was red.[76] Francesco Redi says: “Fra gli Egizii era tradizione che Tifone, il genio della distruzione, simile al Arimane Persiano al Satano Ebriaco fosse di pelo rosso, forse per memoria di invasioni di barbari di pelo rosso e presso noi dura tutta via la tradizione, ‘Guardati dal pelo rosso nè valse a toglierla la barba rossa del Redentore.’ ”[77] Red was the colour of the hair of Judas Iscariot,[78] and of Cain, and an old Latin rhyme of the thirteenth century has:
Monet nos haec fabula rufos euitare
Quos color et fama notat, illis sociare.
The Italians say:
Capelli rossi
o tutto foco, o tutto mosci.
John Wodroephe in The Spared Hours of a Soldier in his Travels, Dort, 1623, quotes: “Garde toi bien des hommes rousseaux, des femmes barbues, et des ceux qui sont marqués au visage.”[79] I have not met with the following tradition save orally, but it is believed in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Rumania, that there are certain red-polled vampires who are called “Children of Judas,” and that these, the foulest of the foul, kill their victim with one bite or kiss which drains the blood as it were at a single draught. The poisoned flesh of the victim is wounded with the Devil’s stigmata, three hideous scars shaped thus, XXX, signifying the thirty pieces of silver, the price of blood.
It is curious to note that the ancient ideas of the physiognomy of amorous persons are not at all unlike the distinctive marks of the vampire. The old belief has thus been summed up by G. Tourdes, “Aphrodisie,” Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales: “The erotic temperament has been described as marked by a lean figure, white and well-ranged teeth, a developed hairy system, a characteristic voice, air, and expression, and even a special odour.”
Since the vampire bites his prey with sharp teeth and greedily sucks forth the blood it is not surprising to find that those who are born with teeth in their heads are considered to be already marked down as vampires. Even in countries where the vampire belief was lost this circumstance was considered of the unluckiest,[80] and in Chapman and Shirley’s[81]
