The monsters we associate with Halloween have a basis in fact as well as legend, literature and myth. We begin with the dreaded vampire as epitomized by Dracula.
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, which was published in 1897. It was an instant best seller. Some critics found fault with it because they complained it was too terrifying. The story used the beliefs of people in Central Europe in vampirism as well as the gruesome historical cases of Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory to flesh out its fictional credibility.
Elizabeth Bathory lured hundreds of peasant girls to their deaths between 1590 and 1610. Why they kept coming for jobs as domestics after the employees before them disappeared is an open question. Of course, there was no internet, no investigative reporters, sensational exposes or active press – just gossip and rumors. Money, then as now, can buy a lot of secrecy and Elizabeth Bathory was wealthy. Madame Bathory believed she would stay young and her skin youthful if she bathed in the blood of virgin maidens, so she did – lots of them. There has never been an accurate accounting, but some put the number as high as 600 which would make her one of the more prolific individual serial killers in world history. She had the connivance and cooperation of her household staff in these murders. The staff was executed, once found out and convicted, while Elizabeth Bathory was confined to house arrest to grow old, withered and wizened all alone.
Vlad the Impaler was the ruler of Wallachia, what we now know as Romania. Vlad’s headquarters was located in the region we know today as Transylvania. I’ll spare you the back story, but the Ottoman Turks were going to invade Wallachia and Vlad knew his chances of success were slim. Outnumbered and outgunned, Vlad knew he had to think outside the box, but what to do? He decided on taking those in prison and other condemned people and impaled them naked on sharpened stakes several feet high – alive. Their writhing, bleeding bodies along with their agonizing screams of excruciating pain would give the invading Turks something to think about. The stench from those already dead, rotting in the sun would give the Turks cause to pause. The tale is told that the Ottoman commander rode up, saw the carnage of thousands impaled then blanched to an ashen white and turned the invading army around. Wallachia was saved and Vlad became infamous as “The Impaler”.
People believed the dead had the power to rise and cause mischief and worse for the living. So, when cattle died unexpectedly, children sickened tragically or other mysterious goings on happened, something had to be done to combat the maliciousness of the dead. When coffins were opened the bodies moved freely. Bodies moved freely because rigor mortis is a temporary condition. Ancient folks viewed that as prima facia evidence that the person in the coffin was, in fact, a member of the undead. Remember this was before the practice of embalming so bodies bled, something dead people weren’t believed to be capable of doing. When a stake was driven through the heart of the dead they often moaned. We know now that residual air remains in the lungs even after death and that pressure can force that air out past the vocal cords causing the dead to “moan” as if alive, but they didn’t know that back then, hence the legend of the undead vampire. After all, there are vampires in the animal kingdom – the vampire bat for example – so why not in humans as well? Diseases, such as tuberculosis, also lent credence to the vampire myth. Those with tuberculosis got progressively weaker, lost color and coughed up blood. Was that not due to vampires? No, of course not but those alive hundreds of years ago would have begged to differ.
The standard defense against a vampire was garlic and a cross. Vampires can’t stand the smell of garlic and are repelled by the cross, but only if the one wielding it believes in the power of the cross. A cross or crucifix will do no good to the aethist.
The legend of Frankenstein is largely due to Mary Shelly. She wrote the novel because of a bet with the poet Lord Byron over who could write the better horror story. She won. The novel Frankenstein was published in 1818. The name “Frankenstein” refers to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster and not the monster itself.
Frankenstein was “realistic” because of grave robbing and medical science, which went hand in hand at the time. Medical students had to have something to work on and learn from, so there was a land office business in the corpse supply trade. Some corpses were donated to science, as some people do now upon their deaths. Others were indigent people with no relations and so, to save the taxpayer money and to further medical research, their bodies were donated to science instead of being buried using public funds. However, the vast majority of bodies were involuntarily dug up by grave robbers and presented to students and medical schools with a “don’t ask too many questions” attitude. That practice, combined with things like attempts at blood transfusions and early organ transplanting concepts, led to the idea that assembling an entirely new person from the parts of others was something that did not really seem out of the realm of possibility.
The legend of the werewolf has some basis in biology. There are metamorphoses in nature; for example, a caterpillar is one thing and then becomes another, a butterfly. In humans there is a disease called “hypertrichosis” that results in excessive hair growth all over the body causing the afflicted person to indeed resemble a werewolf. It is rare, but then again, so are werewolves. There was actually a checklist that French courts used to determine if the accused had werewolf tendencies. The checklist included having; pointed teeth, pawlike hands, small and low set ears, extreme hairiness, green eyes, pale skin, hatred of bright light, dry mouth, fear of water, preference for rare or raw meat, having scratches or dog bites and the clincher – having a wound in the same spot that a wolf who was recently injured had.
One could inherit werewolfism. If one were bit by a werewolf, then you became one too. If a child were conceived during the full moon and then born with the caul (placenta) on its head, the child was definitely a werewolf. There were measures a person could take to protect themselves from werewolves. Hanging rye, mistletoe or yew around your home would repel a werewolf. Werewolves do not like running water so living near a river or a mill would be added protection. Crosses also work on werewolves; they are the universal weapon against evil.
The myth is that one needs a silver bullet to kill a werewolf. That’s true but not entirely accurate. Killing a werewolf with a silver bullet purifies the poor wretch’s soul, thereby allowing them to ascend to Heaven. However, anything lethal will kill a werewolf but the resulting death sans silver bullet, condemns the unfortunate soul to Hell.
I know these things aren’t real, but his Halloween why not carry a stake, some garlic, mistletoe, a cross and a silver bullet just to be on the safe side? If you don’t follow my advice and something terrible happens, don’t blame me!
I hope you have a safe and enjoyable Halloween.