Several years ago the house was occupied by a Mr. and Mrs. Northcote, a young couple whose married life promised to be one long dream of happiness. There was no cloud on the matrimonial horizon to threaten storm to the happy home. In the course of time, as will happen in the best most orderly regulated families, a little stranger made its appearance; as beautiful a little girl as ever blessed a Centralia home. The joy of the parents can be imagined; their cup of happiness was overflowing. The rest of the story may best be told in the words of an “old resident” who was well-acquainted with young Mr. and Mrs. Northcote,” remarked the “old resident.”

“He was a young man with the brightest of bright futures before him. I knew him before his marriage and the course of his true love ran smoothly and calmly. No man ever had a more lovely bride, and no bride ever possessed a more gallant husband. When the home was blessed with a bright-eyed, golden-haired daughter, the couple ever was prouder and then more devoted to a cozy home and its loving ties. But the happiness was short-lived. Sorrow came to that home; the child, on whom had been lavished the love of two fond hearts, pined away, a little soul returned to the angels from whom it had so recently parted.

Northcote was never the same man after the death of his child.  He attended to his daily duties as usual, but when evening approached he seemed absorbed by some mental trouble that he could not hide from me, the friend of his youth and the custodian of all his boyish joys and aspirations. One night when he seemed more depressed than usual I ran across him as he was preparing to go home. He asked me to accompany him, and I was only too glad to avail myself of an opportunity to do something to cheer up my friend and his wife. We were sitting in the little parlor, that opened from a hall whence ran a staircase to the upper floor, when a patter patter, as of childish feet descending the stairs, was distinctly heard. The door slowly opened and a ball-shaped figure drifted or floated into the room. It had the appearance of a diaphanous jelly fish, semi-opaque, and about two feet in circumference. I sat terror-stricken, but could not keep my eyes off the strange apparition. It floated uneasily around the room, into the room beyond that was used as a bedroom, finally vanishing in the neighborhood of a cupboard that stood in one of the corners of the front room. With the disappearance of the strange and uncanny apparition I jumped to my feet and asked for an explanation. Poor Northcote could only inform me that the same apparition made its appearance every night at the same hour.”

“To tell the sequel in full would require too much time, but a few words are necessary to bring this remarkable, but true, story to an end. During Mrs. Northcote’s absence on a visit to some friends at a distance. Northcote and I were determine to solve, if possible, the mystery. We provided ourselves with revolvers, and one night was sat awaiting the appearance of the same diaphanous jelly fish. It came as usual, and as it drifted past me I fired at the very center of the mass. At the same moment a ball from Northcote’s revolver pierced the mass, and it dissolved into a thin vapor. On the carpet, when the electric lights were turned on, we found a dark stain that penetrated into the floor beneath. We took the carpet, or a portion of it, to a famous chemist, but he was unable to give us analysis of the dark fluid-like stain.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Northcote shortly afterwards moved away and I have not heard from them since, nor have I again visited the house, but it is said that the patter-patter of the child feet is still heard about the hour of midnight.

I will begin by speaking of a ” hantise ” which I was not able to examine actually de visu, but as to which I made a personal inquiry which gave most interesting results.

I had heard it said, in 1892, that strange phenomena took place in the house, No. 7, Via Pescatori, at Turin. I went there in December with my daughter Gina. Having been roundly snubbed by the indignant concierge, we found ourselves obliged to lay a regular siege to the premises, until two neighbours were good enough to inform me that the events in question had really taken place in that house, but some years previously, and in the portion occupied by the Pavarino family, who had since removed and now lived at No. 12, Via Napione.

We went there and found a modest family of working people. According to my invariable custom, I began by studying the people themselves among whom the events had taken place. M. Pavarino was a healthy man, but of a singular character; his wife, on the other hand, was hystero-epileptic and anaemic; she frequented the so-called healers; her father had died of phthisis* contracted during the war ; her mother suffered from scrofula.** She had a sister who was a ” medium,” who could make tables dance, and who had four children with superfluous fingers. Mme. Pavarino had at that time a daughter aged 21, who was rickety***, sickly, neurasthenic****, and who frequently produced the spontaneous movement of objects ; another daughter 10 years old, and two sons, one 14 and the other 8, all healthy. She gave the following account of her experiences:

” On the night of September 5th, 1882, towards midnight, when M. Pavarino had only just returned home, and while I was working at the table with my eldest daughter, we suddenly heard a noise as of a basin of water being overturned ; we looked, but saw nothing at all. Supposing that it was a hallucination we attached no importance to it, although we heard some other noises as of objects being displaced ; and there it stopped.

” On the following morning the bell of the entrance door and those of the rooms began to ring. As the children were much alarmed by it I went to the landlord ; an architect and a builder were called in, they examined the bells, moved them, filled them with lime and tow, but in vain; even after the wire was detached the bell thus isolated continued to ring. We heard also continual groans in the house, day and night. My husband and the two boys saw shadows at night; the two girls and I did not see them, but we slept in another room.

” My younger daughter, now married to M. Ottolenghi, slept in the same bed as her elder sister ; she was aroused during the night by blows struck upon her as though by a stick, and pinchings which left bruises all over her body, her bed-coverings were continually removed. My eldest daughter, who afterwards married M. Revelli, Registrar at Mondovi, felt nothing, and did not even wake when she was called by the other members of the alarmed family.

” In the other room, one night, my husband and the two boys heard groans, and a great noise as of swords clashing together; M. Pavarino saw shadows and moving lights; he was so alarmed by them that he did not want to come home to sleep. My sons only heard groans.

” During the day articles were incessantly moved. One day, while I was in the kitchen, a plate left the dresser and came on to the table, after which it returned to its place. A bersagliere’s***** hat, which had been given to my younger son, jumped about continually; one of our neighbours, a quartermaster in the army named Giolitti (at present employed at the Foundling Hospital), tried several times to nail the hat to the wall, but in vain, for the hat immediately followed him about the room.

” The concierge came into our apartment one day; she had scarcely reached the threshold when we all heard the well-known sound of water upset; the good woman cried out; she was soaked through without having seen the water.

” One evening I was in the street in front of the house ; I had sent my little girl to fetch something from our apartment: she came back quite frightened, saying that there were robbers, that she had heard them moving about, and had seen candles going to and fro. Two soldiers, who were present, went to our rooms, and actually saw little flames flitting about without being carried by any hand ; they withdrew, terrified.

” Another day, my eldest son’s master came to see us. All was quiet, but about ten o’clock, when he was on the point of leaving us, we suddenly saw the door of the cupboard, in which we kept the shoes, open; the shoes came out in regular order and paraded in front of the visitor.

” All these phenomena lasted, in their full intensity, for about eight months. For five years more we sometimes heard the bell ring, and groans; the coverlets of the beds were still removed from time to time. After my eldest girl left us, the one who is married at Mondovi, we heard nothing more; even at Mondovi no phenomena have occurred.”

I naturally tried to collect testimony as to these events, and obtained the following :

Declaration by M. Giolitti.

” In September, 1882, I lived in the same house as M. Pavarino, who was billiard-marker in a cafe”, and came home late at night—towards one o’clock. I myself came in habitually about 10.30 p.m. But one night, having returned at half-past eleven, I was met by the Pavarino family, who seemed glad to see me. Suddenly I heard the bell of the entrance door ringing violently several times, until it came off and fell to the ground.

” One of the rooms in the apartment communicated on one side with the kitchen and on the other, by a corridor, with Mme. P.’s bedroom. It was the room in which the two boys slept; above the bed was a small board fixed to the wall, on which had been placed a bersagliere’s hat and some shoes. The hat fell to the ground while I was with Mme. P., the eldest daughter, the two boys, and the concierge, in Mme. P.’s bedroom : we went and replaced the hat on the shelf, but we had scarcely returned to the next room before it fell again, not under the board, but some paces away. Twenty times did we put the hat back in its place, and twenty times it fell down again; at last I nailed it to the board, and in spite of this we had scarcely returned to the adjoining room when we heard it fall to the ground again. We then left it lying, but now it was the turn of the shoes to fall. The hat, however, did not go out of the boys’ room. The phenomenon also occurred when there was a lighted candle in the room, but less frequently.

” This went on until half-past two in the morning; I went home at last, very tired, having to rise early. I noted the phenomena after they had occurred, but I did not see them at the moment of happening. At one time I placed myself near the door of the children’s room, with the intention of entering quickly and catching anyone who caused the hat to fall: once, on thus entering suddenly, I saw falling to the ground as much water as a table-glass would hold ; there was no tap in that room.

” I felt absolutely no fear; on the contrary, I amused myself with witnessing these phenomena; only I thought that they were probably due, not to spirits, but to some joker or ill-intentioned person, skilled in conjuring tricks, and well acquainted with the apartment. But I could not explain how a person could proceed in order to produce them.”

Albert Giolitti. May itfh, 1896.

Declaration of M. Pavarino, Junr.

” The events lasted for two months, beginning in September, 1882. I remember that while I was putting a watch right, I found that it was no longer in my hands; 1 afterwards found it in another corner of the house. The bersagliere’s hat, which moved about incessantly, described a course like this, A : that is to say, before falling it rose over a curtain and fell on the other side.

” One evening my father decided to watch in the chamber ; he went into it with a revolver and a small lamp. He had scarcely entered when the lamp went out, and he heard a noise of swords clashing together, then of a falling body, but saw nothing ; he began to call out and threaten, but the noises continued. Finally he went to bed, at the same time as my mother; but all night long they heard a noise as of a great dinner, an orgie; my sister, too, in the other bedroom, could not sleep on account of the noise of the imaginary banquet.

” The bells of the apartment continued to ring for two months in succession. We tried removing the wires, and putting tow in them ; we fetched an architect, but all in vain, and the ringing did not cease until the bell was removed.

” My younger sister, while passing through that chamber one evening about 8 o’clock, was seized by the hair, raised a foot or more from the ground, then let fall again when the rest of the family came in.

” Another evening, while several persons were watching the performances of the bersagliere’s hat, they saw three pairs of shoes, which had been hidden behind a screen so that they should not be disturbed like other articles, come out and move about in the room, after which they returned to their original place.

” As to the bell, the gentleman who came to our rooms to investigate matters, and to try to find out the cause, is the present owner of the house, M. Petiti, architect. He searched all over, but found nothing; as the neighbours advised him to break through the walls at a certain place, he sent for a mason and told him to break through the wall

* The disagreement between the various witnesses as to the duration of the phenomena is probably more apparent than real. It has been seen from Mme. Pavarino’s declaration that these strange occurrences only ceased by degrees ; the disagreement, therefore, relates only to the length of time during which the phenomena continued at their height, which is mainly a matter of personal opinion.—C. L. and see if there was anything there. The man, while at work, heard such a noise that he was frightened and left, refusing to continue his work.

” Another evening we heard heavy blows of a stick struck on the bed, but without the persons who were lying in it feeling any pain.”

(Signed) Pavarino, Surgeon-Dentist.

Declaration of M. and Mme. Lossa.

” About September, 1882, our curiosity having been aroused by the tales we heard every day from M. Pavarmo, as to extraordinary events taking place at his house, in the Via Pescatori, we went there with him, accompanied by our daughter, aged seven, and by a shop-boy of ours ; we were rather inclined to doubt the truth of these events.

” We had been for about an hour at the Pavarino’s, who were telling us what had happened during the last few days, when we heard a sharp peal at the bell; we went to the door but found no one there ; meanwhile the bell continued to ring full peal.

” We had not long returned to the apartment, when we saw two shoes, which had been placed on a board in the children’s room, fall violently to the ground ; immediately afterwards, a bersagliere’s hat, which was on the same board, fell in its turn. We noticed that the shoes and hat, in falling, did not follow the natural course of a body left to itself, but described a curve, so that they left the chamber by an adjoining door and entered the passage. We examined the board carefully, but saw nothing which would have produced the falls in the manner described. Before leaving, we heard the lamentations of the concierge, who had been sprinkled with water while passing through the corridor of the Pavarino’s apartment.

” Some months later we heard from young Pavarino that these events had completely ceased.”

Turin, Giuseppe Lossa.

May 6th, 1896. Maddalena Lossa.
——
*Phithis: Pulmonary tuberculosis
**Scrofula: A form of tuberculosis characterized by swelling and gradual degeneration of the lymphatic glands. Commonly called “King’s Evil.”
***Rickety: Refers to the disease “rickets,” characterized by softness and gradual degeneration and deformation of the bones, the result of chronic vitamin D deficiency which in turn inhibits the absorption of calcium.
****Neurasthenic: Suffering from a nervous breakdown.
*****Bersagliere: A soldier in the Italian army from a corps created in 1836.

The Polish maiden in Dumas’s story makes allusion to the disinterment of a number of vampires in one single village. As this is probably the most extraordinary case of vampirism on record, we shall transfer an account of it to our pages from Dr. Herbert Mayo’s newly-published work*, previously quoted.

In the spring of 1727 there returned from the Levant to the village of Meduegna, near Belgrade, one Arnod Paole, who, in a few years of military service and varied adventure, had amassed enough to purchase a cottage and an acre or two of land in his native place, where, he gave out, he meant to pass the remainder of his days. He kept his word. Arnod had yet scarcely reached the prime of manhood; and though he must have encountered the rough as well as the smooth of life, and mingled with many a wild and reckless companion, yet his naturally good disposition and honest principles had preserved him unscathed in the scenes he had passed through. At all events, such were the thoughts expressed by his neighbors, as they discussed his return and settlement among them in the Stube of the village Hof. Nor did the frank and open countenance of Arnod, his obliging habit, and steady conduct, argue their judgment incorrect. Nevertheless, there was something occasionally noticeable in his ways, a look and tone, that betrayed inward disquiet. Often would he refuse to join his friends, or on some sudden plea abruptly quit their society. And he still more unaccountably, and as it seemed sytematically, avoided meeting his pretty neighbor Nina, whose father occupied the next tenement to his own. At the age of seventeen, Nina was as charming a picture as you could have seen, of youth, cheerfulness, innocence, and confidence, in all the world. You could not look into her limpid eyes, which sleadily returned your gaze, without peeking to the bottom of the pure and transparent spring of her thoughts. Why, then, did Arnod shrink from meeting her ? He was young, had a little property, had health and industry, and he had told his friends he had formed no ties in other lands. Why, then, did he avoid the fascination of the pretty Nina, who seemed a being made to chase from any brow the clouds of gathering care ? But he did so. Yet less and less resolutely, for he felt the charm of her presence. Who could have done otherwise? and how could he long resist—he didn’t—the impulse of his fondness for the innocent girl, who often sought to cheer his fits of depression ?

And they were to be united ; were betrothed; yet still an anxious gloom would fitfully overcast his countenance, even in the sunshine of those hours.

“What is it, dear Arnod, that makes you sad ? It cannot be on my account, I know, for you were sad before you ever noticed me ; and that, I think,” and you should have seen the deepening rose upon her eheeks, ” surely first made me notice you.”

“Nina,” he answered, ” I have done, I fear, a great wrong, in trying to gain your affections. Nina, I have a fixed, impression that I shall not live ;—yet, knowing this, I have selfishly made my existence necessary to your happiness.”

“How strangely you talk, dear Arnod! Who in the village is stronger and healthier than you? You feared no danger when you were a soldier : what danger do you fear as a villager of Meduegna ?

“It haunts me, Nina.”

“But, Arnod, you were sad before you thought of me; did you then fear to die ?”

“Ah, Nina, it is something worse than death.” And his vigorous frame shook with agony.

“Arnod, I conjure you, tell me.”

“It was in Cossova this fate befell me—here you have hitherto escaped the terrible scourge. But there they died, and the dead visited the living. I experienced the first frightful visitation, and I fled; but not till I had sought his grave, and exacted the dread expiation from the vampire.”

Nina’s blood ran cold. She stood horrorstricken. But her young heart soon mastered her first despair. With a touching voice she spoke:—

“Fear not, dear Arnod, fear not now. I will be your shield—or I will die with you.”

And she encircled his neck with her gentle arms ; and returning hope shone, Iris-like, amid her falling tears. Afterward they found a reasonable ground for banishing or allaying their apprehensions, in the length of time which had elapsed since Arnod left Cossova, during which no fearful visitant had again approached him; and they fondly trusted that gave them security.

It is a strange world. The ills we fear are commonly not those which overwhelm us. The blows that reach us are for the most part unforeseen. One day, about a week after this conversation, Arnod missed his footing when on the top of a loaded hay-wagon, and fell from it to the ground. He was picked up insensible and carried home, where, after lingering a short time, he died; his interment, as usual, followed immediately. His fate was sad and premature; but what pencil could paint Nina’s grief?

Twenty or thirty days after his decease, says the perfectly authenticated report of these transactions, several of the neighborhood complained that they were haunted by the deceased Arnod; and what was more to the purpose, four of them died. The evil looked at skeptically was bad enough; but aggravated by the suggestions of superstition, it spread a panic through the whole district. To allay the popular terror, and if possible to get at the root of the evil, a determination was come to publicly to disinter the body of Arnod, with a view of ascertaining whether he really was a vampire; and in that event of treating him conformably. The day fixed for this proceeding was the fortieth after his burial.

It was on a gray morning in early August that the commission visited the quiet cemetery of Meduegna, which, surrounded with a wall of unhewn stone, lies sheltered by the mountain, that, rising in undulating green slopes irregularly planted with fruit trees, ends in an abrupt craggy ridge feathered with underwood. The graves were for the most part neatly kept, with borders of box or something like it, and flowers between; and at the head of most, a small wooden cross, painted black, bearing the name of the tenant. Here and there a stone had been raised ; one of considerable height, a single narrow slab, ornamented with grotesque gothic carvings, dominated over the rest. Near this lay the grave of Arnod Paole, toward which the party moved. The work of throwing out the earth was begun by the gray crooked old sexton, who lived in the Leichenhouse beyond the great crucifix; he seemed unconcerned enough ; no vampire would think of extracting a supper out of him. Nearest the grave stood two military surgeons, or feldscheerers, from Belgrade, and a drummer-boy, who held their case of instruments. The boy looked on with keen interest; and when the coffin was exposed, and rather roughly drawn out of the grave, his pale face and bright, intent eye showed how the scene moved him. The sexton lifted the lid of the coffin; the body had become inclined to one side; when turning it straight, ” Ha! ha!” said he, pointing to fresh blood upon the lips. ” Ha! ha! what, your mouth not wiped since last night’s work ?” The spectators shuddered—the drummer-boy sank forward fainting, and upset the instrument-case, scattering its contents; the senior surgeon, infected with the horror of the scene, repressed a hasty exclamation, and simply crossed himself. They threw water on the drummerboy and he recovered, but would not leave the spot. Then they inspected the body of Arnod. It looked as if it had not been dead a day. On handling it the scarfskin came off, but below were new skin and new nails! How could they have come there, but from its foul feeding! The case was clear enough; there lay before them the thing they dreaded—the vampire. So without more ado they simply drove a stake through poor Arnod’s chest; whereupon a quantity of blood gushed forth, and the corpse uttered an audible groan. “Murder! oh,murder!” shrieked the drummerboy, as he rushed wildly with convulsed gestures from the cemetery.

The drummer-boy was not far from the mark. But quitting the romancing vein, which had led me to try and restore the original colors of the picture, let me confine myself, in describing the rest of the scene and what followed, to the words of my authority.

The body of Arnod was then burnt to ashes, which were returned to the grave. The authorities farther had staked and burnt the bodies of the four others, which were supposed to have been infected by Arnod ; no mention is made of the state in which they were found. The adoption of these decisive measures failed, however, of entirely extinguishing the evil, which continued still to hang about the village. About five years afterward it had again become very rife, and many died through it. Whereupon the authorities determined to make another and a complete clearance of the vampires in the cemetery; and with that object they had again all the graves, to which present suspicion attached, opened, and their contents officially anatomized ; of which procedure the following is the medical report, here and there abridged only :—

1. A woman of the nameof Stana. twenty years of age, who had died three months before of a three days’ illness following her confinement. She had before her death avowed that she had anointed herself with the blood of a vampire, to liberate herself from his persecution. Nevertherlcss, she, as well as her infant, whose body, through careless interment, had been half eaten by the dogs, both had died. Her body was entirely free from decomposition. On opening it, the chest was found full of recently-effused blood, and the bowels had exactly the appearances of sound health. The skin and nails of her hands and feet were loose and came off, but underneath lay new skin and nails.
2. A woman of the name of Miliza, who had died at the end of a three months ‘illness. The body had been buried ninety and odd days. In the chest was liquid’blood. The viscera were as in the former instance. The body was declared by a heyduk, who recognized it, to be in better condition and fatter than it had been in the woman’s legitimate lifetime.
3. The body of a child eight years old, that had likewise been buried ninety days; it was in the vampire condition.
4. The son of a heyduk named Milloc, sixteen years old. The body had lain in the grave nine weeks. He had died after three days’ indisposition, and was in the condition of a vampire.
5. Joachim, likewise son of a heyduk, seventeen years old. He had died after three days’ illness; had been buried eight weeks and some days ; was found in the vampire state.
6. A woman of the name of Rusha, who had died of an illness of ten days’ duration, and had been six weeks buried, in whom likewise fresh blood was found in the chest. (The reader will understand, that to see blood in the chest, it is first necessary to cut the chest open.)
7. The body of a girl ten years of age, who had died two months before. It was likewise in the vampire state, perfectly undecomposed, with blood in the chest.
8. The body of the wife of one Hadnuck, buried seven weeks before: iiiid that of her infant eight weeks old, buried only twenty-one days. They were both in a state of decomposition, though buried in the same ground, and closely adjoining the others.
9. A servant, by name Rhade, twenty-three years of age; he had died after an illness of three months’ duration, and the body had been buried rive weeks. It was in a state of decomposition.
10. The body of the heyduk Stanco, sixty years of age, who had died six weeks previously. There was much blood and other fluid in the chest and abdomen, and the body was in the vampire condition.
11. Millac, a heyduk, twenty-five years old. The body had been in the earth six weeks. It was perfectly in the vampire condition.
12. Stanjoika, the wife of a heyduk, twenty years old; but died after an illness of three days, and had been buried eighteen. The countenance was florid. There was blood in the chest and in the heart. The viscera were perfectly sound : the skin remarkably fresh.<blockquote>

The document which gives the above particulars is signed by three regimental surgeons, and formally countersigned by a lieutenantcolonel, and sub-lieutenant. It bears the date of June 7, 1732, Meduegna, near Belgrade. No doubt can be entertained of its authenticity, or of its general fidelity; the less that it does not stand alone, but is supported by a mass of evidence to the same effect. It appears to establish beyond question, that where the fear of vampirism prevails, and there occur several deaths in the popular belief connected with it, the bodies, when disinterred weeks after burial, present the appearance of corpses from which life has only recently departed.

What inference shall wo draw from this fact ? —that vampirism is true in the popular sense; and that these fresh-looking and well-conditioned corpses had some mysterious source of preternatural nourishment ? That would be to adopt, not to solve the superstition. Let us content ourselves with a notion not so monstrous, but still startling enough—That the bodies which were found in the so-called vampire state, instead of being in a new or mystical condition, were simply alive in the common way, or had been for some time subsequently to their interment; that, in short, they were the bodies of persons who had been buried alive, and whose life, where it yet lingered, was finally extinguished through the ignorance and barbarity of those who disinterred them. In the following sketch of a similar scene to that above described, the correctness of this inference comes out with terrific force.

Erasmus Francisci, in his remarks upon the description of the Dukedom of Krain by Valvasor, speaks of a man of the name of Grando, in the district of Kring, who died, was buried, and became a vampire, and as such was exhumed for the purpose of having a stake thrust through him.

” When they opened his grave, after he had been long buried, his face was found with a color, and his features made natural sorts of movements, as if the dead man smiled He even opened his mouth as if he would inhale fresh air. They held the crucifix before him, and called in a loud voice, ‘ See, this is Jesus Christ, who redeemed your soul from hell, and died for you.’ After the sound had acted on his organs of hearing, and he had connected perhaps some ideas with it, tears began to flow from the dead man’s eyes. Finally, when, after a short prayer for his poor soul, they proceeded to hack off his head, the corpse uttered a screech, and turned and rolled just as if it had been alive, and the grave was full of blood.”

But this is not all; there still remains the vampire-visit to be explained. The vampire visit! Well, it is clear the vampire could not have left his grave bodily; or at all events, if he could, he never could have buried himself again. Yet there they always found him. If the body could not have been the visitant, then, in popular language, it was the ghost of the vampire that haunted its victim.

” There are two ways,” Dr. Mayo remarks, ” of dealing with this knot; one is to cut it, the other to untie it.”

It may be cut, by denying the supposed connection between the vampire-visit and the supervention of death-trance in the second party. Nor is the explanation thus obtained devoid of plausibility. There is no reason why death-trance should not in certain seasons and places be epidemic. Then the persons most liable to it would be those of weak and irritable nervous systems. Again, a first effect of the epidemic might be, further, to shake the nerves of weaker subjects. These are exactly the persons who are likely to be infected with imaginary terrors; and to dream, or even to fancy, they have seen Mr. or Mrs. Such-a-one, the last victims of the epidemic. The dream or impression upon the senses might again recur, ana the sickening patient have already talked of it to his neighbors, before he himself was seized with death-trance. On this supposition the vampire-visit would sink into the subordinate rank of a mere premonitory symptom.

To myself, I must confess, this explanation, the best I am yet in a position to offer, appears barren and jejune; and not at all to do justice to the force and frequency, or, as tradition represents the matter, the universality of the vampire-visit as a precursor of the victim’s fate, magine how strong must have been the conviction of the reality of the apparition, how common a feature it must have been, to have led to the laying down of the unnatural and repulsive process customarily followed at the vampire’s grave, as the regular and proper and only preventive of ulterior consequences.

From Chambers Edinburgh Journal
——-
*From Herbert Mayo, Letters on the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions, (Frankfort, Edinburgh, 1849, pp.24-31)

A queer looking object passed over the southerly end of the village yesterday afternoon, about a thousand feet or so up in the air. The time was 5:15 o’clock, and the object was evidently a flying machine operated by a man. It was not at all like a balloon, and not more than one-fourth of the size of an ordinary balloon. It was black and more resembled an immense bug in appearance than anything else. It had four arms, or legs, which were operated by the occupant with a motion very much like that of a turtle when swimming. The operation of the arms had the effect to cause the machine to move somewhat across the current of the wind, so that while the wind was blowing from the southeast the machine was making a westerly course, and looked as if it would pass on the south side of Staten Island or across to Keyport, N.J., provided it did not make land or fall in the water before it reached that point. Sometimes the machine would roll as if it would turn over completely, but it did not. The face of the occupant could be seen looking down from the forepart of the machine and it looked as though he was in the position of a person swimming, with the machine above him and fastened close to his body. Just as he passed the point where the New York and Brighton Beach Railroad passes over the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad, a train on the latter road came along and the engineer blew his whistle, to which the flying man responded by flapping his arms vigorously.

More than a month ago a similar story of a flying machine was published in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The queer object was described on the authority of a druggist of that city of good character for veracity. He said he called the attention of several bystanders to it, and they corroborated his account. Reports of the machine were also received from several points in the interior of Kentucky under circumstances that excluded the idea of collusion.

About a month ago an object of precisely the same nature was seen in the air over St. Louis by a number of citizens who happened to be sober and are believed to be trustworthy. A little later it was seen by various Kentucky persons as it flew across the State. In no instance has it been known to alight, and no one has seen it at a lower elevation than a thousand feet above the surface of the earth. It is without a doubt the most extraordinary and wonderful object that has ever been seen, and there should be no time lost in ascertaining its precise nature, habits, and probable mission.

That this aerial apparition is a man fitted with practicable wings there is no reason to doubt. Some one has solved the problem of aerial navigation by inventing wings with which a man can sustain himself in the air and direct his flight to any desired point. Who is this adventurous flyer and what is his object? are questions of immediate and enormous importance. Of course, the first impulse of the unreflecting mind will be to exclaim that the mysterious flyer is an aeronaut who has invented practicable wings, and is secretly experimenting with then before making his invention public. This is directly at variance with the known habits and customs of aeronauts.

Had any aeronaut invented a pair of wings he would have advertised, long before his invention was perfected, that he was in possession of a machine wherewith to make an aerial voyage to Europe in twenty-four hours, and that he was prepared to exhibit it for a few weeks to every one who would pay 50 cents to see it. A little later he would have taken up a subscription to pay the expenses of his proposed voyage in the interests of science, and would probably have published a book on the science of aeronautics. Then he would have suddenly disappeared, taking his wings with him, or accidentally burning them, and after the first outburst of indignation on the part of a swindled public would have been totally forgotten. This has been the invariable practice of these ingenious aeronauts who have claimed to be the inventors of balloons or other apparatus capable of navigating the air. That the mysterious flying man has not followed this custom makes it perfectly clear that he is not a professional aeronaut. Beyond any question, either the flying man or some Scientific Person at present unknown has invented the bat’s wings and frog’s legs with which the flying man now sails through the air. Why has not the inventor patented his invention and had himself duly written up by the press? The reason is obvious. The flying man is engaged in some under taking which he cannot safely proclaim. In other words, he is an aerial criminal, a fact which explains the cruelty and determination visible on his countenance, and what can be the nefarious object which this probable wretch has in view? It cannot be simply theft and robbery, for it would manifestly be impossible for him, in his flying costume, to perpetrate burglary or highway robbery, or to pick pockets. It cannot be plumbing, for obvious reasons, neither can it be the sale of books published by subscription only. Yet the flying villain must have an object, and we have a right to assume that only a peculiarly nefarious object could induce a man to fly to New-Jersey or St. Louis in hot weather and without an umbrella or mosquito net. It has not escaped notice that of late Mr. Talmage has been wandering in the West in search of entertaining varieties of crime wherewith to embellish his sermons. It is also known that he returned to this City just before the flying man of Coney Island was seen. Now, if there is a man in this country whose arms and legs are fitted to endure the muscular strain inseparable from the act of flying, that man is Mr. Talmage. He has preached for years with those graceful limbs, and must have developed and hardened their muscles to an extent which would fill every other professional acrobat with envy. What is more probable than that Mr. Talmage has equipped himself with wings in order to study interesting types of immorality from the lofty height of a thousand feet! He has flown over St. Louis and Kentucky — precisely the places which might be expected to yield a rich reward to an investigator of crime; and he is now flying to and fro over Coney Island, preparatory to preaching a scathing sermon on the wickedness and indecencies of our bathing resorts. Here we have a natural and probable explanation of the flying man, and it is earnestly to be hoped that no one, with mistaken zeal for field sports, will attempt to shoot the preacher on the wing with a shot-gun. There is not a shot-gun in existence which will do any good at a distance of a thousand feet.

Ghostly rappings, hand-clappings, and other supernatural demonstrations have been heard and experienced since Monday [September 19] in the store and rooms occupied by Frank Petro and family, who keep a grocery store in one end of a big frame tenement house just across the Orange line. It was in this house that Peter Christiano was stabbed by Lorenzo Corbo, an old organ grinder, at a New Year’s Eve party eight months ago. The neighbors assert that the ghostly demonstrations are caused by the restless spirit of the murdered man.

Father d’Aquilla, pastor of the Church of St. Michael, was called in last night. He prayed and sprinkled holy water in the rooms where the noises were heard. While he was in the house there were no demonstrations, but as soon as he had left, the family and neighbors aver, the noises were recommenced with redoubled frequency and violence.

Petro, who is a big, hearty man of intelligent appearance, says he does not believe in ghosts, but does not know what else to think. At midnight last night, he declares, he heard a noise as if the front doors of his store, which were fastened with a heavy bar set in staples, had been thrown wide open and the bar flung to the floor. He tried to get out of bed to investigate, but was held down by some invisible power, which pressed upon his chest and made it impossible for him to move. The “presence” remained for an hour, he says. The store doors were locked as usual this morning, but a box of macaroni, which had been placed upon a top shelf, stood on the floor in the middle of the room, with a handful of long straws lying across the top in the form of a cross.

A TIMES correspondent heard the noises to-night and made a thorough investigation of the rooms and cellar without ascertaining their cause. Samuel Christiano, a brother of the murdered man, who keeps a saloon on the next block, is convinced that the “presence” is that of his brother’s spirit. He says he went last night into the room where most of the noises are heard and begged the spirit to make itself visible. It did not, but as he rose from his knees after praying [he heard] three unusually loud knocks [which] sounded just under the place where he was standing.

Petro and his family say they have not slept for three nights. They went out to stay with friends to-night, and intend to move out of the house to-morrow. Tenants in the other end of the house have heard nothing of the noises.

Pale tapers glimmer in the sky,
The dead and dying leaves go by;
Dimly across the faded green
Strange shadows, stranger shades, are seen,–
It is the mystic Hallowe’en.

Soft gusts of love and memory
Beat at the heart reproachfully;
The lights that burn for those who die
Were flickering low, let them flare high–
It is the haunting Hallowe’en

Women and children, crouching over the fire or driftwood, peat or furze branches flaming fitfully on the open hearth, cross themselves as a louder wail rings through the darkness or a rumbling sound is heard that to their ears seems to be the rolling of the wheels of “the headless coach” or “death coach,” so called in the County Cork because horses and driver are supposed to be headless. The coachman is the dullahan–that is, a dark or sullen person, a goblin of most malignant disposition.

The phantom is said to “follow” many old Munster families, the vehicle lumbering heavily up the avenue and stopping at the front door whenever a death is about to occur in the house. I know numbers of persons–and not by any means merely uneducated peasants–who are persuaded that they have heard the rumbling of the headless coach. Needless to say, the noise of a heavy cart at night along an unfrequented road is sufficient to terrify superstitious people into believing that they have heard the death coach. They take good care not to see it!

Another much dreaded apparition is the phooka, or fairy horse, a very malicious spirit that is said to appear in the shape of a beautiful coal black steed with fire darting from his eyes and nostrils.

Occasionally he adopts the form of a black bull or goat, and he appears as an awful compound of several black animals – horse, bull, goat and ram. In his equine form he is said to amuse himself by enticing solitary travelers whom he meets after dark into mounting him, and as he invariably looks like a “nate(?) cut of a horse,” such as every Irishman appreciates, he is said to succeed very frequently in his nefarious plan.

The instant the rider is on his back the elfin steed dashes off madly through stream, lake and bog hole, thicket and coppice, hedge and ditch, marsh and ravine, till the terrified mortal, drenched, torn and bruised shrieks for mercy or perhaps remembers to gasp out a prayer, when with a furious bound the phooka flings him off, preferably into a muddy pool or a furze brake, and darts away, leaving the unhappy rider to pick himself up, invariably finding that he is miles out of his way.

Sudden falls are attributed to this malignant sprite, and many a man who has lost his way or met with an accident coming home from fair or funeral on a dark night is convinced for the rest of his days that he has been led astray by the phooka, although his troubles were possibly due to a yet more potent spirit. Dangerous rocks and crags are often called “carrig-na-phooka” (rock of the phooka), just as deep pools or holes in a river or bog are poul-na-phooka. A beautiful waterful in Wicklow bears this name.

The “poukeen,” as he is sometimes called is also said to adopt the form of a great black bird or a bat. The latter is greatly favored by the country folks. In the bat form he is supposed to lure people into climbing ivied walls and towers, from which he throws them, an idea which seems to bear some relation to the vampire stories of eastern Europe. He is the pouke of Spensear, and from breaking the necks of the unwary to spoiling the blackberries on Michaelmas eve in order to vex the archangel, there are few enormities of which he is not guilty, according to popular belief.

“Puck, the household fairy,” of English legend finds his Irish counterpart in the fir-darrig, or red man, a merry goblin, very similar to the Scotch red cap*, or brownie. He is said to be dressed in scarlet. The attire of most of the Irish varieties is supposed to consist of a green suit, red shoes, long white stockings and red or black cap with an eagle’s feather. This little red-clad sprite is said to remarkable for the extreme beauty of its voice, which, according to the now fast disappearing race of story tellers, is “like the sound of the waves,” “the music of angels or the warbling of birds. A sweet voice is highly esteemed in Erin, where a girl possessing that “excellent thing in women” is said to be able to “coax the birds off the bushes.” - New Ireland Interview
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*”Redcaps,” or “Powries,” are more commonly portrayed as sinister beings in much of Scotch-English folklore, as my article “The Boiling of Bad Lord Soulis,” bears out.