she had said:
When someone dies, a husband, brother, sister, someone in the family... a baby... it is customary to cover the mirrors with a dark cloth and to light the candles.... you cover the mirrors because they say that it brings bad luck... if you donât cover the mirrors, the dead person is reflected in the mirror - for three days the spirit remains in the house - it goes out and remains near the house for forty days and after forty days it disappears - it goes away into its own world...
It would seem to be understood that if you do not cover the mirrors the dead person who was not happy in life, being reflected, remains in the house as a vampire - as a vampire reflection - and âthat is very badâ. The fear, essentially, is of the vampire-reflection - and that this vampire-reflection (âif it is reflected it would be the vampireâ) remains in the house; etc. Hence the ânecessityâ - it is revealed - to cover the mirrors in an event of a death so that the spirit of the dead person does not remain âa prisoner in the houseâ (a âeuphemistic imageâ). Coming back to Lena, the woman tells also of a girl who was transformed into a toad by the effect of a spell the girl requested from the witch herself. Here is what happened:
(...) my mother told me about an engagement opposed by the boyâs mother. The girl went to a witch who put a spell on her. Every night the girl changed into a toad to enter her fiancéâs house. The boyâs mother, often finding that big, croaking and squirming animal under her feet, wanted to kill it, and, one day, achieved her intention. In that moment, the boy died (...).
It is a matter here of a narrative outline - of an âeventualityâ that one encounters frequently also in Italian folklore: a witch changes herself into an animal or an object, which it then hit, and the witch ends up, therefore, maimed in a âcorrespondingâ part of her body. Just because it has to do with a transformation into a toad, I report that this attestation comes from Garfagnana (Cogna), in the province of Lucca [Central Italy]:
A young man from Villa Collemandina was returning home after having been at his fiancéeâs. It was the middle of the night, and to see he had a torch made of straw. At a certain point, he stumbled on something soft; he stopped, and in the faint light of the flame saw a large toad; annoyed, he thrust the torch towards the poor animal and gave it a good scorching. The next day he met a friend, whose face was disfigured by a horrible wound. âWhatâs happened to you?â - he asked him - âAh!, after having ruined me in this way you also ask me what happened to me?!â - âBut what are you saying?â Could it have been me that burned you?â - âYes, it was really you, last night! That toad that you met, it was really meâ.
Consider, moreover, as an example, the following tale, heard in Piedmont, relating to the connection between âbramblesâ and witch (masca):
There was between Castiglion Tinella and Valdivilla nearby on a bend a short-cut called âthe goatâs short-cutâ. And it was near this short-cut that everyone who passed by saw the masks. On this road, there were always some brambles which blocked the road. One day someone says: âI want to see properlyâ. Take this scythe and cut it downâ. Having reached the place, he hits him and suddenly hears someone say: âHit him againâ But the man did not hit him a second time. At a later stage, they learned that there was someone with his arm torn off.
On the bramble hit by the scythe, it is obvious that the arm cut off by the masca âmatchesâ. Another point that I intend to touch upon is that relating to âconviction that girls with blue eyes have the power to put the âevil eyeâ on someone, without - âsometimesâ - âdoing it on purposeâ (and itâs still Lena talking). However, regardless of other types of âexplanationâ, I would not rule out the fact that also in this case we are faced with an emergence of the colour, light blue/blue/deep blue, inasmuch as the colour of the negative.
Dealing now with the account of Alessandro Norsa, the Author highlights how the negative beings assembled âcircling around in the airâ (p. ex 9) For my part, I would take this opportunity to underline how the âcircle/curve/spiralâ element may be considered as a characteristic of such a being (and we have seen how the âcurveâ intervenes in the Piedmont attestation (referred to above). As far as concerns - finally - the practice of placing a spindle on the tomb of the deceased (Norsa, p. ex 10), I would not be out of place in recalling the tale, which one comes across widely, at least in Italian folklore, relating to the woman who, for a bet, goes into the cemetery at night, carrying out the gesture, in fact, to place a fuse on the tomb.
For the rest, it would perhaps be right to assume that also on the basis of accounts relating to the âfuse betâ - so to speak - an analogous meaning: an analogous âbasic valueâ remains valid, at least at that time.
Alberto Borghini, 14.03.2015
TO THE GRACIOUS READER
Who of you has not heard talk of Dracula and the vampires? These names are so popular as to become part of our common cultural heritage. For three hundred years, in fact, at least once in a century the world is completely prey to a vampire fashion: in the first half of the sixteenth century it was the time of the so-called âvampire plagueâ, towards the end of the nineteenth century / the beginning of the twentieth century the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker reawakened interest and even today (in the feast of Halloween and the television saga Twilight) we see a new wave of interest. The books already written follow roughly the same script with very few variations. Notwithstanding the mention initially made, the sense of this book, as already widely explored by other authors, is not that of dwelling on the famous Stoker novel, nor even going into the making of the horror film. We will try instead to understand the origin of the story between the leaves of the ancient myths, above all those coming from Romania and the Balkans, because it is from there that the image of the vampire that we all have in mind is formed. To enter further into the matter we have started our research with the reading of old Romanian texts on ethnography and mythology, to then go directly to Transylvania among the villages and the people, searching for directions in the traces of Dracula. It is therefore a journey into the past to understand where the image and the characteristics were born of the vampire, which is well-known to us, as well as to learn about the place from which it originates.
INTRODUCTION: OR, RATHER, WHERE THE INTENTION OF THE STUDY IS EXPLAINED
Let us close our eyes for a moment and try to imagine ourselves as Dracula. How do we imagine him? Probably tall, old and dressed in black. The aquiline face, the thin nose with a pronounced bump and strangely arched nostrils. The noble and wide forehead, the hair shaved at the temples, but full on top. The eyebrows thick - they almost join up over the nose. The mouth, for what emerges under the moustache, is stiff and with an almost cruel profile. The teeth, white and strangely pointed, emerge from the lips, whose bright colour reveals an amazing vitality for a man of his age. The ears are pale, and pointed; the chin wide and strong, the cheeks firm, even though hollowed. The whole face is suffused by an incredible pallor.
This is the sinister figure of Dracula which, in a detailed and incisive manner, is described by Stoker in his novel. Like an expert folklore student, Stoker merges into one personage mythological figures from various traditions: above all those relating to the Irish folklore heritage mixed with myths and legends from other countries, particularly from Romania. For example, the characteristics of the particular eyebrows just observed we find again in some disturbing mythological figures from Eastern Europe, as we shall see, while the pallor is typical of the wandering ghosts, the souls of the
