“A priest, who is recognized as possessing intellectual qualities far beyond the ordinary, told me that some little time since when he was travelling in Moravia, Mgr. Jeanin, a Canon of the Cathedral of Olmutz, asked for his company to a village named Liebava, which the good canon was officially about to visit as Commissary of the Episcopal Court to investigate the well-authenticated reports concerning a Vampire who had recently caused much trouble and disorder in the village Liebava.
“They journeyed thither; witnesses were cited and heard; the ordinary canonical procedure was observed in every detail. The witnesses gave evidence that a certain well-known citizen who had formerly resided at Liebava after his death had sorely tormented the whole district, inasmuch as for a space of three or four years he had issued forth from the cemetery and had entered several houses. It was true these visitations were now ceased, because a certain Hungarian who passed through the village at the time when the terror was at its height avowed that he could cope with the evil and lay the Vampire to rest. In order to fulfil his promise he mounted the clock-tower of the church, and watched for the moment when the vampire came out of his grave, leaving behind him in the tomb his shroud and cerements, before he made his way to the village to plague and terrify the inhabitants.
“When the Hungarian from his coin of vantage had seen the Vampire depart on his prowl, he promptly descended from the tower possessed himself of the shroud and linen carrying them off with him back to the belfry. The Vampire in due course returned and not finding his sere-clothes cried out mightily against the thief, who from the top of the belfry was making signs to him that he should climb and recover his winding-sheet if he wished to get it back again. The Vampire, accordingly, began to clamber up the steep stair which led to the summit of the tower, but the Hungarian suddenly gave him such a blow that he fell from top to bottom. Thereupon they were able to strike off his head with the sharp edge of a sexton’s spade, and that made an end of the whole business.
“The priest who related this history to me, himself saw nothing of these happenings, neither was anything witnessed
