may be compared with the faculty ascribed to vampires by Serbian legend, that of penetrating a house or vanishing away in a swiftly floating mist or vapour.
A few anecdotes, which I owe to Mr. G. Willoughby-Meade’s Chinese Ghouls and Goblins,[29] will show the close similarity of vampirish activities in China to those which are recorded in the tales of other lands. In the South-West of China a man added to his other villainies the study of black magic which enabled him to perpetrate the most abominable crimes. Having been caught in the very act of murder he was executed but within three days he had returned to earth and was terrorizing the whole neighbourhood. With infinite difficulty he was yet again made a prisoner, and this time he was drowned in a mighty river, which, it was hoped, would bear his body away on its foaming stream. Yet the third day had hardly come when it was reported that he was scouring the countryside and committing fresh deeds of violence and blood. Once more was he taken and put to death, only to re-appear and infest both hamlets and villages. At last when he had been seized and his head struck from his body, this was buried on the spot where he had fallen, whilst the severed head was conveyed to a great distance. Within forty-eight hours he was again seen, apparently as powerful and savage as ever, but it was noted that his neck was marked around by a thin streak of red. At last his mother, whom he had beaten, resorted to a mandarin of great honour and worship and gave him a mysterious vase, which was hermetically sealed. She explained that she had reason to believe that this through enchantment contained the superior soul of her son, whilst the inferior soul continued to animate and would persist in re-energizing his body, influencing him to commit these atrocities. “If you but break this little vase,” said she, “you can dissipate both souls, and then you may execute him once and for all.” The vessel, tied fast and painted with cabalistic signs, was forthwith shattered into a thousand pieces. The offender was caught with far less difficulty than had been supposed possible, he was put to death, and in a few days the body crumbled to dust, nor did he ever again re-visit the earth.
Although this story may be held strictly not to be a Vampire legend it is certainly closely analogous, and the following
