Good timing!

I recently got into a discussion with one of my readers about the name of the family afflicted in the Croglin vampire case. There was a source I wanted to consult, to double-check my supposition that the 'Cranswell' name was an invention of Valentine Dyall.

That source arrived today. The source in question? F. Clive-Ross' 'The Croglin vampire', which was published in Tomorrow, vol. 11, no. 2 (1963), pp. 103–9. That article ain't easy to get, so I went ahead and ordered a copy of the journal.*

After discussing early sources for the tale, namely, Hare, Harper and Summers, Clive-Ross said the following about Dyall's contribution: 'A later writer, Valentine Dyall, in his book Unsolved Mysteries**, devotes a chapter to "The Croglin Hall Vampire," and offers much additional information, mostly without any stated authority, and unfortunately of such an unreliable nature as to be almost worthless' (p. 105).

However, Dyall's use of the Cranswell name is actually vindicated. According to Clive-Ross, who visited the area, 'It is interesting to note that the name of the brothers and their sister is still known locally, Cranswell, and it is also said that they were not local people' (p. 108). But Clive-Ross didn't disclose what their first names were, unlike Dyall.

The question is, why didn't Hare, Summers or Harper disclose their names? Were they ensuring the victim's anonymity? If so, why? Is it possible that the local tales were, at least in part, spurred on by the vampire's popularity? When Clive-Ross visited the local post office to find the way to Croglin Low Hall, the woman in charge asks him, "Are you looking for the vampire?" (p. 107). Is it possible Dyall's recount of the story actually tainted local legend? After all, he only says their names were 'known locally', not that there was any such record of their names. Indeed, Clive-Ross mentioned a variation on the legend:

Another tradition connected with the vampire involves Croglin Low Hall, and the two stories were generally repeated together. This story relates that at the time the tenants there had a three-year-old child. From being a happy, healthy child she became frightened, sickly and pale, and the parents noticed what they thought were rats teeth marks on her throat. After Miss Cranswell had been attacked new light was thrown on the child's plight, and the father was one of those who took part in the laying of the vampire (p. 108).

To confirm this thread, we need to go back to the original source, which was Augustus J.C. Hare's The story of my life, vol. 4 (London: George Allen, 1900), pp. 203–8. There is no mention of a child afflicted in this manner, the residents of the house are two brothers and their sister (the victim of the tale) and the vampire is despatched by 'all the tenants of Croglin Grange' by burning the vampire (p. 208).

Clive-Ross' article gives further background on the case, pushing it back further than the 1875 date it's commonly associated with ('Had the story really originated in 1875, as claimed by Mr. Dyall . . .' (p. 109). However, that's one myth I can bust. All you need to do is cast your eyes over to the top left-hand corner of the page:


See that date? 1874. Hare's book consists of reproduced journal entries, letters, etc. and Fisher's tale is recounted in the midst of his entry for 24 June 1874 entry (pp. 201–8). That doesn't mean the event took place that year, as Hare's source, Fisher, gives no clear date for which the events transpired. The main clue we have, is that the place was leased to the (unnamed) brothers and sister, after the Fisher family moved to 'the south, to reside at Thorncombe near Guildford' (p. 203).

Clive-Ross' article gives us a thirdhand source, 'Mrs Parkin tells me that she spoke with one of the Fisher family, who was born in the middle-eighteen-sixties, and that he told her he had known the vampire tale all his life, and originally heard it from his grandparents' (p. 108). But what was his version of the tale? Did it uphold Fisher's details? Was his version of the tale coloured by various recounts? Unfortunately, Clive-Ross doesn't say. We don't have that Fisher's name, and considering his birthdate, he'd be long-dead by now. As it stands, Hare's recount of Fisher's tale is the earliest known source of the legend, effectively serving as our default primary source.

That said, Clive-Ross' investigation has given us some fascinating details to work with, and says a lot about field research, including, 'Mrs. Parkin states that in the deeds of Croglin Low Hall the name Croglin Grange was used until about 1720' (p. 108). If you can get a hold of it, I highly recommend Clive-Ross' article to those interested in the Croglin Vampire case.

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So, why 'Good timing!'? Well, a few hours ago, I went to check the mail - after already checking it this morning - to see if the mag had arrived. It was waiting for me in the letter box, so must've been delivered later in the day. Usually, I would take such items inside and carefully rip 'em open, but this time, I decided to open it in the front yard. While I was doing so, a post van drove up the driveway and a postie came out with an Amazon box. Yep, he handed me a box 'o books I'd been waiting on.

The funny thing about that is, I checked the tracking info for 'em, this morning, to see where they were. According to Amazon, they're 'in transit' and the 'latest event' gave an arrival scan for Carlstadt NJ, August 31, 2011 8:31:08 AM. To get my copy of Tomorrow and the Amazon box in that situation, was, to say the least, good timing.

In terms of what was in the box, let's take a look-see.

This particular Amazon spree was triggered after 'discovering' the critical edition of Summers' The vampire: his kith and kin. I don't see the point in ordering one book at a time from there, as separate shipping fees only add to the cost. One reason why I don't use eBay as much as I used to. That's one benefit Amazon has: I can order in bulk. You should see my wish lists.

Anyway, including Summers' book, I wound up ordering fourteen on August 29th. There was a bit of a religious undertone, this time 'round, inspired through reading of Susannah Clements' The vampire defanged (2011). I enjoy such takes, as they touch on my own spiritual background. On the flipside, there's also some skeptical and occultic works in the mix. Here's what arrived today:

Raven Kaldera, The ethical psychic vampire, 2nd edn, Ellhorn Press, Hubbardston, Mass., 2008. Price: $17.81. Dammit, I didn't realise this was a second edition. Gah. Gonna have to chase up the first one, too.

Bertena Varney, Lure of the vampire: a pop culture reference book of lists, websites, and "very telling" personal essays, The Author, Lexington, Ky., 2011. Price: $9.99.

Steve Wohlberg, The trouble with Twilight: why today's vampire craze is hazardous to your health, Destiny Image-3ABN Books, Shippensburg, Pa., 2010. Price: $10.19. Spiritual health, that is.

Joe Nickell, Real-life x-files: investigating the paranormal, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 2001. Price: $29.95. Bugger-all on vampires, but, going on Nickell's other stuff, should be an interesting insight into scientific paranormal investigation.

Joe Nickell, The mystery chronicles: more real-life x-files, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 2004. Price: $26.60. Same as above. Though I specifically got the Nickell books because he cites them in Tracking the man-beasts (2011).

Gary Hoppenstand & Ray B. Browne (eds), The Gothic world of Anne Rice, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1996. Price: $21.95. An anthology cited in Clements' work. Should be an interesting insight into Ricean vampires.

Lady CG (Barbara Clarke), Practical Vampyrism for modern Vampyres: the first handbook for modern Vampyres, Lulu, 2005. Price: $29.74. Is it? I doubt it. I got this one for novelty value as much as an insight into the 'Scene'. Also, I don't think she says 'Vampyres' enough in the title. Vampyres, Vampyres, Vampyres.

Michelle Belanger, The vampire ritual book: the lost rites of the Sanguinarium, The Author, Lexington, Ky., 2003. Price: $19.95. A spell book, essentially. I don't intend on casting any, that's for sure, so mark this one up to novelty value and building on a collection of Belanger's other works. Oh, and isn't Lexington a popular place today! Wow. One main issue I'm finding with these self-published works (Varney, Lady CG, this one), is how hard it is to source their publication details. These books would be a nightmare for cataloguers and people wanting to cite them (like me). Traditionally, publication details go on the title page. Self-publishers take note.

Angela Grace, Dark angels revealed: from dark rogues to dark romantics, the secret lives of the most mysterious & mesmerizing vampires and fallen angels from Count Dracula to Edward Cullen, Fair Winds Press, Beverly, Mass., 2011. Price: $15.59. Dark, dark, dark, dark. That title, yikes. Obviously a populist book, but may provide some insights into the whole 'bad boy' appeal with vampires.

George Beahm, Bedazzled: a book about Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight phenomenon, Underwood Books, Calif., 2009. Price: $9.56. No, I haven't turned into a Twi-Hard, but I am fascinated as to why these books have caught on as much as they have. Beahm tends to ride the pop culture train. His other books of note relate to Stephen King and Harry Potter.

Beth Felker Jones, Touched by a vampire: discovering the hidden messages in the Twilight saga, Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs, Colo., 2009. Price: $11.07. For all the talk on teenage angst, there's an angle which shouldn't be forgotten: the stories are written by a devout Mormon housewife.

Kurt Bruner, The Twilight phenomenon: forbidden fruit or thirst-quenching fantasy?, Destiny Image, Shippensburg, Pa., 2009. Price: $6.00. It's interesting to see how many Christian writers have hopped on board the franchise, themselves, even if to warn against it - or uphold its supposed spiritual values. That's how mainstream Meyers has made vampires. It's almost unprecedented.

Still waiting on two more books, one of them, ironically, is the critical edition of Summers' work, which triggered off this spree in the first place.

* Ordered on August 26th, $9.99. Fortunately, a private seller had it for sale on Amazon.

** Another source I'm gonna have to chase up. Clive-Ross notes its publication details: 'Hutchinson, 1954' (p. 105, fn. 1).

Ludovico Fatinelli, exposed!

I've noticed that I score a few hits to my blog, based on searches for this guy. Some readers might recognise him from the FVZA website, which should be setting off alarm bells.

According to the FVZA, Fatinelli was a Florentine scholar, who studied under Galileo Gallilei, and was tried by the Inquisition for refusing to retract the findings in his 1616 work, Treatise on vampires, in which he claimed that 'microscopic entities, not moral failures, that were the real source of vampirism.' That same year, he was burned at the stake on April 23rd in Florence's Piazza Signoria. Here's their picture of the unfortunate gentleman:


Or is it? Thanks to the assistance of TinEye, a 'reverse image search engine', I can tell that no, that ain't Ludovico. That's 'Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer', Giordano Bruno.* Here's his picture:


Bruno would've had great difficulty publishing his findings in 1616—and being burned, for that matter—considering he was dead at the time (d. 17 February 1600). Bruno was was burned at the stake for heretical views, however, it had nothing to do with examinations of vampire physiology.

Ok, so maybe the FVZA made a mistake. Maybe they got their pictures mixed up. Sure, that's obviously Bruno, but what about the other pictures they used? Like the painting of his trial, for instance?


Pretty hard to make out any faces in that pic, considering how small it is. But that's probably because if you did see a larger image, you'd find that it actually depicts the trial of Fatinelli's 'mentor', Galileo Galilei.


Maybe Fatinelli was in the docks, giving moral support? Nope. The trial took place in 1633, seventeen years after Fatinelli's 'death'. Unlike Bruno, Galilei was spared the stake. He died on 8 January 1642 of heart complications.

There's one more picture from Fatinelli's FVZA page. It depicts his execution, and true to Fatinelli's fate, the person is being burned at a stake. Hell, it's even taking place at Florence's Piazza Signoria! I'd recognise it anywhere! Surely, that's gotta be him!


'Fraid not. Sure that's Florence's Piazza della Signoria, but the dude barbecuing on the stake isn't Fatinelli. It's Girolamo Savonarola, 'an Italian Dominican friar, Scholastic'.


He wasn't even Fatinelli's contemporary: Savonarola was executed on 23 May 1498. In case you still believe Fatinelli's backstory, despite the FVZA's recourse to falsely captioning pictures of him, here's a note on the cultural significance of Fatinelli's name from Ezechiele Toti: 'indeed, ludovico fatinelli doesn't exist , the italian form is lodovico and not ludovico that's spanish, fatinelli is a surname from Lucca, but not Florence'.

Need more proof? How about this from the site's homepage: 'Please note: This site is for entertainment purposes only. Some material is not suitable for children or young teenagers. See the Disclaimer below for more information.' What does the disclaimer say? This:

This site is fictional and is for entertainment purposes only. We are not affiliated with the U.S. Government in any way. Under no circumstances are you to harm anyone based on information from this site.

Not enough? Then cast your eyes down to the copyright notice on Fatinelli's page: '© 2001-2008 Dango Productions, Inc.' Dango Productions is a

private company categorized under Motion Picture Producers and Studios. Our records show it was established in 2001 and incorporated in New Mexico. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $99,000 and employs a staff of approximately 1.

What a coincidence! Founded in the same year the FVZA site went online! Dango's owner and president is Laurie Volkin, a freelance editor and writer, 'specializing in medical writing and communications.' Medical writing, like, say, the 'scientific' explanations for vampire physiology in the FVZA pages? The same person with a Bachelor's Degree in Communications/Liberal Arts? I'll let you do the math.

So, there's no need to try and find a copy of Fatinelli's treatise, as neither he, nor the book exists. If you're interested in tracking pre-20th century vampire works, I suggest using Melinda K. Haye's 'Vampiri Europeana: a chronological listing' as a springboard.

* To give credit where it's due, one of my readers, Ezechiele Toti, had previously noted that Fatinelli's portrait was actually Bruno's.

Let's get political

The vampire-as-political metaphor is nothing new. But did you know mainstream interest in vampires might say something about which type of government is in power?

Well, American political party, anyway. S Peter Davis wrote this compelling piece on '6 mind-blowing ways zombies and vampires explain America.' The article is based on data collated from Mr. Science Show, in which a comparison table is drawn up between Republican and Democratic presidencies and the popularity of vampire and zombie films during those interims.

The table kicks off with the presidency of Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1953. Davis's caption reads, 'And apparently all our apocalypses started with Eisenhower', as the article notes two zombie flicks released that year.

That's an interesting comment, because the following year, a novel was released which would have a significant impact on fictional vampire and zombie portrayals. The novel in question? Richard Matheson's I am legend (1954), which deals with an apocalyptic vampire plague. How significant was it? Put it this way: if it wasn't for that book, the marauding, flesh-eating zombies you know and love, would not exist.

As I've mentioned before, the modern zombie genre stems from George Romero's 1968 film, Night of the living dead, which is funny, because his creatures weren't intended to be zombies in the first place. Indeed, in the movie, they're called 'ghouls', a name derived from Arabic foklore, for a demon that feasts on the flesh of the dead. The reason they weren't called zombies, is because zombies, traditionally-speaking, aren't undead, flesh-eating, infecting corpses. They're undead slave labourers, controlled by a bokor; a sorcerer. Rather than shooting them in the head, feeding them salt will send 'em back to the grave.

That's why (actual) zombie flicks released before 1968 stick to the zombie-as-slave trope. Take Victor Halperin's White zombie (1932), Jacques Tourneur's I walked with a zombie (1943) and John Gilling's The plague of the zombies (1966). Occasionally, modern representations of the sorcerer (read: mad scientist) were used, as in Jerry Warren's Teenage zombies (1959). Even the cannibalistic overtones in Del Tenney's I eat your skin (1964) are a misnomer: no skin is eaten during the movie.

Somewhere along the line, the 'ghouls' of Romero's flick were morphed into 'zombies', extant Voodoo lore to the contrary. Zombies didn't infect others with their 'curse', a major trope associated with modern zombie flicks. That's a vampire trope, i.e. one featured in Romero's 'inspiration', I am legend. I use quotation marks for 'inspiration', because Romero, himself, admits that he did a little more than simply be 'inspired' by Matheson's novel: 'Then I read I Am Legend and adapted - well, actually ripped off! - the first half. And made it into Night Of The Living dead.'

Anyway, back to the political stuff. I was surprised to see the following image appear in Davis's article:


I wasn't surprised with the startling imagery of Obama as a vampire (not the first time I've seen that), but because the picture has been shamelessly 'vampirised' (heh heh) from Alex Ross's famous cover for The Village Voice:


Ross's image was used to illustrate Rick Perlstein's article, 'The end of democracy: losing America's birthright, the George Bush way.' What we have here is a political tool called zoomorphism. Its purpose is highlighted by Joël Kotek: 'To abuse one's adversaries, one dehumanizes them by turning them into animals.'* Funnily enough, this practice has been deployed against me, during my investigations in the Highgate vampire case.

* Kotek includes vampires in this category: 'The two other predominant anti-Semitic zoomorphic motifs are the blood-thirsty vampire and the octopus.'

A bastard of a book to get

Although I haven't mentioned, one book I've been trying to locate for my collection is Tony Faivre's Les vampires: essai historique, critique et littéraire (1962). Hasn't been easy, but my copy arrived today.

I'll tell ya, it's not an easy book to find. Try and find it on sale. Go on. See how many copies you stumble across. If you're lucky, one might fleetingly pop up on eBay. Even Niels mentions the difficulty in tracing a copy.

I found my copy in an obvious source, Amazon.fr*, but it's not like it's always there. Indeed, I'd already tried that site before. Many times. Fortunately, a private seller had since listed a copy for EUR 44,99 (shipping: EUR 10,99). Snap.

But before the copy arrived, I was stressing out. After all, I'd ordered it on August 3rd. By the 25th, the other books I'd ordered in the same 'hit'** had arrived. That same day, I received an e-mail notification to rate the sale. So...where was my damn book? Had it been lost in transit? Was the seller yanking my chain? A fake? Had they shipped it all? Were my efforts to secure a copy, cursed? All those thoughts raced through my head as I was daily greeted by a packageless letterbox. I was so close, so very close to contacting the seller today. No more delayed delivery blues.

At this point, you might be asking, what's the deal about this book? Why so keen to get it? And to that, I'll say it's a very important book in the field. Firstly, it was published at a time where vampire books were quite rare. The only other major works at the time were Roland Villeneuve's Loup-garou et vampires (1960), Ornella Volta and Valerio Riva's anthology I vampiri tra noi (1960), Emilio de' Rossignoli's Io credo nei vampiri (1961) and Volta's Le vampire (1962).

Volta's 1962 book, as well as Faivre's kicked off serious study of the subject. However, Faivre's contribution is given greater acknowledgement. How important was it? Massimo Introvigne, president of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula's Italian chapter, calls him the 'father of contemporary vampire studies.' High praise, indeed.

Antoine 'Tony' Faivre is still kickin', too. He has made other contributions to vampire scholarship, including an essay for Les vampires: Colloque de Cerisy (1993), but certainly nothing as significant as his 1962 book. He briefly discusses writing it in this interview.

If you're keen on scoring your own copy, I can tell you there's three copies available on PrinceMinister; as long as you know how to navigate yourself around a French website.

* Which I ordered during one of my patented Amazonian spending sprees. I also purchased Michaël [Michael] Ranft's De Masticatione mortuorum in tumulis: de la mastication des morts dans leurs tombeaux 1728 (EUR 7,54) and Alain Pozzuoli's La bible Dracula: dictionnaire du vampire (EUR 20,62). But the book that actually triggered the spree was Daniela Soloviova-Horville's Les vampires: du folklore slave à la littérature occidentale (EUR 30,17). Finding Faivre's book was sweet serendipity.

** See above.

Facsimile or web version?

I've been wondering whether the critical edition of Summers' The vampire: his kith and kin used web material as its source or referred to the original text. So, I went straight to the source: the book's editor, John Edgar Browning.

I contacted John on September 1, asking 'Did you use Summers' original book or did you use the online version of kith?' He responded the same day, 'Which would be better: That I used the online version; or, a facsimile of the first ed.?'

That sounded ominous, until I read his comments on my Facebook status update about the book (August 29 at 9:20am). One of my Facebook friends, Kyle, complained about the book being expensive (September 1 at 1:44pm), to which John added:

The new edition offers a complete, identical facsimile of the 1928 ed., front and back mater by renown vampire and Summers scholars, every known pic of Summers and then some, dozens of other contextual images, Greek and Latin translations for all those pesky passages, facsimiles of important correspondence between Summers, Wheatley, Censors Board, etc., and MORE. You can find other, cheaper editions, but they're usually OCRs cum errors, or facsimiles that offer no additional materials $22.95 is a steal, I think (Friday at 1:07am).

What a relief! Also, dayum! Couldn't agree more. All that for US$22.95. Bargain. My copy of the book's yet to arrive, but John did send me a brief pdf preview of the book's contents on Friday. While only a few pages long, I was very impressed with what I saw. For starters, it contained an image of Summers which I'd never seen before:


It also features contemporary reviews of the book, as well as Summers' correspondence...with Dennis Wheatley, no less. We're also treated to a chronology of events in the mysterious Summers' life. As John noted (September 1 at 7:49am), I'm not the only person who's blogged about the book.

I had a feeling I knew who he was referring to, and it was confirmed when I saw his link to the FoBSM blog. I noticed they'd pilfered some content from my blog entry (the parts showing which contributor wrote what). On the plus side, it's good to see the Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester take time out from their usual practice—cyber-bullying Manchester's critics—in order to plug the book.

It's also refreshing to see something not written by Manchester or Peter Underwood (Life Member of Manchester's Vampire Research Society) appear on their blog. Such is the esteem with which Summers is held by the Bishop and his friends. Of course, considering that Manchester views himself as something akin to a reincarnation of the late cleric, it's not all that surprising.

Anyway, I also took the opportunity to ask John whether there'd be a critical edition of Summers' follow-up vampire book, The vampire in Europe (1929). On Friday, he told me the book had 'been contracted and is expected out late this year/early next year'. Hell yeah.

Can't wait to get my copy. If you're interested in scoring your own, it's available through Amazon.

Discussion of dates and an interesting find

Props to funkyjane, for tipping me off on lower prices for Thomas J. Garza's The vampire in Slavic cultures. After discussing her comment, I'll also reveal an interesting find I unearthed on Amazon.

Ms. Jane informed me of a 2010 edition of his book, which is for sale via the publisher's website. At the moment, the going rate for this book, on Amazon, is $162.95, which means it's actually increased in price since it was published in 2009. As it that wasn't exorbitant enough, check out the book's used prices.


The book available from the publisher's webiste, however, is not a new edition, but I can see why Ms. Jane thought it was.

As noted, the book was published on 20 July 2009, going by Amazon's 'Publisher' info. However, the book's copyright date, is 2010 (that is viewable in the pdf free preview I downloaded in 2009, as well as the [same] version available now). If you didn't know the book was published in 2009, you'd take the copyright date as the date of publication.

And here's where it gets murky.

The copyright date that appears in books is not necessarily the year the book was published. For example, the third edition of J. Gordon Melton's The vampire book: the encyclopedia of the undead is listed as being published on 1 September 2010 and it was certainly available for purchase last year. However, if you check its copyright date, it'll say '2011'.

Same principle applies to Brad Steiger's Real vampires, night stalkers, and other creatures from the darkside. Its publication date is listed as 1 September 2009, yet it features a 2010 copyright date. I wound up contacting the book's publisher about this 'discrepancy' and was told 'in publishing, the copyright year generally starts in September, which is when Real Vampire [sic] was published'. Note 'generally'. That also probably variates from country to country.

That, of course, leaves us with a frustrating riddle: which year is the 'right' one? The copyright year of the year of publication? That depends on the style guide you consult.

In terms of citation, this research guide, which breaks down the Modern Language Association style, mentions 'For a book, use the copyright year as the date of publication, e.g.: 2005, not ©2005 or Copyright 2005, i.e. do not draw the symbol © for copyright, or add the word Copyright in front of the year.' Other style guides may have a different take, or none at all. Always make sure you use the most current version.

It also depends on the context you're using the year. For example, a book could (I would think) have its publication date mentioned in-text, while a citation for it using the copyright date, would (hypothetically) be ok.

What matters is consistency, which, unfortunately, I haven't totally engaged in on here, as I occasionally alternate between a book's copyright date and publication date, when discussing it. Plus, the matter is further hindered by how much insight the researcher has into the book's publication date.

After all, if we're relying on the book, itself, how do we know what its exact publication date was, if the only info we have on hand is the copyright date? Should we start checking the publication dates of all the books we consult? Tricky stuff. I might delve into this issue at a later time.

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In other news, how the hell did I miss this? While trawling through Amazon to write this entry, I stumbled across a critical edition of Montague Summers' The vampire: his kith and kin. 'Included in this critical edition are the authoritative text, rare contextual and source materials, correspondence, illustrations, as well as Greek and Latin translations. A biographical note and chronology are also included.'

Oh, hell yes! Into my shopping cart you go!

Check out the list of people involved in its creation: edited by John Edgar Browning (Draculas, vampires, and other undead forms: essays on gender, race, and culture, 2009), an introduction by Rosemary Ellen Guiley (Vampires among us, 1991; The complete vampire companion, 1994; The encyclopedia of vampires, werewolves, and other monsters, 2004/2011; Vampires, 2008), an afterword by Carol A. Senf (The vampire in nineteenth century English literature, 1988) and a foreword by J. Gordon Melton (The vampire book: the encyclopedia of the undead, 1994/1999/2011). What a line-up!

Fingers crossed they take on Summers' companion tome, The vampire in Europe (1929) next.

Also, I hope they haven't relied on the online version of The vampire: his kith and kin. There have been many reprints of that book, which stem from Bruno J. Hare's Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA) version.

The problem is, some of the text has been deliberately altered. You can tell which publishers have copy-n-pasted their reprints from ISTA (or other sites, which, in turn, have relied on the ISTA version), by seeing if they've included the following entry in Summers' bibliography: 'ERAH, J. Onurb. Key to Vampyrology, Witchcrafte & Dæmonologie for Guidance of ye Slayers. The Watchers' Society, Cambridge, 1751.'

The entry is not featured in the original Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. edition (1928), because Key to vampyrology doesn't exist. The entry was fabricated by transcriber, Bruno J. Hare (Erah, J. Onurb), to undermine copyists.

Slobbo cops a staking

Props to Fra Moretta for sending along a news item concerning a modern-day manifestation of the vampire belief.

Many might of you might recall Serbia and Yugoslavia's former president, Slobodan Milošević (1941-2006) and his, uh, let's say, unsavory reputation. He died of a heart attack while on trial for war crimes. But in 2007, he received a heart attack of a different kind:

Serbian vampire hunters have acted to prevent the very remote possibility that former dictator Slobodan Milosevic might stage a come-back - by driving a three-foot stake through his heart.

A few interesting items of note. Firstly, the hunters used the same length of stake that Arthur Holmwood does on Lucy Westenra in Dracula (1897). Yeah, that was a three footer, too. Second, as I've pointed out before, Serbia is the vampire's heartland. Third, they tried to drive a stake through his heart. In 2007. Yikes.

Technically speaking, Miroslav Milosevic (no relation) drove the stake through Slobodan's grave. Not sure whether it 'hit the spot'. I'm sure he had good intentions. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the gesture was a bizarre political protest - by a member of the Resistance from Pozarevac, no less - or whether he genuinely believed in the stake's purpose in accordance with vampire tradition. But interestingly enough, impaling the a vampire's grave to prevent it rising is founded in tradition, as is the choice of hawthorn for the stake...

Update: ok, so I was right about the 'political protest' angle. Tanja, a contributor on a JREFF thread dedicated to the news story, exposed it with her translation of a Bosnian news source. Miroslav was indeed making a (ahem) point. I love the local constabulary's reaction to Miroslav's intent to stake the Slobmeister. It's a pisser.