Nemrtvi

The Dark Storyteller returns again to Book Cafe Living. THE UNDEAD - the folklore of the vampires of Eastern and Central Europe October 23 at 7 pm Not so long ago, only a few centuries ago, people dug up their dead, pierced them with stakes, cut off their heads, stuffed their mouths with garlic or burned their bodies. The reason was simple and embarrassing enough ...believed that the deceased could return. The vampire didn't start with Dracula. Long before Stoker, elegant robes and cinematic fangs, the villages of Eastern and Central Europe were surrounded by stories of the dead who did not stay where they were laid. The strigoi, upires, vrykolakas, lords, and a whole host of other creatures had different names, but a common trait-the grave was not necessarily their last dwelling place. At the lecture "The Undead - Folklore of the Vampires of Eastern and Central Europe" The Dark Storyteller takes you to a world in which the corpse was observed for signs of decomposition, the grave was opened for a suspicious death in the village, and the hawthorn stake was not a prop but a very serious means of protection. They will talk about how a vampire was recognized, why the dead were defiled, what garlic, hawthorn and other apotropaic objects were used for, how vampire hysteria reached European scholars and the court of Maria Theresa, and how one gas-filled rural deceased eventually became an aristocrat in a black mantle. There will also be real historical cases, medical explanations…