Field of Vampires

[smokingboot]

Though generally wary of Sky History, I enjoyed watching this. It's a two part documentary based on the discovery, by Dariusz Polinski and Magda Zagrodzka, of a 17th century woman in an unmarked grave near Pien in Poland. The skeleton had a padlock on a toe and a sickle positioned across her neck. Investigations seem to bear out the idea, based on local folklore, that the padlock was placed on the toe to stop the 'good soul' leaving, so that the 'bad soul' could be kept in check, but folk seem to have been in the habit of checking these things and when they did, the padlock had sprung open. So they seem to have tried to get her to face downwards presumably as a way of pointing the dead in the direction of Hades or Hell or anywhere that's not back here with us. They failed to turn her over, thus the sickle appears to have been placed over the neck in case she woke and tried to move.

It was compelling and led to greater questions about outsiders etc, trials of the dead, mass hysteria etc. There's a lot of focus on vampires courtesy of the movie that's just come out, and of course I'll watch it, though I loved and laughed at the original too much to be a fan of Nosferatu redux. I watched it with a friend long ago in some warehouse/factory/pop-up movie theatre in Whitechapel, complete with live piano accompaniment. I haven't even watched the Klaus Kinski version, though I guess I should. Some have called it poetic, some say it's even more ludicrous than the original. Having said that, can a vampire be called ludicrous if it doesn't twinkle?

Comments

[asakiyume]

This is poking at my threadbare memory: I saw something on social media about measures taken to ensure the dead stayed right where they belonged--buried!--but I can't remember what it was....

[smokingboot]

There's a lot of strange stuff on this subject. This field in Poland had many more bodies buried in it, approximately a third of which were 'deviant' burials. Some had heaps of stones built up over the graves, which I recall from Irish folklore was considered one way to keep the dead from getting out and terrorising the community. This makes me wonder; do people just have the same ideas occurring across land and sea, or do the ideas travel with folk?

[asakiyume]

I imagine both! But I imagine for sure that people come up with the same sorts of ideas, pressed by the same sorts of uneasinesses or anxieties or questions.