Many of the creatures commonly considered as vampires from Greece "were not vampires in the same sense as those of Eastern Europe. They were spirit beings rather than revivified corpses. The ancient Greeks, however did have a class of revenants, vrykolakas, which would develop into true vampires" over the years (Melton 305). Leo Allatius "described the vrykolakas, the undecomposed corpse that has been taken over by a demon, and noted the regulations of the Greek Church of the discernment and disposal of a vrykolakas" (Melton 9). In the earliest legends, the identity of the vrykolakas was known, and cremation of the body could stop its nocturnal visits. "It was necessary to burn up the vrykolakas entirely" in order to ensure its permanent riddance of the creature (de Tournefort).
"The ancient revenant was, however, not yet a vampire, or even an object of much fear. The revenant often returned to complete unfinished business with a spouse, a family member, or someone close to him or her in life...In later centuries, stories would be told of....vrykolakas who resumed life in the family. Occasionally, there would be a report of a revenant who...remarried and fathered children" (306).
"Early in the twentieth century, John Cuthbert Lawson spent considerable time investigating the vrykolakas in Greek folklore. He noted its development in three stages, beginning with that of pre-Christian times." In the ancient stories, "the return was by divine consent for a specific purpose," and at times, the "revenant status" was "punishment for human failure." Some myths note instances "when people were cursed with an incorruptible body, meaning that in death the individual would be denied communion with those on the other side of the grave."
After the rise of Christianity, and the development of the Greek Orthodox Church, the idea was framed in the context of religion. The "church taught that a curse could ...prevent the natural decay of the body which at the same time became a barrier to the progress of the soul....[A]s the church came to dominate Greek religious life, it proposed that the dead might become vrykolakas if they died in an excommunicated state, if they were buried without the proper church rites, or if they died a violent death...To these it added two other causes: stillborn children or those who were born on one of the great church festivals" (307).
As the Eastern Orthodox Church spread into other lands, foreign beliefs entered Greece "and began to alter...the understanding of the revenant, transforming it into a true vampire. The significant concept was that of the werewolf...Some Slavic people believed that werewolves became vampires after they died." Scholars argue that "the Slavonic term came into Greece to describe the werewolf..., but gradually came to designate the revenant or vampire" (307). Although it's a point of contention, most believe that the term vrykolakas "was derived from the older Slavic compound term vblk'b dlaka, which originally meant wolf pelt wearer" (305). This compound word is still in use as "the exact equivalent of our 'werewolf'...[T]he reason for the transition of meaning" from 'were-wolf' to 'vampire' lies "in the belief current among the Slavonic peoples...that a man who has been a were-wolf in his lifetime becomes a vampire after death" (Lawson 378).
As the Greeks adopted the Slavic word, they also "absorbed a Slavic view of the possible vicious nature of vampires. The ancient Greek revenant was essentially benign...on occasion it committed an act of vengeance, but always one that most would consider logical. It did not enact chaotic violence" (308). The bloodthirsty and wonton vampire of the Slavs was contrary to the passive Greek revenant. "Gradually, the view that vampires were characteristically vicious came to dominate Greek thought about the vrykolakas" (308).
Xaire,
Ana
De Tournefort, Pitton. Vrykolakas.
Lawson, John Cuthbert. Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion...
Melton, J Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia...
Posts
