A Tale of a Dead Man

A peasant was travelling across a field past the cemetery, and it had already grown dark. A stranger in a fine short sheepskin coat and a red shirt caught up…

A peasant was travelling across a field past the cemetery, and it had already grown dark. A stranger in a fine short sheepskin coat and a red shirt caught up with him.

“Stop!” he said. “Take me along with you.”

“Certainly, climb aboard!”

They reached a village and went up to one house, then another. Though the gates stood wide open, the stranger said, “Locked!” You see, crosses had been burned into those gates. He went up to the last house. Its gate was fastened, with a lock weighing half a pood hanging on it, but there was no cross, and the gate opened of its own accord. They went into the house. Two people were sitting on a bench: an old man and a young fellow. The stranger took a bucket, put it behind the young fellow, and struck him on the back. Scarlet blood immediately flowed from him. The stranger filled the bucket with blood and drank it. He did the same to the old man, then said to the peasant:

“Dawn is breaking. Let’s go to my place now.”

In an instant they found themselves in the cemetery. The vampire had just clasped the peasant in his arms when, luckily for the peasant, the roosters crowed, and the dead man vanished. The next morning, people looked and found both the young fellow and the old man dead. They immediately found the grave and dug it up, and there lay the vampire, covered in blood! They took an aspen stake and drove it into him.