Balinisteanu-RomanianFolkloreLiterary-2016

Romanian Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires
Author(s): Tudor Balinisteanu

Source: Folklore, Vol. 127, No. 2 (August 2016), pp. 150-172
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.
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Folklore 127 (August 2016): 150-172
http://dx.doi.org/l0.1080/0015587X.2016.1155358
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Romanian Folklore and Literary Representation

of Vampires
Tudor Balinisteanu ©
Abstract
This article presents nineteenth-century Romanian folklore about vampire-like creatures

which is analysed in reference to two literary representations of the vampire Dracula. I argue
that the folklore tradition establishes a body-oriented perspective, conducive to a feminist
analysis of the role of vampire creatures in socializing the otherness of nature echoed in the
sexualized powerful female body. The perspective emerging from the folkloric material is
subversive in relation to the social and sexual controls enabled across the axes of gender and
class by the use of vampire figures in industrial urban cultures of the late nineteenth century.
Cross-Currents of Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires
This article explores elements of Romanian folk traditions about vampire creatures in
relation to the psychological and social legislation of subjective identity, the natural world,
and the organic body developed in late nineteenth-century Europe from Enlightenment
ideas. The core argument is that Romanian folk traditions used representations of
vampire-like figures to socialize the border between ungovernable nature and culture,
in contrast to late nineteenth-century urban cultures in which literary vampire figures
expressed the need to govern and tame nature. Although centred on folklore, the
argument employs references to the cult vampire tale of Dracula. Bram Stoker's indirect
use of Romanian folklore in the literary genesis of the famous vampire, Dracula, led to
the creation of a notably urban cultural text which can serve referentially in a discussion
of the folk ethos of socialization, as opposed to domination, of nature. Thus conceived,
the comparison developed in this article, between the different ways in which late
nineteenth-century urban and rural communities understood the relation of nature to
culture through the vampire figure, leads to an appraisal of constructions of nature as
otherness originating in Enlightenment ideas and philosophies. This in turn points to
a critique of the capitalist ethos of using nature and the non-human as an exploitable
resource for culture and the human.
In order to achieve these aims, the analysis of Romanian folkloric material in the
penultimate section of this article highlights the kinship between vampire-like creatures
and nature. While this kinship may have seemed normal to inhabitants of rural areas,
it brings up a plethora of cultural conflicts when considered in relation to urban
contexts—conflicts which are mirrored in literary reconstructions of vampire figures.
) 2016 The Folklore Society
Romanian Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires 151
In late nineteenth-century capitalist societies, the realm of otherness included wom

the working classes, nature, colonial natives, and a host of other 'queers'. The e
paradigm of otherness in fact hinges on the articulation of feminine-identified na
to culture, so that the otherness of class, colonial populations, and deviants is infle
by feminine nature: natives, queers, and workers are feminized through perception
their otherness in terms of ungovernability, hysterical behaviours, or lack of the ab
to participate in the structured hierarchy which therefore needs must subord
them. The folk ethos is one of adaptation to these kinds of otherness rather than o
subordinating them (although not all categories of others are always encounter
rural cultures). In the present article this contrast is explored with reference to Stok
Dracula, because the novel is representative of urban literary representations o
otherness of vampires as connected to gender and class. The contrast is also explore
reference to a more recent reworking of the figure of Dracula in a play of the same
by the Scottish writer Liz Lochhead, first published in 1989. This play addresses iss
of gender and class in response to their othering in Stoker's original. These figures
Dracula are particularly useful as literary constructs of reference because Stoker's
of elements of Romanian vampire-related folklore in his novel enables us to explor
through the vampire figure, the cross-currents of rural and urban understandings o
relation between feminine-identified nature and masculine-identified culture.
Thus, the conflation of nature and women in both urban and rural cultures figur
prominently in this article. This conflation is explored in relation to women's s
bodies, including the passage from the pre-sexual stage to adulthood. This focus emer
on the one hand, from the folk material which shows that vampire-like creatures
often depicted in relation to the onset of menstruation, marriage, or human and nat
fertility, and on the other, from the demonization of highly sexual women in the
story of Dracula. A discussion of this conflation would be incomplete without addres
also questions of the otherness of the working class. Such questions may at first se
remote in an analysis primarily based on folkloric material. However, in late ninet
century urban cultures shaped under the aegis of the captains of industry, the con
between workers of rural origin and urbanités highlighted the otherness of the fo
in a geopolitical environment dominated by the capitalist ethos of transforming na
into an exploitable resource for human culture. Women of the higher classes
working-class women shared uneasily a cultural space of otherness seen also as a rea
of unmanageable nature. This is a topic briefly discussed in the next section of the ar
focusing on the characters Mina and Lucy in Stoker's novel, who represent middle-
women. The section also introduces the idea that the transformation of rural laboure
into members of the working class in industrial cities made possible a transfer
adaptation of the traditional worldviews expressed in folklore texts in urban conte
which may have developed into lines of resistance to the othering hierarchies.
the otherness of the working class is connected to the otherness of women, these
of resistance imply a feminist stance, at least in relation to gender hierarchies wh
subordinate women. The subordination of women and nature as exploitable reso
are interwoven. Also interwoven with these is a subordination of colonial others, que
and working-class men, but these topics, while certainly of interest in relation to
literary Dracula, are not central to the folkloric material, and will not be dealt with h
152 Tudor Balinisteanu
The topic of women'

again in the final sect
class characters are pl
strands of the propo
across the axes of gen
subordination of natu
a full discussion of h
culturally and mater
capitalist ethos, rura
than opposition to, na
This idea is speculative
rural areas, indicated b
in urban areas followi
in Lochhead's play.
In between lies the co
nature as represented
final section I examin
Central to the overar
penultimate section,
related folklore in a fe
ways in which the fol
nature, sexualized pow
The present article a
oriented perspective
the individualist capit
being critical of the lat
different 'social myth
sets of beliefs these so
and phenomena into a
that in mind, in the n
between narrative, na
vampire Dracula.
Ideology, Vampire Fol
Stoker's Dracula is tr
nature as a female dom
representations of v
interdependence bet
one must be aware of
texts may subordina
contemporary issues,
derived from folklore
echoes folktales to an
the power of the folk
over anarchic nature, bodies, and the body-social, repudiating the very different s
values established in the original, folkloric traditions.
In Roman Jakobson's theorization of discourse through the concepts of metaphor
metonymy (Jakobson 1956), a metaphor expresses the possibility of substitution betw
two terms, based on perceptions of similarity, but preserving also the percepti
difference. Metonymy also expresses a possibility of substitution, but at the same
expresses a relation of contiguity between two terms. In Stoker's text, the narrativ
expression of Lucy's character is based on a perceived métonymie relation of wome
bodies to nature as 'part for whole'. Previous to Dracula, the defining trait of vamp
had been their sheer violence, manifested in craving for blood, rather than th
sexual appetite, manifested, in Lucy's case, in her perceived craving for semen, but
Victorians used social conventions of premarital behaviour as context for interpretat
of the craving for blood in terms of sexual desires affirmed in women's bodies (Hu
2000,145-46). That is, in the perspective of Jakobson's theory, on the syntagmatic ax
discourses about vampires, the notion of sheer violence, expressed in representation
vampires' craving for blood, finds a context in Victorian social norms, and its mea
shifts towards notions of uncontrollable sexuality. Hence, in the métonymie order
vampire discourses there is contiguity between sheer violence and sexual viole
The notion of craving for blood points to another métonymie contexture: blood
metonymy for the body (part for whole) and the body is a metonymy for nature. H
through métonymie deletions in the chain—life-force of nature, life-force of b
craving for blood, ungovernable sexuality, vampirized Lucy—Lucy's character becom
a metonymy for nature.
Mina survives the vampire attack, but her survival comes at a price. Mina's chara
becomes a metaphor for nature. As a woman, her identity is defined throug
metaphorical relation to nature in which the difference between her narrated
persona and her unruly body is also foregrounded. It is precisely this separation that
male crew strive to preserve. At the same time, as the collator of the disparate docum
that comprise Dracula, she is attributed agency in a way which, perhaps, Stoker ne
intended. Mina pledges fidelity to Jonathan Harker in a narration that includes the s
of his surrender to the power of eroticism unleashed during his attack by the fem
vampires at Dracula's castle, and thus, one might argue, pledges fidelity to his othern
as one who has also experienced it. Perhaps it is this experience of otherness, howe
submerged and tamed by the end of the novel, which unites them. A sense of such
pledge through otherness seems to be expressed in Edvard Munch's lithograph
female vampire (Figure l). In this view, 'the worst horror [the book] can imagine is
Dracula at all but the released, transforming sexuality of the Good Woman' (Griffin
148; brackets added).
Evelyn Fox Keller argues that Francis Bacon's influential view of the role and pur
of reason and science engenders a need for science to control nature 'by follow
the dictates of nature, but these dictates include the requirement, even demand
domination. Not simple violation, or rape, but forceful and aggressive seduction lea
conquest' (Keller 1985, 37). In Stoker's text, the men's struggle to establish a hierar
in which they govern nature is expressed in a struggle to govern women by gover
their bodies. These two relations of government are intertwined with the need to go
Figure 1. Vampyrll. Lithograph
the body politic. Stoke

excluded from the polit
untameable nature dep
Liz Lochhead's play ve
the female body by de
women use folktales to
theme in Lochhead's po
Sisters (Lochhead 1986
maid) and Fanny Wall
the working class; the
the relations between
of folklore as regards
in opposition to the
characteristic of trad
section focuses on vam
such folklore may dem
realistic capacity for s
The Nature-Culture Re
A pan-Balkanic featur
stillborn children, or
sexual activity preced
who were not buried
According to Evangelos
vrikolakes (Avdikos 2013, 307), creatures which can also be encountered in Rom
folklore under the name vîrcolaci (singular vîrcolac). In Romanian folklore, the fea
of the vîrcolac are similar to some Romanian vampire creatures, notably to the mo
whose name is derived from the Slavic mora, a creature Avdikos identifies as conne
to the vrikolakes (Avdikos 2013,317). However, bearing in mind the proto-Slavic orig
Vrikolakes' and 'vîrcolac' (and also of'moroi'), it is likely that the vîrcolac, like the m
is a later addition to Romanian vampire folklore, whereas the creatures encoun
more often (strigoi, for instance) pertain to an older substrate dating back to the Ro
conquest, as might be proved by tracing the etymology of 'strigoi' to the Latin str
(evil spirit, sorcerer). Some features of the vampire creatures of Slavic origin have
superimposed over features of vampire creatures of Latin origin, but these origina
distinct traditions conflated in the Romanian vampire tradition: one, of predomina
Slavic origin, is centred on burial rituals which ensure the separation of the realms of
dead and of the living, as attested by the similarities between the Greek vrikolakes
the Romanian vîrcolac; the other, of pre-Slavic origin, is centred on rituals of fert
and regeneration, as attested, for instance, by the similarities between the Romani
vîrcolac and the lupercas and luperca wolf figures encountered in ancient Roman ritu
In a study of representations of werewolves in Romanian folklore, Harry Senn of
a fairly thorough analysis of the connection between vampire creatures and the be
of ancient Greece and the Latin world. In Slavic lore, which gave rise to the Roman
'vîrcolac', this creature is a werewolf which 'is said to eat the moon and cause eclips
(Senn 1982, 208). As Senn points out, broadly speaking, the affiliation of werewolv
with the moon in itself signifies a connection with natural cycles (Senn 1982, 206).
Romanian context this connection is inflected by pre-existing elements of Roman
Greek rituals of regeneration. According to Senn:
the origin and transformation to a werewolf is linked to the eve of religious holidays at th
winter solstice and vernal equinox, the seasons of the year given over to many kinds of
masquerades and folk plays with animal costumes. It is also the time of the year when hym
are sung that invoke the identity of the human and animal realms with ritual designed t
renew and restore the village community. (Senn 1982, 214)
Senn argues that one such set of performances is rooted in the Latin feast of
Lupercalia, celebrated on 15 February, when 'bands of young men of the wolf or g
confraternities ran through the crowds of spectators in the streets spreading
and disorder, and lightly whipping young women with leather thongs from the hi
of sacrificed goats. The goat thongs falling on the women were believed to make th
fertile' (Senn 1982, 208). In a study published in 1908, exploring contemporaneous f
beliefs, the Romanian folklorist and writer Elena Niculita-Voronca links this feast to
feast of Stratenia also known as 'the feast of bears'—in Romanian, särbätoarea urçilor
feast name incorporates the root urs, meaning 'bear', evoking ursa, 'she-bear', and
the myth of Callisto, daughter of the gruesome Lycaon whom Jupiter transformed
a wolf (Niculita-Voronca 1908, 73). Niculita-Voronca argues that Stratenia is the nam
of a goddess-figure blending characteristics of Juno and Diana Lucina, and records
popular belief in some rural areas that on her feast days winter meets summer and t
fight, while in other areas it is believed that they greet each other (Niculita-Voronca
78). In Muntenia (a historical province in southern Romania and the centre of Rom
colonization in ancient
February to admonish
to fulfil the purpose o
lightly whipped with t
week some shout from
playfully insulting the
Thus, the vîrcolac as
creatures associated wi
haunting the borders b
related creatures encou
folk material collecte
of a regeneration moti
before the Roman conq
territory of present-d
In a nineteenth-cent
representations of va
between nature and th
an extent. This can be e
especially from the re
before taking the coac
collected many folktal
was developing his wor
§i credin\ele poporului
beliefs collected and ar
gathered using scientif
explain the relation b
a three-volume work,
1998 in a two-volume s
Philology, in Iasi. In th
Niculita-Voronca's talent as a collector of folklore who was aware of the fact that the
material must be recorded without additions or subtractions if it is to be of any use
in scientific study (Berdan 1998, ll). In her own Preface to the 1903 volume, Niculita
Voronca emphatically states at the outset that 'I wrote down what I heard as I heard it,
I have not added or taken out anything, even when some of the notions seemed naïve'
(Niculita-Voronca 1998,1: 2l).3
In the material gathered by Niculita-Voronca there is no creature specifically called
'vampire'. This absence of the term seems to be characteristic of Romanian folklore. I have
not found the term 'vampire' in professionally-collected nineteenth-century material,
and, even though it is possible that one may come across it in obscure sources, its presence
there is most likely determined by the socio-economic status of the informant (estate
owner, educated teacher, priest, or others employed in the administrative institutions
to which a rural area was assigned). In relation to Stoker's Dracula, we know that he read
Emily Laszowska Gerard's 1887 book, The Land beyond the Forest, which firmly locates
vampires and the nosferatu as central to Transylvanian folk beliefs concerning death and
burial (Gerard 1888,185). However, one is hard-pressed to find these designations within
the Romanian-language material collected by Romanian folklorists in the second ha

the nineteenth century. Gerard does mention the strigoi in context with vampires
distinguishes them as different creatures, noting that 'these restless spirits, called st
are not malicious, but their appearance bodes no good, and may be regarded as ome
sickness or misfortune' (Gerard 1888,185). However, as we shall see, Gerard's vampire
the strigoi have much in common. In fact, while Gerard correctly identifies the conne
between the strigoi and sickness or misfortune, her account attributes to vam
features that are encountered in Romanian folklore in association with the strigoi,
as the belief that it is neither dead nor alive, or that it can be killed by driving a
through its body. Although I am not aware of studies that match Gerard's account to
Romanian folklore scholarship of her contemporaries, and therefore it is difficult to
the validity of her sources, her book and Stoker's use of it in the creation of the lit
figure of the vampire Dracula provide a useful context for examining the contrasting
in which the border between the human and the non-human was dealt with in traditio
rural and modern urban cultures. Comparing the ways in which the socialization of
border was envisioned in both rural and urban cultures in terms of the socializatio
nature, the organic, and women provides opportunities for comparing different w
of relating to nature that pertain to different forms of socio-political organization.
socio-political organization of industrial capitalism undervalues women and nature.
community-oriented ethos of socio-political life in rural areas establishes and prese
balance between nature (including that inherent in the ungovernable organic body)
the social realm of material production (nourished by nature).
In Romanian folklore, features attributed to the vampire Dracula in Stoker's text
distributed across a range of creatures, of which I found four to be the most relev
vînt/vîntoaica (the wind/the ravaging female wind, sometimes accompanied by hou
drac (the devil, but not always only that of Christian tradition, and often displaying
features of wilful fairies who cause mischief but may also bring luck), strigoi (the li
dead), and sburätor (who often lures young girls at puberty and is perceived to cau
their sexual awakening). A kindred creature is the moroi (creatures 'born out of ba
who were not baptised, who were stillborn or miscarried and buried',4 who come o
their graves after seven years to haunt the living; often referred to as a kind of drac
The kinship between these creatures and the common features they share w
Stoker's representation of male and female vampires is most visible in healing chan
such as the one discussed by the British philologist of Romanian origin, Moses Gast
(1856-1939), entitled 'De pociturä de noapte' (For night ailments), in his untrans
Literatura Popularä Românâ (Romanian folk literature) from 1883. The chant, reprod
from an 1879 published version, invokes the healing powers of the Virgin Mary, w
figure interestingly blends her Christian attributes with features of the goddess D
C$ede Maïca Domnuluï... Cu arcu-ï în mâna dreaptä' [There sits the Virgin Mar
Holding her bow in her right hand]), against a plethora of evil creatures perceived
inducing illness (Gaster 1883, 409; original italics). These creatures, the host of whi
includes the moroi and the strigoi, assault the ailing person, identified in the text as
his/her 'blood to drink/ The heart to turn to rot', like Stoker's vampires do.5 Thus
creatures are connected to the organic, and to its illnesses, but, as we shall see, also
the social illnesses that disordered nature may produce. In the following, I shall exam
features of the folklor

out how they represent
worldview defined by R
The vînt (wind) is perc
and can also create fog
a benevolent creature, u
when someone commit
1998,1:337-38).7 Interest
vîntoaica, whereas its m
agricultural cycles in m
to see the human shap
garlic and onion in addi
the context of folklore
as the male-identified w
at the right time, whil
passion which precedes
frumuçea (pretty one),
context she is a human
Voronca 1998, 1: 338).10
and the girl's transform
identity as a young wom
'Frumuçea' is a diminut
occurs in the same con
collected by Niculita-V
manifestation as a whi
by invoking her anthro
one may avoid being str
unbridled eroticism an
who see the leaf in the
away, the text also ind
who will become a bri
iele ('iele' does not have
case, third-person plura
who lure men by their
by man. They are often
as clearly associated wit
iele are less elemental
a mythological creature
to the dangers of untem
bring to those who stra
in which they are oft
admiration, respect, an
their friend, rather th
impression that if a Ro
could have been someho
he or she would have identified them as iele (or as other creatures associated with t
vîntoaica) and would have been afraid of their malevolent powers, but would have n
been horrified in the manner rendered literarily in Jonathan Harker's case.
The drac, a creature perhaps more relevant in relation to Dracula, given the comm
root of their names, may be speculatively connected to two traditions which becam
intertwined in Romanian folklore: that of fairies and that of Christianity. Gaster tr
the etymology of 'drac' to the Latin draco, meaning 'snake', or, rather, 'dragon' as
the ancient Greek drâkôn. Gaster argued that in Romanian popular culture the
became associated with the Devil of Judeo-Christian traditions through the influen
Bogomil apocryphal literature. However, he also noted the possibility of the existen
of a primordial snake motif in Romanian mythology, deploring the lack of evid
that could validate such a hypothesis (Gaster 1883, 257). However, the drac is o
mentioned in association with the iele, who in turn are associated with the vîntoasa,
frumu§ea, or the fairies (contemporary Romanian zânâ, plural zâne; Old Romanian z
plural zîne), as indicated by Lazare Sainean's book, Ielele, dînsele, vîntoasele, frumoa
§oïmanele, mâîestrele, milostivele, zînele: Studiu de mitologiä comparativä (The iele, the dîn
[them], the female wind, the beautiful ones, the hawk-like ones, the marvellous ones
merciful ones, the fairies: A study of comparative mythology) (1886). Often the devi
drac is also mischievous, can bring luck to its owner, or wreak havoc if mistreated
is invisible but some can see him. The drac can take people out of their graves and
them into strigoi, a kind of living dead.12 The drac can take human shape as a young
woman, or any creature.13 In some tales, not as widespread as readers of Dracula m
expect, the drac can be sent by his owner to suck the blood and tear the flesh of an enemy
In one tale which relates such events, the drac showed himself to his owner's daugh
in the shape of two hounds.14 The drac tales often offer a code for understanding
unexplained twists of fate that make one suddenly rich or poor, or the fits of passion
drive one to violence.
In folktales of Creation the drac is God's companion in the beginning of beginnin
when only the two inhabited the uncreated world. In the process of Creation, the dr
revealed as the primordial cause of the organic. One legend relates how God created
world by throwing his staff into unmeasured waters, thereby making the tree of lif
building the world around it from the sand brought by the drac from the bottom o
sea (Brill 1981, 90-91).15 The drac squats under the tree and asks God to leave, but
banishes him instead. Immediately after this, flesh falls from the tree onto the gr
and the leaves are made into people. In such legends, the drac is connected with
organic, representing its unconstrainable life-force, mastered by God.
In a tale collected by Niculita-Voronca, the drac creatures are born from a woman
the reflection of a primordial goddess, from her unbridled passion or iufalâ (this w
is difficult to translate; in its semantic field are blended the ideas of hunger, long
for something undefined, a burning sensation inside one's body, a will to act witho
thinking) (Niculita-Voronca 1998,1:121).16 Eventually, one of the drac creatures ma
the sun and the moon out of her eyes, and the stars out of her butchered flesh. The
then, is clearly connected with the sensual materiality of the world, as opposed to
spiritual and moral quality of its meaning in God's word. In folk reinterpretations
Creation more heavily influenced by mainstream Christian tradition, the drac beco
rather predictably, th
in tales such as this o
just barely sends out a
in the tale, if not less
world. As regards the
the Latin mater, mean
even though He is mor
sensual materiality is
spiritas understood as
The strigoi is the lik
Mircea Eliade, in his H
tracing the origin of
According to Eliade:
In Romanian, striga has
latter case, vampires). T
dress themselves in it a
powers; for example, th
with wolves and bears.
they provoke epidemics
droughts by 'subjugatin
bad fortune. They can t
and other animals. They
of Saint George and Sain
recover their human fo
thunder. (Eliade 1988, 2
In this context, Eliad

to do battle among th
general reconciliation
(Eliade 1988, 234). Eli
ritual scenario enacte
central rite of 'a ceremonial combat between sorcerers to assure the abundance of the
harvests' (Eliade 1988, 231). In comparing the strigoi battles and the ceremonial combat
of the benandanti, Eliade adds another possible argument in favour of Carlo Ginzburg's
position that there is an 'analogy between the battles of benandanti against witches
and ritual contests between Winter and Summer (or Winter and Spring) ... linked, in
some areas, to a presumably older rite, that of the expulsion of Death, or of the Witch
[the Latin striga also means "witch"] ... undoubtedly intended to procure abundant
harvests' (Ginzburg 2011, 24-25; brackets added). However, Eliade also points out that
'the benandanti contested very specifically with the striga, while the Romanian strigoi
fought among themselves and always ended their battles in tears and in a general
reconciliation' (Eliade 1988, 234). Be that as it may, to stretch out the argument a little,
tales such as the one in which the drac butchers a mother goddess to create the sensual
world might justify a perspective in which there exists an opposition between their kin,
the strigoi, and a primordial witch. In any case, the wealth of strigoi folklore offers such
variety that it is difficult to arrive at a systematic presentation of their functions. But the
connection made by Eliade between the strigoi and rituals of regeneration that invoke
the threshold between life and death, between human and animal states, bet
destructive subliminal night and the productive agricultural work of the communi
carried out in the light and clarity of day, in context with notions of birth and fert
does seem to indicate a theme underlying many, if not most, strigoi folktales. Thus,
many tales present the strigoi as a destructive entity which should be annihilated,
obliquely indicate a connection with chaotic nature which also presents the pro
of unbridled creativity and generation. This connection is mediated in tales that ev
ungovernable sensuality and marriage as a form of its assimilation within the
community, thus ultimately positing the need not to utterly destroy that which t
strigoi represents, but to harness it within socialization scenarios.
For example, a footnote to a strigoi folktale, Ton Soldatu' (ion the soldier), publish
the Romanian Academy Folklore series in the volume Ingerul românului (The angel of
people of Romania) in 1913, points out that according to traditional beliefs the strigo
made of the dead once an animal, especially a cat, has passed over the body through
carelessness of the family' (Rädulescu-Codin 1913, 260).17 Avdikos discusses the mo
the cat passing over a dead body at length in the context of Greek vampire folklore
in relation to the widespread cross-cultural theme of traversal leading to reanimat
(Avdikos 2013, 313-14 and 316). His research suggests that such traversal may signi
an interruption of the dead person's journey between the realms of the living and
the dead, and an unsealing of the border between these two realms. Avdikos highli
the fact that the concept of the journey between the two realms is encountered in b
Christian and ancient Greek religious practice (Avdikos 2013,315). It is also encount
in Romanian Christian religious practice, but it could be present in Romanian folkl
from ancient times as a result of interaction between the Greeks and native inhabi
(the ancient Dacians before and after the Roman conquest), which was fairly extensiv
In the Romanian text it is recorded that, to prevent the reanimation of a dead perso
strigoi, the villagers 'unearth it, taking it out of the ground, ride a black stallion ar
it and drive a stake into its belly, as it is said that only in this way can the strigoi be kille
in the dead' (Rädulescu-Codin 1913, 260).19
However, several other strigoi folktales retold in that footnote add layers of ambig
to such adversarial positions. In one, the strigoi is a creature which crosses at will
border between the animal realm of the organic and nature and the human social r
capable of imparting knowledge of the former to human social agents, establis
in the process a set of social codes to be internalized by the tale's rural audience. Th
strigoi assumes the shape of a young lad to attend the ritual Sunday dances in
village, where he is recognized as strigoi by a young man. To protect its true natur
the strigoi in male human shape promises that he will reveal great knowledge t
young man if he keeps silent, advising him to come to a certain place with his best fr
to receive this knowledge. The young man takes his wife to the appointed place
strigoi turns into the handsomest lad and wins the wife's erotic favours for himself
second time, the young man brings his brother. The strigoi turns into the handsom
lass and, again, in an erotically charged scenario, entices the brother to betray
young man. The third time, the young man goes alone, but picks up a stray dog on
way. The dog proves to be the young man's best ally, keeping the strigoi at bay
harassing him all the while. The strigoi then reveals that the dog is man's best frie
and teaches the young m

world (Rädulescu-Codin 1
as erotically charged (th
caution to humans to dis
ones. At the same time, i
light of an acceptance th
organic erotic drives. To
through the gift receive
ways (mostly, the conve
to animal pregnancies a
this particular tale ends
the organic justifies the
household cock reveals t
(Rädulescu-Codin 1913,
Other strigoi tales do
dealt with through allian
românului, an old man
includes his commitme
world. Thinking that h
home he finds out that
reaches marriage age wit
taken to the church for
and, in the following n
church. Eventually, a yo
church one night and, af
a Holy Bible clasped firm
at dawn its body bursts
marries the young soldie
62). The tale traces the t
(young woman of marr
echoes perhaps of femin
guardians of law and or
the repudiation of her w
the notion of marriage d
over nature as that of an
suggests that the young
one with the marvellous
The strigoi has a femi
of 'strigoi'), who is one
'strigoaica') and the iele
(Folklore studies) (1912)
account of the superstit
men must wear a hat to
of being turned into the
The iele are also associated with a primordial giant snake or dragon in a tale relat
(but not transcribed) by Niculita-Voronca, collected from Elena Braha from Mihalc
there was a time when giant dragons held sway over the waters and did not allow pe
to use them freely. In those days, Sf Gheorghe was a hunter whose hunting hounds
wolves, and he killed one of the two dragons that roamed around Mihalcea. The oth
dragon took counsel with the iele, who vowed that they would go among the peopl
toss them about, tire them out, and shatter them. St Charalambos then came am
the people and taught them how to gather all into a big house with two entrances
play songs and dance to attract the iele and the dragon; and when they would come
through one of the entrances the villagers should run out through the other and b
the dragon and the iele inside and burn them. This they did and they have been sa
from those creatures ever since (Niculita-Voronca 1912,123-24). The tale is an instan
of Christian traditions taking over pagan ones in a way that demonizes pre-Christi
beliefs. The iele are associated with a primordial snake or dragon of the same kind
encounter in traditions concerning the drac, bearing in mind also the Creation lege
mentioned previously, according to which drac creatures made the sun and the mo
out of the eyes of a goddess-like woman, and the stars out of her butchered flesh, b
themselves born out of her unbridled passion. Furthermore, the words used in the
to describe the plan of the iele to destroy the villagers in alliance with the dragon are
kind of words one might use to describe the ravaging caused by strong winds: toss
people about, tire them out, and shatter them (Romanian verbs sghihui, obosi, and sf
as given in Niculita-Voronca's text). Even though retold in terms of the Greek Ortho
Christian ethos in a way which demonizes powerful female-identified nature, the t
preserves elements of a ritual of regeneration connected to nature's vegetation cyc
conflated perhaps with a male initiation story. There is the hunter who kills the dra
and the element of water (which, when associated with rivers, points to fluid bord
reflecting an initiation scenario. More prominent, however, are the motifs of the bur
house with two gates, and the suggestion that this space of passage is governed by g
dragons and the iele, elsewhere associated with fairies. It is perhaps the nature-cult
border that is invoked here, with the power of threatening nature wielded by the ie
alliance with a primordial snake or dragon.
Kindred with the strigoi is the creature known as sburätor ('the flying one') whi
blends features of the former and of the vînt, the wind, among whose traits is th
of helper with the fertility of the land. In the case of the sburätor that trait seem
have been transformed into one which defines the role of the sburätor as assisting
transformation of pre-sexual girls' bodies into fertile women's bodies. The nineteen
century Romanian philologist, Bogdan Petriceicu Haçdeu, conveys Prince Dimi
Cantemir's notes on the folklore of the sburätor, made in his Descriptio Moldaviae (f
published in 1769 in Germany, and written in Latin), in the following words: 'Sbur
...is called the ghost of a very beautiful young man who, as the folk have it, sn
around maidens at night, especially those who are engaged, and seduces them unsee
anyone else, even when they are on guard' (Ha§deu 1876,372).20 Mostly, the figure of
sburätor serves to make sense of the organic nature of female sexual drives: the anx
accompanying the bodily transformations of girls at puberty is made sense of in t
of a wasting illness that the sburätor brings to young girls on the cusp of womanh
However, imagining th
does not lead to a repu
young girls from any
fact, the rural commun
changes, even though t
dreaming character of
In a literary poetic r
poem 'Sburätorul' (fir
Rädulescu portrays the
community toward a
suggests the symptoms
(Heliade-Rädulescu 19
Rädulescu's work, Dum
have connected the fig
to Heliade-Rädulescu, w
'The Vampyre' (1819);
1833). However, Popov
because Heliade-Rädules
sburätor or the young
Thus, the folk materi
govern nature. Howeve
one's relation to natur
in Enlightenment disco
the tropes of which co
foreign other belongin
power located in wome
of gender, and in one's
be seduced and/or co
ordered body politic. T
Literary and Folkloric
In the folklore vampir

signify a desire for leg
life-force in terms of
sense of in terms of se
Lochhead's play, where
The power of Dracula
temporally and symbolic
from the womb and fro
death. (McDonald and H
This emphasis on the v

However, the represen
cycles of transforma
dialogue with nature and its organic life-force. The connection of bodily excess in
form of menstruation and the life-force of women's bodies' fertility is socialized i
space of human-nature interaction that forms part and parcel of normal socializati
processes, as in folklore.
By contrast, in Stoker's text the links between vampires and ungovernable na
define the threat of the 'unfixed, transgressive, other' which might disrupt
normative projects of rational Victorians (Byron 2000, 133). In this context, Sto
Dracula articulates 'some of the culture's more harrowing anxieties' about sexua
gender, and racial 'others' (Arata 1996, 126). The Victorian ethos of Dracula assu
these anxieties by repudiating the links with the organic. The folk vampire ethos of
a model of relations with unruly nature that acknowledges and socializes the la
Lochhead's play offers a similarly empowering model, acknowledging at every
of the narration that, in Seward's words, 'There is a kind of animal strength to [Lu
and I can't believe she will ever die' (Lochhead 1989,121). This nature-culture hybrid
is acknowledged and socialized in folklore and in Lochhead's play, whereas in Stoker
Dracula, as in the Gothic genre in general, the readers' pleasure 'is based on the pro
of narrative closure in which the horrifying or monstrous is destroyed or contained
that 'the original order is re-established' (jancovitch 1992, 9).
In one of the very few anthropological studies of the Maramureç area (neighbour
the area where the events depicted in Stoker's Dracula are set), Gail Kligman emphasi
on the one hand, the strict gender hierarchy of the traditional Romanian vi
as expressed in ritual Sunday dances where, for girls, 'entrance into the dance
type of initiation, or puberty, rite' (Kligman 1988, 58). Typically performed in a c
(Romanian horä) into which dancers could enter in couples, these dances could be se
as the embodiment of the social community. As Kligman points out, the girls
only join in when invited by males for whom the dance represented an opportu
to demonstrate their manhood (for instance by shouting formulaic verses, or verse
their own making, sometimes challenging the formulae, but also through posture a
the beauty of their attire). On the other hand, Kligman emphasizes the association
young girls at puberty with symbols representing the processes of natural cycles, su
blossoming: 'for females, flowers are the symbols of vitality, hope, and virginity. A g
said to "blossom forth" (to attain puberty). The euphemism for menstruation is ha
flori pe poale, or flowers on one's skirt' (Kligman 1988, 71-72).
The girls can be easily seen as metonymies for nature, and their entering the dan
circles as the expression of the socialization of nature through taming and harnessi
its wildness. Since a central role of the dances was to offer opportunities for men
choose a bride, marriage was seen as almost the only way in which girls, by enteri
the stage of womanhood, could also enter the social community as legitimate memb
Interestingly, not only girls but also outsider men had to undergo the same ritual of joinin
by invitation. One might also recall in this context the cult vampire superstition tha
undead can only be let in by invitation, beautifully rendered in the Swedish film ver
(Alfredson 2008) of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel, Let the Right One In (2007) (wherea
novel itself presents a much darker perspective on the dangers and torments of chil
at puberty in twenty-first-century urban environments). In the traditional Roman
village community, as elsewhere, the Sunday dance was part of a larger cosmolo
belief in the need for

circle dominated by me
practices facilitated th
urban environments, th
cry from patterns such
for instance, Francis Ba
'the requirement, even
aggressive seduction' (K
Furthermore, Romania
those dominated by me
drac chooses the frum
female frumuçea is ki
much greater power and
from which men are ex
artistic impression of t
of whether there existed modes of women's socialization based in these traditions of
female power. Women's circles did exist. These were mostly based in the domestic sphere
Figure 2. Iele Dance. Crayon sketch by Tudor Balinisteanu, 2016.
of household production, but women also participated in work mostly done by men,
instance work in the fields, and women often took on the role of financial administr
of the household, travelling to fairs and purchasing what they themselves decided
required. The evidence from folklore suggests that, all in all, the traditional rural fa
was interested in preserving a balance between feminine-identified nature and cult
Of course, the traditional village was first and foremost a community of families the
of which differed significantly from the individualist ethos of families that functio
as units of production in highly organized urban, industrial environments. Hence,
question is: what made representations of vampire creatures so frightening in
nineteenth-century urban cultures that the scenarios of human-non-human interac
in which they were represented ended up demonizing them to such an extent that
total annihilation could restore safety?
A quick answer must mention industrialization (which required the transformati
of untamed nature into a 'governable' resource for material production), colo
imperialism (which required the domination and taming of both natural landscape
feminine-identified savage others), and the consolidation of the class system (w
provided a supply of available labour). In this modern context, the rural eth
vampire-like creatures promotes an alternative sense of alliance with nature, as opp
to domination of nature, as part of a larger vision of the necessity to find nature-cu
balance.
Over-romanticizing this value of the ethos promoted by folklore can lead
idealizations of the nature-women alliance in a manner that ends up repudiatin
socially embedded character. However, one cannot overlook the positive effects the
ethos can have in the context of industrial, urban society. An example can be glim
from Lochhead's play version of Dracula which integrates a story related by Mina's
Lucy's maidservant, Florrie:
Poor Fanny Waller in our village as was born not right, with a humpback and a harelip ..
so's you'd not have thought a man alive'd been inclined to take advantage of her—she wen
three months and never had to delve in the rag bag till finally her mother made her go to t
wise woman to see if she had a growth or an ulcer. Wise woman pressed on her belly—'A
can you feel anything?' ... 'No, .. .just sometimes, somethin' like li'l bird, flutterin'.' 'Wel
says the wise woman, she says, 'And did you not feel that li'l bird go in?' 'No, mum.' 'Oh we
then, by Christ, and ye'll feel it cam back out again!' (Lochhead 1989,105)
While Florrie's tale does not include references to vampire creatures, in the con
of Lochhead's play it does mirror the overarching plot in which Dracula seduce
ladies of high society. However, Florrie speaks with ease and humour of a sexual 'illn
whereas this would be a difficult subject in Victorian high society. The references
Fanny Waller's sexual adventures are thinly veiled, whereas in Mina's and Lucy's soc
world as defined in Stoker's novel their sexuality is either demonized (as with L
or made invisible and thus tamed (as with Mina). By inviting a comparison betw
folkloric and Victorian modes of narrating female sexuality, Lochhead's text ex
the repressive character of the latter and the empowering character of the former.
space of storytelling shared by Florrie, Mina, and Lucy is one in which women may
empowered to socialize their sexuality with an awareness of group solidarity and in
comforting non-oppressive space. After Florrie's story:
(LUCY goes into hysterics

cracks and all three laugh,
[FLORRIE:] Well, us Ev
(Lochhead 1989,105)
In this common space

three women laugh at
of nature's drives is m
mocking Eve's tale, the
Thus, as in the exampl
repressed, whereas in
matter. Compare the r
for instance, Seward's
crew drive the stake th
She seemed like a nightm
voluptuous mouth—wh
appearance, seeming like
Another entry in Sewa

When Lucy—I call the th
drew back with an angr
colour; but Lucy's eyes un
(Stoker 1997,187-88)
What Seward really fe

impulses. This alliance
of nature. The threat
rationalized as wanton
of the governable wife
Analysing the repres
Harvie argue that 'poly
men fulfilling women
society' (McDonald and
embrace Dracula as her
arrive, 'liberates a desir
that must be so ... it t
teleological binds to sin
way for a re-encoding
with nature as signifie
Lochhead's play like th
socialize the alliance o
threat.
Thus, an analysis of the folklore traditions of vampire-like creatures raises the
contemporary relevant issue of socializing the nature-culture divide in empowering
ways. Rather than merely demanding an acceptance of the deviant vampire, in an effort
to socialize the contemporary sensual outcast and thereby subverting conventional
norms and conformism, as many twentieth-century popular culture adaptations of
vampire tales do, the folkloristic analysis foregrounds the organic body and its tie
the natural world, as well as their value for social collectives. Senn concludes his su
of Romanian folkloric vampire creatures, other than those examined in this ar
by saying that 'Romanian villages offer us ... a larger mythological cosmology
context of folk traditions in which werewolves and vampires find a more natural p
(Senn 1982, 214). Similarly, and in contrast to literary representations of vampires
vampire-like creatures examined here impress through a sense of normality which
be explored in relation to a range of topics connected not only to gender politics, b
also to the politics through which we position ourselves in relation to nature and o
realms defined as non-human.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Gail-Nina Anderson, Claudia Gould, and Jessica Hemming for

comments and suggestions on the final drafts of this article. I am also grateful to
Bradatan, curator of the Simion Florea Marian Memorial House (Suceava), for ad
and guidance during my research in the House's folklore collections. This work
supported by a grant from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Resear
CNCS-UEFISCDI (project number PN-IHD-PCE-2011-3-0106).
Notes
Heather Ingman's analysis of the relation between Irish short stories and the oral tales of Irish folklore
can be generalized in order to assess the relation between Dracula narratives of any length and (non
Irish) vampire folklore: 'In oral cultures, theme was dictated by the need to organize and conserve
knowledge ... Style was governed by mnemonic needs, as in the use of formulas, patterns, repetitions,
antithesis, alliteration, assonance, maxims and other techniques of the oral storyteller. The change to
writing resulted in profound alterations, both in our thought processes and in narrative modes. Writing
became analytical, inward-looking, sparsely linear, experimental' (Ingman 2009,3).
'pe acei care au ramas necäsätori(i, în saptamâna nebunilor, îi bat eu "burduful de brânza" (pielea
lupercilor). Apoi tot aici la sfârçitul saptamânei aceçtia, unii strigä de pe un deal eu glas schimbat, numele
celor care au rämas necäsätorifi, ocârându'i'. Ail translations of texts in Romanian are mine.
In Romanian: 'Am scris fidel ceea ce-am auzit, nu am adäugit çi nu am omis nimicä, chiar daeä mi-a parut
ceva naiv'.
'Moroiul se face din copii nebotezafi, nascufi morÇi sau pierdufi §i îngropa|i'. Collected from Elena Braha,
Ropcea (Niculita-Voronca 1998,1: 415).
'Moroï eu moroaie,/ Strigol eu strigoaie,/ Ce la N. mergea/ Sângele a-ï bea/ Inimä de putrigaîu a-ï pune
... ' ('Moroi and moroaie,/ Strigoi and strigoaie,/ Who to N. did hurry/ The blood to drink/ The heart to
turn to rot... ') (Gaster 1883, 409).
6 'Vîntul, pîcla §i roua' (The wind, the fog, and the dew), collected from Toader Cojocari, Broscäufi (Niculita
Voronca 1998,1: 336-37).
7 'Vîntul necurat' (The sinning wind), collected from anonymous, Mahala (Niculita-Voronca 1998,1: 337
38).
'Vîntul. Vîntoaica. Furtunele' (The wind. The wife/sister of the wind. The storms), collected from Catrina
Beicu, Mihalcea, and anonymous informants from Botoçani, Mahala, and Cuciur-Mic (Niculita-Voronca
1998,1:337).
9 'Mintea. Sufletul. Drago

Buhalnifa, a gypsy from M
Voronca 1998,1: 346).
' 'Frumu§elele' (The pretty
A comprehensive nineteen
by the French philologist of
jotmanele, màïestrele, milosti
the names of those creatu
is rather difficult) these
understood to be designate
ones', 'the marvellous ones
of comparative mythology
'alçiispun ca-l scoate pe om

grave and carries him as st
selling), collected from loa
'Dracul se închipuie §i flecä

many sorts'), from 'Cum s
Iliçeçti (Niculita-Voronca 1
'Cum se träteazä dracul', f
1:395).
In 'Crearea lumii' (The making of the world), originally published in Tribuna no. 130 (1889).
'înca o versiune despre facerea lumei' (Another version of Creation), collected from anonymous (Niculita
Voronca 1998,1:121-25).
'Strigoiul se face din omul mort, peste care—din nepaza alor casei—a trecut vreun animal, pisica mai eu
seamä.' From Ton Soldatu', collected by Stäncila G. Niculae from Dumitru G. Puiulescu (Rädulescu-Codin
1913, 258-65, esp. 260).
On the other hand, according to Gregory Forth and Svitlana Kukharenko, representations of traversal
leading to reanimation may reflect a pan-human cognition, namely 'ontological transformation as a
normally unidirectional movement (or change of place) by an animated entity (a living or notionally
living being)— as in death conceived as a journey by the soul from one place to another—and negative or
prohibited action as a movement across a line or object marking or constituting a boundary between one
moral condition and another' coupled with 'a universal cognitive inclination to perceive a recently dead
body as suspended between life and death' (Forth and Kukharenko 2012, 171). Incidentally, it is worth
noting the research, highlighted by Forth and Kukharenko, which focuses on how 'encounters with dead
bodies entail a sociological counter-intuition that produces a "dissociation" similar to that manifest in
forms of cognitive impairment' (Forth and Kukharenko 2012, 166). Such research applied in studies of
readers' reactions to the literary Dracula might yield interesting results.
'[The villagers] îl desgroapä, îl scot afarä, îi dau ocol eu un armäsar negru §i-înfig un par în burtä, cä numai
a§à, ci-cä, omoarâîn mort pe strigoiul' (Rädulescu-Codin 1913,260).
'Sburätor ... se chlamä fantasma unuï tînâr forte frumos, care nöptea, dupä cum crede poporul, se
introduce pe längä feetöre, mal ales logodnice, §i le seduce, nefiind vëdut de cäträ cel-1'alfä, fie cät de
päzitorl...' (Haçdeu 1876, 372).
ORCID
Tudor Balinisteanu © http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7179-2584
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Biographical Note
Tudor Balinisteanu obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and is currently a
Senior Research Fellow in English Literature at University ofSuceava, Romania. He is the author
of Religion and Aesthetic Experience in Joyce and Yeats (2015), Violence, Narrative and
Myth in Joyce and Yeats: Subjective Identity and Anarcho-Syndicalist Traditions (2013),
and Narrative, Social Myth, and Reality in Contemporary Scottish and Irish Women's
Writing: Kennedy, Lochhead, Bourke, Ni Dhuibhne, and Carr (2009). He has also published in
a number of British, Irish, Canadian, and Americanjournals.

Balinisteanu-RomanianFolkloreLiterary-2016

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Romanian Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires

Author(s): Tudor Balinisteanu

Romanian Folklore and Literary Representation

This article presents nineteenth-century Romanian folklore about vampire-like creatures

Cross-Currents of Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires

In late nineteenth-century capitalist societies, the realm of otherness included wom

The topic of women'

Ideology, Vampire Fol

Figure 1. Vampyrll. Lithograph

the body politic. Stoke

the Romanian-language material collected by Romanian folklorists in the second ha

features of the folklor

In this context, Eliad

and teaches the young m

Literary and Folkloric

In the folklore vampir

This emphasis on the v

belief in the need for

Figure 2. Iele Dance. Crayon sketch by Tudor Balinisteanu, 2016.

(LUCY goes into hysterics

In this common space

Another entry in Sewa

What Seward really fe

I am grateful to Gail-Nina Anderson, Claudia Gould, and Jessica Hemming for

9 'Mintea. Sufletul. Drago

' 'Frumu§elele' (The pretty

'alçiispun ca-l scoate pe om

'Dracul se închipuie §i flecä

Tudor Balinisteanu © http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7179-2584

Jancovitch, Mark. Horror. London: Batsford, 1992.

Lochhead, Liz. 'The Grimm Si

•. Studii înfolclor [Folklore studies]. Vol. 2. Chernivtsi: Gutenberg, 1912.

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