The Source:
Montague Summers :
"The Vampire in Europe" [1929]
reprinted by University Books, New York, USA, 1968
The Case:
Summers does not give us very much information about this
case :
It is said to have taken place some time around 1730-32. A man called Stephen
Hubner, who must have lived in (or must have come from) Treautenau, did come
back after his death as a vampire. He is said to have killed people as well
as cattle by strangling them. The Supreme Court of the district ordered
Hubner's corpse to be exhumed. The five-month-old corpse showed "all the
marks of vampirism". The corpse was transported to the public gallows, where
it was decapitated by the executioner. The corpse was cremated and the ashes
were scattered in the wind. As a precaution, other corpses close to Hubner's
grave were also cremated and then reburied.
The Date:
Not particularly exact: some time around 1730-32, but good enough for our purposes.
The Place:
It seems pretty likely that Treautenau is in fact the town of Trautenau, which is situated in the Czech Republic. It is now called Trutnov and you can find it East of Prague, to the North of Hradec Kralove, close to the Polish border. Here is a link to Trutnov : www.trutnov.cz
Personal Comments:
We do not have much information here, which does make it a bit of a challenge to find out more about it.
Possible Follow-Up:
First check Summers' version and compare it to mine. See if there are other authors who have mentioned this case. Try to discover where Summers' information comes from and then try to find his sources.
Reactions:
And then we received a message from David Keyworth
who is a serious vampire researcher from Australia. David has found a book
that dates back to 1658 and features the story of Stephen Hubner.
Here we find another date for these happenings: 1567. Once again, it goes
to show that we can not rely on the things that we are told, not even if they
are handed to us by "experts" like Montague Summers.
This is all the info that you are going to get from me. I may have said it before:
we are not here to give you the full story. Get out of your chair and do your
own bit of vampire research !
© 1989, 2007 by Rob Brautigam - NL - Last changed 03 October 2007
Links last checked 9 July 2007
