1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463611903321

Autore

Bell Michael E., Ph. D.

Titolo

Food for the dead [[electronic resource] ] : on the trail of New England's vampires / / Michael E. Bell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Middletown, Conn., : Wesleyan University Press, c2011

ISBN

0-8195-7171-7

Edizione

[Wesleyan pbk. ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (392 p.)

Disciplina

398.450974

Soggetti

Diseases and history

Folklore - New England

Vampires - New England

Electronic books.

New England History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgments -- Prologue -- ; ch. 1. This awful thing -- ; ch. 2. Testing a horrible superstition -- ; ch. 3. Remarkable happenings -- ; ch. 4. The cause of their trouble lay before them -- ; ch. 5. I am waiting and watching for you -- ; ch. 6. I thought for sure they were coming after me -- ; ch. 7. Don't be a rational adult -- ; ch. 8. Never strangers true vampires be -- ; ch. 9. Ghoulish, wolfish shapes -- ; ch. 10. The unending river of life -- ; ch. 11. Relicks of many old customs -- ; ch. 12. A ghoul in every deserted fireplace -- ; ch. 13. Is that true of all vampires? -- ; ch. 14. Food for the dead -- ; appendix A. Chronology of vampire incidents in New England -- ; appendix B. Children of Stukeley and Honor Tillinghast -- Notes -- Works sited -- Index -- About the author.

Sommario/riassunto

"Close your eyes and imagine a vampire: Your mind's eye may conjure up Count Dracula with bared teeth and a shiny tuxedo. But, another kind of vampire was believed to live in rural New England long ago. Author and folklorist Michael E. Bell has spent twenty years pursuing this forgotten vampire tradition. His discoveries will surprise and enthrall skeptics, believers, and all readers of this engaging book." "Bell's odyssey began in 1981 when Rhode Islander Everett Peck told



him a family story passed down for generations. In 1892, months after young Mercy Brown succumbed to tuberculosis, her body was exhumed from a local graveyard. Relatives cut out her heart, burned it on a nearby rock, and fed the ashes to her dying brother, hoping to cure him of the wasting disease. They feared that Mercy had become a vampire, sapping her sibling's vitality to provide sustenance for her own spectral existence. Or, had she become a scapegoat, blamed for the baffling affliction ravaging her family?"--BOOK JACKET.