vampire

Goths and the Gothic

Long before Goths were dressing in all black they were Germanic warriors who brought about the Dark Ages.

The original Goths were a host of 4th century Germanic tribes. As the Huns invaded from the east some Goths joined the Huns (later becoming the Ostrogoths) while others moved west invading areas controlled by the Romans. As the Roman empire split in two becoming the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, some Goths joined the Romans while others remained independent.

the goths — Many goths moved west to avoid the Huns, eventually invading and overthrowing the Roman empire.

On September 4th, 476 CE the Goth warrior Odoacer led an invasion of Rome and successfully deposed the 16 year old Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus. In so doing he brought about the end of the Western Roman Empire, an end of Roman control, and the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Gothic architecture

With the fall of the Western Roman Empire the continent fractured into various local powers. This change in power also led to a change in culture, turning away from Roman influence. Out of this came (what we call today) Gothic architecture. This new style featured pointed arches (instead of the rounded Roman style), flying buttresses, rib vault ceilings, stained glass, tall pointed spires, and more.

In actuality the Goths had nothing to do with Gothic architecture. The name was applied later as an insult by Renaissance painter & architect Giorgio Vasari. The Renaissance swung the cultural pendulum back towards all things Roman and Vasari applied “Gothic” to the interregnum medieval style that had turned away from the Rome. He blamed the Goths for the destruction of Rome (and Roman culture) and so “Gothic” was his name for this non-Roman architectural style. Perhaps if Vasari had been less biased he would have credited the Middle Eastern / Islamic architectural influence more and named the style accordingly.

Gothic literature

Fast forward to the 18th century and the Goths appear again (or their name at least). Gothic fiction grew out of Romanticism which was broadly emotional with a spiritual reverence for nature. Gothic fiction took that but focused on the supernatural and darker feelings – fear & loathing if you will.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is considered the first gothic novel. Published in 1764 it features a family in a haunted castle, an ancient prophecy, death, and sorrow. These elements are typical of Gothic fiction which by the Victorian era included literary classics such as 1818’s Frankenstein, 1845’s The Raven, 1886’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and 1897’s Dracula among others.

Gothic fiction got its name from Walpole whose The Castle of Otranto was subtitled “A Gothic Story”, in reference to Gothic architecture. Gothic stories were frequently set in spooky old Gothic castles & ruins. Simultaneously the Gothic Revival architectural movement brought Gothic architecture back into fashion – what’s old is new again.

Goth culture of today has gone mainstream (while still living in the shadows).

Gothic rock

Gothic fiction’s dark and brooding nature served as the foundation for today’s Goth culture. Gothic rock formed as a subgenre of late 1970s British post-punk music. It took the dark deathly themes of Gothic fiction and set them to minor key, dirgelike melodies. Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure and others helped define the genre.

Gothic rock also led to Gothic fashion. While the many subgenres of Gothic rock each have their own subgenres of Gothic fashion, the prevailing vampiric style is dressing in black clothes, dyed black hair, pale skin, with some degree of androgyny. Beyond music & fashion Goth culture can be found in the 1983 vampire film The Hunger, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comic series, the 1994 film The Crow, and a host of projects by Tim Burton from Beetlejuice to Edward Scissorhands to Wednesday.

From the Goths, to Gothic, to Goths

So the Goths inadvertently lent their name to an architectural movement, a movement that became the name of a literary genre with sad spooky themes, which then became the basis of the dark & gloomy Goths of today. From the old Goths to the new Goths, they’ve helped push culture in new directions for millennia.

Added info: a fun element of Gothic architecture are gargoyles & grotesques. True gargoyles channel rain water off buildings as waterspouts. The name “gargoyle” coming from the French “gargouille” meaning “throat”. This also gets us the word “gargle” for the same reason.

Grotesques on the other hand do not channel water. They’re also stone creatures on Gothic buildings but they are pure ornamentation.

A crash course of Gothic.

QI discusses the Goths.

The BBC investigates the growing Gothic rock scene of the 1980s.

Considered the first Gothic rock song, 1979’s Bela Lugosi’s Dead is like a Goth two-for-one. It combines the Gothic rock sound with Bela Lugosi, who played one of Gothic fiction’s greatest characters Dracula.

One of The Cure’s best songs, Just Like Heaven.

New England Vampires and Tuberculosis

The effects of tuberculosis led some 19th century New Englanders to believe that vampires were preying on the living.

In the late 18th and much of the 19th century there was a vampire panic in New England. People across New England feared that vampire-like creatures, using some kind of sympathetic magic, were slowly killing their friends & family from inside the grave (as opposed to traditional vampires who rise from the grave to attack). People would exhume their family members, look for the one who might be a vampire, and take various precautions to stop them. New Englanders might remove & burn the heart of a suspected vampire, they may turn the skeleton over facedown, decapitate the head, put a brick in their mouth, or use a wooden stake to pin their relative to the ground among other methods.

This panic was more than just a few isolated incidents. Henry David Thoreau mentions attending an exhumation in his journal on September 26, 1859. In February of 1793 over 500 people attended the ceremonial burning of the heart, liver, and lungs of supposed vampire Rachel Harris in Manchester, Vermont. After Nancy Young died in 1827 Rhode Island, her father thought that she might be preying on her still alive little sister Almira. The family exhumed Nancy’s coffin, burned it on a pyre, and stood in the smoke to breath in the vapors thinking it would free/cure them of this affliction – it did not work and Almira and two more of her siblings later died. Digesting the cremated remains of a suspected vampire, or breathing in the smoke of the cremation pyre, were not uncommon last resort treatments after traditional medicine had failed.

The 1892 exhuming of suspected vampire Mercy Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island became an international story – Bram Stoker based part of the Lucy character in Dracula on Mercy Brown. With 18 confirmed vampire cases, Rhode Island even become known as the “Vampire Capital of America.” The reason all of this happened was twofold: tuberculosis and decomposition.

The story of Mercy Brown influenced Bram Stoker’s *Dracula*.

Wasting away

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that attacks the lungs (among other areas). Active tuberculosis kills about half of those infected and in 2018 it was the ninth leading cause of death worldwide (killing more people than Malaria or HIV/AIDS). In 19th century New England tuberculosis was the leading cause of death, killing an estimated 25% of the population.

Tuberculosis can develop over months or even years, slowly eating away at someone. A person with active TB develops a chronic cough as their lung tissue breaks down, their mucus starts to contain blood, they develop fevers, night sweats, and lose weight. Because of the weight loss the disease has been historically known as “consumption.” As the infected person wastes away they also develop ashen skin, giving them an overall sickly drained appearance.

Vampires, or, a lack of scientific understanding

The effect of tuberculosis (the slow draining of life) combined with some of the infected saying their deceased relatives were visiting them (as Almira Young claimed), was enough for some New Englanders to suspect there were vampires at work. Bodies of suspected vampires were exhumed to looks for signs of vampirism. Some of the corpses seemed have grown longer finger nails and longer hair, some were bloated, some had blood in their organs, while others seemed to have not decayed at all. These were surefire signs of a vampire … or were just normal aspects of body decomposition.

As bodies decay they become dehydrated causing the skin to recede and shrink. This gives the illusion of longer fingernails & hair as the base of the nails and hair that was once under the skin is now exposed. The bodies that seemed to have not decayed at all were the ones of people who died in the cold winters of New England (as was Mercy Brown’s case who had died in January) where the cold slows the decomposition process. These unremarkable signs of decomposition were mistaken as proof of life after death to the untrained eyes of 19th century New England.

The dawn of a new era

The Mercy Brown story brought unwanted attention to New England. It was embarrassing that, while the light bulb was being invented and Henry Ford was building his first car, people were worried about folklorish undead monsters. The vampire panic rose and fell with the tuberculosis endemic of New England. Over time with advancements in science, and the dissemination of knowledge, belief in vampires faded away.

Added info: porphyria is another disease whose symptoms can be similar to vampire activity. It’s a liver disease that, for some, can cause sensitivity to sunlight (leading some to only come out at night) as well as sensitivity to garlic.

“Ask a Mortician” goes through the history of the New England vampire panic and the realities of tuberculosis in 19th century New England.

A crash course on tuberculosis.

Vampires & Arithmomania

According to folklore, vampires have an obsessive compulsion to count.

The idea of an undead creature murdering and/or consuming the living is found in a host of cultures around the world. Some of these monsters are cleverly cunning while others are mindless killing machines, but the general vampiric themes are shared. Our modern idea of vampires is largely based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula, which in turn took ideas from Romanian folklore.

The Final Countdown

One curious component of vampiric folklore in Slavic down through Greek cultures is the vampire’s obsessive compulsive need to count things. Vampires were said to have arithmomania and needed to count things and actions. People took advantage of this by scattering seeds, salt, grains of rice, or whatever else they had in tiny sizes & large numbers, on the floor of their houses. An intruding vampire would then have to count each seed/grain giving the homeowner time to escape or, if it took the vampire long enough, the sun would rise and vanquish the undead intruder. Similarly it was believed that vampires would count all of the holes in a fishing net leading some individuals to hang nets by the entrances of their homes. It was also tradition to spread seeds/grain in a cemetery on the grave of a possible vampire so, upon rising from the grave, they would be kept busy through the night counting away from the living.

Strangely this obsession with counting wasn’t always limited to vampires. In parts of Italy it was believed that witches had a similar affliction. On the Eve of St. John’s Day you could defend yourself from a witch by giving her a red carnation because she would have to count the petals, giving you time to escape. In America some believed witches had to count the holes in sieves, leading some to hang them by their doors.

I Love to Count

Ultimately this compulsion to count things is the joke behind Count von Count on Sesame Street. He’s a vampire who loves to count and teaches children numbers. Like the Slavic vampires of folklore he is driven to count anything he sees. It’s a joke hidden in plain site.

In the X-Files episode “Bad Blood” a drugged Mulder defends himself against a vampire by throwing a bag of sunflower seeds on the floor.