1 Háskóli Íslands Hugvísindasvið Viking and Mediaeval Norse Studies Dying to Become the Un-Dead A Comparative Study Between the Icelandic Draugar and the Bulgarian Vampire Ritgerð til MA-prófs. Vesela Valerieva Stankova Kt.: 0806904449 Leiðbeinandi: Torfi Tulinius May 2016 2 Abstract Stories of revenants have been the topic of various fields of study. Mostly they are regarded as plot devices in literature or as one of the main representatives of the horror genre that exploits the primal fear which they represent. This thesis will compare two types of revenants: the Icelandic draugr and the Bulgarian вампир. Specific traits the two traditions have in common will be identified, such as their appearance, the apotropaic methods used to protect against them and the different ways they are disposed of. It will be suggested that the two traditions display similar beliefs: in death, the soul, the afterlife, as well as shared observations of the physiological processes in corpses. An attempt will be made to see whether these two societies – the Icelandic in the Middle Ages and the Bulgarian in more recent times – believed in similar supernatural phenomena. Sögur af afturgöngum hafa komið við sögu í margvíslegum rannsóknum. Oftast er litið á þær sem lið í frásagnarflettu í bókmenntaverkum og sem einn helsta fulltrúa óhugnaðar í bókmenntum sem byggir á frumhræðslu sem afturgöngur standa fyrir. Í ritgerðinni verður gerður samanburður á tveimur tegundum afturgangna, íslenska drauginum og вампир frá Búlgaríu. Dregnir verða fram sameiginleg einkenni þessara fyrirbæra, svo sem útlit, hvernig verjast skal þeim og hvernig unnt er að losa sig við þær. Því verður haldið fram að í báðum hefðum komi fram svipaður hugmyndir um dauðann, sálina, líf eftir dauðann, auk sams konar vitneskja um líffræðileg ferli í líkinu eftir dauðann. Reynt verður að komast að því hvort samfélögin tvö – Ísland á miðöldum og Búlgaría á síðari öldum – deildu líkan átrúnað á yfirnáttúruleg fyrirbæri. 3 Acknowledgements The completion of this undertaking would not have been possible without the assistance of many people, and my thanks are due to them. First and foremost, to my supervisor, Torfi Tulinius, who was, simply put, brilliant, and without whom, I would have drowned in words. I would like to express my gratitude to Adelina Strandzheva, a professor of Bulgarian folklore, who pointed me in the right direction to my folkloric sources. I am deeply grateful to Dr Nikola Tepeliev, who answered every question that I had regarding diseases and post-mortem processes. Without his explanations I would not have been able to draw my conclusion and relate them in this work. A special thanks is due to Suzanne Valentine, Minjie Su and Aaryn Smith, who helped and guided me. Thank you for always having my back. To all the teachers from the VMN/MIS programme that shaped this work, without them even knowing – thank you. And lastly, to my friends and family, for their unwavering faith in me, you have my eternal thanks. But most of all to Tsvetomira Maslarova, who was right there with me every step of the way, even though she was almost four thousand kilometres away, I am forever indebted to you. To all of you and many more I give my thanks. Vesela Stankova May 2016 Reykjavik, Iceland. 4 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... 3 Introduction .................................................................................................... 6 A Study through the Decades........................................................................ 8 Recognizing the Un-Dead ............................................................................ 10 The Bulgarian Vampire .................................................................................. 18 An Overview and Some Characteristics ....................................................... 18 A Singular Being Made from Multiple Others ............................................. 23 The Icelandic Revenant .................................................................................. 28 An Overview and Some Characteristics ....................................................... 28 How to Dispose of One’s Revenants ............................................................ 37 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 45 Bibliography .................................................................................................... 49 Appendix ......................................................................................................... 56 5 “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” – William Shakespeare, The Tempest 6 Introduction Revenants throughout the years have been examined from different points of view – cultural, medical, sociological, metaphysical and psychological. The different types of revenants have been the topic of these fields of study – specifically the vampires and their variations in different cultures and social groups. The vampire has been studied as a mass occurrence throughout time and space. What this thesis will try to add to this field of study is the comparison of two types of revenants – the draugr and the вампир, from two seemingly different cultures – the Icelandic and the Bulgarian, divided by time and, more importantly – space (3,692 km of it). This distance, however, might not have stopped the interactions of either of these cultural representatives. Thorough scholarly work has been done on the connections between the so-called Norse men and Russia and its origin, however, it might be plausible to suggest that there are some connections also between the Nordic tribes and the Bulgarian people. Before the states and the countries, which we know and recognize as the Eastern European countries and Russia, were established as such they were divided into different small fractions and tribes that were interacting with each other and contributing to their ideology and belief. Firstly, it may be beneficial to note that Old Great Bulgaria was established c.630-635, and after the invasion of the Khazars one part of the Bulgar tribes went north and settled between the rivers Volga and Kama around the middle of the 7th century. When many of the Arabic geographers, especially Ibn Rustah and Ibn Fadlan, were reporting their accounts of interactions with the Rus, they were probably observing a cultural mix of Scandinavians, Slavs, Bulgars, Khazars, and many others.1 We may infer from the Russian Primary Chronicle that Scandinavians were frequent visitors of the Slavs, not to mention the later interactions between the established Russia and Haraldr Harðráði.2 This thesis does not have as its focal point how frequent or important historically and politically these connections were, but to observe how deeply rooted they were and if there are any surviving similarities in the culture and belief system of both. It would be a Sisyphean labor if an attempt was made to examine every single detail of the two cultures and compare them separately. Therefore, this thesis will focus on one idea. It 1Ievlev, V. "Топография Крепости Самара 1586-1706 гг., Этимология и Предшествующие Упоминания Топонима в Письменных Источниках. (Topography of the Samara Fortress, Etymology and Preceding Mention of the Toponim in the Written Sources)" <ww.academia.edu.>. (Retrieved, 2015). 2Nestor, Samuel H. Cross, and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. The Russian Primary Chronicle. (Cambridge, Mass: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953). 7 will single out the myth of the vampire/draugr and make an attempt to see whether these two societies – the Icelandic and the Bulgarian – might have believed in a similar supernatural phenomenon. I will try to provide this topic with archaeological, medical, literary and particularized evidence to make a suggestion that these two examples could display links in world-views and a general understanding of the surrounding world, which are so embedded in both belief systems that they still exist and, to some extent, still represent the same ideas. I will make this attempt through examining the physical occurrences in the human body and the psychological issues that the two revenants might represent. Whether this thesis accomplishes its goal or not, it will still give enough reason for future scholarly work on this topic, which will help clarify to what extent the two social groups were in contact and whether one belief system has influenced the other and to what degree. That being said, the similarities that may surface from this research may also be the product of a wider cultural background. I am not schooled enough to make any attempt to unearth what this background might have represented and for that reason I will leave this to future scholarly work. Moreover, the conclusions that might be observed during the course of the present research should be handled with care, keeping in mind that they are intended more as propositions than actual facts. For this comparative study to be feasible one misconception should be dispelled before we plunge into comparing the two – the notion that vampires suck blood. One of the main reasons why this trait has been attributed to the vampire is because when putative revenants were dug up from their graves to ascertain the assumption, blood would be found on their mouths and nostrils. Modern