Troublesome Corpses: Vampires & Revenants from Antiquity to the Present – review

Author: David Keyworth

First Published: 2007

The Blurb: Since earliest times man has feared troublesome corpses – the bodies of the dead which do not lie still and decompose, but rise again to revisit the living. European folklore is particularly rich in tales of vampires and reanimated cadavers. The Undead take many forms, as do precautions to avert an attack and methods of destruction should precautions fail.

What distinguishes vampires from other revenants? What metaphysical agencies empower the Undead and how do theological contortions help explain them? And why did popular belief in the existence of the undead wane during the eighteenth Century? These and other vampiric questions are addressed in David Keyworth’s encyclopaedic survey of troublesome corpses.

The Review: It is difficult to review this book without using words such as seminal, wonderful and necessary: so there you go, I got them out of the way.

Heyworth’s book explores the concept of corpses who just won’t stay still and the main question within the book is, “what is the difference between a vampire and the other types of undead?” This is not an etymological question and the simple answer seems to be blood. The vampire panics of the eighteenth century had revenants that were not only called ‘vampire’ for the first time (in print at least) but drank the blood of victims. Blood did come into earlier folklore but it was not as central as it was in the eighteenth century vampire reports/folklore.

To take us on this journey Keyworth takes us from Antiquity, through Medieval writing all the way to the Eighteenth century and beyond that, touching onto the twenty-first century. However, keep in mind that this is an exploration of the vampire of folklore, media vampires need not apply except in passing. I found the discussions around the revenants of medieval England and the Scandinavian draugrs particularly fascinating.

It has to be said, however, that the book is so much more than the above. It looks deeply into all aspects of the vampire reports and folklore with impressive referencing and useful indexing.This book has been either the source of, or has informed, several threads on the Facebook Vampire Lore and Legend page and is, in itself, invaluable to all students of the vampire. 10 out of 10.

Classic Literature: Knightshade

The third of Paul Féval’s vampire related novels that we have looked at (though in truth this one is more a novella) was published in book form in 1875, though serialised in 1860, which means it actually falls between the vampire Countess and Vampire City chronologically.

Actually the book had less of a fixation on vampirism but did have some interesting ideas within it and, like Vampire Countess, actually left a question mark as to whether our vampires were indeed vampires.

The book concerns itself with the Ténèbre Brothers. One is large, Jean Ténèbre the chevalier, and the other smaller, Ange Ténèbre the priest, and both lust for gold, thus they are audacious thieves. Perhaps then they are only mortal thieves who have drawn a legend around themselves?

Féval says that whilst Ange is a vampire, Jean is an oupire. He even draws a distinction between the two names claiming an oupire “an eater of human flesh,” whilst a vampire is “a drinker of human blood.”

Within the story the existence of two graves on the Hungarian planes, each covered by a black slab bearing French inscriptions claiming the occupants (albeit often absent) as the Ténèbre brothers, is deemed to be accurate. Féval, as he did in Vampire Countess, has it that a red hot iron to the heart is the way to dispose of a vampire.

Perhaps the two hiding in the graves, when the father of one of their victims looked beneath the slabs, really were two common criminals known to the police (and one of whom had been transported previously to Botany Bay). All we know for certain is that he did not have the courage to pierce their hearts with hot iron and thus their fate was more grizzly. Sealed beneath the slabs he piled the graves with wood and set the pyre alight, roasting the two villains. Yet it seems a year later the Ténèbre brothers were out and about and up to their old tricks, at least according to a newspaper report from the Hague.

To my way of thinking this was the weakest of the three books, but again it was interesting to have pre-Stoker vampires tied to Hungary (although of French nationality) and mention of John Hyundai’s reign within the text. The distinction between vampire and oupire was fascinating also as it is out with conventional wisdom. In his essay Count Dracula and the Folkloric Vampire: Thirteen Comparisons (available at Blooferland), Patrick Johnson quotes Dom Augustine Calmet’s 1746 text as suggesting that “The public memorials of the years 1693 and 1694 speak of oupires ... which are seen in Poland, and above all in Russia. They make their appearance from noon to midnight, and come and suck the blood of living men or animals.”

Like the other two Féval books this is available, adapted by Brian Stableford.