Part 50 (1/2)

Some years ago, at Bar-le-Duc, a man was buried in the cemetery, and a noise was heard in his grave; the next day they disinterred him, and found that he had gnawed the flesh of his arms; and this we learned from ocular witnesses. This man had drunk brandy, and had been buried as dead. Rauff speaks of a woman of Bohemia,[578] who, in 1355, had eaten in her grave half her shroud. In the time of Luther, a man who was dead and buried, and a woman the same, gnawed their own entrails.

Another dead man in Moravia ate the linen clothes of a woman who was buried next to him.

All that is very possible, but that those who are really dead move their jaws, and amuse themselves with masticating whatever may be near them, is a childish fancy--like what the ancient Romans said of their _Manducus_, which was a grotesque figure of a man with an enormous mouth, and teeth proportioned thereto, which they caused to move by springs, and grind his teeth together, as if this figure had wanted to eat. They frightened children with them, and threatened them with the Manducus.[579]

Some remains of this old custom may be seen in certain processions, where they carry a sort of serpent, which at intervals opens and shuts a vast jaw, armed with teeth, into which they throw cakes, as if to gorge it, or satisfy its appet.i.te.

Footnotes:

[575] Mich. Rauff, altera Dissert. Art. lvii. pp. 98, 99, et Art. lix.

p. 100.

[576] De Nummis in Ore Defunctorum repertis, Art. ix. a Beyermuller, &c.

[577] Richer, Senon, tom. iii. Spicileg. d.u.c.h.erii, p. 392.

[578] Rauff, Art. xlii. p. 43.

[579]

”Tandemque venit ad pulpita nostrum Exodium, c.u.m personae pallentis hiatum In gremio matris fastidit rusticus infans.”

_Juvenal_, Sat. iii. 174.

CHAPTER XLVI.

SINGULAR INSTANCE OF A HUNGARIAN GHOST.

The most remarkable instance cited by Rauff[580] is that of one Peter Plogojovitz, who had been buried ten weeks in a village of Hungary, called Kisolova. This man appeared by night to some of the inhabitants of the village while they were asleep, and grasped their throat so tightly that in four-and-twenty hours it caused their death. Nine persons, young and old, perished thus in the course of eight days.

The widow of the same Plogojovitz declared that her husband since his death had come and asked her for his shoes, which frightened her so much that she left Kisolova to retire to some other spot.

From these circ.u.mstances the inhabitants of the village determined upon disinterring the body of Plogojovitz and burning it, to deliver themselves from these visitations. They applied to the emperor's officer, who commanded in the territory of Gradiska, in Hungary, and even to the cure of the same place, for permission to exhume the body of Peter Plogojovitz. The officer and the cure made much demur in granting this permission, but the peasants declared that if they were refused permission to disinter the body of this man, whom they had no doubt was a true vampire (for so they called these revived corpses), they should be obliged to forsake the village, and go where they could.

The emperor's officer, who wrote this account, seeing he could hinder them neither by threats nor promises, went with the cure of Gradiska to the village of Kisolova, and having caused Peter Plogojovitz to be exhumed, they found that his body exhaled no bad smell; that he looked as when alive, except the tip of the nose; that his hair and beard had grown, and instead of his nails, which had fallen off, new ones had come; that under his upper skin, which appeared whitish, there appeared a new one, which looked healthy, and of a natural color; his feet and hands were as whole as could be desired in a living man. They remarked also in his mouth some fresh blood, which these people believed that this vampire had sucked from the men whose death he had occasioned.

The emperor's officer and the cure having diligently examined all these things, and the people who were present feeling their indignation awakened anew, and being more fully persuaded that he was the true cause of the death of their compatriots, ran directly for a sharp-pointed stake, which they thrust into his breast, whence there issued a quant.i.ty of fresh and crimson blood, and also from the nose and mouth; something also proceeded from that part of his body which decency does not allow us to mention. After this the peasants placed the body on a pile of wood and saw it reduced to ashes.

M. Rauff,[581] from whom we have these particulars, cites several authors who have written on the same subject, and have related instances of dead people who have eaten in their tombs. He cites particularly Gabril Rzaczincki in his history of the Natural Curiosities of the Kingdom of Poland, printed at Sandomic in 1721.

Footnotes:

[580] Rauff, Art. xii. p. 15.

[581] Rauff, Art. xxi. p. 14.

CHAPTER XLVII.