free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Sphakia – The Vampires
in the exotic – and here gruesome – which informs all his book. He was
a professional botanist, erudite and observant.
On the tenth day after the peasant’s death a Mass was said, in order
to drive out the demon which animated the corpse. After the Mass they
took up the body, and the town butcher tried to extract the heart.
The butcher, an otd clumsy fellow, first opens the belly instead of the breast:
he groped a long while among the entrails, but could not find what he looked
for: at last somebody told him he should cut up the diaphragm. The heart was
pulled out, to the admiration of all the spectators. In the mean time, the corpse
stunk so abominably, that they were obliged to burn frankincense; but the
smoke mixing with the exhalations from the carcass, increased the stink, and
began to muddle the poor peoples’ pericranies. Their imagination, struck with
the spectacle before them, grew full of visions. It came into their noddles, that a
thick smoke arose out of the body; we durst not say ‘twas the smoke of incense.
They were incessantly bawling out vroukolakas . . . this is the name they give to
these pretended redivivi. . . . Several there present averred, that the wretch’s
blood was extremely red: the butcher swore the body was still warm; whence
they concluded, that the deceased was a very ill man for not being thorowly
dead, or in plain terms, for suffering himself to be reanimated by Old Nick;
which is the notion they have of a vroukolakas. They then roared out that name
in a stupendous manner. Just at this time came in a flock of people, loudly
protesting they plainly perceived the body was not grown stiff, when it was
carried from the fields to church to be buried, and that consequently it was a
true vroukolakas, which word was still the burden of the song.
Tournefort attempted rational explanation of these phenomena. It
was not surprising that rotting entrails should Feel warm: a dung heap
if turned over will emit fumes; the blood on the butcher’s hands, so far
from being red, was a ‘nasty stinking smear’.
Despite these arguments, the people decided to burn the dead man’s
heart on the seashore; but even this had no effect; he went on with his
racket more furiously than ever, and was accused of beating people up,
breaking down doors and roofs, tearing clothes, emptying bottles, like a
common or garden poltergeist. ‘Nothing could be more miserable than
the condition of this island; all the inhabitants seemed frightened out
of their senses; the wisest among them were stricken like the rest: ‘twas
an epidemical disease of the brain, as dangerous and infectious as the
madness of dogs.’ And Tournefort, realizing that if he were to try to
check this hysteria he would be accounted a blockhead, atheist and
infidel, kept his silence. There were debates night and morning; the
priest went into a fast; the zealous rushed around sprinkling holy water
over the doors, and even into the vampire’s mouth. Tournefort told
the magistrates of the town that the strictest watch should be kept at
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