354 - A TRIAD OF MEDIEVAL MYTHS. 



processions, wherein the figure of a serpent is carried, which 

 ever and anon opens and shuts its jaws, between which cakes 

 are thrown by lookers-on. 



6 Authors have reasoned a good deal on these events,' 

 writes my authority. (1) Some have believed them to be 

 miraculous. (2) Others have looked upon them as simply 

 the effect of a heated imagination, or a sort of prepossession. 

 (3) Others, again, have believed that there was nothing in 

 them but what was very simple and natural, these persons 

 not being dead, but acting naturally upon other bodies. (4) 

 Others have asserted that it was the work of the devil him- 

 self. Amongst these, some have advanced the opinion that 

 there were certain benign demons, differing from those who 

 are malevolent and hostile to mankind. But what greater 

 evils can one have to fear from veritable demons and the 

 most malignant spirits, than those which the ghouls of Hun- 

 gary inflict on persons whose blood they suck, and thus 

 cause to die ? (5) Others say it. is not the dead who eat 

 their own flesh or clothes, but serpents, rats, moles, ferrets, 

 or other voracious animals, or even strides, birds that devour 



w O 7 



animals and men, and suck their blood. ... It is added, that 

 these vampires are known only to certain countries, as Hun- 

 gary, Moravia, and Silesia, where plague, pestilence, hydro- 

 phobia, drunkenness, are most common ; where the people, 

 being badly fed, are subject to certain disorders, occasioned 

 by climate and food. As to what some have asserted, that 

 the dead have been heard to eat and chew like pigs in their 

 graves, it is manifestly fabulous, writes my author. Such an 

 idea can have its foundation only in ridiculous prepossessions. 

 From these remarks it would seem that Calmet is alto- 

 gether sceptical about the narrations of dead-alive men and 

 women. I do not know why he should be, since he does 

 not venture to impugn the following still more extraordinary 

 narration, communicated to him by a contemporary priest of 

 his own church : 



