One of the models for Count Dracula is thought to be Stoker's employer, Henry Irving. This charismatic actor was sometimes viewed as vampirically sucking the energy from those around him, especially his hardworking theatre manager Bram Stoker. Behind his skill, charm and charisma, some people got the feeling Irving didn't have much of a personality of his own, giving an eerie, void-like impression. Stoker had long admired Irving before he started working for him, when he was writing for newspapers as a Dublin theatre critic. Stoker was prone to hero-worship and his admiration may have had a homoerotic tinge, which might be reflected in 'Dracula'. Irving played several highly gothic roles, including Macbeth, Hamlet, Faust, and the captain of The Flying Dutchman. Though his reviews were not always positive, Irving was a mesmerising actor who could leave an audience spellbound. #FairytaleTuesday #folklore #gothic #vampires #books #literature #vampire #history #mythology #theatre #Victorian #weird #Dracula #WorldDraculaDay

#FairyTaleTuesday #Celtic: `The site of Abhartach’s supposed resting place is still pointed out today. There’s a large stone-covered mound beneath a hawthorn tree in Slaghtaverty, often called the “Giant’s Grave.” Though archaeologists identify it as a prehistoric tomb, local folklore insists that it holds the remains of the undead chieftain.
Stories persist that bad luck follows anyone who disturbs the site. Farmers who tried to move stones, or meddle with the thorn tree, were said to have suffered accidents soon after.`
Source: https://www.danielkirkpatrick.co.uk/irish-mythology/abhartach-irish-mythology/
Here’s the full story of Abhartach the Dwarf King, who sought vengeance on those who mocked him:
https://emeraldisle.ie/abhartach-the-dwarf-king

#FairyTaleTuesday #Celtic: `During the the red nights, the dwarf Abhartach would rend his way back from his grave with iron claws and take not cattle or young women but instead demanded blood, and blood he got!`
Here’s the full story of Abhartach the Dwarf King, who sought vengeance on those who mocked him:
https://emeraldisle.ie/abhartach-the-dwarf-king

#FairyTaleTuesday #Celtic: `In a remote part of West Munster, a widow named Guare and her beautiful daughter, Nora, live in poverty and near starvation. Their plight appears to improve when Nora is courted by and marries ‘a strange horseman’ known as the Brown Man, who promises to make his new wife ‘a lady, with servants at her call, and all manner of fine things about her’.
But on arrival at her new husband’s home, Nora finds that the Brown Man’s ‘estate’ is a ‘wild bog’ and his palace a ‘clay hovel’, while the only food available is ‘a handful of raw white eyes and a little salt’. The bride trembles at the sight of the marital bed, ‘a little straw in a corner’, but worse is yet to come.
That night, and the next, the Brown Man leaves the cabin, returning to bed ‘cold as ice’ half an hour later. On the third night, he leaves again, and this time Nora secretly follows him, ‘winding through a lane of frost-nipped sallow trees’.
To her horror, she sees her new husband, his horse, and his dog in the graveyard of Muckross Abbey, ‘seated by an open grave, eating something; and glancing their brown, fiery eyes about in every direction’.
The next day, a terrified Nora pleads to be allowed to visit her mother; the Brown Man refuses, ‘I didn’t marry you to be keeping you gadding’, but offers to fetch the widow himself.
In due course, the widow appears, and Nora confides in her the horrifying sight she has witnessed:
‘My husband by the grave, and the horse… Turn your head aside, mother, for your breath is very hot… and the dog, they’re eating.’— ‘Ah, you’re not my mother!’ shrieks the miserable girl, as the Brown Man flings off his disguise, and stands before her, grinning worse than a blacksmith’s face through a horse collar. He just looks at her one moment, then darts his long fingers into her bosom, from which the red blood spouts in so many streams. She was very soon out of all pain, and a merry supper the horse, the dog, and the Brown Man had that night, by all accounts.`
Source: https://irishgothicjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sevenc2a0devils.pdf

#FairyTaleTuesday #Celtic: `On the perimeter of the graveyard at Kilteasheen the deceased had been buried in a manner conducive to what is historically known as a deviant burial. Once the skeletons were revealed, the violent, horrific nature of their post-mortem treatment became clear.
The men had been buried during different time periods. There were no genetic similarities and their ages varied by some twenty or so years, however they were connected in a most disturbing manner.
Each body was subjected to the breakage of arms, legs, hands and feet. These limbs were then folded inwards and bound around a large boulder. Both men had a rock wedged so firmly into his mouth that his jaws were close to snapping apart.
These men were not being laid to rest, they were being grotesquely violated and weighted down to ensure they would not return from the dead. The other interesting observation was that the men had not died of natural causes. Blade marks were clearly visible upon the bones.
In medieval times it was believed that the mouth was the portal to the soul. By placing an object such as a stone into the mouth of the deceased, the corrupt soul that had departed could no longer return. By breaking and binding the flesh and bones, the deviant could not walk among the living again.
The extent of mutilation together with the stone in the mouth of the dead pointed to one possibility. That the people who carried out these actions believed they were in the presence of vampires. It was believed at first that the archaeological team were on a Black Death site, as it was thought plague was spread by vampires and the violent nature of the burials was consistent with those thought to be involved in vampirism.
Bone dating however, showed that the corrupt corpses had gone through the most gruesome of rituals centuries before the Black Death took hold. So long before Vampires were written into folklore, before they were romanticised and turned into best-selling stories, the undead were believed to be walking among the Irish, bringing sickness and death to animals and people alike. In a small village in the West of Ireland, locals were using every ritual and method they had to make sure it didn’t happen to them. In Kilteasheen the Deviants would never rise again.
Source: https://darkemeraldtales.com/2017/04/22/on-the-trail-of-the-irish-vampire/

In some regions of the Balkans, a child born months after the father's death might be considered a dhampir, the child of a vampire. In some vampire hunting circles dhampir had the supernal instincts necessary to hunt these walking dead, and made a trade of it. #FairyTaleTuesday

In some regions of the Balkans, a child born months after the father's death might be considered a dhampir, the child of a vampire. In some vampire hunting circles dhampir had the supernal instincts necessary to hunt these walking dead, and made a trade of it. #FairyTaleTuesday

Death by sunlight is Hollywood's great contribution to vampire lore. Vampires have largely always been nocturnal but not allergic to the sun: sunlight sensitivity was added with Nosferatu and maintained in later vampire depictions. #FairytaleTuesday

Death by sunlight is Hollywood's great contribution to vampire lore. Vampires have largely always been nocturnal but not allergic to the sun: sunlight sensitivity was added with Nosferatu and maintained in later vampire depictions. #FairytaleTuesday