Lastly they put some of the charcoal in
a vessel of water and drank the mixture in order to be thereby magically
protected against the epidemic.[716]
It would be superfluous to point out in detail how admirably these
measures are calculated to arrest the ravages of disease; but for the
sake of those, if there are any, to whom the medicinal effect of
crawling through a hole on hands and knees is not at once apparent, I
shall merely say that the procedure in question is one of the most
powerful specifics which the wit of man has devised for maladies of all
sorts. Ample evidence of its application will be adduced in a later part
of this work.[717]
[The need-fire in Bulgaria.]
In Bulgaria the herds suffer much from the raids of certain
blood-sucking vampyres called _Ustrels_. An _Ustrel_ is the spirit of a
Christian child who was born on a Saturday and died unfortunately before
he could be baptized. On the ninth day after burial he grubs his way out
of the grave and attacks the cattle at once, sucking their blood all
night and returning at peep of dawn to the grave to rest from his
labours. In ten days or so the copious draughts of blood which he has
swallowed have so fortified his constitution that he can undertake
longer journeys; so when he falls in with great herds of cattle or
flocks of sheep he returns no more to the grave for rest and refreshment
at night, but takes up his quarters during the day either between the
horns of a sturdy calf or ram or between the hind legs of a milch-cow.
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