The Original Vampire Hunter: Augustus Montague Summers
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cases of vampirism may be said to be in our time a rare occult phenomenon wrote english clergyman and author augustus montague somers who died in nineteen forty eight he continues yet whether we are justified in supposing that they are less frequent to-day than in past centuries i am far from certain

one thing is plain not that they do not occur but that they are carefully hushed up and stifled somers was an independent scholar who published many works on the english dramas of the stuart restoration and helped to organise the performance of plays from that period noted for his eccentric personality and interests somers became a popular figure in london high society

but there was something else that he became renowned for too: an abiding fascination with vampires. And he undertook substantial research into the topic. Summers was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, although he gained only a fourth-class degree in theology. He then went on to become ordained, and he became a curate in Bristol,

although many at the time questioned whether he had ever actually been ordained at all. Summers left his church role pretty quickly after managing to escape unscathed from a scandal involving himself and choir boys. According to a memoir by Jerome Joseph, when a friend of Summers from Oxford, J. Redwood Anderson, visited Summers at his vicarage,

He found Summers, quote, in a thoroughly neurotic state and exhibiting a morbid fascination with evil.

Father Brockhard Sewell, in the foreword to Somers' book, The Vampire in Europe, wrote, Somers was something of a mystery even during his lifetime. Rumour and legend had it that he was, or had been, something more than an academic historian of the Black Arts, which he chronicled with such learning and gusto.

It is quite probable that the warnings sounded in his books against the dangers of dabbling in necromancy were based on some early experiences of his own. Sir Henry Channon, a conservative politician, says in his diaries that Somers claimed in private conversation with him to have attended black masses in Bruges, Brighton and London.

while author Bernard Doherty says that Redwood and other friends of Somers even claimed he had conducted black mass ceremonies himself. Some have suggested that in Somers' poem, To a Dead Acolyte, he alludes to involvement in a version of the black mass.

There was also speculation that the years Summers spent abroad, supposedly for his health, were actually so that he could dabble in dark ceremonies. Or did he just present this persona to others as a means of seeking attention? Certainly he was an extrovert who seemed to thrive on attracting controversy.

On the other hand, where did he get all the information for his books on vampires from? There was no internet in those days. Whichever the case, Summers officially converted to Catholicism in 1909, after which he worked as a teacher for a while, until he established a successful writing career.

He published books on witchcraft and produced, for the first time, English translation of the 15th century witch-hunter's manual, the Melius Maleficarum. Then he turned his focus to vampires, writing The Vampire, His Kith and Kin and The Vampire in Europe.

A couple of years later, some of his English translations of the works of Sinistrari's "Demoniality" and the "Confessions of Madeleine Bavant", the possessed nun of Louvre, were the subject of court proceedings, which resulted in the condemnation of the books as obscene. All the copies were seized by police because of the accounts of sexual intercourse between humans and demons.

After conducting his own in-depth European research, Summers was a firm believer in the existence of vampires. Certainly in his day, Summers was considered to be a controversial figure. Sir Henry Channon characterised Summers as "a lecherous priest, a madman, and as dangerous as he is brilliant".

while British Gothic horror novelist Dennis Wheatley, who visited Summers to gather research for one of his books, left rather abruptly, determined, quote, never to see the perhaps not so reverend gentleman again. Wheatley reportedly based the character of the evil canon Copley Sile in his novel To the Devil a Daughter on Summers.

during some of his writing career somers lived in oxford and often worked at the bodleian library there he also took part in student plays performed by oxford university undergraduates and according to jerome joseph's memoir

Summers apparently became a figure of much gossip among the students. He came to regard him as a kind of clerical Dr Faustus. Dr Faustus concerns an ambitious scholar who, dissatisfied with traditional forms of knowledge, enters into a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, and in exchange for his soul, Faustus gains magical powers and all of the worldly pleasures he could wish for.

but it is a cautionary tale about the perilous nature of the fruit of forbidden knowledge some have said the vampire is believed to be one who has devoted himself during his life to the practice of black magic and it is hardly to be supposed that such persons would rest undisturbed

while it is easy to believe that their malevolence had set in action forces which might prove powerful for terror and destruction even when they were in their graves somers even had his own vampire hunting kit

While his writings lean more toward the romantic poets like Byron and Shelley, Summers' interests were firmly in the root of the novels that came before him, like Dracula and Frankenstein. But unlike those authors, Summers threw himself headlong into experiencing for himself the true realities of the macabre.

he wrote throughout the whole vast shadow world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible no figure so dreaded and abhorred yet dight meaning adorned with such fearful fascination as the vampire who is himself neither ghost nor demon but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both

this was the opening for somers book the vampire in europe in nineteen twenty six with ready access to the ancient texts held in the bodleian and british libraries somers came armed with earlier historical attempts to define what the vampire was

He quotes from physician J. Scoffin's 1870 Stray Leaves of Science and Folklore, saying, "...the best definition I can give of a vampire is a living, mischievous and murderous dead body. The words are idle, contradictory, incomprehensible, but so are vampires."

In Somers own opinion, a vampire was the body of a person buried, but somehow reanimated back to life. He gives an example of a possible vampire case which occurred in 1761 at the Lamb hostelry in Lawford's Gate, Bristol, England. It concerned two little girls called Molly and Dobby Giles, who were pinched and bitten by something no one could see.

he writes the impressions of eighteen or twenty teeth were seen upon their arms the marks being clammy with saliva and warm spittle and the children were roaring out for the pain of the pinches and bites on one occasion while talking to an observer mr henry durbin dauby cried out that she was bitten in the neck then suddenly there appeared the mark of teeth about eighteen and wet with spittle

somers says that the child should have nipped herself was wholly impossible and nobody was near her save mr henry durbin who recorded the events and whose account was first printed in eighteen hundred since he did not wish notes to be given to the public during his lifetime

on january the second seventeen sixty two durbin recorded dobby cried the hand was about her sister's throat and i saw the flesh at the side of her throat pushed in whitish as if done with fingers though i saw none her face grew red and blackish as if she was being strangled thursday seventh of january dobby was bitten most and with deeper impressions than molly

the impressions of the teeth on the arm formed an oval which measured two inches in length i first wrote about the strange case of eleanor zugan back in one of my earlier books and now upon reading somers book vampires their kith and kin i find that somers describes this case too it was also studied by the national laboratory of psychical research and their results were published in nineteen twenty seven

it concerns the case of an eleven-year-old girl named eleanor zugan who was brought from europe to london by a countess wassilkosirecki to be investigated at the laboratory in south kensington the story begins in nineteen twenty five in a rural village in roumania where eleanor had been sent to live with her grandparents

just days after her arrival the windows of their cottage smashed and in flew stones from out of nowhere when her grandparents looked outside they could see no one standing there her grandparents being of a superstitious nature came to believe that their granddaughter had become bewitched and they hurriedly sent her back to her parents

However, the same thing happened at her parents' house too. Stones broke the windows and they came flying into the house. Eleanor's parents rushed to get the village priest to come to the house, and when he arrived, he marked one of the stones with the sign of the cross and took it to a river where he threw it in. Shortly afterwards, the very same stone came flying through the already broken window of the house.

helenor's parents then took her to the priest's house but it seemed that his house came under attack too inside iron pots in the kitchen exploded into pieces sending shards of iron flying through the room toward them all the priest held a hasty exorcism

but that didn't stop the violence in fact it only seemed to make things worse and unsure what else to do the authorities declared eleanor insane and she was locked up in an asylum when countess wassail koserecki came to hear about what was happening she took a keen interest in the case and arranged to bring eleanor to london to be studied by the national laboratory of psychical research

one of the investigators there was a famous british psychic called harry price who spent a substantial amount of time with eleanor in a carefully controlled room at the laboratory to ensure there was no possibility of trickery what happened in the room was quite astonishing price observed bite marks and scratches appearing on eleanor's body with no visible source for her attacker he said the painful welts teeth marks and scarring were more than a match for my logic

Captain Neil Gow from the laboratory wrote in his report, Eleanor cried out, showed marks on the back of left hand, like teeth marks. Another day, Eleanor was just raising a cup of tea to her lips, but suddenly gave a cry, and there was a mark on her right hand, similar to that caused by a bite. Both rows of teeth were indicated.

mr clapham palmer also present at the time confirmed the incident saying eleanor was in the act of raising the cup to her lips when she suddenly gave a little cry of pain put down her cup and rolled up her sleeve on her forearm i then saw what appeared to be the marks of teeth indented deeply in the flesh as if she or some one had fiercely bitten on her arm the marks turned from red to white and finally took the form of white raised wheels

the investigators of course tested eleanor's own teeth taking indentation marks which when compared to the bite marks on her body were not the same size or shape and this determined that eleanor was not biting herself besides which she was in constant observation at all times samples of saliva were also taken from the bites and compared with eleanor's saliva

The saliva from the bites on her body was scientifically analyzed and found to contain high levels of organisms that were not present in Eleanor's own body. It was therefore agreed by credible scientists of the day that something invisible that no one could see was biting her.

On one occasion, Elinor cried out in pain, and upon removing her camisole, the investigators discovered seven long, sharp scratches on her chest, in the form of a crisscross pattern. Elinor was terrified of her invisible attacker, and she began to leave offerings to the invisible thing, which she had, for some reason, named the Dracu, and Angelis the Devil. She left it for food and chocolates.

but this had no effect on reducing its unprovoked violence it would not be until three years later that suddenly the attacks on eleanor ceased without warning or explanation i have also previously written about the case of another young girl named clarita villanueva who was living in the city of manila in the philippines in the nineteen fifties clarita grew up attending tarot card reading sessions held by her mother

until her mother died suddenly leaving caritta alone at the age of eighteen homeless and forced to live on the streets it was believed she turned to prostitution as the only means of providing food for herself and one night she was arrested for solicitation and taken to the police station it was there when the most mysterious scenes began to be played out

Clarissa was locked up in a cell with other female prisoners, but soon the guards were startled when they heard the most blood-curdling screams coming from the cell. They ran to open the door of the cell and they quickly discovered Clarissa lying on the floor, her body covered in bite marks. Her arms, legs, her back were covered with bites. She was rushed to the nearest hospital where the doctors treating her declared they'd never seen anything like it.

these were not human bite marks they said they were too big when clarita was returned to the prison after hospital treatment she was placed in a solitary cell the biting continued to occur on a daily basis clarita was the only person in her cell now and the teeth marks were much larger than her own teeth the prison guards did not know what to do and the prison doctor appealed for help from other doctors scientists and the clergy too

and soon the media would learn all about it according to the barrio amainan newspaper of may fifty three clarita would scream out that a black figure was biting her yet this figure was invisible to every one but her the bite marks however were very real a photograph published in the newspaper was shown of a city mayor who went to the prison to meet with the prison doctor dr

another photograph taken at the time shows both of them holding on to clarita as she writhes in pain from the assault of the invisible thing that was leaving huge bite marks on her then she started to say there were two monsters attacking her now when one doctor accused her of making it all up for attention clarita's face took on a look of great anger and she told him you will die the next day the doctor did die

Fear quickly spread through the prison, and when one of the prison guards kicked her in anger, Clarita told him he would be the next one to die. He did die four days later. Dr Lara, who was also the medical examiner for the police department and a professor of pathology, described what happened in his official reports. He said,

but with a magnifying glass i scrutinized the bite marks on her body carefully and at that very moment this girl screamed as i saw with my own eyes clear teeth marks appear i could not explain how they were produced i asked her who was doing it she said there were two of them one was very big black very tall with sharp eyes wearing a black hooded garment

she said that his voice was deep with an echo to it like being in a tunnel the second being she described as smaller hairy and deformed both were horrific to look at she said it was these entities that were torturing her

local pastor lester sumrell felt the need to go to the prison and offer his help and later he recalled i have never seen such a fearful group of people as those i met that day in the prison in his journal he wrote they were afraid this thing would kill them as it had the others who had dared to cross it they did not know what to do it was beyond their knowledge

The prisoner was being bitten by an unseen entity, being wildly attacked, but no one could see the entity, nor did they know any solution. They all wondered who would be the next victim to die. As Clarita was led into the room, she looked at me and screamed violently at me. There was a battle with her, three days of terror, trying to exorcise the entities, after which we hear no more of them.

from his archaic sources somers determined that the vampire is an abnormality the androgyny of the phantom world a pariah among the fiends these vampires visibly appear to men they knock loudly at their doors and cause the sound to echo through the whole house and once they have gained a foothold death generally follows

some of the earliest accounts summeth gives comes from very hard to come by texts like the ones written by seventeenth-century theologian and scholar leo alatius who was also a doctor of medicine he was appointed custodian of the vatican library in sixteen sixty one alatius wrote the vampire goes around at night into villages knocking sharply upon doors and summoning one of the household by name

this monster is said to be so fearfully destructive to men that it makes its appearance in the daytime and nor does it confine its visits to houses but even in fields and vineyards and upon the open highway it will suddenly advance upon persons who are labouring or travellers as they walk along and will slay them without laying hold of them or even speaking a word

somers adds accordingly a sudden death from no obvious cause is to be regarded with the gravest suspicion somers also quotes from father frangois richards a jesuit priest on the island of santorini who said the devil may operate by means of dead bodies as well as by sorcerers all this being allowed by some inscrutable design of providence and there can be no doubt that the vampire does act by satanic direction

he appears with the actual face and in the likeness of the dead stalking up and down the streets he will parade the country roads and fields he will burst his way into men's houses filling many with awful fear leaving others dumb with horror whilst others are killed he proceeds to acts of violence and blood

some are also quotes from the work of french benedictine monk antoine augustin calmet who wrote in seventeen forty six in this present age and for the past sixty years we have been the hearers and witnesses of a new series of extraordinary incidents and occurrences

hungary moravia silesia and poland are the principal theatres of these happenings for here we are told that dead men return from the tomb and are heard to speak walk and infect hamlets and villages injure both men and animals whose blood they drain thereby making them sick and at length causing death

nor can men deliver themselves from these terrible visitations unless they dig the corpses up from the graves drive a sharp stake through their bodies cut off their heads tear out their hearts or burn their bodies to ashes the name given to these ghosts is vampires they are apparitions of a new kind as to what the vampire wants somers believes even with regard to animals the soul of the life of the animal is in the blood

and being a curating theologian he quotes from leviticus the life of the flesh is in the blood and i have given it to you that you may make atonement with it upon the altar for your souls somers emphasizes that the revised version of the bible translates the word life from hebrew into english as soul

somers who was an expert in translation of archaic texts says since then the very essence of life and even more the spirit or the soul in some mysterious way lies in the blood we have a complete explanation why the vampire should seek to vitalize and rejuvenate his own dead body by draining the blood from the veins of his victims the vampire is not just coming for your blood it's coming for your soul

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