Footnotes:

[379] Some account of Russian funeral rites and beliefs, and of the dirges which are sung at buryings and memorials of the dead, will be found in the “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 309-344.

[380] Afanasief, iv. No. 7. From the Archangel Government.

[381] Zhornovtsui, i.e. mill-stones, or a hand-mill.

[382] Pp. 341-349 of the first edition. See, also, for some other versions of the story, as well as for an attempt to explain it, A. de Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” i. 243, 244.

[383] See supra, chap. I. p. 36.

[384] Afanasief, iv. No. 9.

[385] Ibid., iv. No. 7. p. 34.

[386] Prigovarivat’ = to say or sing while using certain (usually menacing) gestures.

[387] Afanasief, iv. p. 35.

[388] Afanasief, vi. No. 2.

[389] Afanasief, “Legendui,” No. 33.

[390] Chudinsky, No. 9.

[391] Afanasief, v. No. 47. From the Tver Government.

[392] “You have fallen here” neladno. Ladno means “well,” “propitiously,” &c., also “in tune.”

[393] Nenashi = not ours.

[394] Gospodi blagoslovi! exactly our “God bless us;” with us now merely an expression of surprise.

[395] Iz adu kromyeshnago = from the last hell. Kromyeshnaya t’ma = utter darkness. Kromyeshny, or kromyeshnaya, is sometimes used by itself to signify hell.

[396] Ha pomin dushi. Pomin = “remembrance,” also “prayers for the dead.”

[397] Afanasief, vii. No. 20. In some variants of this story, instead of the three holy elders appear the Saviour, St. Nicholas, and St. Mitrofan.

[398] “Die Nelke,” Grimm, KM., No. 76, and vol. iii. pp. 125-6.

[399] Wenzig, No. 17, pp. 82-6.

[400] See Chap. I. p. 32.

[401] Afanasief, v. p. 144.

[402] Afanasief, vi, p. 322, 323.

[403] Evening gatherings of young people.

[404] Afanasief, v. No. 30 a, pp. 140-2. From the Voroneje Government.

[405] Obyednya, the service answering to the Latin mass.

[406] At the end of the obyednya.

[407] The kosa or single braid in which Russian girls wear their hair. See “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 272-5. On a story of this kind Goethe founded his weird ballad of “Der Todtentanz.” Cf. Bertram’s “Sagen,” No. 18.

[408] Afanasief, v. pp. 142-4. From the Tambof Government.

[409] Afanasief, vi. pp. 324, 325.

[410] Chasovenka, a small chapel, shrine, or oratory.

[411] Afanasief, vi. pp 321, 322.

[412] Afanasief, v. pp. 144-7. From the Tambof Government.

[413] On this account Hanush believes that the Old Slavonians, as burners of their dead, must have borrowed the vampire belief from some other race. See the “Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie,” &c., vol. iv. p. 199. But it is not certain that burial by cremation was universally practised by the heathen Slavonians. Kotlyarevsky, in his excellent work on their funeral customs, arrives at the conclusion that there never was any general rule on the subject, but that some Slavonians buried without burning, while others first burned their dead, and then inhumed their ashes. See “Songs of the Russian People,” p. 325.

[414] See the strange stories in Maurer’s “Isländische Volkssagen,” pp. 112, and 300, 301.

[415] As in the case of Glam, the terrible spectre which Grettir had so much difficulty in overcoming. To all who appreciate a shudder may be recommended chap. xxxv. of “The Story of Grettir the Strong,” translated from the Icelandic by E. Magnússon and W. Morris, 1869.

[416] The ordinary Modern-Greek word for a vampire, βουρκόλακας, he says, “is undoubtedly of Slavonic origin, being identical with the Slavonic name of the werwolf, which is called in Bohemian vlkodlak, in Bulgarian and Slovak, vrkolak, &c.,” the vampire and the werwolf having many points in common. Moreover, the Regular name for a vampire in Servian, he remarks, is vukodlak. This proves the Slavonian nature (die Slavicität) of the name beyond all doubt.—“Volksleben der Neugriechen,” 1871, p. 159.

[417] In Crete and Rhodes, καταχανᾶς; in Cyprus, σαρκωμένος; in Tenos, ἀναικαθούμενος. The Turks, according to Mr. Tozer, give the name of vurkolak, and some of the Albanians, says Hahn, give that of βουρβολάκ-ου to the restless dead. Ibid, p. 160.

[418] Russian vampir, South-Russian upuir, anciently upir; Polish upior, Polish and Bohemian upir. Supposed by some philologists to be from pit’ = drink, whence the Croatian name for a vampire pijawica. See “Songs of the Russian People,” p. 410.

[419] Afanasief, P.V.S. iii. 558. The story is translated in full in “Songs of the Russian People,” pp. 411, 412

[420] In a most valuable article on “Vampirism” in the “Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde,” Bd. iv. 1859, pp. 259-82.

[421] How superior our intelligence is to that of Slavonian peasants is proved by the fact that they still drive stakes through supposed vampires, whereas our law no longer demands that a suicide shall have a stake driven through his corpse. That rite was abolished by 4 Geo. iv. c. 52.

[422] Compare with this belief the Scotch superstition mentioned by Pennant, that if a dog or cat pass over a corpse the animal must be killed at once. As illustrative of this idea, Mr. Henderson states, on the authority of “an old Northumbrian hind,” that “in one case, just as a funeral was about to leave the house, the cat jumped over the coffin, and no one would move till the cat was destroyed.” In another, a colly dog jumped over a coffin which a funeral party had set on the ground while they rested. “It was felt by all that the dog must be killed, without hesitation, before they proceeded farther, and killed it was.” With us the custom survives; its explanation has been forgotten. See Henderson’s “Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties of England,” 1866, p. 43.

[423] A great deal of information about vampires, and also about turnskins, wizards and witches, will be found in Afanasief, P.V.S. iii. chap. xxvi., on which I have freely drawn. The subject has been treated with his usual judgment and learning by Mr. Tylor in his “Primitive Culture,” ii. 175, 176. For several ghastly stories about the longing of Rákshasas and Vetálas for human flesh, some of which bear a strong resemblance to Slavonic vampire tales, see Brockhaus’s translation of the first five books of the “Kathásaritságara,” vol. i. p. 94; vol. ii. pp. 13, 142, 147.