THE REAL LIFE VAMPIRES

Arnold Paole

Arnold Paole, who lived in the territory of the (now former) Yugoslavia (then this land was part of the Habsburg empire). On this account, a document that was signed by the Austrian Imperial Commission, which consisted of three military surgeons and two officers, was preserved.

 Paole was a young man who returned to his native village of Meduengna near Belgrade in the spring of 1727 after serving his military service. He settled down on the ground, bought a plot, got a farm, made plans to marry a beautiful girl Nina, the daughter of a rich neighbor.

 Paole was always in a good relationship with neighbors, and they could not help but see that something was amiss with the guy. Nina also felt that he was concerned about something, and once asked him directly about the reason. Paole confessed that he was haunted by the idea of ​​premature death. And it started still during military service in Greece. There he was visited by an immortal entity, he found her grave and tried to drive the devil out of the body, but unsuccessfully. For this reason, he refused military service and returned to the village so young.

 For a while, it seemed, Paole did not bother. But somehow during the haymaking he fell from the haystack, was wounded and soon died. A month later, there were rumors that Paole was wandering about at night. People complained that he was following them, and many soon died. So he could not escape the curse of vampirism. After two and a half months, residents decided to dig out the body.

 Together with a group of fellow villagers, two officers were sent to the cemetery, sent from Belgrade, where the authorities became interested in a mysterious case, as well as the military surgeons already mentioned, the drummer boy who carried their tools, and the old gravedigger with helpers. Having removed the lid from the coffin, they saw, as it was written in the official report, that "the body is turned to one side, the jaws are wide open, and the blue lips are moistened with fresh blood that flows down a thin trickle from the corners of the mouth." Further in the report we read: "The fearless gravedigger grabbed the body and laid it straight. It soon became clear that before us - a vampire. He looked almost like a living ... At the moment when the gravedigger touched the body, the outer skin peeled off and under it was new and new nails ... "Fear seized the people, the drummer fainted. Garlic was poured onto the deceased, his body was pierced with a stake, "while the corpse gave a terrible scream and gushed blood of the carmine color." After that, they dug up the corpses of four people, whose cause of death was believed to be Paole. They, too, were pierced with stakes to prevent them from returning to the world of the living. And then the remains of all five were burned and the ashes buried in the consecrated ground.

 For some time, the measures taken helped. Reports of vampires in the village stopped coming. But again several people died, and again rumors, similar to the previous ones, began to spread. The authorities appointed a commission, which was instructed to open the graves of the recently deceased and conduct a medical examination of the corpses. In documents of the commission dated 1732, one can find a description of very interesting facts: the bodies of women and children who died before the exhumation months were perfectly preserved, while the bodies of others who had departed into the world at the same time as the first ones almost completely disintegrated. Members of the commission stabbed all suspicious corpses, beheaded and burned them. This time the cases of vampirism really stopped.

Hunderprest Of Melrose Abbey

"Hunderpost" is a nickname given to a priest who lived in the 11th century in the Abbey of Melrose in Scotty Borders. He received his nickname because of his favorite pastime: hunting on horseback with a pack of hunting dogs. (Hunderpeast means "dog priest").

The story of a vampire from the Abbey of Melrose begins around 1138. In life, Hunderpeast was not a very good person, so after his death, he returned in the form of a ghost. He had to drink the blood of innocent people and turn into a bat. It is believed that the monks of the abbey displayed an impressive ability to substitute another cheek and did not pay attention to the fact that he walked in the form of undead and all that - until he began to demand sex from his former mistress.

After a while, frightened monks and priests united for the purpose of killing Hunderpred. They came to his grave and waited for him to rise from her. The monks showed a rather uncharacteristic ability to tear their asses and killed Hunderpurst with an accurate blow to the ax on the head. They burned the corpse of a vampire and scattered his ashes, thus ending the era of his terror. However, according to some legends, he is still pacing in this area.

Peter Plogojowitz

He was a man who lived in Serbia in the 1700s, who died (like everyone else). However, according to some stories, he did not remain dead. Ten weeks after his death, nine people suddenly died of a mysterious illness, and until their death they all said that Petar Blagozhevich pursued them in a dream. Petar's son said that he saw his father in the kitchen three days after his death and demanded food - after which, the son died under mysterious circumstances. Petar's wife fled the city after her deceased husband appeared to her at night and demanded a pair of shoes.

An army was summoned, and Petar's body was exhumed. As eyewitnesses told, he was breathing and his eyes were open. In his heart stuck a stake, after which he blew from the blood, and the body caught fire. Death and dreams immediately stopped.

Jure Grando

Jure Grando - a peasant from Istria (Istria), Croatia, who died in 1656. According to legend, he terrorized the local population for 16 years after his death.

The case of Jure Grando is noteworthy in vampire folklore for the reason that this is the first time in history when the term "vampire" was officially applied to a person. According to the inhabitants of the village, he wandered by their houses at night and knocked at the door. The man whose door he knocked on was soon killed. When Yura was not busy with this action, he begged his widow to have sex with him. Over time, people were tired of living in fear, so the local priest decided to take matters into his own hands and stepped onto the warpath with evil spirits. Grando could not defeat the priest, who took out his cross from the zagashnik. The priest and several villagers chased him to his grave, dug up Yura and decapitated his body.

Peter Courten

 Peter Courten "went hunting" at night. Victims of it were people and animals. One night in Hofgarten, a national park in Düsseldorf, he attacked a sleeping swan, cut off his head and drank his blood. From 1923 to 1929, Courtenes committed 7 murders (strangulations) and 20 arson attacks. The victims of the two crimes managed to survive, and rumors of the murderer spread around the district. Once Kurten met with Maria Dadlik, and she, fascinated by his appearance and manners, agreed to go to his house. There they drank tea, but when he began to molest, Maria demanded that he take her to the hotel where she stayed. Kurt agreed, but instead led her into the forest and tried to strangle her. Then he behaved quite strangely: asked if she remembers where he lives. Maria lied, saying that she did not remember. Then Kurten brought her to the road and left. Maria led the police on the trail of Courtenay. Shortly before his arrest, he confessed to his wife in his crimes, and she called the police. Peter Kurtenu on the verdict of the court severed his head July 2, 1931.

Alnwick Castle Vampire

The vampire of the castle Alnick actually existed before the concept of "vampire" appeared. Events were recorded by an English chronicler named William of Newburgh (William of Newburgh, X a.c). He wrote down a story about a man who returned from the afterlife, where he fell, spying on his wife, a traitorous woman - he was sitting on the roof and fell. Then he returned to life in the form of a ghost - a wandering corrupting corpse bringing with it a plague.

Over time, the priest gathered his congregation and found the grave of a vampire. They unearthed the corpse and dug a shovel into it. Warm blood poured from the body, which confirmed their suspicions that the corpse drank the blood of living people. They burned the corpse and the attacks stopped.

Highgate Vampire

In 1969, at the Highgate Cemetery in London, completely decapitated corpses of animals began appearing on the neck of which characteristic wounds were present. Then eyewitnesses told about a tall, dark image of a man from whom an evil aura came, and who had a hypnotic look. One of the eyewitnesses said that after meeting with the creature, he was confused and lost his way, trying to leave the cemetery. Suddenly, before him was a vampire from Highgate, who paralyzed him ... And then the vampire disappeared.

Tales of this in the press led to the fact that in the cemetery crowded self-proclaimed vampire hunters. They excavated several graves, because of which it was soon decided to close the cemetery for the night. Over time, stories about the vampire were forgotten, and everything returned to normal.

Vampire Of Croglin Grange

This story began in the 1800s, when the Cranwell family moved to a house in Kroglin-Grange in Cumbria. Lady Cronwell noticed a strange glow in the garden, but did not pay much attention to this until she woke up in the middle of the night because of her window lights hanging. However, these were not simple lights, outside the window she saw someone's eyes.

Lady Cronwell was numb with fear, while the creature gradually opened the window, and then stretched her rotting arm inward. Her brothers heard her screams and ran to the rescue, arriving just at the moment when something like a cat disappeared into the darkness, and blood flowed from the wounds on their sister's neck.

The brothers decided to destroy the vampire. After a while they returned to the estate and organized a trap. Lady Cronwell pretended to be asleep in the same room where the first attack occurred. When the vampire again tried to penetrate through the window, the brothers broke into the room with the pistols and began to shoot at him. The vampire screamed and ran away. The next day the brothers gathered an angry mob and searched the cemetery until they found an open crypt. Inside were found gnawed bones and an open coffin, in which lay a decomposed corpse with fresh gunshot wounds. Naturally, the corpse was then burned.

Vampires Of New England

There were few stories of vampires in America - until 1990, the terrible discovery of the grave in Griswold, Connecticut, was committed. In the grave were buried the bodies of farmers from the 1700's. All the bodies were ordinary except one. The corpse was beheaded, and the skeleton is in the form of a Jolly Roger.

It was decided that this was not the usual plundering of the grave, since the body was beheaded ten years after the death of a person, and all the valuable things remained in the grave. This incident was similar to an incident in the nearby city of Jewett City, where around the same time 29 corpses were exhumed and burned. Apparently, this was some vampire epidemic. The most famous case of vampirism in those days was Mercy Brown, a girl who died of tuberculosis. Some time after her death, her relatives began to fall ill and die one after another, until the corpse of Mercy was dug up - then it was discovered that the corpse was suspiciously well preserved, and people decided to burn it.