accounts concerning magic, witches,
sorcery, enchantment, and other such works of the devil, because they
are necessary for your work, and part of your stock in trade. And I
should suppose you have gone into those subjects yourself with the view
of getting some personal experience of them as well. As regards
vampirism--that you may see how well read I am in these matters--I will
tell you the name of a delightful treatise in which you may study this
dark subject. The complete title of this little book is 'M. Michael
Ranft (Deacon of Nebra). Treatise on the Mastication and Sucking of the
Dead in their Graves; wherein the true nature and description of the
Hungarian vampires and bloodsuckers is clearly set forth, and all
previous writings on this subject are passed in review and subjected to
criticism.' This title in itself will convince you of the thoroughness
of this treatise, and you will learn from it that a vampire is nothing
other but an accursed creature who lets himself be buried as being
dead, and then rises out of the grave and sucks people's blood in their
sleep. And those people become vampires in their turn. So that,
according to the accounts received from Hungary and quoted by this
magister, the inhabitants of whole villages become vampires of the most
abominable description. To render those vampires harmless they must be
dug out of their graves, a stake driven through their hearts, and their
bodies burnt to ashes. Those horrible beings very often do not appear
in their own proper forms, but _en masque_. A certain officer, I happen
to remember, writing from Belgrade to a celebrated doctor in Leipzig
for information as to the true nature of vampires, expresses himself
thus: 'In a village called Kinklina it chanced that two brothers were
troubled by a vampire, so that one of them used to sit up by the other
at night whilst he slept. The one who was watching used to see
something like a dog opening the door, but this dog used to make off
when he cried out at it. At last one night they both were asleep at the
same time, and the vampire bit and sucked a place under the right ear
of one of them, leaving a red mark. The man died of this in three days'
time. In conclusion,' said the officer, 'as the people of this place
make all this out to be miraculous, I venture to take the liberty of
requesting you to tell me your private opinion as to whether it is
caused by the intervention of sympathetic, diabolical, or astral