The Source:
Dudley Wright
"Vampires and Vampirism"
William Rider & Son, London, 1924
The Case:
I am quoting verbatim:
"The Daily Telegraph of February 15th, 1912, contained the following
paragraph :
'A Buda-Pesth telegram to the Messaggero reports a terrible instance
of superstition. A boy of fourteen died some days ago in a small village. A
farmer, in whose employment the boy had been, thought that the ghost of the
latter appeared to him every night. In order to put a stop to these supposed
visitations, the farmer, accompanied by some friends, went to the cemetery
one night, stuffed three pieces of garlic and three stones in the mouth, and
thrust a stake through the corpse, fixing it to the ground. This was to
deliver themselves from the evil spirit, as the credulous farmer and his
friends stated when they were arrested."
The Date:
According to the publication date of the article that Wright gives us, and according to the information that is said to be in the article itself, these happenings appear to have taken place in early 1912.
The Place:
As to the exact location we can only guess. The article is said to have been sent by telegraph from Budapest, which suggests that the happenings may have taken place somewhere, anywhere, in Hungary. It is wise to remember that in 1912 the Hungarian territory was much larger than it is today, so it is not unthinkable that the location where this case took place may now be situated outside Hungary. Having said all that, here is a link to Budapest : www.budapest.hu/
Personal Comments:
We have not been given very much information, so it is hard to tell if this is a genuine case, or a piece of creative journalism.
Possible Follow-Up:
This looks like a case that is well worth checking out. I am pretty sure that I have seen it mentioned elsewhere, possibly in one of the books by Montague Summers. It may be interesting to see if other sources come up with the same text. Then we can try to find the original article and see if it contains further information. Next we can find out more about the Messaggero (a newspaper ? a news agency ?) and see if it can help us to find further information. And finally we could see if there is any Hungarian material on this case. If it is genuine, there ought to be newspaper articles, court records and such.
© 1989, 2007 by Rob Brautigam - NL - Last changed 03 October 2007
Links last checked 9 July 2007
