and that these vases we are
speaking of are placed beneath the disturbed earth, in which the
graves of Christians are found, it has been inferred, with much
semblance of probability, that these vases with the food and beverage
buried near them, were intended not for Christians but for heathens.
The latter, then, at least, believed that the dead ate in the other
life. There is no doubt that the ancient Gauls[470] were persuaded of
this; they are often represented on their tombs with bottles in their
hands, and baskets and other comestibles, or drinking vessels and
goblets;[471] they carried with them even the contracts and bonds for
what was due to them, to have it paid to them in Hades. _Negotiorum
ratio, etiam exactio crediti deferebatur ad inferos._

Now, if they believed that the dead ate in their tombs, that they
could return to earth, visit, console, instruct, or disturb the
living, and predict to them their approaching death, the return of
vampires is neither impossible nor incredible in the opinion of these
ancients.

But as all that is said of dead men who eat in their graves and out of
their graves is chimerical and beyond all likelihood, and the thing is
even impossible and incredible, whatever may be the number and quality
of those who have believed it, or appeared to believe it, I shall
always say that the return (to earth) of the vampires is
unmaintainable and impracticable.

Footnotes:

[464] Supplem. ad visu Erudit. Lips. an. 1738, tom. ii.

[465] Tertull. de Resurrect. initio.

[466] Aug. Confess. lib. vi. c. 2.

[467] Aug. Epist. 22, ad Aurel. Carthag. et Epist. 29, ad Alipi. Item
de Moribus Eccl. c. 34.

[468] Aug. lib. viii. de Civit. Dei, c. 27.

[469] Aug. Serm. 35, de Sanctis, nunc in Appendice, c. 5. Serm. cxc.
cxci. p. 328.

[470] Antiquite expliquee, tom. iv. p. 80.

[471] Mela. lib. ii. c. 4.

CHAPTER XII.

CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT OF THE "DUTCH GLEANERS," OR "GLANEUR
HOLLANDAIS."

On examining the narrative of the death of the pretended martyrs of
vampirism, I discover the symptoms of an epidemical fanaticism; and I
see clearly that the impression made upon them by fear is the true
cause of their being lost. A girl named Stanoska, say they, daughter
of the Heyducq Sovitzo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in
the middle of the night all in a tremble, and shrieking dreadfully,
saying that the son of the Heyducq Millo, who had been dead for nine
weeks,