Encyclopedia of the Undead Read online

  Encyclopedia of the Undead

  A FIELD GUIDE TO CREATURES THAT CANNOT REST IN PEACE

  Dr. Bob Curran

  To my wife, Mary,

  and my children, Michael and Jennifer,

  for all their help, support, and tolerance during

  the writing of this book.

  Acknowledgments

  To the staff at New Page Books for all their help with this book.

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction: A Carnival of Terrors

  Vampires

  Werewolves

  Zombies and Voodoo

  Ghouls and the Golem

  The Terrors of H.P. Lovecraft

  Appendix : Miscellaneous Nightmares

  Index

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Preface

  The purpose of this book is to explore both the history and perceptions of the Undead, and whether legends concerning them have in their roots some form of reality. It also looks at how these perceptions have developed and deeply ingrained themselves within the human psyche. Through the years, both aspects have often become so inextricably intertwined that it is sometimes difficult to delineate the various strands that make up the beliefs and treat them separately. The concept of the Undead must be viewed as a cohesive whole. An understanding of such interconnected historical detail and perceptual development does not, therefore, readily lend itself to the piecemeal and fragmented entry system, which means that the reader has to “refer back” to other entries in order to understand the topic. So that full justice can be done to the areas considered, it has been decided not to follow what might be considered as the standard procedures for encyclopaedias or directories. Rather, the book follows a more “flowing” approach, so that the topic in question can be fully explored, but under a series of general subject headings that will guide the reader to the specific area which is being considered. In this way, we can get a much better picture of how perceptions of the Undead and supernatural creatures have grown and changed over the years. In this way, we feel that we can do the subjects covered a proper justice.

  I am, nevertheless, well aware that some readers may require some form of listing in order to pick up on specialisms and topics of particular interest. To this end, I have placed a full A–Z listing at the back of the book. This approach, I hope, will give an ordered, comprehensive, and readable text whilst also providing specific points to which the reader can refer. I realize, of course, that this may not be the “normal approach” to such works but then, the subjects with which we are dealing are not “normal” either.

  The concept of the Undead, and of the beings that haunt the deepest recesses of our minds, continue to both alternately terrify and fascinate us. They are complex, shifting entities, deriving their character and substance from a number of sources, both ancient and modern. I hope that, in both content and structure, this book has done them a frightening justice.

  Introduction:

  A Carnival of Terrors

  We see Agencies above the reach of our comprehension and things performed by Bodies seemingly Aerial, which surpass the strength, power, and capacity of the most robust Mortal.

  —Richard Bovet, Pandaemonium

  Stories concerning the Undead have always been with us. From out of the primal darkness of Mankind’s earliest years, come whispers of eerie creatures, not quite alive (or alive in a way which we can understand), yet not quite dead either. These may have been ancient and primitive deities who dwelt deep in the surrounding forests and in remote places, or simply those deceased who refused to remain in their tombs and who wandered about the countryside, physically tormenting and frightening those who were still alive. Mostly they were ill-defined—strange sounds in the night beyond the comforting glow of the fire, or a shape, half-glimpsed in the twilight along the edge of an encampment. They were vague and indistinct, but they were always there with the power to terrify and disturb. They had the power to touch the minds of our early ancestors and to fill them with dread. Such fear formed the basis of the earliest tales although the source and exact nature of such terrors still remained very vague.

  And as Mankind became more sophisticated, leaving the gloom of their caves and forming themselves into recognizable communities—towns, cities, whole cultures—so the Undead travelled with them, inhabiting their folklore just as they had in former times. Now they began to take on more definite shapes. They became walking cadavers; the physical embodiment of former deities and things which had existed alongside Man since the Creation. Some still remained vague and ill-defined but, as Mankind strove to explain the horror which it felt towards them, such creatures emerged more readily into the light.

  In order to confirm their abnormal status, many of the Undead were often accorded attributes, which defied the natural order of things—the power to transform themselves into other shapes, the ability to sustain themselves by drinking human blood, and the ability to influence human minds across a distance. Such powers—described as supernatural—only leant an added dimension to the terror that humans felt regarding them.

  And it was only natural, too, that the Undead should become connected with the practice of magic. From very early times, Shamans and witchdoctors had claimed at least some power and control over the spirits of departed ancestors, and this has continued down into more “civilized” times. Formerly, the invisible spirits and forces that thronged around men’s earliest encampments, had spoken “through” the tribal Shamans but now, as entities in their own right, they were subject to magical control and could be physically summoned by a competent sorcerer. However, the relationship between the magician and an Undead creature was often a very tenuous and uncertain one. Some sorcerers might have even become Undead entities once they died, but they might also have been susceptible to the powers of other magicians when they did.

  From the Middle ages and into the Age of Enlightenment, theories of the Undead continued to grow and develop. Their names became more familiar—werewolf, vampire, ghoul—each one certain to strike fear into the hearts of ordinary humans. They were no less fearsome than the vague, shapeless entities that had circled the fires of ancient people––only now they had a form and a definition. Now, they were set within a context of fear. And they reflected some of the cultural attributes of those who believed in them—the Semite, the European, the African, and later the West Indian. Thus, golems, afreets, zombies, djinni, and draugr wandered by night (and sometimes by day) causing fear wherever they passed. As in earlier times, they may have been seen as the physical manifestations of old gods and powers or the walking dead—those who lay in the churchyards. They also included demons—beings that had never been truly born but yet included elements of both the living and the dead. Is it any wonder, therefore, that such a caravan of horrors traversed the world on a daily and nightly basis? Such undead beings appeared everywhere and in all cultures.

  The purpose of this book is to detail at least some of the entities previously mentioned and to examine their possible origins. It is not meant to dismiss them as fearsome beings, nor to explain them away, nor to deny the horror that they generate. Rather it attempts to present a picture of terrible entities that have frightened Mankind across the years, that have shaped common nightmares, and have inspired the darker elements of the literary imagination. It seeks to celebrate that which lurks in the shadows or which gazes from the darkness at the solitary passerby with a frenzied and hungry eye.

  Look behind you down the darkened street! Is that a movement beyond the furthest streetlight? Peer out of your window into the gloom! Was that something, half-glimpsed, that moved away as you did so? Listen! Was that a cry or a voice speaking from amongst the
shadows of the hallway? The ancient horrors of the Undead are perhaps far nearer than we would care to imagine. Turn the pages of this book, if you dare, and discover just what might be lurking out there in the gathering darkness.

  Vampires

  Robert the younger died and was buried in the churchyard, but used to go forth from the grave at night and disturb and frighten the villagers, and the village dogs would follow him, barking mightily.

  —M. R. James,

  Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories

  Arguably no monster has imbedded itself so deeply in the human psyche than the vampire. The very word has the power to conjure up visions of ruined castles, perched on a crag somewhere amongst the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe; of tall and saturnine Romanian noblemen, swathed in dark cloaks; and of terrified peasantry huddled in forest-bound huts and villages holding crucifixes or adorning themselves with garlic. The term is also suggestive of ruined churches, opened coffins, and wooden stakes. All this is, of course, the stock Hollywood image of the vampire that has been fed to us through the years by various celluloid representations. But how much of it is true? Just how accurate is our idea of this most familiar of monsters?

  The idea of the vampire most probably has part of its origins in the ancient perceptions of the restless dead. These have been blended with stories of other night terrors to form the vampire motif with which we are all so familiar. Coupled with this are notions of how the dead conducted themselves and conduct how they interact with and react to the living.

  Greece

  During the Classical Greek Homeric period, (8th–7th centuries B.C.), the spirits of those who died in bed or who were slain in battle went flittering away like bats to some unspecified and hazy afterlife, usually known as Hades, to remain there forever. They spent their time murmuring quietly to each other in the eternal darkness, perhaps arguing over family pedigrees, giving endless descriptions of famous battles, complaining about unresolved wrongs in their former life, or simply making comments on the place in which they found themselves. They took little or no interest in the everyday world in which the living existed. Indeed, some perceptions from this period concerning the dead claimed that they actually forgot their existence in the world of the living and spent eternity drifting listlessly about along the shores of underground rivers—namely the Styx and the Lethe, murmuring and complaining to themselves.

  River Lethe

  It is said that as soon as the dead inhaled the fumes of the River Lethe, they forgot their former lives and became torpid and sluggish—giving us the words lethargy and lethargic today. This fits with the concepts of the Afterlife in some other ancient cultures. For instance, the early Semites believed that Sheol (the Hebrew Afterworld) was a dank and misty place through which the spirits of the dead wandered aimlessly, only dimly able to recall any aspect of their former lives. They were largely harmless, ineffectual entities about whom the living were not terribly bothered and who, in general did not interact at all with the material world. They might be called back through magical rites in order to pronounce on some aspect of their former world, such as when the spirit of Samuel was summoned to prophesy for King Saul by the Witch of Endor, a medium who dwelt in the country between Mount Tabor and the Hill of Moreh—but generally they were left to their own dark existence.

  However, by the time Socrates was forced by the Athenian authorities to drink the hemlock that killed him in 399 B.C., the perception of the dead had changed dramatically, at least in Classical Greece. No longer were they the compliant, ineffective spirits; they were now robust and active, wandering about burial grounds late at night and making their presence known. They shouted abuse, they tormented and terrorized passersby, and they sometimes attacked the living and even killed them. They could threaten their descendants and maim former neighbours. Rather than ignoring the spirits as they had done in former years, the living now feared them. These returning spectres were not the insubstantial, wafting shades of Victorian melodrama with which we are familiar; rather these were the corporeal, substantial figures that they had been in real life. They crossed between the world of the dead and the world of the living for various reasons: to harangue their descendants for some misdemeanour (real or imagined); to claim conjugal rights; to complete unfinished business left over from their time in the living world; to offer often unwanted advice, to take revenge on those whom they disliked, despised, or who had done them wrong; or simply to cause trouble amongst those who survived them. Such a trouble did these returning phantoms present that the officials in some of the Greek city states viewed with intense suspicion the Cults of the Dead and the Cults of ancient Heroes who worshipped the honoured dead within their precincts.

  Not only did these phantoms appear during the hours of darkness (although this was their favoured time in order to terrify people) but they also revealed themselves during the day, particularly at mid-day, which was an especially auspicious time as morning passed into afternoon. And as the years passed, such appearances often became more dangerous and malevolent as perceptions of the dead amongst the Classical cultures gradually began to change.

  Coupled with the returning dead, there were other terrors that made the blood of the Greeks run cold. Many of them also ventured out during the hours of darkness and many of them maliciously attacked the living or sought to do them some harm. One of these horrors was Hecate.

  Hecate

  Hecate enjoys something of an ambivalent and confusing position because it is not extremely clear as to whether she was considered a night-demon or a dark goddess. Although some Greeks referred to her as Hecate, others knew her as Aragriope, meaning “savage face” hinting at a far older entity. She was the daughter of the Titans (giants) Perses and Asteria, although others record her parents as Zeus and Scylla (a nymph who was turned into a sea-monster by the enchantress Circe, devouring all mariners who passed by her rock). She was also considered to be the dark side of the goddesses Artemis, Selene (the moon goddess), and Diana and was regarded as the Queen of the Ghostworld and matriarch of all witches; the mistress of chthonic rites and black magic. As soon as it was dark, she emerged from the Underworld to do harm to those against whom she had taken spite against. In this she was accompanied by many other foul and dangerous creatures, denizens of the Phantom world over which she ruled. These were simply known to the Greeks as “The Companions” but they comprised a legion of hideous goblins and “watchers of the night”—ill-defined terrors, some of which may have had an appetite for human blood. As she passed their houses, Hecate induced nightmares and night fevers, which sapped the strength of many sleepers, leaving them tired and listless in the morning.

  Mormo

  Amongst her “Companions” were Mormo, terrible shadowy entity who was frequently used by Greek mothers to frighten unruly children, and the Empusas, hideous and terrifying beings that exhibited many of the characteristics that we now associate with vampires. Whilst Hecate passed by, these horrific entities would often enter the houses of the living in order to attack the sleepers, particularly small children and the old and frail. This phantom could take a thousand different shapes, each one, the Greeks believed, more horrid and loathlsome than the last. The writer Aristophanes declared that such a creature was “clothed all about with blood and boils and blisters” and described it as “a foul vampire.”

  Lamia

  Besides Hecate and her hellish entourage, there were other creatures that stalked the Grecian night, terrifying sleepers and harming them as they rested. Such a being was the Lamia, who usually killed small children and attacked sleeping men. Similar to Hecate, the Lamia had her origins in Classical folklore and legend. She was, according to tradition, the daughter of Belus and Libya and was a beautiful queen of the Libyan country. She was in fact so beautiful that the god Zeus fell in love with her and visited her nightly. She bore him a number of children, angering Zeus’s wife, the goddess Hera. In anger Hera slew all her children, driving Lamia mad and sending her to live in the caves
of the desert. Soon her fabled beauty had drained away and she became an old and monstrous woman who preyed on small children, in retaliation for the loss of her own. Under cover of darkness she travelled between the Greek houses, killing whatever infants she could find and devouring their flesh. She had become almost similar to a wild animal and the mere mention of her name struck terror into the heart of every mother. The Lamia attacked the old who were unlikely to defend themselves and, in the guise of a beautiful woman (which she was magically able to generate), she copulated with men as they slept. The Lamia, it was said, was actually fuelled by unholy lusts. She drew the semen and bodily fluids, upon which she subsisted, from male sleepers, leaving them tired and exhausted in the morning.

  Cercopes

  The Greeks also believed that the darkness brought out beings known as Cercopes. These were malicious and malignant goblins that followed in the wake of both Hecate and the Lamia with the intent of doing harm. Plunder and thievery were their speciality, but they were also known to drink the blood of young children, which they drank from the arms and legs of sleeping infants. They were small, squat, and swift, and were incredibly dangerous if cornered. They went in and out of the Greek houses at will. With all of these monsters and the continual threat of the returning, antagonistic dead, it is a wonder that the Greek people got any sleep at all!

  Rome

  Many of these terrors transferred themselves to the later Roman culture. There were, however, certain additions to the carnival of monsters that emerged after the sun had gone down. For example, there were the Roman Striges.