The events took place around 1875 in the village of Boureni, in the southern region of Romania [Valahia, close to the border with Bulgaria].
The story was first published in 1927 by N.I.Dumitrascu in his “Strigoi – din credintele, datinile si povestirile poporului roman, vol.XXXVIII” [The undead – from the beliefs, customs and tales of the Romanian people, chapter 38] and was later spread in the continent by Adrien Cremene in his “Mythologie du Vampire en Roumanie” [Vampire mythology in Romania] – published in 1981.
This vampire case is rather interesting because of all the details – many of them not useful at all.
A young peasant girl had become pregnant – much to the shame of her family since she was not bestrewed or married. She handled the pregnancy as best she could and [as story goes] since the baby turned restless most of the time she ended up promising that she would give him all the animals of a wealthy family from the region… just to calm him down.
When the time came, she gave birth to a baby boy with a caul. It died before it could be baptized so he was buried outside the local cemetery.
It became a Moroi [Romanian version of a baby-vampire] and soon after the sheep of that respective family [the Ionicani] started to die with no apparent reason.
One night, the shepherd saw the baby chasing the sheep in the form of a white cloud and he chased it away. He followed it to the grave and upon unearthing the corpse saw what it had turned into and took actions to keep it from rising again.
He chopped the tiny corpse into pieces and boiled it into wine. Then he reburied the baby and the animals were once again safe.
Since the baby was born with a distinctive sign [caul] and was illegitimate he was a likely candidate for a vampire. Adding the fact that he died before the baptism ritual could be performed and we have 100% chance for a return from the grave. I`ll admit that belief in vampire attacks on the lifestock was common in those days, but I suspect that the story about the promise was an exaggeration. I don`t really see the need for such a twist in the story.
Again we have an unusual behavior in the moment of the unearthing – we aren`t given any details about the condition of the corpse and the way it is dealt with is a peculiar on: boiling in wine?!?!?
๑۞๑ Related: ๑۞๑
† Vampire Accounts
† Legends
