The former alternative is rendered improbable in the first place by the fact that the Greeks have not adopted the word ‘vampire.’ If the whole idea of dead men remaining under certain conditions incorrupt and emerging from their graves to work havoc among living men had been first communicated to them by the Slavs, they must almost inevitably have borrowed the name by which the Slavs described those men. But since in fact they did not adopt the Slavonic name ‘vampire,’ it is probable that they already possessed in their own language some word adequate to express that idea, and therefore possessed also some native superstition concerning resuscitation of the dead which Slavonic influence merely modified.
Further, there is positive evidence that such a word or words existed; for there have been, and still are, dialects which employ a word of Greek formation in preference not merely to the word ‘vampire,’ which seems to be unknown in Greece proper, but even to the misapplied Slavonic word vrykolakas. Thus Leo Allatius was familiar with the word τυμπανιαῖος, ‘drum-like,’ but whether in his day it belonged especially to his native island Chios[1009] or was still in general usage, he does not record. At the present day it survives only, so far as I know, in Cythnos, where also ἄλυτος, ‘incorrupt,’ is used as another synonym[1010]. From Cythera are reported three names, ἀνάρραχο, λάμπασμα, and λάμπαστρο[1011], evidently Greek in formation but to me, I must confess, unintelligible. In Cyprus (where, as we have seen, the word vrykolakas may still bear its old sense ‘were-wolf’) the revenant is named σαρκωμένος[1012], because his swollen appearance suggests that he has ‘put on flesh,’ or more rarely στοιχειωμένος[1013], perhaps with the idea that he has become the ‘genius’ (στοιχειό)[1014] of some particular locality. Again, from the village of Pyrgos in Tenos is reported the word ἀναικαθούμενος[1015] meaning apparently one who ‘sits up’ in his grave. Finally, in Crete the name popularly employed is καταχανᾶς[1016], the origin of which is not certain. Bernhard Schmidt[1017], following Koraës[1018], derives it from κατὰ and χάνω (= ancient Greek χαόω), ‘lose,’ ‘destroy,’ and would have it mean accordingly ‘destroyer.’ I would suggest that derivation from κατὰ and the root χαν-, ‘gape,’ ‘yawn,’ is at least equally probable, inasmuch as other local names such as τυμπανιαῖος, ‘drumlike,’ and σαρκωμένος, ‘fleshy,’ have reference to the monster’s personal appearance, and the ‘gaper’ in like manner would be a name eminently suitable to a creature among whose features are numbered by Leo Allatius ‘a gaping mouth and gleaming teeth[1019].’ The same name was some forty years ago[1020], and probably still is, used in Rhodes, and in a Rhodian poem of the fifteenth century occurs both in its literal sense and as a term of abuse[1021]. This secondary usage however is in no way a proof that the word meant originally ‘destroyer’ rather than ‘gaper’; for by the fifteenth century there can be little doubt that the revenant was everywhere an object of horror, and therefore his name, whatever it originally meant, furnished a convenient term of vituperation. But one thing at least is clear, that καταχανᾶς, whichever interpretation of it be right, is certainly a word of Greek origin no less than the others which I have enumerated.
Now all these dialectic Greek names are found, it will have been observed, only in certain of the Greek islands, while on the mainland vrykolakas has come to be universally employed. But it was the mainland which was particularly exposed to Slavonic immigration and influence, while islands like Crete and Cyprus were practically immune. Hence, while the mainland gradually adopted a Slavonic word, it was likely enough that some of the islands should retain their own Greek terms, even though in the course of their relations with the mainland they became acquainted also with the new Slavonic word. These insular names for the vrykolakas may therefore be regarded as survivals from a pre-Slavonic period, and, though they are now merely dialectic, it is reasonable to suppose that one or more of them formerly held a place in the language of mainlanders and islanders alike. But the existence of such words presupposes the existence of a belief in some kind of resuscitated beings denoted by them. In other words, the Greeks when first brought into contact with the Slavs already possessed a belief in the re-animation and activity of certain dead persons, which so far resembled the Slavonic belief in vampirism, that the Slavonic vampire could be adequately denoted by some Greek word or words already existing and there was no need to adopt the Slavonic name.
I claim then to have established two important points: first, that the word vrykolakas was originally borrowed by the Greeks from the Slavs in the sense of ‘were-wolf,’ though now it is almost universally employed in the sense of ‘vampire’; secondly, that, whatever ideas concerning vampires the Greeks may have learnt from the Slavs, they did not adopt the Slavonic word ‘vampire’ but employed one of those native Greek words, such as τυμπανιαῖος or καταχανᾶς, which are still in local usage; whence it follows that some superstition anent re-animated corpses existed in Greece before the coming of the Slavs.
These points being established, I am now in a position to trace the development of the superstition in Greece from the time of the Slavonic immigrations onward, and to show how it came to pass that, whereas in the tenth century, let us say, when the Greeks had had ample time to imbibe Slavonic superstitions, vrykolakas meant a ‘were-wolf,’ and a ‘vampire’ was denoted by τυμπανιαῖος or some other Greek word, nowadays vrykolakas almost always means a ‘vampire’ and τυμπανιαῖος is well-nigh obsolete.
The Slavs brought with them into Greece two superstitions, the one concerning were-wolves and the other concerning vampires. The old Hellenic belief in lycanthropy was apparently at that time weak—confined perhaps to a few districts only—for the Greeks borrowed from the invaders their word vrykolakas in the place of the old λυκάνθρωπος[1022], by which to express the idea of a ‘were-wolf.’ They also learnt the Slavonic superstition concerning vampires, but in this case did not borrow the word ‘vampire’ but expressed the notion adequately by means of one of those words which now survive only in insular dialects—adequately, I say, but not exactly. For—and here I must anticipate what will be proved later—the Greeks denoted by those words a revenant but not a vampire. They believed in the incorruptibility and the re-animation of certain classes of dead men, but they did not impute to these revenants the savagery which is implied by the name ‘vampire.’ The dead who returned from their graves acted, it was held, as reasonable men, not as ferocious brutes. This did not of course exclude the idea that a revenant might return to seek revenge where vengeance was due; he was not necessarily peaceable; but if he exacted even the life of one who had wronged him, the act of vengeance was reasonable. To the proof of this, as I have said, I shall come later on; here I will only point out that the names which survive in the island-dialects are perfectly consistent with my view. Of the words τυμπανιαῖος, ‘drumlike,’ σαρκωμένος, ‘fleshy,’ στοιχειωμένος, ‘genius,’ ἀναικαθούμενος, ‘sitting up’ in the grave, and, if my interpretation is right, καταχανᾶς, ‘gaper,’ not one suggests any inherent ferocity in the resuscitated dead.
Nevertheless, when the Greeks first heard of the Slavonic ‘vampire,’ they naturally regarded it merely as a new and particularly vicious species of the genus revenant. Their own words for the genus implied no idea beyond that of the resuscitation of the dead, and were therefore no less applicable to the uniformly ferocious Slavonic variety than to the more reasonable and human type with which they themselves were familiar. They therefore did not require the word ‘vampire,’ but were content at first to comprise all revenants, whatever their character, under one or other of the existing Greek names.
Subsequently however, it appears, a change took place. The Slavonic superstition concerning were-wolves included then, we may suppose, as it includes now[1023], the idea that were-wolves become after death vampires. The Greeks, who borrowed from the Slavs the very name of the were-wolf, must therewith have learnt that these vrykolakes as they then called them were among the classes of men who were liable to vampirism; and in this particular case it would surely have seemed natural to them that the revenant should be conspicuous for ferocity. The conduct of a reasonable being could not be expected after death from one who in his lifetime had suffered from lycanthropic mania; or rather, if there could be any reason in his conduct, the most reasonable and consistent thing would be for him to turn vampire.
Thus one class of revenants came to be distinguished in the now composite Greek superstition by its wanton and blood-thirsty character; and in order to mark this distinction in speech also the Greeks, it would seem, began to call one who from a were-wolf had become a genuine vampire by the same name after as before death, vrykolakas, while to the more reasonable and human revenants they still applied some such term as τυμπανιαῖοι, ‘drumlike.’
By the seventeenth century the superstition had undergone a further change, which is reflected in the usage of the word τυμπανιαῖος. In proportion as the horror of real vrykolakes had grown and spread, the very memory of the more innocent kind of revenants had faded, until the genus revenant was represented only by the species vrykolakas. The word τυμπανιαῖος was indeed still known, but Leo Allatius was undoubtedly following the popular usage of his time when he made it synonymous with vrykolakas; for those narratives of the seventeenth century from which I have quoted above make it abundantly clear that the common-folk had come to suspect all revenants alike of predatory propensities.