skull and to lay the thorny stem of a wild rose bush upon the body, so that its winding sheet may become entangled with it should there be any attempt to rise.[127]
In Bulgaria “There is yet another method of abolishing a Vampire—that of bottling him. There are certain persons who make a profession of this; and their mode of procedure is as follows: The sorcerer, armed with a picture of some saint, lies in ambush until he sees the Vampire pass, when he pursues him with his Eikon; the poor Obour takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house, but his persecutor follows him up with the talisman, driving him away from all shelter, in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in which is placed some of the vampire’s favourite food. Having no other resource, he enters this prison, and is immediately fastened down with a cork, on the interior of which is a fragment of the Eikon. The bottle is then thrown into the fire, and the Vampire disappears for ever.”
With reference to this enclosing of the Vampire in a bottle it may be remembered that it was once a common practice of sorcery to imprison familiar spirits in a vial. Among the articles put forth by Don Alfonso Manriquez, who on 10 September, 1523, succeeded as Grand Inquisitor Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa,[128] was the following which a man in duty bound must reveal to the Holy office should he become aware of any such offence: “If any person made or caused to be made mirrors, rings, phials of glass or other vessels therein to contain some spirit who should reply to his inquiries and aid his projects.”[129]
Newton in his Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (Vol. I., p. 213) says that in Mitylene the bodies of those who will not lie quiet in their graves are transported to a small adjacent island, a mere eyot without inhabitants where they are re-interred. This is an effectual bar to any future molestation for the Vampire cannot cross salt water. Running water too he can only pass at the slack or the flood of the tide.
As all other demoniacal monsters the Vampire fears and shrinks from holy things. Holy Water burns him as some biting acid; he flies from the sign of the Cross, from the Crucifix, from Relics, and above all from the Host, the Body of God. All these, and other hallowed objects render him powerless. He is conquered by the fragrance of incense.
