Tales of Vampire Bakers and Geek Fantasies
Jun. 2nd, 2005 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenA few choice passages from the Montague Summers book (some of which are quoted from other sources):
It is told that one woman baked bread which was so light and good in the eating that half the country-side came to buy her loaves, and before long her pockets were well filled. The other wives in the village could not get their dough to rise, do what they would. Their bread seemed always mouldy and stale. Now this happened because the bakeress was a vampire, and knew how to obtain the essential goodness of bread from all the other ovens.
...These occurrences, and the testimony of the wife, caused the stranger to be suspected of Vampirism; he was examined, found to have only one nostril, and upon this irrefragable evidence was condemned to death."
For Ceredwyn:
There is yet another method of abolishing a Vampire - that of bottling him. There are certain persons who make a profession of this; and their mode of procedure is as follows: The sorcerer, armed with a picture of some saint, lies in ambush until he sees the Vampire pass, when he pursues him with his Eikon; the poor Obour takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house, but his persecutor follows him up with the talisman, driving him away from all shelter, in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in which is placed some of the Vampire's favourite food. Having no other resources, he enters this prison, and is immediately fastened down with a cork, on the interior of which is a fragment of the Eikon. The bottle is then thrown into the fire, and the Vampire disappears for ever.
And evidence that Evil is also Dumb - excerpted from a longer tale, but you can probably guess at the rest of it:
On the way the Soldier said: "Tell me; why did you draw off their blood in those phials?"
"Why, in order that the bride and bridegroom might die. Tomorrow morning no one will be able to wake them. I alone know how to bring them back to life."
"How's that managed?"
"The bride and bridegroom must have cuts made in their heels, and some of their own blood must then be poured back into those wounds. I've got the bridegroom's blood stowed away in my right-hand pocket, and the bride's in my left."
The soldier listened to this without letting a single word escape him. Then the Warlock began boasting again. "Whatever I wish," says he, "that I can do!"
"I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the Soldier.
"Why impossible? If anyone were to make a pyre of aspen boughs, a hundred loads of them, and were to burn me on that pyre, then he'd be able to get the better of me. Only he'd have to look out sharp in burning me; for snakes and worms and different kinds of reptiles would creep out of my inside, and crows and magpies and jackdaws would come flying up. All these must be caught and flung on the pyre. If so much as a single maggot were to escape, then there'd be no help for it; in that maggot I should slip away!"
Also, Geek Fantasies. Work-safety moderate, depending mostly on workmates' tolerance for rolling around laughing.
It is told that one woman baked bread which was so light and good in the eating that half the country-side came to buy her loaves, and before long her pockets were well filled. The other wives in the village could not get their dough to rise, do what they would. Their bread seemed always mouldy and stale. Now this happened because the bakeress was a vampire, and knew how to obtain the essential goodness of bread from all the other ovens.
...These occurrences, and the testimony of the wife, caused the stranger to be suspected of Vampirism; he was examined, found to have only one nostril, and upon this irrefragable evidence was condemned to death."
For Ceredwyn:
There is yet another method of abolishing a Vampire - that of bottling him. There are certain persons who make a profession of this; and their mode of procedure is as follows: The sorcerer, armed with a picture of some saint, lies in ambush until he sees the Vampire pass, when he pursues him with his Eikon; the poor Obour takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house, but his persecutor follows him up with the talisman, driving him away from all shelter, in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in which is placed some of the Vampire's favourite food. Having no other resources, he enters this prison, and is immediately fastened down with a cork, on the interior of which is a fragment of the Eikon. The bottle is then thrown into the fire, and the Vampire disappears for ever.
And evidence that Evil is also Dumb - excerpted from a longer tale, but you can probably guess at the rest of it:
On the way the Soldier said: "Tell me; why did you draw off their blood in those phials?"
"Why, in order that the bride and bridegroom might die. Tomorrow morning no one will be able to wake them. I alone know how to bring them back to life."
"How's that managed?"
"The bride and bridegroom must have cuts made in their heels, and some of their own blood must then be poured back into those wounds. I've got the bridegroom's blood stowed away in my right-hand pocket, and the bride's in my left."
The soldier listened to this without letting a single word escape him. Then the Warlock began boasting again. "Whatever I wish," says he, "that I can do!"
"I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the Soldier.
"Why impossible? If anyone were to make a pyre of aspen boughs, a hundred loads of them, and were to burn me on that pyre, then he'd be able to get the better of me. Only he'd have to look out sharp in burning me; for snakes and worms and different kinds of reptiles would creep out of my inside, and crows and magpies and jackdaws would come flying up. All these must be caught and flung on the pyre. If so much as a single maggot were to escape, then there'd be no help for it; in that maggot I should slip away!"
Also, Geek Fantasies. Work-safety moderate, depending mostly on workmates' tolerance for rolling around laughing.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 12:01 am (UTC)So, cocaine addicts who have the division between their nostrils collapse to form one big nostril, have attained a form of vampiric immortality from blow instead of blood?
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 11:09 am (UTC)...Speaking of which, if I were the warlock, it'd also mean that I'd cornered the market on aspen.