“‘Such and such is the state of things, soldier,’ say they.
“‘I can bring your young people to life again. What will you give me if I do?’
“‘Take what you like, even were it half of what we have got.’
“The soldier did as the warlock had instructed him, and brought the young people back to life. Instead of weeping there began to be happiness and rejoicing: the soldier was hospitably treated and well rewarded. Then—left about face! Off he marched to Starosta and told the burgomaster to call the peasants together and to get ready a hundred loads of aspen wood. Well, they took the wood into the graveyard, dragged the warlock out of his grave, placed him on the pyre, and set it in flames. The warlock began to burn. His corpse burst, and out of it came snakes, worms, and all kinds of reptiles, and up came flying crows, magpies, and jackdaws. The peasants knocked them down and flung them into the fire, not allowing so much as a single maggot to creep away! And so the warlock was thoroughly consumed, and the soldier collected his ashes and strewed them to the winds. From that time there was peace in the village.
“The soldier received the thanks of the whole community.”
In Russian folk-lore there is a class of demons known as “heart devourers,” who touch their victim with an aspen or other twig credited with magical properties; the heart then falls out and may be replaced by some baser one. There is a Moscovian story in which a hero awakes with the heart of a hare, the work of a demon while the man was asleep. He remained a coward for the rest of his life. In another instance a very quiet, reserved, inoffensive peasant received a cock’s heart in exchange for his own, and afterwards was for ever crowing like a healthy bird.
The following is taken from the Lettres Juives of 1738:—
“In the beginning of September there died in the village of Kisilova, three leagues from Graditz, an old man who was sixty-two years of age. Three days after he had been buried, he appeared in the night to his son, and asked him for something to eat; the son having given him something, he ate and disappeared. The next day the son recounted to his neighbours what had happened. That night the father did not appear, but the following night he showed himself and asked for something to eat. They know not whether the son gave him anything or not; but the next day he was found dead in his bed. On the same day, five or six persons fell suddenly ill in the village, and died one after the other in a few days.
“The officer or bailiff of the place, when informed of what had happened, sent an account of it to the tribunal of Belgrade, which despatched to the village two of these officers and an executioner to examine into this affair. The imperial officer from whom we have this account repaired thither from Graditz to be a witness of what took place.
“They opened the graves of those who had been dead six weeks. When they came to that of the old man, they found him with his eyes open, having a fine colour, with natural respiration, nevertheless motionless as the dead: whence they concluded that he was most undoubtedly a vampire. The executioner drove a stake into his heart; they then raised a pile and reduced the corpse to ashes. No mark of vampirism was found either on the corpse of the son or on the others.”