Goethe: THE BRIDE OF CORINTH (1797)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE BRIDE OF CORINTH

(1797)

Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring

ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,
  Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,
As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they
Had been wont to say
Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.
But can he that boon so highly prized,
  Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,
He and all of his are heathens yet.

For a newborn creed,
Like some loathsome weed,
Love and truth to root out oft will threat.
Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,
  And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,
And conducts him to the room of state.

Emily Gerard on Werewolves in Transylvania

First cousin to the vampire, the long exploded were-wolf of the Germans is here to be found, lingering yet under the name of the Prikolitsch. Sometimes it is a dog instead of a wolf, whose form a man has taken either voluntarily or as penance for his sins. In one of the villages a story is still told (and believed) of such a man, who driving home from church on Sunday with his wife, suddenly felt that the time for his transformation had come. He therefore gave over the reins to her, and stepped aside into the bushes, where, murmuring the mystic formula, he turned three somersaults over a ditch. Soon after this the woman, waiting in vain for her husband, was attacked by a furious dog, which rushed, barking, out of the bushes and succeeded in biting her severely, as well as tearing her dress. When, an hour later, this woman reached home alone she was met by her husband, who advanced smiling to meet her, but between his teeth she caught sight of the shreds of her dress which had been bitten out by the dog, and the horror of the discovery caused her to faint away.

Emily Gerard on Nosferatu (Vampire) in Transylvania

More decidedly evil, however, is the vampire, or nosferatu, in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell. There are two sorts of vampires—living and dead. The living vampire is in general the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons, but even a flawless pedigree will not ensure anyone against the intrusion of a vampire into his family vault, since every person killed by a nosferatu becomes likewise a vampire after death, and will continue to suck the blood of other innocent people till the spirit has been exorcised, either by opening the grave of the person suspected and driving a stake through the corpse, or firing a pistol shot into the coffin. In very obstinate cases it is further recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave.
That such remedies are often resorted to, even in our enlightened days, is a well-attested fact, and there are probably few Roumenian villages where such has not taken place within the memory of the inhabitants.

Werewolf (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911)

WERWOLF (from A.S. wer; cf. Lat. vir, man; and wolf; or, according to a later suggestion, from O.H.G. weri, wear, i.e. wearer of the wolf-skin), a man transformed temporarily or permanently into a wolf. The belief in the possibility of such a change is a special phase of the general doctrine of lycanthropy (q.v.). In the European history of this singular belief, wolf transformations appear as by far the most prominent and most frequently recurring instances of alleged metamorphosis, and consequently in most European languages the terms expressive of the belief have a special reference to the wolf. Examples of this are found in the Gr. λυκάγθρωπσς, Russian volkodlάk, Eng. “werwolf,” Ger. währwolf, Fr. loup-garou. More general terms (e.g. Lat., versipellis; Russ., όboroten; O. Norse, hamrammr; Eng. “turnskin,” “turncoat”) are sufficiently numerous to furnish some evidence that the class of animals into which metamorphosis was possible was not viewed as a restricted one. But throughout the greater part of Europe the werwolf is preferred; there are old traditions of his existence in England, in Wales and in Ireland; in southern France, Germany, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Servia, Bohemia, Poland and Russia he can hardly be pronounced extinct now; in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland the bear competes with the wolf for pre-eminence.

Vampire (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911)

VAMPIRE, a term, apparently of Servian origin (wampir), originally applied in Eastern Europe to blood-sucking ghosts, but in modern usage transferred to one or more species of bloodsucking bats inhabiting South America.

In the first-mentioned meaning a vampire is usually supposed to be the soul of a dead man which quits the buried body by night to suck the blood of living persons. Hence, when the vampire's grave is opened, his corpse is found to be fresh and rosy from the blood which he has thus absorbed. To put a stop to his ravages, a stake is driven through the corpse, or the head cut off, or the heart torn out and the body burned, or boiling water and vinegar are poured on the grave. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides and those who have come to a violent end or have been cursed by their parents or by the church. But any one may become a vampire if an animal (especially a cat) leaps over his corpse or a bird flies over it. Sometimes the vampire is thought to be the soul of a living man which leaves his body in sleep, to go in the form of a straw or fluff of down and suck the blood of other sleepers. The belief in vampires chiefly prevails in Slavonic lands, as in Russia (especially White Russia and the Ukraine), Poland and Servia, and among the Czechs of Bohemia and the other Slavonic races of Austria. It became especially prevalent in Hungary between the years 1730 and 1735, whence ail Europe was filled with reports of the exploits of vampires. Several treatises were written on the subject, among which may be mentioned Ranft's De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1734) and Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary, translated into English in 1750. It is probable that this superstition gained much ground from the reports of those who had examined the bodies of persons buried alive though believed to be dead, and was based on the twisted position of the corpse, the marks of blood on the shroud and on the face and hands— results of the frenzied struggle in the coffin before life became extinct. The belief in vampirism has also taken root among the Albanians and modern Greeks, but here it may be due to Slavonic influence.
[...]