The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Another likely reason for the prominence of the Cross in vampire lore is that, as a holy symbol, it long predates Christianity, which seems not to have adopted it until several generations after the lifetime of Jesus. Nevertheless, Czarny repeats that the vampire is sensitive, in varying degrees, to all holy symbols.

  The Consecrated Host.

  [Reminder: This paper gives the opinions of Clement Czarny. Many good and intelligent people will disagree.]

  The Consecrated Host is infinitely more than a symbol of holiness, more than a mere ordinarily holy thing. It is God—so far as God can take on material substance.

  To go after a vampire with a Consecrated Host is a little like going after a mosquito with a nuclear bomb.

  Of course, Dr. Van Helsing was physically able to desecrate the Host any way he liked, under pretext of some “special dispensation” which, if he ever really had it, had probably been granted by a very under-informed or very skeptical cleric. While even if Stoker’s Count Dracula had been a good vampire instead of a totally depraved one, he would still have had to give the Host all the respect a human possibly could—his very vampirism would have forced him to do anything else rather than be party to Its desecration. That Van Helsing chose to come after the Count with the Host, when holy water, crosses, and so on in sufficient quantity should have worked for all practical purposes, is one more suggestion that Van Helsing was prejudicially out to destroy vampires, period—wicked and good ones alike.

  The Sun and Daylight.

  Would probably not incinerate or destroy any but the most monstrously wicked vampires—not, at least, without prolonged exposure. Enough ancient religious symbolism still attaches to the sun and light, however, to make it anywhere from moderately unpleasant to cripplingly painful for a vampire with a bad conscience.

  Clouds modify the sun’s effect.

  Interestingly, Polish and Russian vampires were said to be active from noon to midnight rather than sunset to sunrise. (Cf. traditions of a sun-god hero losing strength from noon onward.) This seems to show how much more strongly the symbolism may attach to the sun itself than to “daylight.”

  Even when in good conscience, Czarny seems to sunburn more easily than most brunettes. It is nothing that can’t be handled with sunscreens and tanning lotion, however, and not so severe as to put him outside the normal human range of sun-sensitive skin.

  He is also more of a night-owl than a daytime person, but so are many non-vampires—theater people and so on. Czarny’s night penchant was already showing before he was made a vampire, so it could well be coincidence, at least in his case. It doesn’t stop him from functioning during the day; it just means that he’s usually at his best when he can take “night shift.”

  Solstices and Equinoxes.

  For years, the sun did bother Czarny at precisely noon on the astronomical solstices and equinoxes. He seems to have outgrown this.

  Moreover, the solstice and equinox nights carry for him a heightened atmosphere, as of the hours of sharpest temptation but also greatest potential for touching holiness. This may be increasing with age.

  Solstice and equinox nights are especially potent when combined with a full moon.

  We suspect that all this may relate to the ancient mystique that made solstices and equinoxes major religious observances.

  The Moon.

  The moon’s continued prominence in werewolf lore probably points back to a time when it was equally important in vampire lore. Modern beliefs about comparatively mild forms of human frenzy being tied to nights of the full moon may be another survival of the same or a related primeval moon tradition.

  This lunar eminence, which seems to have largely fallen out of post-Dracula English-language fiction, is still central in such pieces as Polidori’s Vampyre and Prest’s (or Rymer’s) Varney, where it is exposure to moonlight that first calls the new vampire (whose body has been exhumed by other vampires) back from the grave, and can subsequently restore him or her to life after attacks or accidents that might otherwise prove fatal, even after starvation. All this seems to suggest some vampiric affinity with the moon, perhaps as the symbolic “queen of the Night.”

  Notwithstanding the above, when in an uneasy state of conscience Czarny has almost as much trouble with the moon as with the sun, to the point where moonburn has sometimes seemed a physical possibility, making him use tanning lotion at night. Not only full, but also gibbous and even half moons can cause discomfort. This may have something to do with his modern scientific awareness that moonlight is reflected sunlight; also with his consciousness that the moon is seen in daytime often enough to weaken its value as a symbol of the night, and that there is nothing intrinsically evil about darkness, anyway.

  Problems of reconciling the moon’s effects as Czarny has experienced them with its role in werewolf and earlier vampire lore may become easier when it is understood that vampires are as much potential saints and shamans as they are villains and monsters.

  Silver.

  Actually, Czarny has more trouble with gold, which was still regarded as a somewhat more “sacred” metal than silver well into the 20th century. (It was only after the Second Vatican Council that the rule about Mass chalices having to be gold or at least gold-plated inside the cup was changed to allow chalices of glass, pottery, etc.)

  Every metal must at some time have been considered holy, probably usually according to its novelty or expensiveness. This would account for traditions of faeries, etc., recoiling from iron much as vampires recoil from silver. Such tales may perhaps be dated to some extent by which metal plays the crucial role—thus, stories of faeries turned aside by iron may go back to the Iron Age. But if vampires have become regarded as automatically fearsome fairly late, the prominence of silver over gold in vampire lore may simply be due to everybody feeling the need of as much protection as they could get, and most people having been able to lay hands on a little bit of silver more readily than gold.

  Czarny is much less sensitive to precious metals per se than to overtly religious symbols. It may be worth comment that Stoker’s Count seems totally unaware of the silver taboo, and is described as freely handling common household items made of silver.

  Running Water.

  Water remains more prominent in modern religious ritual than does any kind of metal. Nevertheless, Czarny would have to be exceptionally sinful to have trouble with any kind of water, running or still, except specially blessed Holy Water. His big school sport was swimming. He theorizes that the omnipresent necessity of water in mundane and “earthy” areas of life balances out its religious significance.

  All the other “elements” by ancient reckoning—earth, air, and fire—should be as holy as water and therefore as potentially harmful to vampires; but that would really have made existence impossible for a wicked vampire. (cf. “Earth,” below) Probably only naturally running or flowing water, like brooks and rivers, was ever a potential danger or barrier to even the most sinful vampire. Czarny has always found it silly when moviemakers and storytellers suppose that a vampire can be destroyed, like the Wicked Witch of the West, with a bucketful of standing water, or even with the artificially running water of a sprinkler system.

  Faeries and other “supernatural” beings are also supposed to be unable to cross running water, so the idea may simply have been moved over to include vampires during the centuries of persecution.

  Rymer’s (or Prest’s) Varney displays as little awareness of the running-water taboo as of all the other common vampire repellents; however, whenever he or another of Prest’s (or Rymer’s) vampires drowns, the water casts the body back onto the land for moonlight to revive.

  Earth, Necessity of Sleeping in Some Particular Kind of.

  Opinions seem to vary as to whether it must be graveyard mould (hallowed or unhallowed), the vampire’s native soil, or simply any kind of earth as opposed to some other kind of bedding. Czarny
considers the question irrelevant, since the only bases in fact he can find for this belief are the vampire’s ancient connection with the primeval Earth Mother religions, and the quarrels among Christian factions and other modern religions as to whose churchyards lead to Heaven and whose don’t. Some vampires, like some “roughing it” enthusiasts, may enjoy sleeping on natural ground; but there is no practical necessity for it. Czarny sleeps in a bed like everyone else, and enjoys soft sheets.

  Necessity of Sleeping in a Coffin.

  Nonsense. The coffin idea must have been thrown in to enhance the “Undead” propaganda and as a dramatic device to help vampires tote around the sleeping earth they don’t really need at all. In fact, a vampire is perfectly free to sleep in any ordinary bed. (Also, as mentioned above under “Everyday Life,” the vampiric sleep is no different from that of any other human being, and the vampire is equally free to take it at any time of the night or day.

  Sleeping Upside Down like a Bat.

  This one probably was never even meant seriously, just as a recent comic touch.

  Garlic.

  Sorry, folks, but Czarny finds that its value against vampires has been vastly overrated.

  Garlic must at one time have had some religious significance, but it seems to be so lost and forgotten that the vampire connection may be the only remaining readily discoverable trace of it. The vampire connection may have remained as long as it has simply because during the most paranoid centuries even folk who couldn’t afford silver could probably obtain garlic.

  In Czarny’s experience, the potential power of garlic on vampires has virtually disappeared along with the memory of whatever holy meaning was once attached to the root. Garlic blossoms can give him an occasional touch of hay fever; but he is quite fond of garlic as a seasoning, except when guiltily overwrought, when it can give him a touch of indigestion—but can that not go for anyone who eats almost anything when emotionally upset?

  Even when the continued power of garlic over vampires is assumed, it would probably be more correct to show the fresh flowers being used than the dried bulbs and cloves. But then, how many members of a modern audience would recognize a garlic blossom if it bit them?

  [As an interesting aside, since learning in the 2010s that garlic is supposed to help keep away those pesty insect vampires, mosquitoes, Karr has been swallowing it in supplement and finding that it seems to help a little.]

  Hawthorn, Wolfsbane, White Roses, etc.

  See comments under “Garlic,” above. If the religious significance of a thing has been lost, so has its power over vampires—unless, perhaps, an individual vampire remains keenly aware of the old holy connotations, or otherwise psychomystically convinced of the force of the taboo.

  Eggs.

  Czarny finds it curious that eggs are rarely if ever mentioned as proof against vampires, seeing that, thanks to common Easter customs, eggs retain more religious significance than, say, garlic or hawthorn.

  Inability to Enter a House Without Being Invited.

  Czarny can’t be quite sure about this one. How often does the situation arise in the lives of most of us ordinary, law-abiding people who stick to common rules of etiquette?

  In the case of someone alone inside a house needing emergency assistance, the invitation to enter and offer help can be assumed, even if the person in need is unconscious or otherwise unable to speak.

  There may be some confusion whether the ban includes all buildings or only private residences, and whether it includes only walled enclosures or any “private space,” with or without physical barriers. Of course, in the case of public buildings and places of business, an invitation to everyone is understood throughout “open hours.”

  The vampire qualification may include the idea that, after once being invited inside, a vampire can never afterwards be kept out of a specific building, unless by crosses, garlic, etc. It might be more logical to guess that, if the taboo is actual, it would apply to every attempted entrance of the vampire. Czarny thinks there is a good chance that the whole idea is just one more outgrowth of scare propaganda.

  On the few occasions he has tried to test it—for instance, by attempting to open an “Authorized Personnel Only” door—it has seemed to work, but as a simple and painless inability to enter, suggesting that it may have been only a social and psychomystical block, not even necessarily connected with his vampirism, that held him back. Alternatively, it may have been a simple locked door, locks being good mainly for keeping honest people out. His most striking experience in this area happened when he was underage for a place he was trying to enter; but that place itself was ... strange. (See the short story “Blood Grotto.”)

  VI. METHODS OF EXECUTION.

  On the whole, over-elaboration of methods for destroying vampires and guarding against their coming back to life appear to be partly scare propaganda and partly ritual put together for the benefit of the vampire hunters, to give them courage, salve their consciences, and further gear them up to the idea that their prey is “nonhuman,” “subhuman,” and “monstrous.”

  A Stake Through the Heart.

  Well, of course this will kill a vampire. It will kill anybody. Czarny believes that what the stake is made of—hawthorn wood, iron, etc.—makes as little difference for a vampire as for anybody else, which is probably why traditions about the material vary. Neither can it make any difference whether or not the stake pins the vampire to the earth, nor will removing the stake bring the vampire back to life. (Czarny does know of one case where it seemed to, but that whole episode happened under very strange circumstances, and may have been a kind of drugged dream. See The Hellmouth Seven.)

  Decapitation.

  This, too, will kill a vampire as unambiguously as it will kill anybody else, though it is superfluous after a stake through the heart. Stuffing the mouth with garlic or salt afterward makes roughly as much sense as condemning a man posthumously for some capital offense and digging his bones up to give them a public execution.

  Incineration.

  Again, this destroys a vampire just as it destroys anybody else.

  Exposure to Sunlight.

  See “The Sun and Daylight,” above.

  Silver Bullets.

  They hurt a vampire exactly as they would hurt any other body.

  Other Methods of Destruction.

  Generally speaking, whatever will hurt any other human being will hurt a vampire in exactly the same way. Two possible exceptions—which Czarny has never, happily, had occasion nor desire to test—are poison, and disease warfare. In theory, the same biochemical change that makes all edibles except raw flesh and blood just so much bulk and roughage to vampires may cause slow poisons to pass harmlessly through their bodies, although, if Czarny’s experiences of alcohol have been physiologically accurate, he suspects that a fast-acting poison could get him. And if his personal experience is typical, and vampires rarely or never get sick, they might be immune to biological weaponry.

  The Final, Fleeting Smile of Peace in the Moment of Dissolution.

  Czarny suspects that this is largely a pious and sentimental fiction, one more piece of the vampire hunters’ carefully fostered self-righteousness.

  Of course, in the case of good vampires, these purported last smiles of peace and blessed relief would have much the same significance (whether their killers recognize it or not) as similar smiles reported on the faces of martyrs and other dying saints. But Czarny fails to see how a wicked vampire could wear such an expression in the moment of death, rather than a look of horror at the prospect of imminent Hell.

  Burial at a Crossroads, etc.

  Probably the crossroads has been considered a good burial site for keeping vampires down because of the cross. Indeed, the crossroads, pointing in four directions, may form a practical and graphic example of the kind of mystique that made the cross a holy symbol in pre-Christian times in the firs
t place.

  Resurrection.

  Czarny seriously doubts that vampires, once destroyed, can ever be resurrected. (Just to be on the safe side, his Will includes instructions for cremation and a wide scattering of his ashes.)

  There may, unhappily, be a more allegorical idea involved here. Eventual resurrection for everybody, in some form—bodily, spiritual, reincarnate—is a common religious belief. If supposed vampiric resurrections are taken as metaphors for the eventual common resurrection, then the hunters’ efforts to guard against the vampires’ return to life takes on a very nasty meaning indeed, one that makes utter nonsense of all Van Helsing’s fine words about “saving the poor creatures’ souls.”

  VII. VLAD THE IMPALER.

  Who is it that wants to drive stakes through bodies—vampires, or vampire hunters?

  Clement Czarny is of the firm opinion that Vlad Dracula the Impaler was a pathological van helsing who saw vampires everywhere, and that it is a crowning piece of poetic justice for his name to have become synonymous with the very beings he labored so obsessively to render extinct.