(Disquisitiones Magicae, Liber II, Q. xxviii, sec. 1), comments: “Denique multae falsae resurrectiones gentilium huc sunt referendae; & constat cum sagis ut plurimum induto cadauere diabolum sine incubum, sine succubum, rem habere; unde & in hoc genere hominum, cadauerosus quidam faetor graueolentiae, cernitur.”
Some remoter country districts, indeed, are apt to regard any poor wretch who is sadly deformed as a Vampire, especially if the distortion be altogether unsightly, prominent, or grotesque. It has even been known that a peasant whose face was deeply marked with wine-coloured pigment, owing it was thought to some accident which befell his mother during her late pregnancy,[67] was shunned and suspected of being a malignant vrykolakas. Chorea, they say, is a certain sign of vampirism, and it may be remarked that in Shoa this disorder is regarded as the result of demoniacal possession, or due to the magic spell of an enemy’s shadow having fallen upon the sufferer.[68] An epileptic there is also often considered as being in the power of some devil, and unless proper precautions are taken he will assuredly not rest in his grave. The Vampire is endowed with strength and agility more than human, and he can run with excessive speed, outstripping the wind.
It is curious to find that in many countries persons with blue eyes are considered extremely liable to become vampires.[69] This is the case in some parts of Greece, but there does not seem to be preserved any oral tradition to explain the particular belief. It may, of course, have arisen owing to the fact that persons with eyes of this colour would seldom, if ever, have been met with, and a stranger with blue eyes would be regarded with wonder and awe. (Thus in Ireland persons with bluish-grey eyes, especially if there be a streak of black on the pupil, which is common, are accounted to have the power of seeing ghosts.) We cannot, I think, connect the Greek idea with the Homeric epithet for the goddess Athene, γλαυκῶπις, which has been rendered “bright-eyed,”[70] “grey-eyed” or “blue-eyed,” an old interpretation that proves utterly erroneous, since there can be no doubt that γλαυκῶπις means “owl-faced” (γλαύξ;) and originally Athene was a deity who was literally imagined and represented as having the face of an owl, even if she did not, as is most probable,
