SINGULAR STORY RELATED BY TOURNEFORT. 223 of one awakening from a trance may easily be imagined. These depositaries just admit air enough to prolong suffering, and however forcible be his cries they serve only to awake the apprehensions of the living, without affording succour to the dying and despairing wretch. The layman hears the utterance of his agony, and instantaneously drops upon his knees; the papas hears it, and has recourse to prayers and fumigations, but human aid is hopeless. The truth indeed is, that they conceive certain evil spirits called VROUCOLOCHAS have seized upon the dead, and that they produce the terror-striking shrieks which issue from the subterranean recesses. A singular story relating to these spirits is told by M. Tournefort, and as the book is scarce, and the anecdote (marvellous though it be) from what I have both seen and heard, likely to be fact, I shall give it without curtailment. "The man, whose story we are going to relate, was a peasant of Mycone, naturally illnatured and quarrelsome. This is a circum→ stance to be taken notice of in such cases. He was murdered in the fields, nobody knew how, nor by whom. Two days after his being buried 224 SINGULAR STORY RELATED BY TOURNEFORT. in a chapel in the town, it was noised about that he was seen to walk in the night with great haste, that he tumbled about people's goods, put out their lamps, griped them behind, and a thousand other monkey tricks. At first the story was received with laughter; but the thing was looked upon to be serious when the better sort of people began to complain of it: the papas themselves giving credit to the fact, and no doubt had their reasons for so doing: masses must be said to be sure, but for all this the peasant drove his old trade, and heeded nothing they could do. After divers meetings of the chief people of the city, of priests and monks, it was gravely concluded that 'twas necessary, in consequence of some musty ceremonial, to wait till nine days after the interment should be expired. "On the tenth day they said one mass in the chapel where the body was laid in order to drive out the demon which they imagined was got into it. After mass they took up the body, and got every thing ready for pulling out its heart: the butcher of the town, an old clumsy fellow, first opens the belly instead of the breast, he groped a long while among the SINGULAR STORY RELATED BY TOURNEFORT. 225 entrails, but could not find what he looked for; at last somebody told him he should cut up the diaphragm. The heart was pulled out to the admiration of all the spectators. In the mean time the corpse stunk so abominably that they were obliged to burn frankincense, but the smoke mixing with the exhalations from the carcase increased the offensive smell, and began to muddle the poor people's pericranies. Their imagination, struck with the spectacle before them, grew full of visions: it came into their noddles that a thick smoke arose out of the body; we durst not say 'twas the smoke of the incense. They were incessantly bawling out Vroucolacas* in the chapel and place before it; this is the name they give to these pretended Redivivi. The noise bellowed through the streets, and it seemed to be a name invented on purpose to rend the roof of the chapel. Several there present averred that * « Vroucolacas, Βρουκόλακος καὶ Βρουκόλακας, καὶ Βρούκολάκας. Βρουκόλακας, a spectre consisting of a dead body and a demon. Some think that Bρoukoλakoç signifies a stinking carcase denied Christian burial. Booúкos and Bouрkos, that nasty stinking slime which subsides at the bottom of old ditches; for Aakos signifies a ditch." 226 SINGULAR STORY RELATED BY TOURNEFORT. the wretch's blood was extremely red; the butcher swore the body was still warm, whence they concluded that the deceased was a very ill man for not being thoroughly dead, or in plain terms, for suffering himself to be re-animated by Old Nick, which is the notion they have of a Vroucolacas. They then roared out that name in a stupendous manner. Just at the time came in a flock of people, loudly protesting they plainly perceived the body was not grown stiff when it was carried from the fields to church to be buried, and that consequently it was a true Vroucolacas; which word was still the burden of the song. "I dont doubt they would have sworn it did not stink had not we been there; so mazed were the poor people with this disaster, and so infatuated with their notion of the dead's being reanimated. As for us, who were got as close to the corpse as we could, that we might be more exact in our observations, we were almost poisoned with the intolerable smell that issued from it. When they asked us what we thought of this body, we told them we believed it to be very thoroughly dead; but as we were willing to cure, or at least not to exasperate their pre SINGULAR STORY RELATED BY TOURNEFORT. 227 judiced imaginations, we represented to them that it was no wonder the butcher should feel little warmth when he groped among entrails that were then rotting; that it was no extraordinary thing for it to emit fumes, since dung turned up will do the same; that as for the pretended redness of the blood, it still appeared by the butcher's hands, to be nothing but a very stinking nasty smear. "After all our reasons they were of opinion it would be the wisest course to burn the dead man's heart on the sea-shore: but this execution did not make him a bit more tractable; he went on with his racket more furiously than ever; he was accused of beating folks in the night, breaking down doors, and even roofs of houses, clattering windows, tearing clothes, emptying bottles and vessels. 'Twas the most thirsty devil! I believe he did not spare any body but the consul, in whose house we lodged. Nothing could be more miserable than the condition of this island; all the inhabitants seemed frightened out of their senses. The wisest among them were stricken like the rest. 'Twas an epidemical disease of the brain, as |