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The Shoemaking Vrykolakas Vampire from Pyrgos Castle

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After a humble life as a shoemaker on Santorini in Greece, a man was said to have come back as a Vrykolakas, the vampire of Greek folklore. But for this Vrykolaka, it wasn’t to devour human life that kept him going. 

Perhaps the sunny Santorini is not the place people think vampire-like creatures roamed, although history would tell you otherwise. 

Read More: Check out all ghostly tales from Greece

From the text from a French priest, we have some of the oldest stories of the vampiric Vrykolakas from Greek folklore documented in writing. One of them being the tale of Alexander from Pyrgos. 

Santorini: The Greek Island, officially Thira or Thera, is around 200 km from mainland Greece in the Aegean Sea. As well as ancient Greek mythology, the folklore was influenced from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman rule as well as Orthodox Christianity. Pyrgos Kallistis was the former capital of Santorini.Some speculate that there are so many vrykolakas stories from here because of the volcanic soil so the body doesn’t decompose as well.

The Shoemaker at Pyrgos Castle

His name was said to be Alexander, and he had been a shoemaker at Pyrgo Castle. He was known as a gentle and kind man when he was alive.

It’s not mentioned exactly what happened that turned Alexander into a vrykolaka after his death. Most often, Greek vampire stories tell about people living sinful lives that are turned into vampires. In Alexander’s case however, it seems something else must have triggered the transformation. One thing worth noting is that Alexander is far from the only shoemaker that turned into a vampire, although the connection to the profession is unknown. 

Vrykolakas Stories: Jesuit Priest François Richard was a missionary to the Greek island of Santorini. In Paris, his accounts about the Vrykolakas appeared titled: Relation de l’Isle de Sant-erini, 1657. He believed the devil kept some corpses and animated them. For the Jesuit, the “vrykolakas” was simply “a special case of diabolic possession. He said that when a village is visited by vrykolakas, the villagers gather in one house for protection, and apply to their Bishop for permission to exhume the suspect. This is done on a Saturday, the only day when a vrykolakas may rest in its grave. If the body is found “fresh and gorged with new blood”, it is “exorcised” with prayer or cremated.

The Helpful Vampire of Pyrgos

According to the story, Alexander returned from the grave, not to attack or eat the flesh from the living like in many stories, but appeared to his living wife as he had in life. He returned to mend his children’s shoes, carry water for the family, work on their house and chop their firewood. 

The Vrykolakas Vampires: In Greek folklore, they believed in the vampiric Vrykolaka. Traditionally believed that a person could become a vrykolakas after death due to a sacrilegious way of life, but also through other means, like A cat leaping across a fresh grave, Consuming meat from a sheep slain by a wolf or werewolf. Some believed that a werewolf itself could become a powerful vampire after being killed. This revenant wasn’t after just the blood, but also the flesh, some saying the liver was its favorite.

Although his family’s reaction to this is not talked about, it seems this went on for a while, and it was his neighbors who took matters into their own hands. After seeing him going on with his chores, fetching water from the cistern and chopping wood in the valley, they decided to exhume his body from his grave. According to lore, all vrykolakas went back to their graves on Saturdays, so it’s most likely this is what happened. Here, even the helpful dead needed to go. 

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References:

Vampirólogos. Francois Richard 

By Light Unseen – Vampires in Media and Culture

Vrykolakas – Wikipedia

Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas