a complete explanation why the vampire should seek to vitalize and rejuvenate his own dead body by draining the blood from the veins of his victims.
It will be remembered that in a famous necromantic passage in the Odyssey,[2] when Ulysses calls up the ghosts from the underworld, in order that they may recover the power of speech, he has to dig deep a trench and therein pour the blood of sacrifice, black rams, and it is only after they have quaffed their fill of this precious liquor that the phantoms may converse with him and enjoy something of their human powers and mortal faculties.
Among the many references to funereal customs and the rites of mourning in Holy Writ there is one which has a very distinct bearing upon this belief that blood might benefit the deceased. The prophet Jeremias in fortelling the utter ruin of the Jews and the complete desolation of their land says: “Et morientur grandes, et parui in terra ista: non sepelientur neque plangentur, et non se incident, neque caluitium fiet pro eis.”[25] (Both the great and little shall die in this land; they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.) And again the same prophet tells us that after the Jews had been carried away in captivity of Babylon: “Uenerunt uiri de Sichem et de Silo, et de Samaria octoginta uiri: rasi barba, et scissis uestibus et squallentes: et munera, et thus habebant in manu, ut offerrent in domo Domini.”[26] The word “squallentes” which the Douai Version renders “mourning” is translated by the Authorised Version as “having cut themselves” and the same rendering is given in the Revised Version. These customs of shaving part of the head and the beard which is referred to in the words “nor make themselves bald for them” and more particularly the practice of cutting or wounding the body in token of mourning were strictly forbidden as savouring of heathenish abuse. Thus in Leviticus xix. 28, we read: “Et super mortuo non incidetis carnem uestrum, neque figuras aliquas, aut stigmata facietis uobis. Ego Dominus.” (You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks: I am the Lord.) And again (xxi. 5) the same command with regard to mourning is enforced: “Non radent caput, nec barbam, neque in carnibus suis facient incisuras.” (Neither shall
