Who among us has not heard the chilling stories of vampires? Many ancient documents store eyewitness accounts of encounters with these fanged creatures.
It is difficult to say whether it is possible to unconditionally trust frightened people who met such something at night. After all, as they say, fear has big eyes.
However, history presents us not only unverified legends, but also very real facts of the existence of vampires. Who are they, drinking human blood?
In Slavic mythology, a vampire is a werewolf, a dead man who comes out of the grave at night to suck the blood of sleeping people.
It is believed that vampires (otherwise - ghouls or ghouls) were "unclean" dead - criminals, suicides, as well as those who died prematurely or died from a vampire bite.
Humanity has come up with many ways to deal with these terrible creatures: garlic, holy water, silver bullets, aspen stake. Nevertheless, messages about them appear over and over again. And these are not matters of bygone days - some of the ghouls lived relatively recently.
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CLASSICS OF THE GENRE
Speaking of vampires, one cannot but recall the most famous representative of bloodsuckers - Count Dracula. The prototype for this literary hero was Vlad Tepes, a very real historical character. Only Dracula was not a vampire. He was famous for his cruelty, his ability to wage war, but he did not drink blood.
But he shed a lot of other people's blood. It was not for nothing that he was nicknamed Tepes, which in translation means “impaling on a stake”. They say that in childhood he was a hostage at the court of the Turkish sultan, and it was there that his psyche broke down - he often witnessed cruel torture. At 17, returning home, he became the ruler of Wallachia, but he had to win his throne from time to time from other pretenders.
His second name - Dracula ("Son of the Dragon") - came to him from his father, who was in the Order of the Dragon. At one time, a document was found in German, which spoke of the brutal torture and executions perpetrated by the count. He ordered the guilty subjects and enemies to be impaled, the end of which was not sharpened - this made the victim fight in agony for up to five days. The tormentor died in battle, defending his homeland from the Turks.
GRAPH VARGOSHI
Count Vargoshi was perhaps the bloodthirsty and most vicious vampire that humanity has ever known. The Magyar chronicles of the 13th century testify to his atrocities. He was not only a sadist who killed about 1,000 innocent girls, but also a sex maniac.
During one of his orgies, he committed suicide. 40 days after his death, the bodies of women began to be found in the district, all of them had broken arms and legs, and their necks were bitten. In addition, some unthinkable force twisted the church crosses. Apparently, this was the work of the count.
Vargoshi was excommunicated. Having exhumed the corpse, they found that its skin turned green and was completely covered with bloody sores.
The body was tied up with chains, placed in an oak barrel, poured with resin and thrown into a well. To be sure, hot tin was poured into the well and closed with a heavy cast-iron lid. Aspen stakes were driven into the ground around the well. For a while, everything was calm, and then again they began to find dead women.
After checking the well, people were horrified: the land around it was plowed like a huge plow, the frozen tin was torn to shreds. That evening, the body of a priest was found - he was strangled with a chain that had previously chained the body of the count. Instead of a cross on the victim's chest, there remained a shapeless piece of melted silver.
Soon there was a terrible thunderstorm in this area, which destroyed the vampire's castle to the ground. They say that after this 40 days a strange glow was seen over the ruins of the castle - supposedly these were the souls of the innocent killed, freed, soared into heaven.
BLOOD ON THE WHITE BOTTLE
In 1818 a certain doctor Heinrich Spatz lived in Würzburg with his wife. He was a respected person, was actively involved in charity work, left behind scientific work on infectious diseases and military field surgery.
And when, having received an appointment to the University of Prague, he left the city, his assistants told people the terrible truth about the venerable doctor. It turns out that the married couple traded by killing the homeless and thus quenching their thirst for blood. Just before Spatz left the hospital, a one-armed soldier disappeared. When the police started looking, it turned out that the case of such a loss is not an isolated one.
On a tip from the doctor's assistants, Spatz's house was searched, and 18 mutilated bodies were found in the basement. The doctor sank into the water. He was not seen at the university. He probably found out that the police were interested in him and chose to hide. A terrible fate awaited the informers.
One of them lost his mind, became a recluse, was afraid of sunlight, drank pig's blood and, in the end, committed suicide, accusing the doctor of a suicide note. The second, having killed a relative, also took his own life. Eyewitnesses claimed they saw him drinking the blood of his victims. Apparently, these two also became vampires. The doctor was never found, so it was not possible to establish whether he was a vampire or a member of some satanic sect.
HANNOVER CONTROLLER
The world, shuddering, learned about this man in 1924. Fritz Haarmann remains in history as a Hanoverian bloodsucker. Even as a child, he showed cruelty, mocked people and animals.
As a teenager, after several sadistic antics, he was declared insane and sentenced to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
However, after a while he escaped from there. The father, although he was always rude to his son, did not give him up to the police, but decided to send him to the army.
But soon the young man was discharged, and he returned home. Hooliganism and robbery began again, and again Fritz was behind bars. But this time, after returning from prison, he, surprisingly, began to lead a normal life.
I must say that the 1920s were not the best for Germany: devastation, famine, desolation. Young Haarmann, however, found his place in life. He opened a butcher shop and became very successful. In addition, he worked as a secret agent for the Hanover police, and also with success, because the underworld of this city was well known to him firsthand.
At that time, many people traveled around the country in search of work, so the stations were filled to the limit with people. As a secret police assistant, Haarmann had access to a middle class waiting room. It was there that the sadist found the next victim and began by demanding to show travel documents.
Of course, many did not have money not only for a ticket, but also for food. This is what the murderer used. At first, he strictly demanded to go to the police station with him, and then he started a sincere conversation, in the process of which he found out the details. When the victim became trusting and outspoken, Haarmann offered a roof over his head, explaining his concern by the possibility of a police raid.
And at home, he already settled the guest in the closet behind the store, waited until he fell asleep, then went in and choked the victim, bit his teeth into his throat and drank blood. After the murder, Haarmann dismembered the bodies, separating the meat from the bones and draining the remaining blood into a bucket.
The vampire got caught by accident. It's just that one of the young men managed to send a message to his mother from the station and tell him that a local policeman volunteered to help him. So the mother sounded the alarm when the son disappeared. In addition, the police, having recognized Haarmann from the description, rushed to his house and found him with another victim. Experts later found him to be quite mentally healthy and sane. In 1925, Haarmann was executed by decapitation, his brain was transferred for study at the University of Göttingen.
CEMETERY OF VAMPIRES
This story took place in the 18th century near Belgrade, in the village of Meduegna. In 1727, Arnold Paole returned to his homeland from military service. A bride was waiting for him in the village. It was to her that Arnold told that, while in the army, he accidentally discovered the grave of a certain entity possessed by the devil. Paole tried to exorcise the devil from the deceased, but he failed. But there was an obsessive thought about premature death, so, according to him, he left the service.
At first, Paole's life usually developed: he acquired a plot of land, a house, married his bride. Until one day during haymaking he fell from a haystack. The wounds were minor, but somehow they caused Arnold's death.
Some time passed, and people began to say that the deceased was pursuing night travelers and drinking their blood. One could not believe these tales, only everyone who happened to meet a vampire fell ill and died.
When there were too many victims, a commission consisting of two officers and two military surgeons was sent from Belgrade to investigate. The decision was made to exhume Paola's body. The commission, accompanied by the gravedigger and the porter boy, went to the cemetery.
What these people saw after the opening of the grave shocked them. The official report reads: “The body is turned on its side, the jaws are wide open, and the blue lips are wetted with fresh blood, which trickles down from the corners of the mouth … The gravedigger grabbed the body and laid it straight. It soon became clear that we were facing a vampire. He almost looked alive. At that moment, when the gravedigger touched the body, the outer skin peeled off and there were new and new nails under it …"
Having regained consciousness, the participants in the exhumation covered the deceased with garlic, and then pierced the heart with an aspen stake, which they made right there. At the same time "the corpse uttered a terrible cry, and blood gushed out of carmine color." After that, it was decided to do the same with the bodies of four people, whose death was associated with a vampire. The remains were then burned and buried in consecrated ground.
It seemed that the vampires were done away with and the village could live in peace. But this did not last long, people began to die again. A commission was again sent from Belgrade. After carrying out several exhumations in the local cemetery, they documented that some bodies were well preserved even a month after their death, while others, who died and were buried at the same time, completely decomposed.
Based on the activities carried out, it was concluded that the village had suffered from a strange epidemic of vampirism. The local population was ordered to pierce the hearts of all those buried at that time with aspen stakes. And I must say, it helped. More vampirism in the village was not observed.
THEY ARE CLOSE?
And here is a case already quite close to us in time and geography. In Moscow, in a small apartment in Kuzminki, a certain citizen was detained. The neighbors heard the long cry of a nursing baby at night, they rang the doorbell, but no one answered the calls. The alarmed people called the police. When the police got into the apartment, their eyes were greeted with an eerie sight: a man was sitting on the floor, and not far from him was a woman in a state of shock.
During a search on the balcony, the police found the bloodless corpse of a baby. During interrogations, the landlord said that he had to drink the baby's blood at a certain hour and at a certain time in order to gain immortality. As it turned out, the woman, a native of Moldova, who was in the apartment, was the mother of the unfortunate victim. According to her, she was left without a livelihood and agreed to give the baby into "good hands."
Only “good hands” set a condition: she had to give birth at home, in the presence of a foster parent. The woman claimed that she was unaware of the intentions of the landlord. However, the examination showed that she also drank the "elixir of youth." Who are these people? Vampires? Sadists? Members of a sect? Or are they simply mentally ill?
FATAL DIAGNOSIS
In the 80s of the XX century, a description of a rare and strange disease called porphyria, or, as journalists immediately dubbed it, "Dracula's disease", appeared in medical publications. It is believed that one person out of 200 thousand suffers from this rare form of gene pathology (according to other sources, out of 100 thousand), and if it is recorded in one of the parents, then in 25% of cases the child also gets sick with it. It is also believed that the disease arises from incest.
The disease is caused by the fact that the patient's body does not produce red cells, which are oxygen carriers. However, today it is possible to fill this deficit with injections.
At a time when medicine had not yet reached the proper level, it is quite possible that doctors recommended their patients to drink fresh blood to replenish the missing component. People suffering from this disease look tired, feel weak, their skin is pale and transparent.
The symptoms suggest that all vampire legends have a real basis. One of the forms of porphyria is characterized by sensitivity to sunlight, since the skin of patients is so thin that it bursts under the sun's rays, and then becomes covered with scars and ulcers. Therefore, the victims of porphyria are forced to leave the house only in the evenings.
People who are sick have excessive hair, and the skin around the lips dries out and hardens, which results in the incisors being exposed to the gums, creating a grin effect. Another symptom is porphyrin deposits on the teeth, which can turn red or reddish brown. In addition, garlic is categorically contraindicated for patients with porphyria, since the sulfonic acid secreted by it increases the damage caused by the disease.
Porphyria was believed to be most common in small villages in Transylvania (about 1,000 years ago), where incest was common.
How can you explain the fact that during exhumation the bodies of the dead were found lying on their sides? Another rare disease is catalepsy. It is characterized by a disorder of the nervous system, causing the suspension of all vital functions. Muscles cease to be elastic, a person does not feel pain, cold, warmth, he hears everything and sees everything, but he cannot even move. His breathing and pulse almost subside so much that death can be pronounced.
This condition can last up to several days. Probably at a time when people did not know how to diagnose this condition, cataleptics were buried alive. Naturally, waking up, the "living dead" tried to get out of the grave, but it is unlikely that he succeeded. Hence, suspicions about the night adventures of the deceased could arise.
But perhaps, if it were not for these diseases, there would be no myths about vampires and many innocent victims executed on charges of vampirism.
Galina BELYSHEVA