The vampire is not an unknown spectre in China, where the measures adopted for the riddance of the pest are generally the burning of the mortal remains of the corpse, or removing to a distance the lid of the coffin after the vampire has started on his nocturnal rounds. It is held that the air thus entering freely into the coffin will cause the contents to decay. Another Chinese cure for vampires is to watch any suspected coffin until the corpse has quitted it, and then strew rice, red peas, and bits of iron around it. The corpse, on returning, will find it impossible to pass over these things, and will thus fall an easy prey to his captors.
The following story of a Chinese vampire is related by Dr J. J. M. de Groot in his Religious System of China (vol. v. p. 747):—
“Liu N. N., a literary graduate of the lowest degree in Wukiang (in Kiangsu), was in charge of some pupils belonging to the Tsaing family in the Yuen-hwo district. In the season of Pure Brightness he returned home, some holidays being granted him to sweep his ancestral tombs. This duty performed, he returned to his post, and said to his wife: ‘To-morrow I must go; cook some food for me at an early hour.’ The woman said she would do so, and rose for the purpose at cockcrow. Their village lay on the hill behind their dwelling, facing a brook. The wife washed some rice at that brook, picked some vegetables in the garden, and had everything ready, but when it was light her husband did not rise. She went into his room to wake him up, but however often she called he gave no answer. So she opened the curtains and found him lying across the bed, headless, and not a trace of blood to be seen.
“Terror-stricken, she called the neighbours. All of them suspected her of adultery with a lover, and murder, and they warned the magistrate. This grandee came and held a preliminary inquest; he ordered the corpse to be coffined, had the woman put in fetters, and examined her; so he put her in gaol, and many months passed away without sentence being pronounced. Then a neighbour, coming uphill for some fuel, saw a neglected grave with a coffin lid bare; it was quite a sound coffin, strong and solid, and yet the lid was raised a little; so he naturally suspected that it had been opened by thieves. He summoned the people; they lifted the lid off and saw a corpse with features like a living person and a body covered with white hair. Between its arms it held the head of a man, which they recognised as that of Liu, the graduate. They reported the case to the magistrate; the coroners ordered the head to be taken away, but it was so firmly grasped in the arms of the corpse that the combined efforts of a number of men proved insufficient to draw it out. So the magistrate told them to chop off the arms of the kiangshi (corpse-spectre). Fresh blood gushed out of the wounds, but in Liu’s head there was not a drop left, it having been sucked dry by the monster. By magisterial order the corpse was burned, and the case ended with the release of the woman from gaol.”
CHAPTER X
LIVING VAMPIRES
There is, however, the living vampire, distinct and separate from the dead species. In Epirus and Thessaly there is a belief in living vampires, who leave their shepherd dwellings by night and roam about, biting and tearing men and animals and sucking their blood. In Moldavia and in Wallachia, the murony are real, living men who become dogs at night, with the backbone prolonged to form a sort of tail. They roam through the villages, and their main delight is to kill cattle.
In some countries the belief prevails that the soul of a living man, often of a sorcerer, leaves its proper body asleep and goes forth, perhaps in visible form of a straw or fluff of down, slips through the keyholes, and attacks its sleeping victim. If the sleeper should wake in time to clutch this tiny soul-embodiment, he may through it have his revenge by maltreating or destroying its bodily owner.
The following account was contributed by me to the Occult Review for July 1910. The particulars are given exactly as I wrote them down in shorthand from the narrator’s dictation. My informant is a well-known medical practitioner in the West End of London, who has held various official appointments in the tropics, and I received his assurance that the incidents recorded happened exactly as they are described. Whether the Indian referred to is still alive or not is unknown, but certainly the two other principals, at the time of writing, are.