enghien, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry.”

Storming of Bastille: According to some records, Count st. Germaine appeared and told about the danger of the oncoming revolution.

Then he took on a new identity and Albert Vandam wrote: “He called himself Major Fraser, lived alone and never alluded to his family. Moreover he was lavish with money, though the source of his fortune remained a mystery to everyone. He possessed a marvelous knowledge of all the countries in Europe at all periods. His memory was absolutely incredible and, curiously enough, he often gave his hearers to understand that he had acquired his learning elsewhere than from books. Many is the time he has told me, with a strange smile, that he was certain he had known Nero, had spoken with Dante, and so on.”

The Vampire Reaches New Orleans

So how did this European aristocrat end up in New Orleans centuries later? According to the legend, by boat. In 1902, a man bearing the same name arrived in New Orleans. Like his supposed predecessor, Jacques St. Germain was described as charming, urbane, impossibly wealthy, and oddly ageless. He threw extravagant parties at his home on Royal Street, where guests marveled at the fine wines and exotic art — though curiously, no one ever saw him eat.

Jacques St. Germain knew many languages and captivated his audience with tales from hundreds of years ago, strangely with so much detail, you would almost believe he was there. 

The Terrifying Incident on Royal Street

It was said Jacques St. Germain was only observed drinking what appeared to be red wine. He claimed to be a descendant of the Comte and people pointed out the physical resemblance from portraits. Some started to wonder if it could be him. He was said to be a charming womanizer, often venturing out to the French Quarter to meet young women. 

The legend took a sinister turn when a young woman, invited to his home one evening, fled the house in terror. Some say that she jumped out from the second-story of his house. She was either a prostitute or one of the guests at one of his lavish parties he had invited to his balcony. 

Royal Street: The iconic mall building on Royal Street in New Orleans, the street where Jacques St. Germain, the vampire of New Orleans are said to have lived. // Source: Falkue/

According to police reports, she claimed that Jacques St. Germain had tried to bite her neck to draw blood. She escaped by leaping from a second-story window and running to the authorities, battered and terrified.

When police arrived at the house, St. Germain was nowhere to be found. What they did discover was deeply disturbing: bloodstains everywhere and all of his belongings gone. There were wine bottles filled not with wine, but with human blood. The incident sent ripples through the community, and though a warrant was issued for his arrest, Jacques St. Germain was never seen again. Or… perhaps he was. 

A Haunting Presence in New Orleans Lore

Since his disappearance, stories of a pale, well-dressed gentleman seen walking the French Quarter at night have persisted. There are reports about him up until the 1970s. Richard Chanfray was the man who claimed to be the Count in the 1970s.

During the 1970s, Chanfray began appearing on television, claiming to be the count and supposedly demonstrating the ability to transmute boring old lead into gold in front of an audience. However, Chanfray later died by suicide in 1983.

New Orleans: 1039-1041 Royal St. where it is said that Jacques St. Germain lived.

Witnesses describe a tall figure in old-fashioned clothing, speaking in a strange, antiquated accent, vanishing into alleyways or slipping into buildings long abandoned.

Some local historians and paranormal enthusiasts believe Jacques St. Germain to be one and the same as the immortal Count of St. Germain, relocating from Europe to America in search of fresh hunting grounds. Others remain sceptical, as there are no police reports found from the incident, and not a trace of him ever having lived on Royal Street.

Today, his supposed Royal Street residence still stands, a stop on many New Orleans ghost tours, with guides recounting the legend of the vampire aristocrat whose thirst for blood was hidden behind a facade of sophistication and charm. One of the second floor windows is bricked up, said to be the one the woman jumped from. 

Whether an immortal alchemist, an old-world vampire, or simply a creation of New Orleans’ love for the macabre, Jacques St. Germain remains one of the city’s most enduringly eerie legends. If you find yourself walking Royal Street on a misty evening, keep an eye out for the elegant stranger with a pale complexion and ageless face — and if he offers you a drink, you might want to politely decline.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Jacques St. Germain, The Infamous Louisiana Vampire

Jacques St. Germain, Vampire of the French Quarter – Locations of Lore

A closer look at Jacques de St. Germain | Author Lyn Gibson 

The Bizarre True Story Of The Count Of Saint Germain – Grunge

Walpole, Horace. Letters of Horace Walpole. Vol. 1. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890:Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume I by Horace Walpole | Project Gutenberg.
Jacques St. Germain, Vampire of the French Quarter – Locations of Lore

Ukategorisert

The Rhode Island Vampire and the Legend of Sarah Tillinghast

7 Comments
Advertisements

After the death of Sarah Tillinghast, the family started complaining about her coming back for them at night, draining the life out of them. The family members fall dead to consumption and thinking that Sarah was a vampire, they dug her up and burned her heart. 

In the shadowy folklore of New England, where fog drifts through ancient graveyards and legends cling to weathered headstones like ivy, few tales unsettle quite like the vampire panics of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from USA

While the name Mercy Brown often takes center stage in these grim histories, she was far from the region’s first alleged vampire. Nearly a century before Mercy’s exhumation in Exeter, another tragedy gripped a Rhode Island farming family — that of Sarah Tillinghast, a young woman whose death and eerie posthumous reputation would earn her a ghostly place in America’s darkest folklore.

Exeter, Rhode Island in the 1700s

In the late 18th century, Exeter, Rhode Island was a small, isolated farming village, nestled in the wooded hills and fertile valleys of southern New England. Like much of colonial America, Exeter’s people lived in fear of both earthly and supernatural forces. Disease was an ever-present specter; outbreaks of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, were especially dreaded.

Tuberculosis was a wasting disease — one that slowly robbed its victims of their strength, appetite, and vitality. Without the medical knowledge we possess today, it seemed to New Englanders of the period that the illness spread like a curse through families. And in a world shaped by superstition, when science failed, folklore filled the void.

The Death of Sarah Tillinghast

The story of Sarah Tillinghast is shrouded in between fact, folklore and local legends. Her person has also been romanticised, but truth is, we don’t know a whole lot about who she was when she lived. 

According to local lore, Sarah Tillinghast was a young woman that a source described as quiet, pious, and beloved by her family. Her description in the first written source was a comely elder daughter. How she really was like though has largely been lost to time, and now she is mostly remembered as one of the first vampires of New England. 

Her father, Stukely was a prosperous farmer in the small Exeter community, living with his wife, Honor and their fourteen or twelve children. Often Sarah is said to be the eldest daughter, but she had at least five older siblings. Her father was called Snuffy Stuke because of the brown jacket he wore and made his living by selling apples from his orchard. In 1799 towards harvest season however, everything changed. It was said that Stukely had a dream where half of his apple trees in the orchard died. When he woke up, he believed it to be an ominous warning. Some sources claim that his daughter Sarah called out for him in his dream as well. 

His daughter, Sarah returned home, feeling uneasy. Some embellishments of the legend claim that Sarah also had an uneasy feeling and confessed to her father that she had an ominous sense of death looming over their family. A strange claim, but not long after, Sarah herself fell ill.

She was stricken by consumption, a wasting sickness that sapped her strength and left her a ghostly wisp of her former self. Some think that she had the galloping kind, where it can be latent in your body for years before consuming the sick fast when it breaks out. Despite her family’s care, Sarah died — and, as the legend says, death didn’t end her role in the family’s misery. She was only 21 or perhaps as young as 19. 

In the weeks that followed Sarah’s burial, Sarah’s sister began to feel sick. It’s not said which sister, and some sources say that it could even be her brother James, only nine years old. The family lot where they are all buried are missing some tombstones, and it’s difficult to say the exact sibling. But fact was, the disease was spreading. 

According to the story, it wasn’t just the disease that terrified her — it was the whispered stories from the sickbeds. She claimed she awoke in the night to find Sarah’s ghostly figure standing by their bedsides, her cold gaze fixed upon them, her presence heavy and suffocating. She said her dead sister caused her pain as she sat on her body. As quickly as Sarah did, she died, and four more of Stukely’s children followed suit.

New England’s Vampire Superstitions

It’s important to remember that during this period, the vampire in New England folklore was not the same creature popularized by Bram Stoker or Hollywood. Instead, these were restless corpses or spirits that drained vitality from the living, usually from within their own families.

The typical signs that one of the dead was to blame included multiple deaths in a family from consumption, reports of the deceased visiting the sick, and tales of disturbing, half-preserved corpses found during exhumation. The solution? A gruesome ritual: exhume the suspected corpse, check for signs of unnatural preservation (fresh blood, ruddy cheeks, or a heart full of blood), and burn the heart or other organs believed to be causing the harm.

Cases like this were shockingly common throughout 18th- and 19th-century New England, particularly in rural communities where tuberculosis outbreaks were frequent and poorly understood.

The Exhumation of Sarah Tillinghast

Faced with death after death, and driven to desperation, Stukely Tillinghast turned to his neighbors for counsel. Together, they arrived at a grim decision: Sarah’s grave must be opened. They went to the cemetery and dug up all six children, just to make sure.

Everyone of the coffins had what they deemed normal, a decomposing and dead corpse, except for Sarah. When they exhumed her body, legend holds that it appeared unnervingly lifelike. Her eyes were open, her hair and fingernails had grown. Some versions claim her cheeks were still flushed and that a small amount of fresh blood lay at the corner of her mouth — classic folkloric signs of a vampire. Whether this detail was added by later tellers of the tale or was a genuine observation from the exhumation remains lost to history.

This was for the small farming community, proof that she was a vampire and that Sarah was to blame for the deaths in the family. To stop the deaths and end Sarah’s malevolent influence, her heart was removed and burned — the standard ritual believed to sever the undead’s grip on the living. The ashes of the heart may have been buried or scattered, though records (such as they are) do not agree on this point.

According to some versions of the story, the deaths in the Tillinghast family ceased after the ritual. Other versions suggest a few more family members succumbed before the outbreak burned itself out, as diseases often do.

Regardless, the tale of Sarah Tillinghast became etched into Rhode Island’s oral history, predating the far more famous Mercy Brown case by over a century. Both stories showcase how deeply fear and folklore entwined themselves with the harsh realities of life and death in early America.

Historical Truth or Folkloric Fiction?

Unlike the well-documented Mercy Brown incident in 1892, the case of Sarah Tillinghast is murkier. No contemporary records — such as town documents or church logs — confirm her death, exhumation, or family history. Her story has been passed down primarily through oral tradition and local legend, and most written versions appeared in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Folklorists, including Michael E. Bell, author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires, have noted how many of these vampire panic cases share similar narrative patterns: multiple family deaths, reports of supernatural visitations, an exhumation, and a grim ritual of heart-burning. Sarah Tillinghast’s legend fits neatly into this mold, whether or not the specifics are historically accurate.

And if he didn’t find the article written in 1888 by Sidney Rider, the story might have been lost. 

The Forgotten Grave: Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Exter #14 in Stutley Tillinghast Lot, there are a lot of unmarked graves forgotten by time. One of them is probably Sarah Tillinghast’s.

A Forgotten Haunting

Today, Sarah Tillinghast is an obscure figure, overshadowed by more famous “vampires” like Mercy Brown. But her tale remains one of the earliest and most unsettling examples of America’s vampire folklore — a testament to how communities, gripped by grief and terror, can turn on the dead themselves in a desperate attempt to survive.

She is put to rest in the small and overgrown Rhode Island Historical Cemetery, Exeter 14, containing only 25 burials on a mossy hill. Beneath an unmarked grave of weathered stones and wind-swept grass, echoes of these old fears linger. And while the name Sarah Tillinghast may have faded from history books, her spectral legend still haunts New England’s darker corners — a chilling reminder that when science fails and death comes calling, superstition is never far behind.

So if you ever find yourself walking past an ancient graveyard in Exeter as dusk falls, listen carefully. They say some restless souls never quite stay buried.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

The Vampire Case of Sarah Tillinghast – Online Review of Rhode Island History

https://rihistoriccemeteries.org/newsearchcemeterydetail.aspx?ceme_no=EX014

https://eu.newportri.com/story/entertainment/theater/2013/10/23/hope-gory/12775893007

https://books.google.no/books?id=aTw8AQAAMAAJ&pg=PP9&hl=no&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=snippet&q=vampire&f=false

RHODE ISLAND’S FIRST VAMPIRE? Sidney S. Rider (1833-1917) and the Story of Sarah #3 – vampiresgrasp.com – Powered by Doteasy.com

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2288060/memorial-search?firstName=&lastName=Tillinghast&includeMaidenName=true&page=1#sr-32561577

Sarah Tillinghast (1777-1799) – Find a Grave Memorial

Ukategorisert

The Hunderprest: The Vampire Monk of Melrose Abbey

3 Comments
Advertisements

A devious and unholy monk called The Hunderprest, was said to haunt the countryside on the Scottish border as well as Melrose Abbey. Was this specter really a bloodsucking vampire?

In the Scottish Borders, the ruins of Melrose Abbey have stood since the 12th century as a brooding, atmospheric relic of medieval piety and power. Melrose is a seemingly picture perfect place, drawing people in as the best salmon and trout fishing in the country. 

The Melrose Abbey is on the north east side of the town center and some of the more iconic buildings from the area. Behind its beautiful Gothic arches and solemn grave markers lies a dark legend: the tale of the Hunderprest, or the dog priest, a vampiric monk whose foul deeds and undead existence chilled even the most devout.

The Mysterious and Magical Melrose Abbey

The Abbey was founded by a colony of Cisterian monks in 1136 by the River Tweed. Once, it was said a miracle happened here, when the corn in their cellar multiplied in the time of a great famine, and the monks could feed them all. This and more miracles were said to have been performed by Abbot Waltheof, the stepson to King David I of Scotland. 

Through its time of operation it was one of the wealthiest monasteries in Scotland, but through all the years of war on the Scottish border it was badly damaged by the English in 1385 and rebuilt in the late 14th century. 

Melrose Abbey: A view of the interior of the ruined Melrose Abbey, Scotland. Heath’s Picturesque Annual 1835 by Roger Griffith

Today it’s a museum, although a big part of it is now lichen-covered ruins. In the Chapter House there is a burial casket of a heart, thought to belong to King Robert I, also called, The Bruce. In 1812, an old stone coffin was found close to the altar, thought to be the final resting place of Michael Scot, the mysterious Scottish wizard from the 13th century, said to have changed the River Tweed with his staff and turned the single peak of the Eildon Hills to the three we see today.

But not all miracles were as magical as these wonderful things. Some say that the magic happening around the cloister was also the work of evil, perhaps even a bloodsucking vampire. 

The Hunderprest of Melrose Abbey

According to medieval chronicles, the Hunderprest was a monk of Melrose Abbey during the 12th or 13th century. The Cistercian monks who lived and worshipped there had built the Abbey, the first Cistercian Abbey in the country, at the behest of King David I. They were famous for their Melrose wool they sold to the rest of Europe. 

Though little is known about his mortal life, legend says he was a man of great vice and depravity, a predator hidden behind a habit, whose sins were so grave that even in death, the earth rejected him.

Melrose Abbey in 1800, when part of the abbey was still in use as the parish church

Exactly what his sins were is not explicitly said always, but he was often claimed to have been a womaniser and drunkard, bringing shame upon his order. The region was a place of unlawfulness though, being controlled by independent clans called The Border Reivers that often clashed together in violence. It was both a time and place of ruthless lawlessness. 

Some say that in life, he used to be a chaplain to a lady who lived nearby. He was given the name Hundeprest as his favorite thing to do was hunting on horseback as a pack of howling hounds followed him. 

Howling Hounds: Often in William Newburghs tales of the undead, there is a pack of dogs following as the dog motif has been connected with death for ages in European mythology. The black dog is a supernatural, spectral, or demonic hellhound. It is usually unnaturally large with glowing red or yellow eyes, is often connected with the Devil, and is sometimes an omen of death.

Some accounts claim he practiced the black arts in secret, while others allege unspeakable acts committed under the guise of spiritual authority. The locals whispered of his unnatural appetites and sinister nature — rumors that seemed confirmed after his passing.

The Undead Haunting of the Abbey

Because of his sins in life, there was no way he was getting into heaven, and his soul could not find any peace. Livestock were found drained of blood, villagers claimed to see a shadowy figure lurking near graves, and monks reported being stalked by a ghastly presence within the cloisters at night.

He tried to enter the Abbey in the night in the form of a winged bat, only driven away after vigorous prayer and rituals from the monks. Because he was unable to cross the threshold to the holy ground, he needed another place to torment.

He found the cottage to a woman who he had known when he was alive. Said to be the woman he had been the chaplain for in life. She was also rumored to have been his lover. Her neighbors reported that a vampire roamed around her house, moaning and screeching at her, scaring her. Every night he returned to torment and terrorize, lusting after her blood. Because of this, they decided to summon an elder monk from the abbey for an exorcism. 

The Exorcism of a Vampire

Determined to put an end to the terror, the abbot of Melrose called upon the services of a particularly devout and courageous monk, often believed to be William of Newburgh, a respected chronicler of supernatural events. He ended up writing about a lot of monsters and ghosts in the middle ages. 

William of Newburgh: Many of the tales about the British vampires comes from the 12th century historian, William of Newburgh. William’s major work was Historia rerum Anglicarum or Historia de rebus anglicis (“History of English Affairs”), a history of England from 1066 to 1198, written in Latin. It is written in an engaging fashion and still readable to this day, containing many fascinating stories and glimpses into 12th-century life. He is a major source for stories of medieval revenants, animated corpses that returned from their graves, with close parallels to vampire beliefs.

According to the old accounts, a group of monks were put to task and went to the grave of the priest to investigate. As the day waned, the priest appeared like he was levitating out of his grave. They managed to shove the vampire back with a staff. Sometimes this is changed to a mighty axe the monks swung at him. The earth swallowed the Hunderprest like nothing had happened, the ground undisturbed again. This is when the elder monk knew they were dealing with a vampire and knew what to do. 

They waited for daylight and dug up his grave again. They exhumed the Hunderprest’s corpse and what they found only deepened their horror: though dead for some time, the monk’s body was fresh, his face ruddy, with blood at his lips curled up to a grin, classic signs of the undead in medieval folklore.

It was also said it was through praying and fasting that they managed to defeat him. How they killed the vampire, although not named as such in the early sources, varies. Did they stake him through the heart? Probably not, but they do mention setting him on fire and burning him to ashes as most of the stories of the undead mentions. The legend of the stake came later. 

Revenant: The term vampire or the undead was not used in medieval time, but several of the stories about the Revenant, Sanguisa or the bloodsuckers of folklore bear resemblance to what the modern world would classify as a vampire legend. In folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living and was in medieval times used interchangeably with ghosts. They come from various cultures like the Celtic and Norse, some reminding more about a classic ghost story, some more of a vampire legend. Although today a mixed version of the western and eastern European mythologies of the undead.

After they burned him to ash, they took him to Lammermuir Hills where the wind carried him to the north along the borders. 

To this day, visitors to the hauntingly beautiful ruins of Melrose Abbey claim to feel a chilling presence lingering among the weathered stones. Some report seeing a shadow moving through the broken cloisters at night, or hearing faint whispers in the darkened archways.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Legend of the “Hunderprest” Vampire of Melrose Abbey

Airhouses – News – The Incredible Legends of Melrose Abbey

The Hunderprest: The Vampire Monk of Melrose.

Ukategorisert

Jure Grando: The First Named Vampire in European History

2 Comments
Advertisements

Who was the first vampire in history? There are many legends claiming to be the first. And one of them is said to be the Croatian Jure Grando, who terrorized his village for over a decade before they took measures to vanquish this štrigon. 

In the dimly lit annals of European folklore, few figures loom as ominous as Jure Grando, a 17th-century peasant from the small Istrian village of Kringa — in what is today Croatia. His story, still whispered in the shadowy streets of Kringa, marks one of the earliest and most documented accounts of vampirism in European history.

Jure Grando’s name is forever bound to the ancient Slavic concept of the štrigon — a revenant, or vampire, who rises from the grave to torment the living. And his tale is a particularly chilling one. The tale of Jure Grando is notably recorded by Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, a 17th-century Slovenian historian, in his 1689 work The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. Valvasor’s account lends the story a degree of historical credibility, as he was a reputable chronicler of the customs, folklore, and strange happenings of the region.

Istria: Istria is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea, shared by three countries: Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. 90% of its area is part of Croatia. The wealthier coastal towns cultivated increasingly strong economic relationships with Venice and by 1348 were eventually incorporated into its territory, while their inland counterparts fell under the sway of the weaker Patriarchate of Aquileia, which became part of the Habsburg Empire in 1374.

The Death and Unholy Return of Jure Grando

According to local legend, Jure Grando Alilović, born in 1579, was a stonemason who lived in Kringa together with his wife and two daughters according to town records named Ana and Nicola. Not much is known about his life, some say he was just an ordinary man doing his best, some say that he was an awful character. Some say that to become a strigoi, you were actually dabbling in dark arts and feeding on the blood of children when alive. 

Kringa from Valvasor’s book were Jure Grando lived.

 Some say that he was actually a good man and more of a tragic figure. He was in love with Ivana, or Rose in some variations, and was planning to marry her in a time where the “jus primae noctis” rule was in place. This was a law and custom where the lord of the land has the right to have the first night with the bride, and all the maritals “duties” that entailed. Jure opposed this, defying the monks of St. Paulines who controlled Kringa. 

The monks feared others would follow suit by his example, and got the leader of the town, Miho Radetić to kill him. Although he hit him with a hammer, it only knocked him unconscious. People thought he was dead and buried him. When he woke up, he started shouting for help. To cover their tracks they claimed he was a vampire and killed him, properly this time. 

It’s a fanciful story, perhaps not true at all. He did however die in 1656 and it could even have been natural causes as he was getting quite old by some of the sources. But unlike other villagers, his death did not mark the end of his story. 

For 16 years after his burial, it is said that Grando would rise from his grave at night, prowling the narrow paths of Kringa. He would walk and sometimes he stopped in front of doors, knocking on it, waiting for those inside. It was believed that if he knocked on your door, someone would die in the house in the following days. 

Villagers reported seeing his pale, grinning face in their windows. They started to call him a štrigon, a variant of the Slavic myth of a blood sucking entity closely knit with the vampire lore. With its close ties to Venetian word strìga, meaning witch. The case of Jure Grando was one of the first real people described as such.

He would even come back to haunt his widow, Ivana. With a grotesque smile permanently fixed on his face he was standing outside looking in. According to what she told the authorities, he also climbed inside. Sometimes, he would even attack and rape her.

The hauntings became so unbearable that the villagers, driven to the brink of hysteria, sought help from the local priest, Father Giorgio. Some say that Father Georgio was actually one of the monks of the order and had his own encounter with the vampire.  

Juro had appeared before Father Giorgio when he held a mass at his graveside. Some say that he was actually hunting down the vampire to put a stop to his terror. He had panicked and put a crucifix in Jure’s face and shouted at him to stop terrorizing the villagers. It seemed to work and Jure turned and ran back to the graveyard. County Prefect Miho Radetić was also there and tried to stake him with a hawthorne, but it simply bounced off his chest. A much more heroic character in the other version of Juro’s death. 

Gathering a group of nine brave men, armed with tools, stakes, and crosses, the villagers including County Prefect Miho Radetić and Father Giorgio, marched to Grando’s grave under cover of darkness in 1672.

The Vampire Hunt

Upon opening his tomb, the men reportedly found Grando’s body unnaturally preserved — his face serene and blushed, with a sinister smile upon his lips. Shocked and terrified, the priest attempted to banish the evil with holy water and prayers, but it had no effect.

The villagers then attempted to pierce his heart with a wooden stake, but even this effort reportedly failed until one man present in the vampire hunt, Stipan Milašić, decapitated the corpse with a saw or an axe. A horrible howl came from the grave and the vampire reportedly started thrashing and twitching in its grave before being vanquished. 

It is said that peace was restored, but the world was rattled. His children fled the city their father had terrorized for years and went to Italy according to some sources. 

How True is the Story of Jure Grando?

Now, how true was this story actually? By all accounts, Juro Grande has been treated as an actual person. And although there are in depth details, names, dates and the legend is very well known, there are still a lack of primary sources. 

About the other legend of him being a victim of the monk order trying to uphold the law of a jus primae noctis, there is still something that seems to be rooted in a fanciful story than an actual account as well.

By monk order, this probably means The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, commonly called the Paulines or Pauline Fathers, a monastic order of the Catholic Church founded in Hungary in the 13th century and held much power in Istria. How much they controlled the Kringa area and had anything to say in a law of “jus primae noctis” is dubious. But it is true they were a powerful order throughout Europe, especially in Istria. 

The claim of  “jus primae noctis” being a law was certainly a popular tale and perhaps to an extent a tradition throughout the world. But, scholars don’t think it was as widespread or lawfully right as the myths and anecdotal stories about it were. With that said, who really does now, it is perhaps more easy to believe than in a vampire legend?

Legacy in Kringa and Beyond

Today, the village of Kringa openly embraces its morbid history. It’s a small place with around 300 people living there today. In this typical Istrian village, consisting of a church, stone houses, ancient Roman dry-stone walls. Today, it is believed that his grave is located under a stone path behind the church, near the current cemetery in Kringa and that the church has more information that they are willing to share. 

Kringa: Source/Petr Štefek

Visitors can find bars and shops playing upon the vampire theme, and tales of Jure Grando’s nocturnal wanderings continue to fascinate those drawn to Europe’s darker legends.

Some say that the story of Jure Grando could have contributed in inspiring John William Polidori to create the vampire archetype in his story „The Vampire“. Even if it wasn’t a true story, it certainly seems like it inspired real people. 

Some still claim that it really was a true account, and he might have been one of the first true vampire accounts we have. And in the quiet cemeteries of Istria, some still claim that when the wind howls just right, you can hear the knock of a long-dead hand upon your door.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Vampire of Kringa – Secret Dalmatia Blog – Travel Experiences in Croatia

Jure Grando

Croatian ‘Dracula’ revived to lure tourists – The Mail & Guardian

Strigoi – Wikipedia

Ukategorisert

The Curious Case of Annie Dennett and the Vampiric Vines

3 Comments
Advertisements

Growing out of coffins and decaying corpses, vines was a local superstition that marked a vampire grave of those who had died of consumption. This was the case of young Annie Dennett, who was thought to feed on her ailing father. 

In the shadowy folds of early 19th-century New England, where superstition clung stubbornly to the edges of even the most respectable communities, tales of vampires didn’t always come cloaked in foreign mystery. Sometimes, they arrive on your neighbor’s doorstep. Or in the family crypt. Or — as in the case of poor Annie Dennett — in the quiet graveyards of rural New Hampshire.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from USA

While names like Mercy Brown have gained infamy for their role in America’s vampire panic, Annie Dennett’s story is a more obscure, though no less fascinating, chapter of this eerie history. For many years, the Reverend who wrote it down, called her Janey Dennit and she was for a while, quite a mystery. And what makes it particularly noteworthy is the presence of a well-respected minister who not only witnessed her exhumation but left behind a haunting record of the event.

New Hampshire: Deep lakes, dark forests. The New England countryside used to be ripe with superstition and panic. Just a century after the witch panic in Salem, a fear for vampires took hold over the locals.

Consumption, Fear, and Desperation

Annies family had been in New England for generations when her ancestors settled in New Hampshire in the mid 1600s. Through their trade as blacksmith, their family was at one point one of the richest in Portsmouth. 

She grew up in a house filled with siblings as her parents had eight children, on the high ground in the woods. Her father, Moses, wanted to make his own way and had moved from Portsmouth to Barnstead, working as a tailor. 

Like many young people of her time, Annie Dennett succumbed to tuberculosis — the dreaded “consumption” — at just 21 years old in 1807. Tuberculosis was not merely a disease back then; it was an enigma that hollowed out families and devastated entire communities, slowly claiming its victims with a wasting grip that no one could seem to stop.

Faced with its horrors, it’s no wonder that desperate families sometimes turned to folklore for answers. The prevailing belief, particularly in rural parts of New England, held that a deceased relative could, through some malevolent post-mortem influence, drain the life from the living. Rumors started to go around that she could be one of the undead. That night, she rose from her grave and returned to her family to feed on them. This was something that they believed could be the cause of the consumption illness. And when the family started to show symptoms of having it as well, it was also believed that the bodies of the undead held the cure. 

And when medicine failed, spades came out.

The Vampire Hunt in Plain Sight

What makes Annie Dennett’s case especially intriguing is its documentation by a man of the cloth. Enoch Hayes Place, a Freewill Baptist minister from Vermont, happened to be in town when Annie’s family made the grim decision to exhume her body in 1810, three years after Annie was dead and buried.

Her father, Moses Dennett, was gravely ill with tuberculosis, and in the absence of a cure, the family clung to the desperate hope that digging up Annie’s remains might reveal signs of vampiric influence — a heart still full of blood, perhaps, or some unnatural preservation of flesh.

Old Graveyards: A serene graveyard in New Hampshire reflects the eerie history of vampire folklore in early New England.

Enoch Hayes Place attended the exhumation and recorded the scene in his diary. His words capture both the grim spectacle and the uneasy blending of religious authority with old-world superstition:

“They opened the grave and it was a Solemn Sight indeed. A young Brother by the name of Adams examined the mouldy Specticle, but found nothing as they Supposed they Should…. There was but a little left except bones.”

Unlike some of the more infamous exhumations of the era, Annie Dennett’s disinterment was anticlimactic. No blood-filled heart. No unnatural preservation. Just a young woman’s decayed remains, bones already claimed by the earth. It was noted that there were vines growing in the coffin that were discussed in several of the exhumations of the believed vampiric graves.

The Vampiric Vines

One of the tell tale signs of vampirism was a body not decaying and bodily fluids like blood still found in the organs. Another sign of vampirism here was vines growing on the body. 

In 1784, there was a newspaper article from Connecticut about a foreign quack doctor that said that these vines or sprouts growing on the body would also be a cure to burn and consume, often together with other organs. 

This we also see with the case in Willington of two bodies in relation to a Mr. Isaac Johnson. There was also a case in Dummerston, Vermont and upstate New York. 

It was also a superstition that said when a vine was growing from a coffing to the next (most often another family member), another one would die.The only way to break the curse was to break the vine and dig up the body to burn their vitals.  

Exhumation: A group of men performing an exhumation ritual under the moonlight, reflecting early 19th-century beliefs in vampire folklore.

The ritual, meant to save her ailing father, did nothing. He would, like so many others, eventually succumb to tuberculosis.

But the very fact that the ritual occurred, and that it was recorded by a minister, speaks volumes about the cultural grip these beliefs held even in “enlightened” New England. Science and folklore shared uneasy quarters in early America, and when grief met fear, it often leaned toward the old ways.

A Forgotten Chapter in New England’s Vampire Lore

While Mercy Brown’s story would capture international attention decades later, Annie Dennett remains largely forgotten — a footnote in folklore studies, though no less telling. Her story illustrates that these rituals weren’t isolated anomalies but part of a broader, if uneasy, social custom. The fear of consumption and its deadly march through families often blurred the line between superstition and faith.

And perhaps, most chillingly, it shows how even ministers weren’t immune to the lure of old beliefs when confronted with death’s relentless hand.

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Vampires – American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore

http://apps.vampiresgrasp.com/Blog/?d=01/2010

Food for the Dead: On the Trial of New England’s Vampires 2011933367, 9780819571700 – DOKUMEN.PUB

Ukategorisert

The Blood-Soaked Tale of Sava Savanović: Serbia’s Most Famous Vampire

3 Comments
Advertisements

Hiding in the old watermill in the little Serbian village of Zarožje, one of the most famed vampires from the country is said to reside. The legend of Sava Savanović and his reign of terror has frightened Serbians for centuries, and according to local lore, perhaps for centuries more. 

Hidden deep within the rugged hills of western Serbia, in a remote corner of the Valjevo region, lies a forgotten mill, its timbers splintered and its wheel long since stilled. This is no ordinary ruin — it is the alleged lair of Sava Savanović, Serbia’s most notorious vampire, a sinister figure whose legend has cast a shadow over the Balkans for centuries.

While vampires are often associated with Transylvania and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Serbia harbors its own blood-curdling stories that continue to live in local legends, and few are as unsettling as that of Sava Savanović.

The Vampires of Zarožje

The story of Sava Savanović centers around an old watermill near the village of Zarožje, perched beside the cold, fast-flowing Rogačica River on the slopes of the Povlen mountain. Today, there are around 600 people left, and it is growing smaller and more abandoned every year. The village is in the midst of forests and meadows and one of the things they have in abundance is potatoes, raspberries and old watermills. 

Zarožje Village: A view of the serene landscape surrounding Zarožje, Serbia, known for its vampire legends. // Wiki

According to local legend, Sava was a reclusive figure who owned the mill centuries ago in a narrow and dark ravine overgrown with tall beech trees. The villagers whispered that he wasn’t quite human — and they were right.

The village was no stranger to vampire legends before the 18th century. According to one, Saint Sava, in order to save people from terror, turned a local vampire into stone. The vampire was then buried, with only his teeth protruding out of the ground, as a warning to the sinners.

The Legend of Sava Savanović

Then it became the reign of Sava Savanović. Not much is known about his life or exactly when this happened, but at least before the mid 18th century. Some say that he was a successful cattle trader and a brave hajducke. According to one version of the legend, Sava Savanović came from the village of Ovčinja, neighboring Zarožje, where he was buried near the ancient walls. He died in the Zarožje mill where he worked, and as a vampire he returned to his old workplace and strangled his heirs. The legends are many, but they all trace back to this one man who became a monster.

Sava Savanović: Imagery often used to advertise for the local legend.

In most versions of the legend, he was unmarried and lived with his brother. In some versions of the legend, he was caught up in a tragic one sided romance. It is said he grew old an ugly, but fell in love with a much younger girl who rejected him time and time again. 

She is in some versions the daughter of a local merchant in the village. One day she was tending to her sheep or cattle, when he again made his advances and proposed. She declined and turned her back to him, angering him so much he pulled his pistol and shot her dead or strangled her.

His brother Stanko saw it all and they started fighting about his weapon. The gunshot attracted shepherds who saw the two men fighting and the dead girl. When Stanko tried to flee, they shot him in the back, thinking he was a thief. Not all versions of the brother die. When the local villagers realized the whole story, they beat Sava to death with hoes and mattocks. In some versions, he shoots himself when he realizes what he did. 

After his death, it was said that Sava Savanović rose from his grave as a vampire. Some versions claimed he was laid to rest in the local cemetery. Some say that because of his crimes, he was buried close to the scene of the crime and the mill. Some say his grave was in a crooked ravine under an elm tree and after years, was forgotten.

The Undead Butterly Vampire

The look of a vampire was far from how they are portrayed in today’s media. His skin blackened by death, but still moving, more monster than man. By night, he would return to the mill and wait for weary travelers and millers seeking to grind their grain. Those unfortunate enough to venture there alone after dark would never be seen again. Sava would reportedly drain his victims of blood, leaving behind only pale, shriveled corpses, their faces twisted in expressions of terror.

Some stories claimed Sava could transform into mist or a black dog, a common motif in Balkan vampire folklore, and that he possessed superhuman strength and speed. The old watermill earned the grim moniker of “the vampire’s lair.”

The villagers decided they had to take action against his reign of terror that had gone on for years and they started to look for his grave again. Some claim that his grave was found in 1880 or around there as the short stories based on these legends were first published that year. 

When they dug him up, they found his body as he had died. They staked his heart with a hawthorne stake as the ritual demanded. When they staked him, a butterfly flew out from his corpse and the priest was not quick enough to pour holy water in time. The butterfly or moth in Serbian folklore is often thought to be the vampire soul, and if the butterfly escapes, it can possess another person. 

After this, it was the butterfly that plagued the people, suffocating newborns across western Serbia for 30 years. Perhaps it found another host. Some say that the spirit or revenant of the butterfly or Sava Savanović even does to this day. 

Serbia’s Historical Vampire Hysteria

The legend of Sava Savanović didn’t exist in isolation. Serbia was a hotbed of vampire hysteria during the 18th century, with well-documented cases like Arnold Paole and Petar Blagojević. These incidents were taken so seriously that Austrian authorities performed official exhumations and issued written reports on suspected vampires, fueling Europe’s growing fascination with the undead.

Read More: Check out more about the vampire cases of Petar Blagojević and Arnold Paole

It’s interesting that we don’t really know if the legend of Paole and Blagojević or Savanović came first. But for Serbians, Savanović is certainly the most well known and considered Serbian’s first vampire where a lot of popular culture is based on the legend. As the story of Paole and Blagojević became known through Austrian reports in German, and is therefore much more known in the west. 

The Jagodići’s Watermill’s Real-Life Legacy

Milovan Glišić: (1847–1908) was a Serbian writer.

The infamous watermill of Zarožje, believed to be Sava’s lair, stood for centuries as a chilling monument to the legend. This is where he lived or where he snuck in to feed on people sleeping inside.  Located in the Valjevo region, it remained a link to Serbia’s vampiric past 3 kilometers from the Bajina Bašta-Valjevo road. There is a legend that vampires are found around mills in Serbia, especially in Roman myths. This is also the case with the small town of Grocka in Podunavlje in Serbia. 

Sava Savanović’s legend was immortalized in Milorad Pavić’s 1880 novella “After Ninety Years”, widely considered Serbia’s first vampire novel. As he was from the neighboring village, Valjevo, he probably heard this and other vampire stories growing up. 

For the last several decades the watermill associated with Savanović has been owned by the Jagodić family, and is usually called “Jagodića vodenica” (Jagodići’s watermill) and was in operation until the 1950s. After it closed it became a tourist location and slowly broke down. 

The legend  was later adapted into the cult horror-comedy film “Leptirica” (The She-Butterfly) in 1973. The film, with its eerie soundtrack, desolate forest setting, and nightmarish vampire figure, remains a cornerstone of Balkan horror cinema.

In January 2010, the city of Valjevo selected the mythical Sava Savanović as the touristic mascot of the city and the entire Kolubara region because the writer Milovan Glisic was from there. Zarožje and Valjevo are on the opposing sides of the Povlen mountain, but both claim Savanović as their brand. The local community of Zarožje threatened to sue the city, but ultimately only reported to the police in Bajina Bašta that Savanović was “stolen from them”.

In 2012, the mill tragically collapsed, sparking fears among villagers that Sava’s spirit had been released once again and the sale of garlic boomed as people became genuinely worried. The local council even humorously issued a public statement warning residents to hang garlic and holy crosses to ward off the vampire’s wrath — a folkloric custom deeply rooted in the region’s superstitions.

Plans were set in motion to rebuild the mill as a tourist attraction, preserving the story for future generations while still paying respect to its eerie history. By December 2022, the mill was renovated, but wasn’t operational (“dry docked”). The doors of the “watermill of fear” are always open. Despite the lack of roads, organization, guides and still unfinished structure, by 2022 some 16,000 people were visiting the watermill yearly.

Wiki

But what do the locals think about it today? Many feel conflicted and the church even warned about using such an evil entity as the trademark, even for tourism. Many don’t like the dark shadow it casts, either because of the fear about the legend, or the silliness of it all. Some think the legend was created by thieves in the 19th century to scare villagers and prevent them from looking into it when they were breaking into people’s homes. 

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Vampire Sava Savanovic Is On The Loose, Serbian Village Council Warns (Seriously) | HuffPost UK News

Сава Савановић још чека да постане бренд

The Vampire of Zarožje: The Legend of Sava Savanović

Ko je bio taj Sava Savanović? – ČASOPIS KUŠ!

“Код Саве си био? И по ведром дану тамо је тама и чују се гласови”: У селу СРПСКОГ ВАМПИРА влада СТРАХ (ФОТО)

Zarožje – Wikipedia

Sava Savanović – Wikipedia

Vodenica Save Savanovića u Zarožju i danas uliva strah meštanima: “ČUJU SE ČUDNI ZVUCI, PROLAZI SAMO KO MORA”

Ukategorisert

Arnold Paole: The Soldier, the Vampire, and the Blood-Soaked Village of Medveđa

3 Comments
Advertisements

One of the first vampires that sparked the vampire panic throughout Europe in the 18th century, was Arnold Paole. A former soldier in the Serbian village Medveđa, often nicknamed Vampire Zero. 

Tucked away in the shadowed valleys of what was once the Habsburg-occupied Balkans, in a small Serbian village named Medveđa, a chilling tale took hold in the early 18th century. In late 1731, a field surgeon from the Austro-Hungarian Regiment, Johannes Flückinger went all the way to the Serbian village Medvegya on the border. A series of deaths had been reported and people were frightened that it was because of vampires. 

Flückinger traced the deaths many years back to what was believed to be Vampire Zero, a soldier called Arnold Paole. Arnold Paole’s story was so disturbing, so widespread, that it sparked one of the earliest vampire panics in the Western world, and left a trail of unease that still lingers in Balkan folklore to this day.

A Soldier Haunted by the Undead

Years before Flückinger made his reports, Arnold Paole was an Albanian soldier stationed on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire. The hajduks were seen as either bandits or freedom fighters during the Ottoman Empire depending on what side you were looking from. After the Habsburg takeover, they were recruited for border protection in exchange for land. While serving in Greece or Turkey (accounts differ), Paole reportedly fell victim to a vampire attack. He sometimes mentioned Gossowa which might have been Kosovo. 

Terrified of becoming one himself after death, Paole sought to protect his soul. He allegedly tracked down the creature that had bitten him, killed it, and consumed a portion of its grave dirt, a ritual believed to ward off vampirism.

After leaving military service, Paole came to the village of Medveđa, a town located in the Jablanica District of southern Serbia. It’s uncertain if this is were he was born and returned, or someplace new he settled. There, he lived a relatively quiet life, but his peace was short-lived. In 1726, Paole died in an accident and some sources claim he fell from a hay wagon, others that he broke his neck. He was buried in consecrated ground, and life in Medveđa carried on.

That is, until the strange deaths began.

Illustration of a Hungarian Hajduk, from an 1703 book from Bavaria.

Within weeks to forty days after his death, villagers began reporting night-time visitations by Paole’s ghostly figure, pale and bloated, attacking them in their homes. Four villagers at least complained that he had come to them at night. Several residents fell ill and died in rapid succession. Fear gripped the village, and suspicion turned inevitably to vampirism.

The Exhumation and Horrifying Discovery

A local tribunal, terrified by the events and well-versed in vampire lore, ordered Paole’s exhumation, something the administration, or hadnack allowed. When his coffin was opened, those present reportedly recoiled in horror. His body, though buried for over a month, showed no signs of decay. His skin was ruddy, his nails and hair appeared to have grown, and fresh blood stained his lips. Fresh blood poured from his eyes, ears and nose.

This, according to folklore tradition, was the unmistakable sign of a vampire.

Read Also: Not too far from this village around the same time, another Serbian border town struggled with another case of vampirism that would reach the ear of western European as well. Read about Petar Blagojević: The Death That Sparked Europe’s Vampire Panic

Without hesitation, the villagers drove a wooden stake through Paole’s heart. Eyewitnesses claimed he let out an audible groan and a stream of fresh blood gushed from his mouth. His corpse was then burned to ashes and scattered.

A Second Outbreak of Vampirism

For around five years, the peace was restored to the village, although the fear lingered. That was until the vampire infection started to spread as a new epidemic happened in the winter of 1731. 

The villagers believed that the cattle Paole had bitten before his own destruction had risen as vampires themselves. Although they were slaughtered, it was too late, and they believed the infected cattle further created 17 new vampires who had eaten the animals. 

The locals held night watches and people started talking about leaving their homes and lives in the village for good. 

Another investigation was ordered. This time by Austrian authorities attempting to quell the region’s vampire hysteria. When the contagion physician Glaser arrived in Medveđa on 12 December, Initially he was there as an expert on contagious diseases, but he found no known causes that would explain the deaths in a scientific way. In 1732, military surgeon Johannes Flückinger was dispatched to Medveđa to document the situation.  

His chilling report detailed numerous exhumations, finding corpses in an unnaturally preserved state, blood at their mouths, and signs of vampiric transformation.

One of the first victims was Milica, A 50 or 60 year old woman. Glaser reports that the locals considered Milica to have been one of those to start the epidemic. Milica had come to the village from Ottoman-controlled territories six years before. The locals’ testimony indicated that she had always been a good neighbour and that, to the best of their knowledge, she had never “believed or practiced something diabolic”. However, she had once mentioned to them that, while still in Ottoman lands, she had eaten two sheep that had been killed by vampires. In real life she had been lean and slim, but after her death, looked plump and like she had eaten more than in life. 

Also the 20 year old woman, Stana was believed to have started the epidemic. She died after a three day illness two months before the surgeon arrived with her newborn baby. The baby had been buried behind the fence of where Stana lived as the baby hadn’t lived long enough to be baptized and was half eaten by dogs. She had admitted that when she was in Ottoman-controlled lands, she had smeared herself with vampire blood as a protection against vampires she thought was stalking her, as these had been very active there.

The sick had complained of stabs in the sides and pain in the chest, prolonged fever and jerks of the limbs. They also struggled to breathe. According to Flückinger’s report, by 7 January, 17 people had died within a period of three months (the last two of these apparently after Glaser’s visit)

Stanojka was a 20 year old wife of a hajduk who claimed to have been visited at night and choked by Miloje, a 25 year old son of a hajduk who had died nine weeks earlier. She died three days later of the disease. When they exhumed her 18 days after her death, fresh blood poured from her nose and her internal organs, skin and nails looked tough and fresh. Flückinger did point out that there was a finger-length red patch under the woman’s right ear, without, however, drawing a connection with bloodsucking.

An eight day old child that had been in the grave for 90 days, but looked fresh. As did the 16 year old son of a Haiduk after being dug up nine weeks after death. He also died of an illness in three days.  Joachim, another son of haiduk 15 or 17 years old, had the same story of a three day illness before dying, with signs of vampirism after being in the grave for eight weeks and four days. 

But there were people who didn’t fit the pattern of their corpse looking fresh. Milosava, a  30 year old woman and the wife of a hajduk was found with her eight week old child. Although their graves were like those of the vampires nearby, their bodies were completely decomposed. Rade a 24 year old man and the servant of a haiduk, was found completely decomposed. 

Also among the dead:

Miloje: A 14 year old boy

Petar: 15 year old boy

Vučica: 9 year old boy

Ružica: a 40 year old woman. 

The dead were dispatched with stakes, beheaded and burned, following the grisly protocols of local custom.

The Birth of European Vampire Hysteria

The Arnold Paole incident and Flückinger’s official report from January in 1732 he called “About the so-called vampire or bloodsucker, as seen in Medvedja, in Serbia, on the Turkish border on January 7, 1732.”, spread quickly through European intellectual circles, feeding an insatiable curiosity for vampire lore. It was one of the first recorded cases to feature systematic investigation, written documentation, and public execution of suspected vampires — long before Bram Stoker’s Dracula or even the Gothic literature of the 19th century.

The case of Arnold Paole cemented the Balkans as the epicenter of vampire mythology and inspired a wave of vampire-related pamphlets, academic debates, and terrified imaginings across Europe.

Criticism of the Investigation and Vampire Report

Although a man of science, was Flückinger’s report on the ongoings really a reliable one?

For once it was the blatant xenophobia and classicism of the report. Serbia had for centuries been the land of Turks and had been closed off for many Europeans. Their language, religion, culture and folklore differed greatly from the German and Austrian ways and when they met, it was close to a colonial meeting. A them versus us.

 Besides, the border town was a farming one, ravaged by war and poverty. He had no problem labeling the peasants and foreigners as vampires and let them be taken by the vampire panic that swept through town. But the wealthier Hungarian families, like the wife and her newborn baby, were let off the hook and reburied without any disturbances in consecrated ground. Making his own belief in his report sway. 

But what really happened? In many of the instances, the supposed signs of vampirism, could easily be explained by natural stages of decomposition. Like the bloating on the woman that had once been slim, as gasses amasses in the body after death. 

Some modern scholars think the disease was splenic fever, and there is some evidence that something like this spread among sheep in the area in the summer of 1731. Some speculated about rabies, although this illness is perhaps too well known that trained surgeons would have explained it as vampirism. Even at the time, people had science to explain what happened. Christian Reiter, a prominent Viennese forensic scientist, believes that behind all these cases was an anthrax epidemic, a common phenomenon in the past in the periods during and after the war. Anthrax is a bacterial disease that is transmitted from infected animals to humans and is often fatal.

Medveđa’s Lingering Curse

Today, the village of Medveđa remains largely forgotten by the world, a quiet patch of Serbian countryside. But those who know their vampire history understand its significance. The ghost of Arnold Paole, the soldier turned predator, continues to cast a long and uneasy shadow over vampire folklore.

In the dead of night, when the wind howls through ancient graveyards under a blood-red moon, one might refuse to believe that the deaths were the works of vampires, but the effect it had on modern folklore through the Balkans, and even the rest of Europe, were certainly real. 

Newest Posts

  • The Devil’s Stone in Grafrath
    In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
  • The Calf Haunting of the Käfigturm: Bern’s Grotesque Prison Tower
    Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
  • The Lafayette Vampire Grave in Colorado
    For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
  • Grave of the Helhest in Roskilde Cathedral
    Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
  • The Haunted Ruins of Lier Hospital in Norway
    As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
  • A Haunting Helhest in Odense St Canute Cathedral
    The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
  • The Helhest Haunting Saint Olaf’s Church in Helsingør
    According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
  • The Hauntings of Gamle Aker Church Over a Dragon’s Den
    Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
  • The Janissaries Vampires in Veliko Tarnovo
    During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
  • The Legend of the White Lady of Utstein Monastery
    In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
  • The Lord Edward Pub: The Rebel’s Restless Spirit
    After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
  • St. Patrick’s Cathedral: The Restless Spirit of Jonathan Swift
    In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

References:

Medveđa – Wikipedia

Decomposing Bodies in the 1720s Gave Birth to the First Vampire Panic

The Origins of Vampire Stories in the Christian-Islamic Borderlands 

https://web.archive.org/web/20060315125133/http://www.vampgirl.com/visum.html