So well done! The historical and mythological detail bring so much dimension to the ominous atmosphere. This is a fascinating corner of the vampire lore world I was totally unaware of. Thanks for this wonderful, unsettling peek into it.
I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m going to say it again: I’m so grateful for your thoughtful comments, Jacquie. There was a point while writing this story when I was reminded of your own tale about the fuller, when the character gives that beautiful narrative about the valley of feathers.
Thank you for the lovely comment! I’ve accidentally overextended myself by starting 3 novels that I’m still working on. But I may revisit it this sometime and try to expand it. 😊
thanks for the good story, Daniel. I don't know as much about Armenia as I should, or about vampires at all. But I was intrigued to see from Wiki that the dakhanavar (դախանավար) was a real legend there, as recorded in 1854 in the book, Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus by Baron August von Haxthausen. I unerstand also that the first literary vampire book was Polidori's in 1819. So...
To your knowledge, did the vampire literature genre simply evolve from folk legends of various exotic places, rather than any particulary literary invention? It just strikes me as odd that vampires would only appear in literature so ate as the early 19th c if they indeed hearken back from ancient folk beliefs.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but it is outside of my usual genres.
Great question, Chris. The vampire myth in general goes back centuries in one form or another. You’re actually in a position to do some cutting edge field work if you were ever interested in exploring. There was a spate of vampire phobia when the Balkans were drawn under the authority of Maria Theresa back in the 17th century, and she sent her personal physician Gerhard van Swieten to travel through the Balkans to disabuse the peasantry of their belief in such things. He claimed to have been successful in his mission and later wrote a treatise affirming that the Habsburg territories were now “vampyrfrei”.
As for the Armenian vampire myth, I have my own suspicions that a famous Hungarian orientalist by the name of Arminius Vambry, who was fluent in Turkish and Armenian, may have communicated the legend of the dhakhanavar to Bram Stoker, since he’s reputed to have been an inspiration for much of the eastern European folklore that Stoker adapted for the story. Interestingly, vampires in Europe have been over the years conflated with werewolves, and in some of the languages of Eastern Europe, they were one and the same. You can kind of see how that would play out in “Dracula” in which the count shape-shifts into a wolf and is able to communicate with them.
Thanks Daniel, that is really helpful- I don't read German but if you have any of the local sources (unless they were just orated legends) from the Slavic side I might be able to look into what Maria Teresa and her henchamn were up to down here!
I was also curious about the genre because I see Stoker's Dracula came out in 1897 but my man Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Camilla came out even earlier, in 1872. Now, I haven't read that one yet, but I greatly enjoyed Uncle Silas and Green Tea, so I'm sure that I will also appreciate this work of a really out-there Irish writer. I imagine if you are steeped in the genre you will know of it already, but I just thought it interesting to mention. Then there is the question of did Poe write something in this genre, I am finding different answers and will have to do more research. But, for what it's worth, this whole subject has given me the idea for a modern comic story playing on current realities... I will have to keep that in mind for when I have free time.
As for the original sources, I think most of the contemporary documentation is still in German. However, have you ever heard of the oddball Catholic convert, Montague Summers? He’s famous for having translated the “Hammer of Witches” into English, but he also wrote books about vampires and werewolves. I actually find him super annoying because about two thirds of every one of his books he reproduces the source materials in the original languages, and assumes the reader is fluent in Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, French, etc. And for things like Armenian, he uses the Latin translations of the sources if there are any. BUT, that said, his book on both werewolves and vampires would be a great stepping stone for plunging into what I imagined are a lot of obscure books that only exist in libraries in the Balkans.
thanks for the link on your piece mentioning Le Fanu, I shall check that out! Never heard of Summers, but I will look into him. And yes, so long as I am in the Balkans, I could look for source material in local languages. Will ask around.
The basic question though, I guess, still remains, as unless I am mistaken, the vampiric trope was not inherited from ancient myth... perhaps I am wrong, but usually in the cases of ulimtate derivation someone like Herodotus or Strabo will be cited as providing an example from myth or the behavior of barbarian tribes (as with, another Caucasus example, Jason and the Golden Fleece seems to have come from the practice of ancient Georgian farmers panning for gold using sheepskins that then seemed to gleam as if purely made of gold).
Oh, that’s really interesting about the Golden Fleece. I’m afraid that I only have a passing experience of vampire mythology. But the tropes in the literature that Westerners are familiar with begin, like you said, with Polidori’s tale. Although he, too, seemed to have been inspired by an incomplete story called “The Vampire” that Lord Byron had started to write. The fragment that survives is actually quite good, and opens in an Ottoman cemetery in the Balkans. That fragment is available in the “Penguin Book of Vampires”. From what I recall, both of the stories came about while Byron, Polidori, and Mary Shelley, and PB were all in Switzerland. They challenged one another to write horror stories. And Mary Shelley’s was the one everyone still remembers.
So well done! The historical and mythological detail bring so much dimension to the ominous atmosphere. This is a fascinating corner of the vampire lore world I was totally unaware of. Thanks for this wonderful, unsettling peek into it.
I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m going to say it again: I’m so grateful for your thoughtful comments, Jacquie. There was a point while writing this story when I was reminded of your own tale about the fuller, when the character gives that beautiful narrative about the valley of feathers.
Very cool. This would make a cool novel. Any plans to expand it?
Thank you for the lovely comment! I’ve accidentally overextended myself by starting 3 novels that I’m still working on. But I may revisit it this sometime and try to expand it. 😊
Woah! I didn’t see that coming!
Thanks so much for leaving the comment, David!!! 😀
thanks for the good story, Daniel. I don't know as much about Armenia as I should, or about vampires at all. But I was intrigued to see from Wiki that the dakhanavar (դախանավար) was a real legend there, as recorded in 1854 in the book, Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus by Baron August von Haxthausen. I unerstand also that the first literary vampire book was Polidori's in 1819. So...
To your knowledge, did the vampire literature genre simply evolve from folk legends of various exotic places, rather than any particulary literary invention? It just strikes me as odd that vampires would only appear in literature so ate as the early 19th c if they indeed hearken back from ancient folk beliefs.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but it is outside of my usual genres.
Great question, Chris. The vampire myth in general goes back centuries in one form or another. You’re actually in a position to do some cutting edge field work if you were ever interested in exploring. There was a spate of vampire phobia when the Balkans were drawn under the authority of Maria Theresa back in the 17th century, and she sent her personal physician Gerhard van Swieten to travel through the Balkans to disabuse the peasantry of their belief in such things. He claimed to have been successful in his mission and later wrote a treatise affirming that the Habsburg territories were now “vampyrfrei”.
As for the Armenian vampire myth, I have my own suspicions that a famous Hungarian orientalist by the name of Arminius Vambry, who was fluent in Turkish and Armenian, may have communicated the legend of the dhakhanavar to Bram Stoker, since he’s reputed to have been an inspiration for much of the eastern European folklore that Stoker adapted for the story. Interestingly, vampires in Europe have been over the years conflated with werewolves, and in some of the languages of Eastern Europe, they were one and the same. You can kind of see how that would play out in “Dracula” in which the count shape-shifts into a wolf and is able to communicate with them.
Thanks Daniel, that is really helpful- I don't read German but if you have any of the local sources (unless they were just orated legends) from the Slavic side I might be able to look into what Maria Teresa and her henchamn were up to down here!
I was also curious about the genre because I see Stoker's Dracula came out in 1897 but my man Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Camilla came out even earlier, in 1872. Now, I haven't read that one yet, but I greatly enjoyed Uncle Silas and Green Tea, so I'm sure that I will also appreciate this work of a really out-there Irish writer. I imagine if you are steeped in the genre you will know of it already, but I just thought it interesting to mention. Then there is the question of did Poe write something in this genre, I am finding different answers and will have to do more research. But, for what it's worth, this whole subject has given me the idea for a modern comic story playing on current realities... I will have to keep that in mind for when I have free time.
Keep up the good work!
Chris - Regarding Le Fanu, I made mention of Carmilla in one of my earliest posts on Substack, which has some “travel writing” in it as well. It’s this post here: https://danielwdavison.substack.com/p/the-vampires-and-marionettes-of-cesky
As for the original sources, I think most of the contemporary documentation is still in German. However, have you ever heard of the oddball Catholic convert, Montague Summers? He’s famous for having translated the “Hammer of Witches” into English, but he also wrote books about vampires and werewolves. I actually find him super annoying because about two thirds of every one of his books he reproduces the source materials in the original languages, and assumes the reader is fluent in Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, French, etc. And for things like Armenian, he uses the Latin translations of the sources if there are any. BUT, that said, his book on both werewolves and vampires would be a great stepping stone for plunging into what I imagined are a lot of obscure books that only exist in libraries in the Balkans.
thanks for the link on your piece mentioning Le Fanu, I shall check that out! Never heard of Summers, but I will look into him. And yes, so long as I am in the Balkans, I could look for source material in local languages. Will ask around.
The basic question though, I guess, still remains, as unless I am mistaken, the vampiric trope was not inherited from ancient myth... perhaps I am wrong, but usually in the cases of ulimtate derivation someone like Herodotus or Strabo will be cited as providing an example from myth or the behavior of barbarian tribes (as with, another Caucasus example, Jason and the Golden Fleece seems to have come from the practice of ancient Georgian farmers panning for gold using sheepskins that then seemed to gleam as if purely made of gold).
Oh, that’s really interesting about the Golden Fleece. I’m afraid that I only have a passing experience of vampire mythology. But the tropes in the literature that Westerners are familiar with begin, like you said, with Polidori’s tale. Although he, too, seemed to have been inspired by an incomplete story called “The Vampire” that Lord Byron had started to write. The fragment that survives is actually quite good, and opens in an Ottoman cemetery in the Balkans. That fragment is available in the “Penguin Book of Vampires”. From what I recall, both of the stories came about while Byron, Polidori, and Mary Shelley, and PB were all in Switzerland. They challenged one another to write horror stories. And Mary Shelley’s was the one everyone still remembers.