Page:The Vampire.djvu/43

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THE ORIGINS OF THE VAMPIRE
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to the whole Slavonic group of languages. This word Slovenian volkodlak, vukodlak, vulkodlak, is a compound form of which the first half means “wolf,” whilst the second half has been identified, although the actual relation is not quite demonstrable, with blaka, which in Old Slavonic, New Slavonic and Serbian signifies the “hair” of a cow or a horse or a horse’s mane.[44] Yet whatsoever the analytical signification of the compound may precisely be, the synthesis in the actual employment of all Slavonic tongues, save one, is the equivalent of the English “werewolf”; Scotch “warwulf”; German “Werwolf” and French “loup-garou.” The one language in which this word does not bear this interpretation is the Serbian, for here it signifies “a vampire.”[45] But it should be remarked in this connexion that the Slavonic peoples, and especially the Serbians believe that a man who has been a werewolf in his life will become a vampire after death, and so the two are very closely related.[46] It was even thought in some districts, especially Elis,[47] that those who had eaten the flesh of a sheep killed by a wolf might become vampires after death.[48] However, it must be remembered that although the superstitions of the werewolf and the vampire in many respects agree, and in more than one point are indeed precisely similar, there is, especially in Slavonic tradition, a very great distinction, for the Slavonic vampire is precisely defined and it is the incorrupt and re-animated dead body which returns from its grave, otherwise it cannot be said strictly to be a vampire. As we shall have occasion to observe it were perhaps, no exaggeration to say that the conception of the vampire proper is peculiar to Slavonic peoples, and especially found in the Balkan countries, in Greece, in Russia, in Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. There are, of course, many variants, both Western and Oriental; and other countries have tales of vampires which exactly fit the Slavonic norm, but outside the districts we have specified the appearances of the vampire are rare, whilst in his own domain even now he holds horrid sway, and people fear not so much the ghost as the return of the dead body floridly turgescent and foully swollen with blood, endued with some abominable and devilish life.

In Danish and Swedish we have vampyr; the Dutch is vampir; the French le vampire; Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,