If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? — Rousseau
“如果这个世界上有一份屡经证实的报告,那一定是关于吸血鬼的。没有任何东西能被遗漏掉:官方报道,知情者的口供,外科医生的证明,牧师的证词,法官的证言。所有司法上的证据都完备了。但是,即使知道这一切,有人会相信吸血鬼的存在吗?——卢梭”
The rest of the site was an alphabetized listing of all the different myths of vampires held throughout the world. The first I clicked on, the Danag, was a Filipino vampire supposedly responsible for planting taro on the islands long ago. The myth continued that the Danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a woman cut her finger and a Danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her body completely of blood.
余下部分是一张依字母表排列的清单,囊括了全世界所有关于吸血鬼的各种各样的传说。我首先点开了“丹拿”,这是一种菲律宾的吸血鬼,很多年以前是负责在岛上种植芋头的。这个传说里讲到,丹拿为人类工作了很多年,直到有一天,这样的合作关系却破裂了。一个女人不小心切到了手指,而一个丹拿为她吮吸伤口,因为觉得滋味太好了,最后它把她体内所有的血都喝干了。
I read carefully through the descriptions, looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible. It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity. Many of the stories involved bodiless spirits and warnings against improper burials. There wasn't much that sounded like the movies I'd seen, and only a very few, like the Hebrew Estrie and the Polish Upier, who were even preoccupied with drinking blood.
我仔细地阅读这些描述,寻找任何听着觉得熟悉的内容,把那些说得天花乱坠的部分丢到一边。似乎大多数的吸血鬼传说都围绕着漂亮女人和小孩子展开,前者通常是恶魔,后者通常是受害者。它们似乎都是被捏造出来用来解释年幼的孩子居高不下的夭折率,或是给男人一个放纵的借口。许多故事包括了无形体的灵魂以及对不合乎礼法的葬礼的警告。没有多少听起来像是我看过的电影的内容,只有一小部分,像是希伯来的艾斯提瑞和波兰的乌皮尔,是一心吸血的吸血鬼。