THOUGHTS ON

“ VAMPIRES ”

    The word vampire brings to mind no end of fantastic visions pulled from the pages of literature or recalled from the silver screen. However, the vampire of the fiction of fact may quite well be difference from what you may recollect. Throughout the late modern period, the old myth was told by a large number of persons with the utmost sincerity and conviction. Rumor of vampires awakening from their graves with a hunger for the blood of their late kin were told across Serbia, Hungary, Poland and, yes, even the U.S. of A.
    Rhode Island particularly was a microcosm where vampires still roamed in an era accustomed to the steam locomotive and electrified light. In the Ocean State, men were apt to say, "The vampire people are searching graves," to describe the queer habits of those on the outskirt towns still practicing these old ways. Why not every account in this collection concerns American-born vampires most, if not all, are taken from American papers. A fact that may well attest to the early American fascination with the belief that the dead may rise and wreck havoc on the living.