Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35958194-20180625143926

Arnold Paole

(In place where I live, there is a tradition to talk about this, so I wanted to share this story with you)

Arnold Paole was a member of peasant irregular infantry called Hajduci. They were bandits who lived on Balkan peninsula between 17th and 19th century. Ottomans were fighting with them. He became famous because a vampire chased him from Greece to Serbia where he killed him. Vampire plagued him. In order to prevent him from becoming a vampire, he was eating dirt from the vampire`s grave. He was also searing himself with vampire`s blood. After this shocking incident, Arnold Paole came back to his village called Medvedje. Arnold Paole became a farmer and he was married with his neighbor`s daughter but in 1725 he fell off a hay wagon and broke his neck. Few days before his death, he told his wife that he is scared of dying young. After his death people claimed that they were visited by him and that he plagued them. Four people died shortly thereafter. Forty days after Arnold's death, the villagers, advised by their hadnack (a military/administrative title) who had witnessed such events before, opened his grave. They saw that the corpse was undecomposed and his veins were replete with fluid-blood and that fresh blood had flowed from his ears, nose and mouth. His nails, beard and hair were still growing. His face was really red. Terrified locals decided to drove a stake through his heart, to which he reacted by frightful shriek as if he were alive, groaning and bleeding. The body was burned after this. 5 years later 17 people died. The first victim was Miliza and she was 50 years old. People say that she was eating the meat of a cow that was attacked by Arnold Paole 5 years before her. He was drinking cow`s blood. The oldest victim was also named Miliza and she was 69 years old. The youngest victim was a newborn baby. Newborn baby died with her mother. Some people claim that her mother was searing herself with Arnold`s blood. Famous Military surgeon who worked in village Kisiljek where vampire Petar Blagojevich (the first vampire incident in the world) was killing people, Johann Flückinger, two officers, lieutenant colonel Büttner and J. H. von Lindenfels, along with two other military surgeons, Siegele and Johann Friedrich Baumgarten visited the village on 7th of January 1732. They opened all graves and only 4 people didn’t look like vampires. Flückinger decided to belive that 13 people were vampires and he burned their bodies. Flückinger`s story was released in a lot of newspapers and it his story became famous all over the Europe. People were scared of vampires. Do vampires really exist somewhere in those villages and forests?

The story probably has some spelling and grammar mistakes so correct me if you want. I hope you liked the story. Thanks for reading it  