Sunday, October 25, 2020

Crypto Corner: The Greek vampire hunt

 

For this post, I’m finally getting to something I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time, the lore and possible “sightings” of vampires. When it comes to vampires in pop culture vs. actual belief, what people tend to get wrong or at least imperfect is where the phenomena really occurred. People working from movies will think of Germany and central Europe, where such beliefs certainly existed. However, the reputation of these nations has more to do with fine vampire movies like Nosferatu than history. People more in tune with history will think of the Balkan states, which is indeed ground zero for both belief and authentic incidents, though the lore of Dracula shifted attention toward present-day Romania rather than other countries. What even scholars easily overlook is that one of the best-documented historical incidents occurred in the sunny lands of Greece, not in the Middle Ages but in the early 1700s. Unfortunately, it stands out first and foremost as one of the most pathetic and patently nonsensical cases of mass hysteria on record.

Our source for this incident is a French man of science named Joseph Pitton De Tournefort, who stopped during his travels on an island called Mykonos, partway between the Greek mainland and Turkey. Per his evidently colored account, the populace of the island was understandably disturbed by the discovery of a dead man who had evidently been murdered. But rather than fear the murderer, the islanders became preoccupied with growing numbers of reports that the deceased had been seen wandering in the night. The revenant was soon accused of physically accosting people, damaging buildings and property and even petty or pointless thefts. The populace soon decided that it was necessary to exhume the corpse and try one ritual or another to end the nocturnal disturbances. The result was a series of comically gruesome misadventures, recounted in painful detail by De Tournefort, that culminated in the total cremation of the much-disturbed and clearly decayed remains. The narrative ends with an unhelpful diatribe: “(T)he Greeks of today are not the great Greeks… there is among them only ignorance and superstition!”

Looking to the immediate background, beliefs in vampire-like entities were recorded in Greece from antiquity, notwithstanding the Frenchman’s critique. The posited beings were associated with the mythological figures of Echidna and Lamia. The former was a sea monster, sometimes portrayed as one of the many loves of Hercules, while the latter was a possibly historical queen reputed to have ordered the massacre of a number of children. In somewhat later belief, lamia became a generic term for vampires, spirits and various monsters. Interestingly, the specific habit of drinking of blood features far more prominently in these accounts than in relatively recent lore. By the Renaissance period, Greek beliefs were amalgamated with the more notorious lore of the southern Slavs. Among other things, this led to the dominance of the term vrykolakas, undoubtedly derived from the Serbo-Croatian vukodlak (also the source for the kudlaks in my own fiction).

Something else that will be apparent from De Tournefort’s narrative is the role of ethnic prejudice in the popularization of “the” vampire. Western nations whose leaders and learned men were torturing and executing accused witches well into the “modern” era freely mocked the central and eastern lands for the actual and reputed superstitions of the peasantry, until the wide-spread belief in corporeal revenants was taken on faith by Victorian authors like Bram Stoker. Naturally, Slavic commentators then and since mused that at least their beliefs never harmed anyone who wasn’t already dead. A further characteristic of these narratives was to give rationalist “explanations” less convincing than the more convincing lay accounts, particularly premature burial. On that vein, Paul Barber’s book Vampires, Burial And Death (my immediate source for this essay and much else) surely gave the last word, characterizing it as a “hypothesis scarcely less absurd than the beliefs it tried to explain”.

What genuinely becomes baffling is what the people gripped with fear of vampires really believed they were. Even by De Tournefort’s hostile account, the islanders clearly did not believe that the suspect corpse was rising from its well-monitored resting place to prey on the living. However, they did not seem to view it as an immaterial entity like a conventional ghost, though a poltergeist might better fit the bill. The overall picture that emerges is something like a shapeshifter, which is indeed very much in line with the lore concerning not only vampires but werewolves, fairies and witches. At that point, rational hindsight would raise the question why anyone ever troubled the living or the dead over the antics of such beings. Granting that such entities might exist- a hypothesis that occultists and Forteans might still consider- then of course it follows that they would freely and happily assume any guise that would stir up confusion and panic among ordinary mortals. Unfortunately, that very point was debated frequently and at great length during the witch trials, and of course, the usual verdict was that a malign supernatural entity could never assume the form of the truly innocent.

Meanwhile, it remains tempting to look for any hint of something out of the ordinary, if only to defend the rationality of the common man. What must be admitted at this point is that the incident could not have been that unusual. It was naïve as well as chauvinistic for the learned westerner to think that superstition among the uneducated was any less rampant in the era of the “great Greeks”, but it would be just as misguided to think the behavior of the islanders was exceptional. By definition, an event witnessed by a foreign visitor cannot be entirely anomalous (a common plot hole in fiction that uses the “travel narrative” conceit). Even without independent accounts of vampire beliefs in Greece and neighboring regions, we could still deduce that what happened on Mykonos probably happened any number of times elsewhere. 

We would do better to consider the possible ecological conditions. The Balkan peninsula as a whole is characterized by rocky terrain, shallow soil and a relatively dry climate, all factors favorable to the preservation of remains. On the Greek isles, one can add salty air and especially the eradication of native carnivores. Still, these are thing that both the educated and the commoners had ample time to become familiar with. It must be further factored in that De Tournefort made it graphically clear that the suspect corpse was anything but well-preserved. At one point, he vividly declares, “As for us, who had placed ourselves close to the cadaver so as to make our observations as precisely as possible, we almost perished from the great stench that emerged from it.” Still, he also voice the suspicion that without independent witnesses, the islanders “would have maintained that the body did not stink.”

We get into somewhat more interesting territory with the accounts of the revenant’s mischief. De Tournefort strongly maintained that these incidents were prosaic burglaries and vandalism, further reporting that the authorities did in fact detain “a few vagabonds who certainly had a hand in these disorders”. However, he further admitted that those who were caught “were either not the principal agents, or else they were released too soon,” as break-ins and disturbances continued. Viewed with a neutral eye, these come within striking distance of a poltergeist (see also the tale of Gef the mongoose), particularly the comment that the entity “came into houses and turned over furniture”, evidently without taking anything of value. Most intriguing is the prominent report that the entity was accused of “emptying pitchers and bottles”, at least some containing wine, in many if not most of the houses in the area. This is on consideration a singularly irrational sort of crime spree. An ordinary burglar or substance abuser would carry off the vessel rather than risk capture while drinking it. It is further apparent that if alcohol was the motivation, sooner or later the offender would have either glutted himself or simply become too inebriated to risk further depredations. On this point, even De Tournefort is slow to suggest an answer, merely remarking, “He was a very thirsty dead man.”

What finally emerges from the muddle is something quite familiar to Forteans, the “phantom attacker”. These are entities of usually human appearance that are often taken as “real” criminals and prowlers by lay witnesses, but have an unaccountable ability to avoid capture or for that matter unequivocal confirmation of their existence. Examples include Spring-Heeled Jack, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, “phantom clowns” (covered at length at my Exotroopers blog) and at least a good number of the “Men In Black”. Of these, many are clearly hallucinations on the lines of the Old Hag, already prominently discussed in connection with vampire lore. Of the remainder, many can be put down to criminals, pranksters and the mentally ill. Yet, there remains a residuum that cannot be quite as easily accounted for, notably the venerable Mad Gasser (whom I will probably cover sooner or later). These are situations with just enough evidence that a corporeal entity cannot be discounted, but even the hypothesis of a paranormal shapeshifter cannot supply a motive or rationale to justify the fuss.

This brings us full circle. We have no reason to doubt that whatever happened on Mykonos had nothing to do with the departed wretch who was incinerated for it. There is no reason to question the further conclusion that the same kind of near-subjective phenomena fueled belief in witches, werewolves and any number of other things. The enduring problem is that an “explanation” is not the same as a solution. If the events on Mykonos were merely a matter of pattern hallucinations and petty crime, we still cannot say “why” it happened. We are at even more of a loss to explain why an entire population was thrown into a panic by an entity whose posited activities were admitted not to have killed or seriously harmed anyone. Once again, what remains is a mystery of the mind, and even those willing to credit the existence of aliens, phantom clowns and Mad Gassers will be no less daunted by it.

No comments:

Post a Comment